James Randi is dead — and won't be totally missed here (and neither will his cult be missed)

So-called "movement skepticism" isn't in general missed in these corners, but, for the less informed, let me explain why the (Not so) Amazing Randi, aka, The Amazing (Deceiver) Randi, won't be missed here after his death at 92 last week. (Hat tip Kuff in his weekly roundup for noting this.) A better, but not perfect, NYT obit is here.

From lesser to greater?

There's his libertarianism that enabled the likes of Penn and Teller to be denialist about secondhand smoke as a carcinogen, and to still be denialist about things like climate change. That's too common in movement skepticism; Michael Shermer is yet another prominent member, at least partially influenced by Randi, who has conflated some version of modern movement (it's NOT "scientific," per the above, so I don't call it that) skepticism with philosophical and political libertarianism.

Next, there's his condoning of #MeToo related problems in movement skepticism. (And, allegedly, Shermer was part of those problems, too.)

Finally, Randi almost certainly knew that his long-time lover, Devyi Peña, was an identity thief. Hiring him at JREF, the nepotism wouldn't look good even without the above. That, of course, makes it worse. Even if Randi didn't know that Peña had engaged in willful criminality, the hiring made it look like he did know and was trying to protect him.

See update below for more wrongness by Randi, and more important, for how the cult doesn’t like any questioning of him.

All the information two paragraphs up, plus Shermer's history, is documented here. More on Shermer here. That documentation notes that this goes back to the time of Paul Kurtz as founder of CFI. (Randi as founder of JREF, as much as Kurtz at CFI, also fell willing victim to founders syndrome.)

Related? Randi started sniffing his own press clippings too much later in life. The claims that Peña magically (I see what I did there) skeptically enlightened most of Australia have been put paid to by many people, for example.

So, contra Penn Jillette, I won't love him forever. "Flim Flam," his first famous book? Might be a good title for his biography. (And, neither of the above obits included most of this. The NYT, at the second link, touched on a bit of the first issue, indirectly, and on the third issue, but only to claim that it was an accident by Peña, not willful identity theft, a claim which is, per Harry Frankfurt, "bullshit.) 

When I was a kid, I remember seeing Randi on the Tonight Show and being interested.

As a much younger adult, doing intellectual judo on my seminary education, he and other skeptics were of a bit of help, though not nearly as much as Messrs. Hume and Wittgenstein, followed by some atheistic (but not "Gnu") philosophers.

As I got older yet, though, and moved left politically, and developed my own skepticism, though, I took a look at Randi's movement more carefully. And, even before the MeToo antics, the more and more I saw, the less and less I liked.

And moved on.

Probably why I didn't hear of Randi's death until four days after it happened.

This all said, since an announcement of his death is one of just two announcements posted to JREF in the past six months, I may not be missing much anyway.

 

In addition, founders syndrome is semi-cultic, something that any good skeptic should steer clear of, of course.

 

Update: Via Orac, Mitch Horowitz at Boing Boing has a takedown obit at least as scathing as anything I've ever written. 

And, let's look at Horowitz.

That said, this is as close to true as he gets.

He was to skepticism what Senator Joseph McCarthy was to anticommunism — a showman, a bully, and, ultimately, the very thing he claimed to fight against: a fraud.

Half-true on some, less than half on others. A showman, yes. To the degree showmanship affected his skeptical claims, not so much. Less true of the bullying — except possibly inside his management of JREF. A fraud? Well, with Peña, take your choice of "fraud" or "hypocrite."

That said, Horowitz trying to cite Ray Hyman as supporting him shows how far off base he is. And, while Orac mentions that and more, I don't need Orac to know that. Ditto when Horowitz mentions the likes of Dean Radin.

 

Horowitz is himself a non-skeptic of the first rank on paranormal claims. And, thus, wrong!

 

That said, Orac, in savaging Horowitz?

 

I've commented at Orac, essentially summarizing my points here and, while not saying Horowitz is right, that Orac cut Randi a fairly big pass on several issues. 

Update, June 7, 2021, in light of the updates below and other things.

Having tangled with Orac twice now over issues related to St. Anthony of Fauci, and knowing that Movement Skeptics / Skeptics™ are their own set of tribalists, as Orac's fellow-travelers at Evidence Based Medicine have shown before in a back-and-forth with Massimo, I've decided to expand this.

First, I'm sure that Orac is more than a micro-celebrity, and certainly more than a nano-celebrity, within Skeptics™. Such modesty!

Second, to get to some meat? Orac ignores Peña. Flat-out ignores him. Never discusses him. Not just the ID theft, but the allegations of shammery in Australia. If that's not intellectual dishonesty?

