Pigasus Award

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The Pigasus Award is an ironic honor given by the stage magician James Randi . The award is given for scams with an alleged parapsychological background and for scientists, authorities and the media who, in Randi's opinion , make or support “occult and pseudoscientific statements”. The selection will be made personally by James Randi, the winners will be announced on April 1st .

history

The prize was originally called the Uri Award after Uri Geller and was first added to Randi's book Flim-Flam! awarded. The 1982 book listed the "honored" from 1979 to 1981.

In the book Flim Flam! Randi remarks sarcastically:

“The trophy consists of a stainless steel spoon bent in a pleasing curve (paranormally, of course) and supported by a base of plastic. Please note that the base is flimsy and quite transparent. I am personally responsible for the nomination of the candidates. The sealed envelopes are read by me, while blindfolded, at the official announcement ceremony on April 1. Any baseless claims are rationalized in approved parapsychological fashion, and the results will be published immediately without being checked in any way. Winners are notified telepathically and are allowed to predict their victory in advance. ”

“The trophy consists of a stainless steel spoon that has been bent into a nicely shaped curve (in a paranormal way, of course) and that rests on a plastic base. Please note that this base is cheap and quite see-through. I am personally responsible for nominating candidates. The sealed envelopes will be read by me during the official announcement ceremony on April 1st while wearing a blindfold. All unfounded claims [to the price] are discussed away in a tried and tested parapsychological manner and the results are published immediately without verification in any way. The winners will be notified telepathically and allowed to predict their victory in advance. "

- Randi 1982: 327-28

The curved spoon as a trophy is an allusion to Geller's alleged spoon bending ability. The logo of Randi's website, the winged pig, was created by the German artist Jutta Degener in 1996. Randi chose the name Pigasus from various e-mail proposals. The term is a play on words made up of the word pig and the mythological Pegasus and refers to the expression "when pigs fly".

In 1997 the Uri Award was revived and officially renamed the Pigasus Award. Randi announced the winners through his Swift newsletter. Randi commented:

“The awards are announced via telepathy, the winners are allowed to predict their winning, and the Flying Pig trophies are sent via psychokinesis. We send; if they don't receive, that's probably due to their lack of paranormal talent. "

“The prizes are announced via telepathy, the winners are allowed to predict their victory, and the flying pig trophies are sent via psychokinesis. We send them; if they don't get it, it may be because they lack paranormal talent. "

The Pigasus Awards are not given every year. No winners were announced in 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2002.

Categories

  1. for the scientist who did or said the stupidest thing about parapsychology in the past twelve months
  2. for the organization that funded the most unnecessary study on parapsychology last year
  3. for the press that published the most outrageous parapsychological claim as a fact
  4. for the psychic medium that has fooled most people with the least amount of effort in the past twelve months
  5. for the greatest stamina in denying reality

The fifth category was only introduced with the Pigasus Award in 2005.

Award winners

scientist

financing

  • 1979 - The McDonnell Foundation, which donated $ 500,000 to Washington University , St. Louis to conduct a study on spoon-bending children.
  • 1980 - The Millennium Foundation , which donated $ 1,000,000 for psychological research. (The award was revoked when the foundation decided to use the money to drill a "psychologically discovered" oil well, which turned out to be no oil)
  • 1981 - The Pentagon , which spent $ 6,000,000 to investigate whether burning a photo of a Soviet missile would destroy it.
  • 1996 - Robert Bigelow for helping John E. Mack and Budd Hopkins and buying a "cursed ranch" in Utah that was known for "frequent UFO attacks."
  • 1999 - The Human Resources Administration of the City of New York for retraining welfare recipients into mental media.
  • 2004 - The United States Air Force Research Laboratory, which gave Eric David $ 25,000 to study "the transportation of people by psychological methods" and "transportation through parallel universes."
  • 2005 - The Auckland City Council , New Zealand , which raised $ 1,800 to a spiritual media foundation to train residents to communicate with the dead.
  • 2006 - Templeton Foundation , for their study of effective prayer
  • 2007 - the White House
  • 2008 - Logan Craft , Walt Ruloff, and John Sullivan , the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
  • 2009 - The Iraqi Interior Ministry for wasting $ 85,000,000 on ADE 651 (a type of esoteric "explosives-tracking device")
  • 2010 - CVS / pharmacy, for their support in homeopathy
  • 2011 - Syracuse University
  • 2012 - Pumpkin Hollow Retreat Center

Press

actor

Denier of reality

See also

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ^ Leon Jaroff: Can We Trust the Cloning Journalist? ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Time. January 10, 2003. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / content.time.com
  2. ↑ Kenneth Chang, Jim Rutenberg: Reporter Becomes Actor In Human Clone Drama.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The New York Times. December 30, 2002.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / query.nytimes.com