James Randi on the Paranormal & Supernatural

James Randi is an amusing man. He faced the TED audience during last week’s line-up and popped a bottle of herbal supplements or as he referred to them, "useless homeopathic drugs." He assumes we worry about him taking an overdose and assumes that perhaps we think he can actually see us, when in fact the glass has been taken out of his frames, so wasn’t able to see us at all.

His point? “People make all kinds of assumptions.” Randi runs an educational resource for the world of the paranormal, the pseudoscientific and the supernatural and is a regular contributor to the Skeptics Guide.

He brings up several examples of assumptions and a handful of what he considers hoaxes, i.e., homeopathic drugs and services that help people talk to the dead.

He calls the process ‘cold reading,’ a process that takes advantage of people who spend a lot of money buying into this concept and services. Randi references Sylvia Brown frequently, who apparently charges $700 for a twenty minute reading over the phone and there is currently a two year wait. Check out his site for more.

I was intrigued to discover Randi talking to Richard Branson and Peter Gabrielle in the hallway after the last session. And yes, Richard Branson is as sexy as he looks online and offline. And then some.