A few hours ago I read in the New York Times:
"James Randi, a MacArthur award-winning magician who turned his
formidable savvy to investigating claims of spoon bending, mind reading,
fortunetelling, ghost whispering, water dowsing, faith healing, U.F.O.
spotting and sundry varieties of bamboozlement, bunco, chicanery,
flimflam, flummery, humbuggery, mountebankery, pettifoggery and
out-and-out quacksalvery, as he quite often saw fit to call them, died
on Tuesday at his home in Plantation, Fla. He was 92."
Most headlines I came across announcing his death referred to James Randi either as a skeptic or as someone who debunked all claims of the paranormal. This is not true.
James
Randi wasn't a skeptic; he was as close-minded as they come, and he
always positioned himself to never have to account for his
close-mindedness. He was more of a debunker than a truth-seeker. This
made him often wrong and unjust, but he was respectable as a great
entertainer who often did get it right by exposing frauds and quacks.
May he rest in peace.
