Pigasus Award

Infobox award
name = Pigasus Award


imagesize = 250px
caption = Pigasus Award
description = Paranormal fraud
presenter = James Randi
country = USA
year = 1982
website = http://www.randi.org/The Pigasus Award is the name of an annual tongue-in-cheek honor recognized by noted skeptic James Randi. The awards seek to expose parapsychological, paranormal or psychic frauds that Randi has noted over the previous year. Randi usually makes his announcements of the awards from the previous year on April 1.

History

The award was originally called the Uri Award, after Uri Geller, and was first announced in the appendix of Randi's book "Flim-Flam!". The 1982 book listed the award's "recipients" in 1979, 1980 and 1981.

In "Flim-Flam!", Randi states:

"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 bent spoon trophy is a reference to Geller's claimed spoon-bending abilities.

The logo of a winged pig was designed for Randi's website by German artist Jutta Degener in 1996. [ [http://www.randi.org/hotline/1996/0039.html The Randi Hotline - 1996: Contest time! ] ] The name "Pigasus" was chosen by Randi from suggestions e-mailed to him. [ [http://www.randi.org/hotline/1996/0048.html The Randi Hotline - 1996: The Name of the Pig ] ] The term is a portmanteau pun combining the word "pig" with the mythological "Pegasus", a reference to the expression "when pigs fly".

Randi did not make any Uri Award for a number of years after its inception in "Flim-Flam!," but in 1997 it was revived and the name was changed to "Pigasus" after the winged pig. Randi announced the recipients through his e-newsletter "SWIFT!" in which he said: "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." [http://www.randi.org/jref/pig2003.html The 2003 Pigasus Awards ] ]

The Pigasus Awards have not been made every year. There was no mention of recipients for 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Categories

"Flim-Flam!" specifies the four categories under which winners of the "Uri" may fall:

# To the Scientist who said or did the silliest thing relating to parapsychology in the preceding twelve months.
# To the Funding Organization that supports the most useless parapsychological study during the year.
# To the Media outlet that reported as fact the most outrageous paranormal claim.
# To the "Psychic" performer who fools the greatest number of people with the least effort in that twelve-month period.

The 2003 Pigasus awards featured only categories 1 and 4. The 2005 awards added a fifth category "for the most persistent refusal to face reality". [ [http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-03/033106mccrea.html#i4 James Randi's Swift - March 31, 2006 ] ]

Recipients

Category 1 - Scientist

* 1979 — Professor William A. Tiller, who said that although the evidence for psychic events was very shaky and originates with persons of doubtful credibility, it should be taken seriously "because there is so much of it".
* 1980 — Isaac Bashevis Singer, for declaring a belief in demons.
* 1981 — Charles Tart, for discovering that the further in the future events are, the more difficult it is to predict them.
* 1996 — Scientist/physicist Ed May, who headed the CIA "remote viewing" project.cite news | url=http://www.randi.org/hotline/1997/0014.html | title=The Pigasus Awards: 1 April 1997| publisher=James Randi Educational Foundation | date= April 1, 1996 | first=Randi | last=James | accessdate =2007-04-01 ]
* 1999 — The Kansas State Board of Education for removing the teaching of evolution from the state's educational agenda.
* 2001 — University of Arizona Psychology professor Gary Schwartz for studies in parapsychology.
* 2003 — South African Minister of Health Dr. Manto Tshabala-Msimang for endorsing alternative medicine for treating AIDS.
* 2004 — Dr. Rogerio Lobo, professor/chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University who co-signed a paper titled "Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer?" [Bruce Flamm, [http://csicop.org/si/2004-09/miracle-study.html "The Columbia University 'Miracle' Study: Flawed and Fraud"] , "Skeptical Inquirer", September/October 2004]
* 2005 — Brenda Dunne, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab manager, for the doublespeak of promoting studies whose "experimental results display increases in information content that can only be attributed to the influence of the consciousness of the human operator", while simultaneously insisting that PEAR is "not in the business of demonstrating 'paranormal' abilities".
* 2006 — Biologist Rupert Sheldrake for research funded by Trinity College, Cambridge on his theory of “telephone telepathy," supposed precognition experienced by the recipients of telephone calls and e-mails,cite news | url=http://www.randi.org/pigasus/index.html | title=The 11th Annual Pigasus Awards: Awarded April 1, 2007| publisher=James Randi Educational Foundation | date= April 1, 2007 | first=Randi | last=James | accessdate =2007-04-01 ] (i.e. knowing who is calling before picking up the phone or viewing the caller ID.)
* 2007 — Intelligent Design promoter and professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University Michael Behe for his book "".

