The REALL News - December 1997

<body> <div id="main-title"><img src="/images/main-title.gif" width="329" height="81" alt=""></div> <div id="global-navbar"> <ul> <li><a href="/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="/about/">About Us</a></li> <li><a href="/newsletter/">Newsletter</a></li> <li><a href="/letters/">Letters</a></li> <li><a href="/calendar.html">Calendar</a></li> <li><a href="/links.html">Links</a></li> <li><a href="/search.html">Search</a></li> <li><a href="/email.html">E-Mail</a></li> </ul> </div>  <p align="center"><i>(<a href="./">Toggle Frames</a>)</i></p> <h1 align="center"><img src="/images/anthony/std_news.gif" alt="*" align="middle" WIDTH="64" HEIGHT="54">The REALL News<img src="/images/anthony/std_news.gif" alt="*" align="middle" WIDTH="64" HEIGHT="54"></h1> <p align="center"><i>"It's a very dangerous thing to believe in nonsense." -- James Randi</i></p> <hr> <table border="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td width="50%"><b>Volume 5 Issue 12</b></td> <td align="right" width="50%"><b>December 1997</b></td> </tr> </table> <hr> <h2 align="center">In This Issue</h2> <div align="center"><center> <table border="0" width="80%"> <tr> <th align="left">Features</th> <th align="left">Departments</th> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="50%"><ul> <li><a href="sincerity-an-overrated-virtue.html">Sincerity: An Overrated Virtue</a>, by Lewis Jones</li> <li><a href="scott-adams-responds.html">Scott Adams Responds to "Cartoon Metaphysics"</a></li> <li><a href="cfi-hosts-regional-conference.html">New Center for Inquiry in Kansas City Hosts Regional Conference</a>, by Bob Ladendorf</li> </ul> </td> <td valign="top" width="50%"><ul> <li><a href="chairman.html">From the Chairman</a> - David Bloomberg</li> <li><a href="editor.html">From the Editor</a> - Bob Ladendorf</li> <li><a href="masthead.html">Masthead</a></li> </ul> </td> </tr> </table> </center></div><div align="center"><center> <table border="1" width="80%"> <tr> <td width="100%"><h1 align="center">Sincerity: An Overrated Virtue</h1> <p align="center"><b>by Lewis Jones</b></p> <p>In the heyday of so-called spiritualist mediums, skeptical sitters used a simple rule of thumb to decide to which of two groups a medium belonged. If she did little but churn out the standard jargon, it was common to give her the benefit of the doubt, namely, that she was deluded but harmless--a typical example of George Bernard Shaws dictum: "All men mean well." On the other hand, if she produced an apport, she was immediately classified as a deliberate fraud. As soon as some solid object appeared on the séance room table (a rose, a piece of seaweed), it was clear that this had to have been accomplished by trickery. No amount of faith could produce physical objects out of nowhere.</p> <p>Today, purveyors of the paranormal are a little more canny, and they have mostly moved into safer and more fashionable areas: once bitten by an infrared camera, twice shy. You cant be caught by hi-tech equipment if you just put yourself forward as an astrologer or a tarot card reader. Better still, set up shop in the health trade: faith healer, homeopath, reflexologist. Or make vague claims about imbalances between various untestable energies. <a href="sincerity-an-overrated-virtue.html"><img src="/images/anthony/hpoint_right.gif" alt="More" align="top" border="0" hspace="1" WIDTH="33" HEIGHT="14">More</a></td> </tr> </table> </center></div>   </body>