 And yes, we do have some claimants on that million dollars just about every day at the James Randi Educational Foundation. Good afternoon. My name is James Randi, as you're probably guessed. And I'm glad to see such a very hearty turnout here. I don't show up on film, but you can try if you wish. So I grew this beard because I don't have a reflection in the mirror either. And I kept cutting my nose off. So now I must start from some fundamentals. I'm dealing with an audience here which is different from the ordinary lay audience. I think that we probably have some hoods out there, PhDs. And I'm going to give my theory on PhDs shortly, which may or may not please you. We'll see. But I must explain to you what a magician is doing here, trying to explain to folks like you and others all over the world just what science is really all about and what they don't know about it and what they don't understand about the scientific attitude. As a magician, I have this peculiar expertise. It's strong in two particular points. First, how people are fooled. That's what the magician does. He does it for purposes of entertainment. The same way Steven Spielberg does it with films, whether we do it on stage or in a cabaret or whatever. That's the first thing is my expertise, how people can be fooled. Second thing, more importantly, how they fool themselves. That is the most important part of the whole thing. We learn a great deal about psychology as magicians. We learn it from a very practical point of view. It doesn't come out of books. We learn it by actually dealing with people, people like you. Dealing with them on a one-to-one basis in some cases and sometimes just en masse, as with this audience here. Now, we know that people make assumptions. I do a simple sleight of hand trick where I have something in this hand. I appear to put it in that hand. Actually, I've retained it back here and, oh, it's gone. The assumption is that since I made this motion like this kind of thing and looked at that hand as if it were there, that I put it there. The assumption is that I put it there. No, I didn't. Still here. That's how you make assumptions. But you have to make assumptions, ladies and gentlemen. If you don't make assumptions, you become catatonic. It's true. I didn't see anybody come in here to this auditorium today and carefully test the chair before they sat on it. I see anybody probing it and say, I wonder if this chair is going to break. No. You made the pretty safe assumptions, unless someone's chair just broke. You made the pretty safe assumption that the chair would support your weight safely and that you wouldn't have to test it. Now, I travel, as you've been told, all over the world, and I see traffic lights, traffic signals, the regular thing, red, green, and amber in between, and we all know what those mean. And I can tell you, from my personal experience, it means the same thing in every country of the world. Red means stop, green means go, and yellow means go like hell. That's understood. And I can assure you that that's true, as I say, in different societies and different cultures all over the world. But there's something else there. When you stand on the side of the road and you see the light opposite you turn from red to green, you assume, again, there's that word, you make the assumption that you can reach the opposite side of the street, probably without getting run flat. Except in New York City, there are exceptions to all rules, of course. You assume that because you know of this international agreement, but when you step into the roadway, did you think to yourself, gee, I wonder if this roadway is really made of strawberry jello that's 30 feet deep covered with a layer of gravel. No, you don't think that. You assume that it's a road like any other road. You have to make assumptions in order to function from day to day, from moment to moment in your lives. Now, you've made two assumptions about me already. No, this is me, and this is the real beard. I don't always wear the real beard, but this is a very special group, so I wore the real one today. And those assumptions should be evident to you in just a few seconds. But there are assumptions that are quite safe to make. They won't cost you your security, it won't cost you your emotional life, it won't cost you money, it won't cost you anything like that. These assumptions are pretty safe. The first assumption is that I know there's an audience out there. I can hear a noise out there, but you see, I can't see you at all. I normally, I wear glasses. These are not glasses, these are just frames. The assumption was when I walked up here that I was wearing glasses, no, I wore just frames. So I have no idea whether you're really out there, except for the noise you've been making and the occasional glint of a gun barrel. Oh, there you are. Oh, they're not so good looking after all. The other assumption you made is that I'm using these microphones. Of course, I'm not. These microphones are completely dead, they don't function. And the microphone I'm using is underneath my tie, but that's a perfectly ordinary assumption. You made that assumption because when I stepped up there, if you remember, I carefully adjusted those. Now, Wendell used these microphones. Yes, he didn't have a wireless microphone like this, you see. And I carefully adjusted these microphones, brought them down, and managed to get in between the two of them, but it didn't make any difference because they're not connected. The brilliant technological geniuses up there, thank you, folks, played the tape properly. Thank you. And you got the cues right, and I thank you very much. They deserve your attention as well. Now, I must say, at this simple little demonstration of your making assumptions and depending on those assumptions, I hope it will last with you for a while, because I am hearing Lehmann out there saying, for example, and this will bring it right home to this particular audience, I saw a program on Fox Television where scientists proved that they didn't land on the moon. We've never been to the moon. Scientists on that program told me they hadn't been on the moon. The other 99.94% of the scientists that they didn't speak with might differ slightly with that opinion. But these were scientists. Some of them were even parapsychologists, so we know how advanced they were. That's another thing that irritates the hell out of me. That's a technical term I use every now and then. It does irritate me to hear people saying, but wait a minute, Mr. Andy, you're not a PhD. That's true. I'm not a PhD. I'm one of the unwashed. I am not a PhD. Therefore, I probably can't tie my own shoes or figure out my income tax, let alone do a simple mathematical calculation because I haven't got a PhD. Well, I've got a theory about PhDs. Now, this is only a theory. But, you see, as I've been telling Jordan here, theories are ideas that are developed and they're tested and they're thought out and particularly tested, you see? And theories usually stand good examination. Like, the Earth is round, not flat. We can test that any number of times. 4 plus 4 equals 8. So, you can test both wagons and four pineapples in a big box and shake them up and you'll get some rather nasty looking pineapples and both wagons, but nonetheless, when you count them, there's eight there. You could test these ideas. And I tested the idea that I have about PhDs and so far it's worked 100%. My theory is this. You've seen PhDs created. I have myself. I've been proudly in an audience where several friends of mine have walked up on the stage on one side of the stage. They're not PhDs. They're just regular folks. And as they cross the stage in this strange costume with the funny hat, they approach a table in the middle of the stage and standing at that table is a beaming gentleman who has a different colored outfit on because he's particularly esteemed in the community and he has a bunch of rolls of paper with little ribbons around them. And one at a time as these people cross the stage, their name's announced and he shakes their hand and with the other hand delivers to them this roll of paper. That's the moment. If you listen very carefully, you can hear a little ha-lu-ya, ha-lu-ya. Little handle in the background there, you know. And that is edifying if you can hear it. It's not terribly loud sometimes, but you can hear it. That's the moment when that person is transformed into a PhD as that paper hits the hand and the person who walks down the other side is an exalted person called a PhD. And I'm in agreement with that. Hey, that's wonderful. As you know, I'm sure I hope you're thoroughly convinced of it. I believe that an education is the most important thing we can undergo as human beings. It better equips us to handle the world around us. I don't care what kind of an education it is, but a PhD is a particularly supreme kind of a degree, a position that you can attain in society, and it is a magical moment as that person crosses the stage. Now, my theory is this.