Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [81]
A word about Hastings. He had been associated with Targ and Puthoff for years and was even called in to design the Geller tests. But Targ and Puthoff not only ignored his suggestions for controls in those tests but also excluded him from the experiments with Geller. You see, Hastings is a magician as well as a parapsychologist (a bizarre combination—something like a Baptist minister who is also a cardsharp and he was uncomfortably knowledgeable about the whole matter.
First, Kammann and Marks discovered, the judges had been given the locations in chronological order, and they knew it. The barest trace of experimental care would have demanded that this list be "scrambled." But it was not. Even so, it was of course not very useful unless there were clues within the transcripts themselves that would enable a careful observer to rank them in order. Plenty of those clues were available, Kammann and Marks found. The transcripts contained such goodies as Targ saying "Nothing like having three successes behind you" (making that one the fourth target), and he speaks of the target visited the day before, thus identifying the third target as well.
Tbe next procedure was to test the theory that these boo-boos, whether intentional or not, could have allowed all locations to be matched to the targets. Indeed they could have. Kammann and Marks performed a number of such experiments and proved that when individuals were provided with the list of locations, in order and with the unedited transcripts, they invariably could pair them correctly. The Targ and Puthoff miracle was out the window. One test remained to be done. Using proper scientific procedure, Kammann and Marks also tested the ability of people to identify the pairings without the clues left in. They failed to do so. The case was complete.
In a desperate attempt to rescue themselves, T&P commissioned parapsychologist Charles Tart to re-evaluate their data. Tart edited the clues from the transcripts, and gave them to one—unnamed—judge who properly ranked them. Nature obligingly published the results, and the scientific world yawned.
But Targ and Puthoff were nowhere near through. Even before the Kammann-Marks paper appeared in Nature, they suspected that something was up. When I lectured at Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque, I mentioned that the transcripts had been faulty since they contained clues. Shortly after that visit I was sent a mysterious letter that had shown up there bearing Puthoff's name and entitled "SRI replies to Randi." I wrote to Puthoff, asking if he had indeed written the letter and if he would stand by the statements made in it. He admitted, after several months, that he wrote it but he has steadfastly refused to answer, with a simple yes or no, whether it is factual. I know why, too. Now you will know.
I quote from this letter:
...according to Randi our transcripts are liberally sprinkled with remarks about other experiments, other targets, etc., which helps the judge along in his matching efforts. Could this possibly be true? Of course not! The raw data transcripts are carefully edited before being turned over to the judges; all references to targets, dates, other experiments—in short, anything that would help a judge determine actual targets, or even the chronological order of the transcripts—are removed.
Kammann and Marks say this is untrue. Hastings gave them the same transcripts he worked with, and they are not edited. In fact, Targ and Puthoff went to great lengths, in writing about their tests, to say that the transcripts were not in any way edited, that every word was included. The letter sent to Sandia is a lame attempt to perpetuate the story, but it doesn't work. In it, Puthoff also denies the facts about the judges being tossed out and refers to the matter of walkie-talkies being used as well. We'll handle that gem in a moment. But what is really