Houdini Award: who got it? What do they give the Houdini Award for?

Who heard about Harry Houdini Award? What is the prize? For what you can get it? Who has already succeeded? There are many questions. In this article we will try to answer them.

Houdini Award: skeptics against psychics

To date, Russian citizens are very popular ideas that some supernatural forces are able to influence human life and that other people have a mysterious gift to come into contact with these forces. On television and on the Internet, it is often said about miracles of extrasensory perception and various "sensational" discoveries, which official science basically refers to pseudoscientific knowledge. In the wake of such an enthusiasm for the unknown, far from everyone is able to critically assess a particular fact.

At first glance, it may seem that this is only a question of personal beliefs, but everything is not so harmless. It is only natural that the current situation is successfully used by numerous scammers, posing as hereditary healers and magicians. Although there is no special proof that these people have a special gift, many people turn to them for help. And, unfortunately, are often deceived.

In contrast to this trend, the activity of popularizers of science is gaining momentum, which aims to suppress the spread of any kind of hoaxes and to show the need for rational thinking and the importance of a scientific approach.

Harry Houdini and the prize of his name

The Harry Houdini Award was founded in Russia in 2015. It was announced: one million rubles will be received by someone who, under conditions of a specially organized scientific experiment, can prove that he really has supernatural abilities.

The goal of the founders of the award is to draw the attention of the Russian public to the problem of non-critical attitude to statements about the existence of superpowers. The 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 Karl Sagan: "Extraordinary statements 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 disappear completely, being something of a "shadow" of official science, it is the critical thinking style that will allow modern Russian society to become highly developed.

When was Houdini awarded in Russia? This will be discussed further.

Award name

The award was named after the world-famous American illusionist Harry Houdini. By the beginning of the 20th century, he was at the height of fame among the mystifiers due to his legendary stunts with liberation, some of which still remain unsolved.

In addition to the art of illusions, Houdini was a professional in exposing: he did not miss the opportunity to reveal the secrets of his competitors - magicians and magicians. In addition, he openly spoke out against the rampant spiritualism at that time. Houdini was concerned that under the influence of this fashion, many illusionists mask their tricks, giving them out for communicating with otherworldly forces. Incognito, visiting spiritualistic sessions, he successfully exposed the charlatans and was once known as a "thunderstorm of mediums." This even caused the breakdown of his friendly relations with Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a staunch supporter of the ideas of spiritualism. Houdini also shortly before his death left to his wife some secret code, only with the help of which supposedly it was possible to evoke the spirit of the great illusionist. So he finally limited his person from the encroachments of spiritualists.

Foreign analogues of the award

The Houdini Award has an analogue - it is a prize of the James Randy Foundation , a famous scientific skeptic and illusionist from the United States. Randy for many years was engaged in exposing pseudo-scientific theories and mystifications associated with paranormal phenomena, super-powers, UFOs, etc. The idea of creating the award arose in 1964, when in radio, Randy promised to personally pay $ 1,000 to the first person who could prove He has superpowers.

Later the amount of the premium increased to 10 thousand dollars, and in 2002 reached a million dollars thanks to the donation. And although the number of participants was great, to date, no subject has been able to convincingly prove the existence of any phenomenal abilities and receive a Randy Award.

Similar non-commercial projects have been launched in other countries, for example, in Australia since 1980, there is a premium of the organization Australian Skeptics Inc.

Competition Rules

Harry Houdini Award is given according to certain rules. According to them, a person who has managed to demonstrate declared supernatural abilities in the presence of an expert commission, such as clairvoyance, telekinesis, communication with spirits, aura vision, and others will receive a monetary reward. That is, any abilities that do not find an explanation from the point of view of modern science.

The Organizing Committee recognizes only the results of own testing as evidence. Other arguments, including letters of recommendation, videotapes and certificates of third parties, are not grounds for paying the premium.

Applying for participation

Apply for participation can only be a person who has reached adulthood. In this case, the applicant must clearly describe what paranormal abilities he has and how to verify them. In order for the organizing committee to consider someone else's candidacy, you need to send a video recording that demonstrates the declared abilities. If this is not possible (for example, in the case of telepathy), a recommendation should be made of an academic person who says that he personally observed the phenomenon described in the application and can not give any rational explanations. Providing any evidence is proof of a well-founded and serious approach on the part of the applicant.

The Organizing Committee warns that the application for the award and information submitted by the candidates is not confidential: the name of the applicant, the text of the application, video materials and test results can be published on the Internet.

