Congrats to Phil Plait, the New President of JREF!!

Holy crap, the James Randi Educational Foundation announced on Monday that the Bad Astronomer himself, Phil Plait, will be taking over as the foundation's president! Plait is an author, skeptic, and actually quite a good astronomer and it's cool to see that he will be heading up the JREF in Randi's absence. Randi is apparently going to devote his time to finishing up a couple of new books. Phil had this to say on his blog:

There is no way I can replace Randi, or fill his shoes, or even be moderately Amazing. I won’t even try. Happily, I don’t need to: he will continue to work with the JREF, guiding the Foundation as the Chairman of the Board of Directors. There is a lot of Randi in the JREF, and of the JREF in Randi, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

As cool as it is to see Phil taking over the JREF, it also makes me a little sad that Randi isn't running the show anymore. Over the years, James Randi has done more to advance skepticism and critical thinking than almost anyone and his books and TV specials have helped to pull lots of True Believers™ (Your pal Skippy included) out of the muck of credulity. That being said, I can't think of anyone I'd rather see taking over for Randi than Phil. Congratulations man, and good luck.

Skippy's psychic prediction...

Well, it was announced last Friday that James Randi's $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge is going to be brought to a close two years from now to provide "more flexibility" (read: more operating money) for the James Randi Educational Foundation. It's a pity, really, that no one has, in the 44-year history of Randi's monetary challenge, made anything close to an interesting attempt at the cash. (Randi first starting offering a cool $1000 in 1964, with the prize money slowly growing to ten thousand and finally a million dollars.) Sure, people have tried, but most of them are pretty lame, and none have come very close at all to getting the money. Even more telling are the folks that have outright refused the challenge, or who have agreed and then reneged.

In any event, now that time is running out, I predict no interesting challenges for the next two years, until, say, a week before the contest is shut down. Then some whack job will spring from the woodwork, apply for the defunct challenge, and claim that Randi shut the contest down out of fear of their specific claim.

Guess we'll see if I'm right.