Prescott Revists Project Alpha

Michael Prescott revisits Project Alpha, "the famous episode from the early 1980s in which superskeptic James Randi arranged for two young magicians to infiltrate a parapsychology lab in order to confound the researchers. Over the years, this strange incident has assumed almost legendary proportions in the minds of some skeptics and reporters, who claim that the researchers were totally fooled."

After commenting on a report in the Las Vegas Style, saying "I guess Las Vegas Style subscribes to the motto 'print the legend,'" Michael provides us with a link to "the actual facts behind this case": Science Versus Showmanship: A History of the Randi Hoax [pdf format], by Michael A. Thalbourne. From Thalbourne's paper, the following comment re: the outcome of Randi's less than professional antics:

"It is not surprising, then, that eventually Randi’s motivations for the hoax were more widely discussed than the hoax itself. Is Randi genuinely concerned to assist parapsychologists? Or was he using his knowledge of conjuring merely to place himself in the spotlight of publicity as a self proclaimed expert on psi testing? In short, did he behave more like a scientist or a showman?"