Talk:Project Alpha (hoax)

Steve Shaw?

Wikipedia's Steve Shaw was born in 1975 - he was six years old when Project Alpha was in its hot phase. --Hob Gadling 14:46, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Different Steve. This one most often goes by his stage name Banachek. -- Krash 13:33, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Banachek was born in 1960 in England and apparently first started posing as a psychic in high school (Trinity High School, Washington, PA) in 1977. He did metal bending as well as mentalist tricks at that time, which led to coverage in his school paper (The Hiller, October 13, 1977) and in the local Washington, PA newspaper a year and a few months later (the Observer-Reporter, January 4, 1979). Lippard (talk) 21:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Removal of "ignored as bunk"

I removed this line from the end of the Project Alpha wiki: "and the field [of parapsychology] is generally ignored as bunk by many." This seems obviously biased and representative of a POV. -Redxela Sinnak 16:41, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

That seems to be a factual statement to me. Don't many people ignore parapsychology as bunk? Bubba73 (talk), 03:33, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Neutral?

Randi decided to finally end the project, and announced the entire affair in Discover magazine—at that time a fairly in-depth magazine. The resulting crash of the parapsychology field was immediate and deep; many of the researchers who tried to get in on the feeding frenzy after the August meeting were now burned in the process. One went so far as to claim that the boys really did have psychic powers, and that they were now lying about being magicians! Although the McDonnell Lab was by this time running considerably better experiments, the bad press was so widespread it was shut down

That's not neutral language. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:46, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it needs to be rephrased. Bubba73 (talk), 17:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. The use of "feeding frenzy" and the exclamation point may a little "colorful," but I don't see anything that doesn't fit a neutral viewpoint (in so far as there's such a thing as a neutral viewpoint). KarlBunker 12:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

That's basically what I meant - tone it down a little. Bubba73 (talk), 05:16, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Point taken. I've rephrased "feeding frenzy" and removed the exclamation point. KarlBunker 13:57, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Dead Link

External articles

*The Project Alpha Experiment, Part one and part two. Skeptical Inquirer. Summer and Fall, 1983.

This link is dead, because that site is beeing updated, it needs to be reviewed when the site is back up and running. --Topstar 00:23, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The article is now located at http://www.banachek.org/nonflash/project_alpha.htm. Morganite 17:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Colloquial language

"The Project Alpha hoax was clearly a successful experiment in demonstrating the flawed methodology of at least some PSI investigators. It also had the effect of casting a chill over the entire field. Many other experiments were killed off in the aftermath of the Alpha debacle."

Nothing really wrong here, but when you say "killed off", do you really mean it? Again not a criticism, I actually want to know.--MyNameIsNeo 20:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

That was pretty "rough & ready" language, and also makes a statement not supported by Randi's article. I rewrote it. KarlBunker 21:57, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, back after a long time. This is an interesting point, because if you were around at the time (I entered U just after these events) you would know this was the case. Every university I visited (three) prior to starting school had some sort of paraphyscology lab, recently closed. I know this wasn't entirely due to Alpha, perhaps even not at all (the 70s were ending), but certainly the field became "tainted" as a result of the project. Now getting a ref for this is essentially impossible. I know of no study called "number of parapsychology labs in operation before and after project alpha" and doubt that one exists, in any diluted form either. Yet I'm sure many other readers of my age remember the same events taking place. So what to do, leave out this important event because there's no ref and likely never will be? Seems like a shame. Maury 02:37, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

How about newspapers of the time? Didn't they publish related articles? If there aren't any references, I doubt the notability of the events. Surely at least closing of the departments were reported somewhere? -- Coffee2theorems | Talk 23:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

