The skeptics reply that an uncritical mind is a gullible mind. Time and again, they point out, so-called psychics have exploited unquestioning audiences with amazing performances in which they appeared to communicate with the spirits of the dead, read minds, or levitate objects‹only to have it revealed that their acts were a hoax, nothing more than the illusions of stage magicians. Indeed, many psychic deceptions have been exposed by magicians, who resent the exploitation of their arts in the name of psychic powers.

Even scientists get hoodwinked. A notable case involved two teenage magicians, Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards (Randi, 1983a,b). In 1979, this young pair approached Washington University's new parapsychology laboratory, offering to demonstrate their "psychic powers." Over the next 3 years, the two pretended to defy the laws of nature. They appeared to project mental images onto film, cause clocks to slide across a table, effortlessly bend metal objects, and move objects in sealed jars. Forewarned against trickery by James Randi, the youngsters' magician-adviser, the laboratory director nevertheless ignored the warnings and for a time proclaimed that "these two kids are the most reliable of the people that we've studied" ("Psychic Abscam," 1983).

This parapsychologist's gullibility illustrates how tempting it is to label phenomena we don't understand as beyond explanation: "What other explanation could there possibly be but ESP?" the awestruck observer asks. Thus, before bats' echolocation ability was discovered, many people attributed bats' ability to avoid wires in complete darkness to clairvoyance (Gibson, 1979). When the bats were blinded, when their noses were sealed, when their wings were coated with varnish, they still could navigate, so what other explanation could there be but ESP?