On 01/17/2011 09:55 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: > Stephen A. Lawrence <sa...@pobox.com <mailto:sa...@pobox.com>> wrote: > > > > I do not think there are any examples in the history of 20th or 21st > > century experimental science in which a con-man was able to fool > > experimentalists. > > Uri Geller, 1975, SRI. > > > Ah. I wasn't aware of that one. I gather that was something like a > study of ESP.
Geller claimed to be able to bend spoons using mental powers, and perform other amazing feats of telekinesis. He was -- is -- a very slick operator, and fooled a lot of people. Using little more than misdirection and clever patter, he convinced a lot of people that they saw a spoon he was holding just, like, bend over, due to the power of his mind. He bent keys as well, and claimed to be able to print images on photographic film simply by "thinking" at it. It was, IIRC, James Randi (known more commonly as "Mud" on this list for various reasons) who first "outed" him, but Geller's a slippery dude and didn't stay "outed". One of the major photography rags of the era (Pop Photo or Modern Photography, I forget which) ran an article on him, partly due to his claim to be able to "think" things onto film, which claim they didn't care for. Apparently the folks at SRI weren't as careful as the photography magazine's reporter, who found Randi unconvincing.