"Bad Vibes" from cameraman

The excuse that the observant cameraman was giving "bad vibes" seems to contradict what one of the young men said in this video. Does anyone have sources for the claims currently in the article? Perhaps did they use the "bad vibes" excuse at a different point in time than the time the guy was talking about in this video? 138.89.122.55 07:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The (para)quote in question comes from the Skeptical Eye article from Discover, at least as I remembered it at the time. You're right, it does seem to be at odds with the description in the video, as does the description of a hole being cut (as opposed to the bell jar not actually being a bell jar). Consider both to be highly suspect. Maury 22:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

True, the "bad vibes" line is inaccurate. The fact was that the cameraman was good, so I had to get him out from behind the camera and get a lesser skilled cameraman in his place. To get him as the subject, and therefore part of the success moving forward hanged him from a potential detractor to an ally. (Oh, and it let me get away with the trick as well!) (Michael Edwards) —Preceding unsigned comment added by D3almakr9 (talk • contribs) 02:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Analysis, NPOV and sources

While very interesting this article includes a lot of value judgements and analysis within the main text and especially in the the Aftermath section. All value judgements and statements of what the incident meant in a greater context require sourced commentators. I'm going to slowly go through and make my changes. If anyone objects, please use this talk section.Ashmoo 04:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with what you've done so far. Bubba73 (talk), 05:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I chopped this text from the Aftermath section as it seems to be pure opinion, unsourced and not attributed to any commentator.

It might seem that the whole affair can be written off as a couple of magicians fooling some well-meaning but gullible scientists. This would not be entirely accurate, however, nor reflect the serious issues underlying these events, the key ones being:

• That some scientists were strongly motivated to obtain positive results in PSI experiments, with the result that poorly designed experiments and inappropriately favorable interpretations were made without due critical review.
• That sleight of hand and other deliberate deception to fake PSI powers were not being sufficiently taken into account when planning scientific tests.

Many of the experiments seemed to go out of their way to allow for some sort of "way out" and thereby guarantee a positive result. Certainly the completely uncontrolled picture viewing experiments falls into this category, but it would seem that deliberately cutting holes into "sealed containers" does too. The experimenters appear to be either under the influence of an extreme case of self-delusion, or entirely aware of what was going on and unwilling to admit it.

Ashmoo 01:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Onesidedness

I find the article quite biased in that it only presents Mr. Randi and the skeptics' point of view. I intend to make some modifications to include the version of the actual researchers that were involved and maybe some comments from the parapsychology community's point of view. Fischflosse (talk) 23:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

While it is true that this article formerly presented only Mr. Randi's view of the events, or at least the version from Skeptical Inquirer (or Discover), I'm not sure the "other side of the story" changes matters much. Having read "Science Versus Showmanship" several times now, I'm convinced it re-enforces Randi's version of the events.

It's important to remember what Randi was attempting to illustrate in PA. In Randi's view, the PK world was filled with "true believers" who willfully ignore any failure, or even direct evidence for fraud, and claim they are too smart to be hoodwinked (a claim "Science" notes and dismisses). When these events are encountered, they are explained away as unimportant, ignored, or even presented as successful demonstrations of "something else". It's not as if PA was an isolated event; the PK world has a history stretching back well over a century, and that history is filled with examples of poor experimental design, unrepeatable events, magicians hoodwinking the researchers, and more than one example of outright scientific fraud. It was Randi's aim to expose the fact that more recent experiments were not of higher quality than the earlier ones.

So to start with, let's examine what "Science" has to say on the first count: that the researchers were "true believers" that would be predisposed to see successes. Well in this case the evidence is pretty clear, the article states in no uncertain terms that both Phillips and Shafer were previously convinced that PK was real, and even that the PK being exhibited by Shaw and Edwards was real -- it states this in those terms, with no interpretation required, at the bottom of page 349. In the case of Shafer; "He was convinced of the existence of the phenomenon and believed that he possessed a personal style that could elicit macro-PK". This is an astonishing statement in many ways. But in any case, it seems that Randi and "Science" agree here.

