James Randi began his career as a stage magician and escape artist but achieved fame as a professional skeptic, disproving the claims of self-described psychics, mind readers, and faith healers. He is a founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP). This is the first of a new regular column.
Hello again! I begin my joyful return to the pages of the “Magazine for Science and Reason” at the age of eighty-eight. Yes, I’ve slowed down in some ways but have embraced medical science enthusiastically, as it permits me to continue well past the average life span attained by the average male. Our esteemed editor Ken Frazier has set limits on how much I write in this new column for the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, but not upon what subjects I may choose to pontificate. Joy! Here goes. . . .
What follows here is about one very important subject of my next book—my eleventh—A Magician in the Laboratory, already written and seeking publication. If there is one major concern that has taken my attention as a skeptic and served to inspire this book, it is the persistent and currently very popular delusion that tries to connect the process of childhood vaccination with the dreaded condition known as autism. I’ve personally known two families plagued with autism.