Open source woo

Congratulations go this week to Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, who has accepted the post of the president of JREF. A more worthy person would be hard to name, considering that the outgoing president is James Randi himself. Randi will stay on as founder and chairman.

I've been staying right out of the whole ridiculousness surrounding "The One", a talent show screening on Australian TV which aims to further the career of the most convincing bullshit artists psychics that go up in front of the cameras. Personally, I found the whole discussion around this show rather refreshing, in an Australian kind of way: The standard joke seemed to be, "Won't they already know the winner if they're truly psychic?"

Never mind that this kinda misrepresents what psychics actually claim to do. For example, a clairaudient doesn't normally claim to be able to see into the future, unless they're Sylvia Browne.

Plus it also removes part of the fun. Watching these con artists psychics going at each other in the hope of winning has been, at least in the snippets that I've seen, hilarious.

I haven't actually been watching it, mostly because it's on on Monday nights when I've been out of the house.

However, I have been reading the week by week updates in SWIFT, and I can tell you that it's actually quite impressive the attention that the JREF have been giving it, although to be honest, Richard Saunders, the token skeptic on the judging panel is quite well known around skeptical circles, both within Australia and abroad. And you know, from what I've seen, Saunders is both erudite and charismatic, has a sense of humour and appears to be approachable. If perhaps a little too quiet to nail a regular spot on TV as a "celeb".

The other judge is a lady by the name of Stacey Demarco who from what I can tell is a stereotypical, credulous, shoot-ones-mouth-off, cliché-spouting, doggerel-delivering, card-carrying woo merchant and certifiable loon. Demarco is smack bang on course to get her fifteen minutes of fame, and calls herself a 'metaphysician'.

You know, before I saw this festering pustule of a TV show, I'd never heard of such occupations as 'medical intuitives'. Nor had I head the term 'psychometry' used outside of recruitment. But now, I'm convinced.

Convinced that people will believe absolutely anything.

After this week's SWIFT, I somehow found myself directed to a site where Saunders was interviewed by someone for a podcast named Lia Ramses where she attempts the Galileo Gambit, invokes Dean Radin's work, and comes out with this:

Soon, the topic of conversation turns to "The One" and after some banter, in which Richard reminds the listeners that the failure rate of contestants exceeded 90%, Ramses asks Richard how he thinks She found the "lost boy" in episode one, given that he doesn't believe she used remote viewing. Richard gives the only logical answer "she went in the right direction and there the little boy was". It's got to be hard to dispute that kind of logic given that no other "psychic" contestant went in that direction and only one other found the boy, after covering most of the available area within the time limit.

(Thanks to Thinking is Real)

After having a bit of a read, I found myself looking around the Ghost Radio site and found a seething wasp's nest of woo. I'm not sure what was more frightening - that fact that the owners of this site believe anything, or that I now have evidence that suggests that there are simply no bounds to human gullibility.

Crop circles, crystal skulls, homeopathy, reiki, there really isn't anything that won't sell. Gullibility is way hip, and there doesn't appear to be anything that you or I can do about it. Particularly in light of the (frankly frightening) revelation that while Richard Saunders will continue to be known as the "the skeptic", Stacey Demarco is guaranteed a spot on the celebrity C-list for the rest of her life.

In order to test my new hypothesis, I dreamed up a great test: Why not build a mill to create the silliest woo imaginable, and then see if it sells?

I think that those of us who are only even slightly creative could come up with some absolute whoppers.

I see this project as having three parts:

1. A wiki or an online forum where the most insane woo ideas can be kicked around until they're ready to be sold to the general public.


2. A website where the "phony" woo (OK, you come up with a better adjective) can then be sold to paying punters.


3. After selling the woo, and covering expenses, any profits left over (and I'm fairly convinced there will be) can be donated to a charity to be nominated. I vote JREF, myself.

In order to preserve the element of surprise, the wiki/online forum should ideally be password protected and users should join by invitation only. Although I do like the open source thing where absolutely anyone can modify an idea, but this kinda kills off the surprise thing.

The wiki/online forum should be able to cover stuff like design and feedback right through to production and logistics.

The website, on the other hand, should be littered with all sorts of disclaimers, so that if a potential buyer goes deaf, dumb and blind, they should still be able to know that "this product has not been scientifically tested" and "we cannot vouch for the accuracy of our claims" etc. After all, we shouldn't be leaving ourselves open to claims of hypocrisy or unethical behaviour.

(I may be a hypocrite, but I sure as hell don't speak for anyone else who may wish to join this worthy cause.)

The products should be kinda cool, though. I know more people who buy decks of tarot cards for the pretty pictures than because they're into tarot readings.

They would also have to be funny.

Lastly, the website should have a clever name - one that if you think about a little, makes it crystal clear that there is mischief afoot.

Oh, and there should be an awards night where the most ludicrous idea gets presented with something like a golden dowsing rod. Or something.

I think that this is a sensational idea. Who's in, and how do we get this underway?