On the second count: that researchers ignore failed events and/or interpret just about anything as positive. Again, "Science" very much agrees with Randi's account. It notes, for instance, that when Phillips introduced better videotaping, the "successes" ended. But did he interpret this as possible evidence for failure of PK? No. As the article notes Phillips assumed it was his own presence that was causing the problem. It then states that this pattern of wishful thinking continued under Shafer; Phillips told Shafer he was convinced the kids were "for real", and Shafer "in the absence of obvious evidence for fraud" simply trusted the results. Even when presented with painfully obvious evidence of slight-of-hand, the case of the bent spoons for instance, Phillips simply ignored the implications. This is precisely what Randi was complaining about.

Where "Science" and Randi/Edwards/Shaw's accounts differ is the significance of these events. "Science" repeatedly claims that the sloppy experimental procedure was because they were simply conducting "exploratory" experiments, not "formal" ones. No direct claim for this is ever stated, it's simply left as an unsupported assumption. Evidence to the contrary is obvious enough; it was this set of experiments that was demonstrated at the August 1981 Convention. Furthermore, their explanation of why these were not formal experiments is that these would be expensive. The difference between "exploratory" and "formal" in the fuse blowing experiment, for instance was "don't let them touch the fuses".

To use this this paper, as it has been, to suggest that Randi's (AND Edwards' AND Shaw's) versions of the events are in need of "correction" toward some other unbiased viewpoint seems unwarranted. In terms of statement of fact, the two accounts are more than broadly similar, and in many cases very much in agreement on the specifics too. What differs is interpretation, and to me at least, "Science"'s bevy of excuses are as odious as they are amusing. To take these as statements of fact, as the recent edits do, is highly questionable.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

The Truzzi articles offer another viewpoint--e.g., that the PA community wasn't impressed by the initial tests, that Phillips tightened controls after criticisms from fellow parapsychologists (for which Randi named him a "straight spoon" award recipient), and the only two psi researchers to publish anything positive about Shaw and Edwards weren't parapsychologists. Lippard (talk) 17:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Project Beta

I think there should be some sort of link to Project Beta. This gives an example of James Randi's little known service to the parapsychology community following the success of project Alpha.

In 1982, when I (Stanley Krippner) was president of the PA, James Randi appeared on a panel of magicians that the program chair had arranged for the annual convention. The PA Council had just passed a resolution that put the Association on record that its members were advised to consult magicians when dealing with presumptive macro-PK phenomena. During the convention, held in Montclair, New Jersey, Randi invited John Beloff and me to dinner at his nearby home. During dinner, we discussed the PA resolution, and John described a young "metal bender" he and his team were investigating in Scotland. Randi agreed to develop a device in which a thin metal rod could be placed. However, if the device were opened or tampered with, a chemical would change color and reveal the deceit. Later, John gave the device to the young man, who claimed that he could only bend metal in the privacy of his home. When the device was returned, the metal was bent, the sealing wax was intact, but the chemical had changed color. John concluded that the wax had been melted, the metal had been bent by ordinary means, and the device had been resealed with the same wax. When Randi heard about this, he proclaimed that his "Project Beta" had been successful. Unlike "Project Alpha," in which Randi's confederates infiltrated a parapsychological laboratory as research participants, "Project Beta" simply required that Randi's advice be requested by a prominent parapsychologist. John Beloff was as prominent as they come. [1] Kazuba (talk) 01:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting, Kazuba !. Reading it after 7 years. Zezen (talk) 12:21, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

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Commons files used on this page have been nominated for speedy deletion

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• Steve Shaw bell jar.jpg
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CIA memo

The article states that the CIA accused Randi of "gross distortions" in an internal memo.

Accused by the CIA in a help internal to the CIA – that doesn't make sense to me. Rather, a member of the CIA accused Randi. I'll adjust the wording.

Checking the memo, it was "PREPARED BY (REDACTED)" and it's not clear that it expresses the view of the CIA rather than the view of the author of the memo. PREPAR BY (REDACTED)".ED Chriswaterguy talk 22:26, 25 April 2023 (UTC)