Pseudoskepticism and scientism in action!!!

So, while searching for more news on Dr Daryl Bem's Feeling the Future paper, I found this little gem from the Why Evolution Is True blog:

In a comment on the Psychology Today article, hokum-debunker James Randi has challenged Bem to meet his conditions for demonstrating paranormal phenomena, a demonstration that comes with a million-dollar prize. Randi:

I find this to be a very interesting reader response. After the usual magnificently uninformed comments: “Time is strange, gravity doesn’t make sense, and matter is mostly empty space. There is no such thing as time. Everything, what we call past, present and future, is happening in the Now” we find far more cogent remarks, along with the suggestion that author Bem should go for my Foundation’s million-dollar prize. Of course he should, but he won’t. We’ve made him the offer, many others have, as well, but he chooses to ignore it. It’s there, it’s real, the grubbies constantly claim it doesn’t exist, but it persists. Dr. Bem, give us a call. Accept the challenge, under your conditions, thoroughly fair, proper, definitive, observed and controlled, and you don’t have to invest a penny. Isn’t that attractive to you? And just think of the book sales along with the currency. Yes, a million US dollars still buys a lot… Make us all happy, won’t you?
Hello…? Dr. Bem? You there…?

Do read the paper first if you want to take apart the study.

It is true that a user under the name of "James Randi" posted this message on the comment string of the PT website. Strangely, James Randi has made absolutely no mention of this personal challenge anywhere on his website, www.randi.org, Swift blog, or forum. In fact, Randi hasn't addressed the publication of this paper at all, which I find a little surprising, as it is a parapsychological paper getting a lot of press in a mainstream psychology journal published by the APA.

So, did the Amazing James Randi himself post this comment? Or is it far more likely that an anonymous user posted under the name "James Randi" and gave a plausible-sounding challenge. Under the structure of this website comment scheme, all that is required is a name, a valid email, and an optional link to website. Since the email itself is obfuscated, we can't see if this comment was posted by a legitimate email belonging to Randi himself. To demonstrate such a point, I posted on the WEIT website under the name of Abraham Lincoln, with a link to www.whitehouse.gov.

This is a very obvious case of a clearly atheist and physicalist-minded person overlooking an otherwise obvious gaff, because it fits nicely into their paradigm, and appeals to their belief system. This is not skepticism, this is scientism, a fallacy of reasoning, appealing to physical and natural explanations.

At least he recommends reading the paper before making criticisms of problems that have been addressed and fixed by parapsychologist decades ago. Some pseudoskeptics won't even take that much effort, as with this blatant lack of fact-checking.