Randi can be eloquent and is quite the showman; he is also wildly intelligent -- he got a MacArthur genius grant in 1986. But according to his detractors, Randi's main qualities are his malice and hypocrisy. He's hell-bent on tearing apart anyone he deems a kook, including distinguished scientists and Nobel Prize-winners. This is amusing, as Randi has no scientific credentials whatsoever (although he did once write an astrology column for a Canadian tabloid and host a paranormal-themed radio show).
In 1997, Randi threatened to fly to Sri Lanka to persuade Arthur C. Clarke to stop advocating cold fusion. (Clarke, a genuine scientific visionary, inventor of the communication satellite and award-winning author, received degrees, with honors, in physics and mathematics.) In 2001, on a BBC Radio program, Randi attacked Brian Josephson, Nobel Prize-winner and professor of physics at Cambridge University.
(Via The Anomalist.)
Let's just come out and say it: The man's a crank. Yes, his intentions are good -- I think -- but his attempts to advance pop "skepticism" are offensive to actual thinkers and his fashionable addiction to rote dismissal of the unexplained is, to use a showbiz term, "played."
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