You can't verify nina kulagina's experiments for yourself and therefore they're invalid? Bullshit
Part of the scientific method involves verification and repeatability of experiments by third parties.
If there is someone who has developed a theory as to how someone can fake an experiment given the set of protocols that the experiment has, then, well, part of the method of scientific inquiry demands that a study be done which can account for that variable, to see if telekinetic results would still be had.
But since Nina Kulagina isn't around anymore, we can't test for those variables which certain professional tricksters have cited, now can we?
So what we have left is someone who's vetted by a lot of people as being legit (though keep in mind that just because a lot of people agree, doesn't mean they're right- the fallacious argumentum ad populum), while at the same time there are variables at play that haven't been tested for.
Throw in the fact that psychic phenomena are extremely rare in daily life. Even people who train to get them don't always get what they're after, and even people who claim to have them don't seem to use them in any well known way.
So it's not very hard to see why Randi wins more people to the side of "non-believers" than Kulagina wins to the side of "believers".
The scientists who studied her TOOK INTO ACCOUNT all of the arguments that randi et al try to use to debunk her. The scientists checked for trickery and designed several of the experiments that you can watch in the videos in order to remove exactly those kinds of cheats that randi and them want to believe she used. The problem here is that 40 scientists studied her and all came to fairly similar conclusions, and then one NON-scientist comes along with an opinion and we should believe him when he clearly hasn't even watched the videos or studied up on the experimental procedures? Fuck that. I will trust the 40 scientists over the one naysayer (if he JUST brought the questions to bear then he would be a skeptic, but he went steps further and used those questions in a rhetorical sense to basically call those scientists bumbling idiots and called the entire scientific process a sham).
I, for one, certainly don't approve of the manner in which Mr. Randi goes about browbeating "believers". But I try to keep in mind that he is a professional in the business of fooling people for a living. A professional in getting someone to look at a scenario, and completely miss what's going on.
There are plenty of schools of study which, if one is not properly instructed, can completely blindside you with things you never would have expected.
So, take from that what you will. Professional analysts, or a professional at fooling analysts?
What you might not know is that it was scientists who, for a very long time, ran the forefront of the crusade in catching stage-magicians who claimed to have real supernatural powers Sure, scientists can be fooled some times, they are human after all, but you know what the biggest difference between scientists who are running experiments are, compared to Randi who is running his mouth? The scientists are actually involved in experiments, whereas Randi merely hears about them from afar and tries to give his "expert" opinion into why the experiments are always flawed.
You might not know that scientists were also at the forefront of studying Uri Geller, claiming that he was a legitimate psychic.You know who was at the forefront of exposing THAT psychic? Oh, right, James Randi. Huh.
You just say that scientists can be fooled, so wouldn't it make even MORE sense to listen to the claims of people who make their living fooling people?

??
Also, Randi is ONE stage magician. The weight of his words do NOT out-match the weight of many many scientists.
He's not the only one offering money....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_of_the_paranormalSo there is nothing inherently wrong with them looking at a case study or a scientific study and saying "well here's how I could think of a way to fake this. If I can think of a way, it's possible they thought of the same or similar way."
And yes, actually, there is something inherently wrong with that: they haven't given me any reason whatsoever to believe them when they make such claims.
Right, well, sorry being a professional trickster isn't credible enough for you when it comes to thinking up ways to rig an experiment....
Can you fucking blame them when every popularized show out there that delves into the paranormal always comes back and makes the people who believe in metaphysics look like idiots? What's the point of going on national television just to have all the good stuff edited out and have the very people who invited you to the show call you names and slander you?
Know how much money the cast of Jersey Shore makes?
A shit ton more money than the average American.
Add to that the ability to show that psychic phenomena are real? (assuming the starring cast are legitimate)
Yeah, I can't think of any reason.......
Doesn't take a psychic to realize that people will only-ever-always believe whatever they want to believe in anyway, regardless of what reality actually is like.
Right, that's why trivia is so popular, because people like going "oh hey, that's a fun fact which runs counter to popular opinion, I'm going to disregard it..."

Did you know there are people who still think Elvis is alive?
Did you know there are people who still believe you can move things with your mind? (to add some perspective, I'm one of them)
Walk down to the nearest university physics department and say "psychic phenomena are real, and science has proven it". See the response you'll get (to add some perspective, I've done it, with the evidence that Kobok sent to me oh so long ago)
150 years of scientific experiments into the supernatural, with more than abundant significant results regardless of the era, means the legwork is already done a hundred times over.
Right. That's why everyone believes that psychic phenomena are real and vetted by science and that everyone can train to do them.
I'm surprised. Global warming is STILL making more of a splash than psychic phenomena. Guess it's not as cool as the weather...
I'm sorry, where did this happen?
That was a summary of the research that Kobok provided me. You were in those threads, I'm sure you can find it if you go back and look.....
Who, and please tell me it's not those fucking wanna-be-scientist stage magicians, redid the math after removing experiments from the pool in order to come out to normal numbers?
As I recall, it was Ray Hyman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_HymanAnd secondly, WHY did they remove each study?
The details are in the study that Kobok provided. He's done enough legwork posting it to the thread. I'm not going to jump through hoops to feed it to you on a silver platter. You can put it some effort and find it yourself

Just claiming something like "oh, those had poor criteria" without giving really good reasons why is a slimy tactic that at least a couple of people have been caught doing in order to just remove what actually were good experiments (and the other side of that occurred as well, where some experimenters wanted to show results so badly that they removed people from the experiment who were receiving low scores).
Wow, pulling a bit of a James Randi there, huh? How about you actually read the reports, rather than providing us with your ignorant opinion just from casually hearing a summary of a study from a random person on the internet, hm?