Who heard of the Harry Houdini Prize? What's the prize? What can you get it for? Who has already succeeded? There are many questions. In this article, we will try to answer them.
Houdini Award: Skeptics vs. Psychics
Today, Russian inhabitants have a very common idea that some supernatural forces can influence a person's life and that other people have a mysterious gift to make contact with these forces. On TV channels and on the Internet, they now often talk about the wonders of extrasensory perception and various "sensational" discoveries, which official science basically refers to pseudoscientific knowledge. In the wake of such a passion for the area of the unknown, not every person is able to critically evaluate this or that fact.
At first glance it may seem that this is just a matter of personal beliefs, but everything is not so harmless. It is quite natural that the current situation is successfully used by numerous scammers posing as hereditary healers and magicians. Although there is no hard evidence that these people have a special gift, many turn to them for help. And, unfortunately, they are often deceived.
In contrast to this trend, everyonethe activities of science popularizers are getting more development, which have the goal of suppressing the spread of any kind of hoaxes and showing the need for rational thinking and the importance of the scientific approach.
Harry Houdini and his name award
The Harry Houdini Prize was founded in Russia in 2015. It was announced: one million rubles will be received by those who, under the conditions of a specially organized scientific experiment, can prove that they really have supernatural abilities.
The goal of the founders of the award is to draw the attention of the Russian public to the problem of an uncritical attitude to statements about the existence of superpowers. Testing of unusual abilities should be "transparent" and accessible to the Russian-speaking audience. The main slogan of the project was the statement of the American astronomer and popularizer of science Carl Sagan: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
According to the scientific skeptic and professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University Valery Kuvakin, rational thinking has never been particularly characteristic of Russian people due to some cultural and historical traditions. Kuvakin also emphasizes that, although pseudoscience will never completely disappear, being something like a "shadow" of official science, it is precisely the critical style of thinking that will allow modern Russian society to become highly developed.
When was the Houdini Prize awarded in Russia? This will be discussed further.
Name of award
The award was named after the world-famous American illusionist Harry Houdini. By the early 20th century, he was at the height of his hoaxer fame for his legendary escape tricks, some of which remain unsolved to this day.
Besides the art of illusions, Houdini was a professional in revealing: he did not miss the opportunity to reveal the secrets of his rivals - conjurers and magicians. In addition, he openly spoke out against the general fascination with spiritualism at that time. Houdini was concerned that under the influence of this fashion, many illusionists disguise their tricks, passing them off as communicating with otherworldly forces. Incognito attending séances, he successfully exposed charlatans and was known in his time as a "thunderstorm of mediums." This even caused him to break off his friendly relations with Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a staunch supporter of the ideas of spiritualism. Houdini also, shortly before his death, left his wife a secret code, only with the help of which it was supposedly possible to summon the spirit of the great illusionist. So he finally limited his person from the encroachments of spiritists.
Foreign analogues of the award
The Houdini Prize has its counterpart in the James Randi Foundation, a well-known scientific skeptic and illusionist from the USA. Randy has been debunking pseudoscientific theories and hoaxes related to paranormal phenomena, superpowers, UFOs, etc. for many years. On the radio, Randy promised to personally pay $1,000 to the first person who could prove he had superpowers.
Later, the amount of the award increased to 10 thousand dollars, and in 2002 reached a million dollars thanks to a donation. And although the number of participants was large, to date, not a single test subject has been able to convincingly prove that he has any phenomenal abilities and receive the Randy Award.
Similar non-commercial projects have been launched in other countries, for example, in Australia since 1980 there has been an award from the Australian Skeptics Inc. organization.
Contest Rules
The Harry Houdini Prize is awarded according to certain rules. According to them, a monetary reward will be received by a person who has managed to demonstrate the declared supernatural abilities in the presence of an expert commission, such as: clairvoyance, telekinesis, communication with spirits, vision of the aura and others. That is, any abilities that cannot be explained from the point of view of modern science.
The organizing committee of the award recognizes only the results of its own testing as evidence. Other arguments, including letters of recommendation, videos and testimonies of third parties, are not the basis for payment of the bonus.
Apply for participation
Only a person of legal age can apply. At the same time, the applicant must clearly describe what paranormal abilities he has and how exactly they can be tested. In order for the organizing committeeconsidered someone's candidacy, you need to send a video that would demonstrate the declared abilities. If this is not possible (for example, in the case of telepathy), a recommendation from an academic figure should be attached, which would say that he personally observed the phenomenon described in the application and cannot give any rational explanations for this. The provision of any evidence is proof of a reasonable and serious approach on the part of the applicant.
