D.J. Grothe
D.J. Grothe on the Value of Skepticism, or, ‘Protecting Yourself From Quacks, Crooks & Cons’
This podcast could also be titled, “The Easiest Person to Fool: You.” One skill we Homo sapiens are adept at is fooling ourselves. Charlatans, frauds and cheats depend on this, and make a very good living at taking advantage of our flawed human nature and our propensity to believe some really goofy things. D.J. Grothe, President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, discusses how we can protect ourselves from these liars and scam artists, and explains why science and skepticism are so important.
OK so tell me why when I was a little girl that I knew five days before Elvis died that he was going to die. I gathered up all of my fathers albums, (he was a huge fan) (I was only 9 years old), I took them up to my room sat down and circled them all around me and played each and every one of them listening to them crying and saying goodbye. Kissing them and laying on them. My father approached me and asked me what I was doing with his Elvis collection and I told him that Elvis was going to die!! My father laughed and told me to put his albums back and they had better not be scratched!! Five days later my father called me down to the living room and sat me on his lap. He told me that I have always done things like this seeing things before they happened. So please explain to me what the heck that was!!?? I seen my mother in a car accident when I was four years old in a white car that had pointy lights. She went to Ohio and bought a car with pointy lights and it was white and she drove it home to Pittsburgh and she crashed in a snow storm and almost died. How in the world would I have known that??? Please explain that to me!!!! I was a teenager sitting in the living room with my dad and we were watching the launch of the Space Challenger with the teacher on it, I was rocking back and forth and my father asked me what was the matter and I told him to call them and stop the launch. He said why would I do that. I told him that they are all going to blow up in the air and all die!!! When it happened my father got up looked at me and walked out the door. He returned and said I think you have a gift and I guess we are going to have to find a way to help you use it. No one taught me this gift!!! So what is wrong with me?? Why do I see things before they happen?? I believed in God and my family never took me to Church non of my family members believe but I told them all about my trip to heaven and I told them I died when I was two years old. I told them how I died. My father looked at me and almost fell over. I was thrown through a glass coffee table and passed out in my fathers arms was in surgery for 18 hours. Had stitches inside and outside of my face. I told them angels covered my eyes to protect me from the glass. Funny thing the doctor told my parents, it’s almost like someone covered her eyes because not one piece of glass got into her eyes. So tell me being two years old I recollected exactly what happened to me. Is this fake or am I a fraud. A teacher in 7th grade grabbed my hand and I begged him to go straight to the doctor because he was going to die from a massive heart attack and he looked at me and laughed. Later that night he went home had a massive heart attack and died. Needless to say other teachers and students heard this and I was shunned and picked on. Called Wicked Witch of the West…..Witchy Poo and so on. What is that?? So please since you all are the professionals what is that?? I just can’t figure it out how I do these things and why they happen to me!!!!!!
The way discussion along this vein I’ve heard, thank you for all you do Alan!
Thanks for listening! I love doing these. Getting started on the next one here pretty soon!
Excellent podcast Alan!