Category 2 - Funding

* 1979 — The McDonnell Foundation, who gave $500,000 to Washington University in St. Louis to study spoon-bending children. (See Project Alpha)
* 1980 — The Millennium Foundation for giving $1 million to parapsychological research. (The award was withdrawn in 1982 when the foundation decided, instead, to invest the million dollars in a "psychically discovered" oil site, which turned out to be dry.)
* 1981 — The Pentagon for spending $6 million to determine whether or not burning the photo of a Soviet missile would destroy the missile. ref_harvard|Randi1982|Randi 1982:327-29|
* 1996 — Robert Bigelow for funding John Edward Mack and Budd Hopkins, and for purchasing the so-called Skinwalker Ranch in Utah known for alleged UFO attacks, "interdimensional portals", and "cattle mutilations."
* 1999 — The Human Resources Administration of the City of New York, for training welfare recipients to work as telephone psychics.
* 2001 — The University of Paris for awarding a doctorate in Sociology to Élizabeth Teissier for a 900-page thesis on the validity of astrology.
* 2004 — Awarded to the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, who paid $25,000 to Dr. Eric W. Davis (PhD, FBIS) at a Las Vegas company called Warp Drive Metrics to study the "conveyance of persons by psychic means" and "transport through extra space dimensions or parallel universes." [http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/teleport.pdf]
* 2005 — City Council of Auckland, New Zealand, for a NZ$2,500 (US$1,800) grant to the Foundation For Spiritualist Mediums "to teach people to communicate with the dead".
*2006 — Templeton Foundation for spending US$2.4 million and ten years research on a study researching the effectiveness of prayer.
* 2007 — The White House, described by Randi as “faith-based”.

Category 3 - Media

* 1979 — Prentice Hall and American International Pictures, for "The Amityville Horror", labeled as "A True story".
* 1980 — The "That's Incredible" TV show, for declaring a simple magic trick to be genuine. (The performer, James Hydrick, later admitted it to be false)
* 1981 — TV station KNBC of Los Angeles, for accepting the Tamara Rand hoax as real without checking into it.
* 1996 — Awarded collectively to a number of media outlets for perpetuating the Roswell UFO incident.
* 1999 — To television personality Bill Maher for endorsing a series of psychics.
* 2004 — The film "What tнe #$*! Do ωΣ (k)πow!?".
* 2005 — ABC's "Primetime Live" for its credulous "John of God" special, about Brazilian "psychic surgeon" João Teixeira
* 2006 & 2007 — Daytime talk show host Montel Williams for promotion of Sylvia Browne.

Category 4 - Performer

* 1979 — Philip Jordan, who was hired by Tioga County, New York, Public Defender R. L. Miller to assist in choosing jurors by their "auras".
* 1980 — Dorothy Allison , a housewife/psychic who was called upon to solve a series of murders in Atlanta, Georgia. She failed to do anything but give the police "42 different names" for the murderer.
* 1981 — Tamara Rand who claimed she had predicted an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan months before the incident when she actually did it a day after the event.
* 1996 — Sheldan Nidle who predicted the end of the world on December 17, 1996, then explained that it came, but we were all unaware of it.
* 1999 — Nostradamus
* 2001 — John Edward
* 2003 & 2004 — Sylvia Browne
* 2005 — Allison DuBois, inspiration of NBC TV show "Medium".
* 2006 — Uri Geller
* 2007 — Swiss performer Vincent Raven for his tricks on "The Next Uri Geller" program.

Category 5 - Refusal to face reality

* 2005 — "Journal of Reproductive Medicine", for refusal to denounce the now-discredited Cha/Wirth paper, "Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer", that "JRM" published. (Paper co-signer Rogerio Lobo won the 2004 Pigasus Scientist award.)

ee also

*Bent Spoon Award
*Darwin Awards
*Golden Raspberry Awards
*Ig Nobel Prize

References

* cite book
last = Randi
first = James
authorlink = James Randi
year = 1982
title = Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions
publisher = Prometheus Books
id=ISBN 0-87975-198-3

External links

* The Pigasus Awards: [http://www.randi.org/hotline/1997/0014.html 1996] , [http://www.randi.org/jr/04-04-2000.html 1999] , [http://www.randi.org/jr/040502.html 2001] , [http://www.randi.org/jref/pig2003.html 2003] , [http://www.randi.org/jr/040105capitalizing.html#11 2004] , [http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-03/033106mccrea.html#i4 2005] , [http://www.randi.org/pigasus/index.html 2006] , [http://www.randi.org/joom/pigasus-awards-2.html 2007]
* [http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200506/zero-gravity.cfm American Physical Society]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqo-dLkyl3o Fold your own Origami Pigasus with this video guide]
* [http://au.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A98E409325D555B8 The Adventures of Pigasus videos]
* [http://jeff.gaia.com/blog/2006/4/the_pigasus_award_ironies A criticism of the usage of a flying pig as the Pigasus Award's symbol]