The organizing committee warns that the application for the award and the information provided by the candidates is not confidential: the name of the applicant, the text of the application, video materials and test results may be published on the Internet.
Restrictions
The Houdini Prize has some limitations. Only those unusual abilities are accepted for consideration, whose reality can be proved experimentally. A claim of religious or spiritual ability will not be accepted for a fairly simple reason: anything based on faith, personal experience, and its interpretations is unverifiable. For example, if someone claims to be able to make a person feel happy through invisible influence, testing will be refused, since it is impossible to talk about an objective result in this case.
The organizing committee may also refuse to conduct an experiment if it considers it dangerous to the life and he alth (including mental he alth) of the subject and other participants. Tests during which the applicantpromises to risk his life and remain unscathed due to his gift, from the point of view of safety and common sense will not be carried out.
Testing
Before starting testing, the participant must clearly indicate what abilities he intends to demonstrate. Since all applications are considered individually, a special test procedure is drawn up for each individual case. The applicant can propose their own conditions for the experiment - the organizing committee can accept or reject them.
Next, the organizing committee and the subject discuss which result of the experiment will be considered positive, which - negative. Difficulties are possible here. If an agreement cannot be reached, the application will be rejected. But if the conditions suit both parties, then the applicant becomes a candidate for the Houdini Prize.
Next is a preliminary test to make sure the experimental conditions are acceptable. If the result is positive, it is the turn of official testing. According to the rules, it takes place once and only in the place chosen by the organizers. A representative of the sponsoring company "Genotech" must be present at the official test, guaranteeing the issuance of a cash prize. The peculiarity of the final test is that it is unlikely to pass as a result of luck: the participant will need to prove the reproducibility of his ability.
Award organizers and commission
The main founders of the award are the popular science resource Sci-One and the center of genetics"Genotech". The panel of experts and the composition of the organizing committee include scientists and experts in the field of biology, medicine, physics, science journalists, professional illusionists, skeptics and activists in the fight against pseudoscience. Information partners of the project: Gazeta. RU online publication, Anthropogenesis.ru portal, Lentach online community and many others.
Expert composition can change and replenish with new members, specialists in exact and natural sciences.
Prize
After successfully passing the final test, the participant will immediately receive a tenth of the prize in cash from a representative of the Genotek company. The remaining 900 thousand rubles will be transferred to the winner's bank account in a few days.
An unusual bonus is attached to the prize of one million rubles: at the request of the winner, Genotek is ready to provide him with an exclusive genome sequencing service.
Now let's talk about who won the Harry Houdini award in Russia.
Testing in Moscow
So has anyone been awarded the Harry Houdini Award? In Moscow, on September 26, 2015, the first preliminary tests took place. They aroused great interest of the public and the media. For the right to receive the Houdini Prize, demonstrating their unique abilities, two subjects fought. Did they win the Harry Houdini Award? Who got it? We will find out about this now.
The first to try her hand was Bakhyt Zhumatova, a former participant in the sensational TV project "Battle of Psychics", who claimed to be able to findhidden money. The proposed experiment was simple and illustrative: a 5,000-ruble note was placed in one of 10 identical black boxes. Thanks to the randomization method, none of the participants and organizers knew where the banknote was. The result of the test was negative - Bakhyt failed to correctly identify the box of money on two attempts.
The second candidate, Nikolai Zagoruiko, claimed to be able to see metal objects through walls. A test similar to the first was organized for him, but this time aluminum cans were hidden in one of the 10 boxes. The result of the second participant was also negative. Videos of these tests are available for viewing.
The next preliminary test for applicants for the Houdini Prize took place on December 20, 2015. This time, all 3 subjects turned out to be former participants in the "Battle of Psychics". They claimed the following abilities: telepathy, the ability to communicate with the souls of the dead, the ability to foresee using Tarot cards.
The first test was Iolanta Voronova. The task was to identify the owners of the sealed passports from among 12 male volunteers. The next participants, Tatyana Ikaeva and Zlata Dmitruk, were offered the same test conditions - to determine the cause of death of a person from photographs. Like last time, the test results were negative. All 3 participants failed to give a single correct answer within the allowed number of attempts.
Houdini Award: who got it?
To date awardsHoudini has not yet been awarded a single contender. Similarly with the Randy Prize and other similar organizations: although several participants reached the official tests, no one showed a positive result, thereby failing to prove the claimed superpowers in the course of a scientific experiment.
Further tests
At the moment, the number of published applications is in the hundreds, and the Houdini Prize is still waiting for its owner. Summing up and announcement of the results of the next test is scheduled for July 2016.
