[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by CKava

Suggesting that die-hard skeptics are being rude by wanting Alex to actually ask some challenging questions of guests who he ideologically agrees with is a bit off.

Have you also complained to the 'Skeptics Guide to the Universe' about the lack of challenging questions asked of prominent skeptics?

Hmm .... can you imagine the following interview from the SGU?

Welcome Ray Hyman to the program .... in a prior interview with Michael Shermer you say as a young magician you never believed in psychic mediumship yet by college days were charging money for palmistry which you believed ..... any chance if the CIA were to offer to pay you money to discredit psi research, would you find the offer tempting?

Ray back in 1985 you wrote for CSIcop funds . 'belief in paranormal phenonena is growing and the dangers are real ... the Defense Department is spending millions of dollars on 'psychic arms' ... please help in this battle against the irrational. Your contribution in any amount, will help ... however you were also a member of the 'psychic entertainers' club which encourages members to present magic as psychic phenomena (according to magician George Hansen) .....do you believe in encouraging fake psi claims while just opposing scientific research claims?

Ray, lets move on to the late 1980s, you sat on the board of the National Research Council that was reviewing evidence for psi phenomena, why did the board ask the leading expert on statistical analysis, Robert Rosenthal, to 'suppress' his analysis favourable to the existence of psi and the report was excluded by the board without any scientific reason?

Or how about ...

Hi James Randi, welcome to the SGU ..... can you tell listeners why in some interviews you have counted failed applications as actual tests which gives the impression you have tested far more people than you actually have done so over the years? Do you sometimes make up information just to discredit claims or was it false memory when you claimed you had tested dogs for the prize challenge but hadn't?

Or how about ....

Guest on SGU today is Ben Radford of CSIcop ...... CSIcop present themselves to media as experts on paranormal yet haven't conducted any proper long term scientific experiment on psi in their 30 year existence. No attempted replications of any parapsycholgical lab claim either. Instead CSIcop have decided to fund sleptical groups and skeptical magazines around the world ..... Ben, can you tell us what is scientific about imagining counter explanations and presenting these like facts?

The point being .... . you aren't going to hear the above rude questioning from political skeptics either.

"I ask you, which is the greater threat to science and mankind, accepting a claim that can have no possible benefit, or rejecting a claim that can have great benefit?" -Dr. Edmund Storms