Restrictions

The Houdini Award has some limitations. To consideration are taken only those unusual abilities, whose reality can be proved experimentally. A statement about religious or spiritual abilities will not be accepted for a simple reason: everything based on faith, personal experience and its interpretations can not be verified. For example, if someone claims to be able to make a person feel happy by invisible influences, testing will be denied, since it is impossible in this case to talk about an objective result.

The Organizing Committee may also refuse to conduct an experiment if it considers it to be dangerous to life and health (including the mental) of the subject and other participants. Tests during which the applicant promises to risk his life and remain unscathed due to his gift, from the point of view of safety and common sense will not be held.

Testing

Before starting the testing, the participant should clearly indicate what abilities he intends to demonstrate. Since all applications are considered individually, a special test schedule is drawn up for each individual case. The applicant can offer his own experimental conditions - the organizing committee can accept or reject them.

Then the organizing committee and the subject discuss what the result of the experiment will be considered positive, which is negative. Here, difficulties are possible. If the agreement is not reached, the application will be rejected. But if the conditions suit both sides, then the applicant becomes a candidate for the Houdini Award.

Further, preliminary testing follows to ensure that the experimental conditions are acceptable. If the result was positive, then the official testing phase comes. According to the rules, it passes once and only in the place that the organizers will choose. On the official test there must be a representative of the sponsoring company Genotec, which guarantees the issuance of a cash prize. The peculiarity of the final test is that there is unlikely to be a result of luck: the participant will have to prove the reproducibility of his ability.

Prize and commission organizers

The main founders of the award are the popular science resource Sci-One and the genetics center Genotec. The experts' council and the composition of the organizational committee include scientists and experts in the field of biology, medicine, physics, scientific journalists, professional illusionists, skeptics and figures to combat pseudoscience. Information partners of the project: the Internet edition of "Gazeta.ru", the portal "Anthropogenesis.ru", the Internet community "Lentach" and many others.

Expert composition can be changed and replenished with new members, specialists in the exact and natural sciences.

Prize

If the final test is successfully passed, the participant will immediately receive from the representative of the Genotek company a tenth of the prize in cash. 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 bonus of one million rubles: at the request of the winner, Genotech is ready to provide him with an exclusive service for decoding the genome.

And now let's talk about who got the Harry Houdini Award in Russia.

Tests in Moscow

So was someone awarded the Harry Houdini Award? In Moscow on September 26, 2015, the first preliminary tests were carried out. They caused great interest of the public and the media. For the right to receive the Houdini Award, demonstrating their unique abilities, two subjects competed. Did they get the Harry Houdini Award? Who got it? We will find out about this now.

Bakhyt Zhumatova, the former participant of the sensational teleproject "Battle of Psychics", tried to find her own, who claimed to be able to find hidden money. The proposed experiment was simple and intuitive: in one of 10 identical black boxes put a denomination worth 5 thousand rubles. Thanks to the randomization method, none of the participants and organizers knew where the bill was. The result of the test was negative - Bakhyt failed to correctly determine the box with the money from two attempts.

The second candidate, Nikolai Zagoruiko, claimed to be able to see metal objects through walls. For him, a test was organized, similar to the first, but this time in one of the 10 boxes were hidden aluminum cans. The result of the second participant was also negative. Video recordings of these tests are available for viewing.

The following preliminary tests for the applicants for the Houdini Award took place on December 20, 2015. This time all 3 subjects were former participants of the "Battle of Psychics". They claimed the following abilities: telepathy, the ability to communicate with the souls of the dead, the ability to foresee with the help of tarot cards.

The first test was held by Iolanta Voronova. The task was to establish owners of sealed passports from the number of 12 male volunteers. The following participants, Tatyana Ikaeva and Zlata Dmitruk, were offered the same test conditions - to determine from the photographs the cause of death of a person. Like last time, the test results turned out to be negative. All three participants failed to give a single correct answer for the permissible number of attempts.

Houdini Award: who received it?

To date, no one has been awarded the Houdini Prize. Similarly, with the Randy Prize and other similar organizations: although several participants reached official tests, no one showed a positive result, thereby failing to prove in the course of a scientific experiment the claimed superabilities.

Further testing

At the moment, the number of published applications is hundreds, and Houdini's award is still waiting for its owner. Summing up and announcement of the results of the next testing is scheduled for July 2016.