Third, he doesn't tackle the issue of founder's syndrome. Since Paul Kurtz had shown it several years prior, and to some degree, like Randi, on #MeToo issues, this wasn't good, either. I mean, Orac even commented, as I blogged about, a non-MeToo problem with Kurtz.

Fourth, he (and fellow travelers at NECSS) have evidenced tribalism and twosiderism before! I forgot about John Horgan calling him out, and them, five years ago, and that I blogged about that. What Orac in his insolence really hated was getting called out by someone at his pay and fame grade. (I also wonder how much both Orac and Steve Novella, per that link, disliked Horgan's comments not on skepticism, but on fee-for-service medicine. Orac strikes me as a mainstream neolib Democrat type who at a minimum isn't highly favorable to single-payer national health care.)

Fourth, part 2: Per Horgan, and contra Orac, the asshole wasn't Horgan. Besides Orac and Novella, it was first Jamy Ian Swiss. That said, for not having a single word of praise, Orac and Novella are assholes themselves. I might wind up writing something just about Orac at some point!

Fourth, part 3: The likes of Orac, though not a lot himself personally (rather, Shermer, Randi, philosophy-hating Barbara Drescher and philosophy-minimalizing mild Daniel Loxton) are part of why I don't call myself a skeptic any more, and haven't for five years, like Massimo — at least not without the word "philosophy" or "philosophical" attached. (I suspect that Orac's probably not big on philosophy, either.)

==

Update, Dec. 22. So, Randi was also a Jesus mythicist, at least buying into the bullshit that Nazareth didn't exist 2,000 years ago?

 

 

Oh, he's wrong, by the way. Exist it did indeed, so shut up mythicists.

==

Update, March 27, 2021: Per the header, I DID say "won't be totally missed." I did NOT say, "won't be missed at all." But, per a Hucksterman discussion to which I won't link ... too many people are still too ardent of Randi fans to consider that.

Sadly (and this particular person isn't THAT bad), but, beyond Randi sniffing his own press clippings too much in later life, on #MeToo, and on Peña I think, and on founder's syndrome in general, he had too many enablers. He should have been nudged out of leading JREF at least half a decade before he actually was.

Yeah, the opening graf may have been a bit harsh for the particular person's taste. But, for many acolytes of his (cultists?) it was just right, if not too soft.

Note to Phil Stilwell: Susan Gerbic's original post was about a person. If I disagreed, as I did, then wouldn't I be focusing on a person in response?

Note to Susan: If you don't like critical comments, then don't post to "public."

And, it's "funny" (insert other word here) for a skeptic to be deleting comments from a thread.

XXXXX in case you are wondering I removed that hateful thread. That person can buzz off and keep their nasty crap to themselves.

And, no, it wasn't hateful. Labeling something you don't like as "hateful" is facile, but often not true. But, if you've won awards from Randi, as she has, you've got an investment in promotional materials.

(I have since gotten into a Hucksterman argument with a Phil Stilwell, who arguably, even if my original first comment below my post "thank god for screenshots" was a bit convoluted, came off as gaslighting me. He would have remembered commenting on Gerbic's post less than 24 hours previously, and telling me not to focus on the personal. As Gerbic was trying to glorify the effects of Randi as a person, dude, how could I NOT comment on Randi as a person? Put that and your gaslighting in your pipe and puff it. Seeing as how you've gotten lucky enough to get played up by the likes of Jonathan M.S. Pearce, for whom I have less and less respect, as a deconversion success story, and you've been a regular commenter on the major skeptatheism sites, I'm sure of what you said, even if it's now gone. Pearce being an apparent Islamophobe only makes matters worse. Further update to this, June 7: Looking back at Orac's piece, I see Gerbic mentioned. )

I think that, per discussion on one social media site, "fossilized" is a good word to describe JREF, and other orgs, whether "movement skepticism" or Gnu Atheism like the Freedom from Religion Foundation, aka the folks who once tried to claim that Abraham Lincoln was an atheist. 

I don't know as much about their fundraising psychology as I do, say, major environmental organizations, but I suspect there's a certain amount of crisis-mongering, which mingles with a certain amount of tar-babying off the Religious Right.

Re movement skepticism, I've long said that it could stand to learn some philosophical Skepticism. Re the Gnu Atheist orgs, since the "nones" are growing fast — but aren't really atheist, contra Gnus — there's definite tar-babyism as far as how American religious demographics are changing. On the secular humanist world, per said friend, it should be focusing on things like the dehumanization factors of the "always on" world, or the future of the precariat (the word I first heard from the late Leo Lincourt) and other socio-economic issues.