The Pigasus Award is the name of an annual tongue-in-cheek award, which was presented by the late James Randi, a skeptic. The purpose of the award was to expose parapsychological, paranormal, and psychic frauds whom Randi had noted over the previous year. Randi usually made his announcements of the awards from the previous year on April 1 (April Fools' Day).
History The award was originally called the Uri trophy, after Uri Geller, and was first announced in the appendix of Randi's book Flim-Flam!. The 1982 edition lists the award's "recipients" in 1979, 1980 and 1981. In Flim-Flam!, Randi states:
The trophy consists of a stainless-steel spoon bent in a pleasing curve (paranormally, of course) and supported by a base of plastic. Please note that the base is flimsy and quite transparent. I am personally responsible for the nomination of the candidates. The sealed envelopes are read by me, while blindfolded, at the official announcement ceremony on April 1. Any baseless claims are rationalized in approved parapsychological fashion, and the results will be published immediately without being checked in any way. Winners are notified telepathically and are allowed to predict their victory in advance. The bent spoon trophy is a reference to Geller's claimed spoon-bending abilities. The logo of a winged pig was designed for Randi's website by German artist Jutta Degener in 1996. The name "Pigasus" was chosen by Randi from suggestions e-mailed to him. The term is a portmanteau pun combining the word pig with the mythological Pegasus, a reference to the expression "when pigs fly". Randi did not present any Uri Award for a number of years after its inception in Flim-Flam! In 1997, it was revived and the name was changed to "Pigasus" after the winged pig. Randi announced the recipients through his e-newsletter, SWIFT!, in which he said "The awards are announced via telepathy, the winners are allowed to predict their winning, and the Flying Pig trophies are sent via psychokinesis. We send; if they don't receive, that's probably due to their lack of paranormal talent." There were no Pigasus Awards for 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.
Categories Flim-Flam! specifies that the winner of the Pigasus Award falls in one of four possible categories:
The scientist who said or did the silliest thing relating to parapsychology in the preceding twelve months. The funding organization that supports the most useless parapsychological study during the year. The media outlet that reported as fact the most outrageous paranormal claim. The "psychic" performer who fools the greatest number of people with the least effort in that twelve-month period. The 2003 Pigasus Awards featured only categories 1 and 4. The 2005 awards added a fifth category "for the most persistent refusal to face reality".
Recipients
Category 1 – Scientist 1979 – William A. Tiller, who said that although the evidence for psychic events was very shaky and originates with persons of doubtful credibility, it should be taken seriously because there is so much of it. 1980 – Isaac Bashevis Singer, for declaring a belief in demons. 1981 – Charles Tart, for discovering that the further in the future events are, the more difficult it is to predict them. 1996 – Scientist/physicist Ed May, who headed the CIA "remote viewing" project. 1999 – The Kansas State Board of Education for removing the teaching of evolution from the state's educational agenda. 2001 – University of Arizona Psychology professor Gary Schwartz for studies in parapsychology. 2003 – South African Minister of Health Manto Tshabala-Msimang for endorsing alternative medicine for treating AIDS. 2004 – Rogerio Lobo, professor/chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University who co-signed a paper titled Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer? 2005 – Brenda Dunne, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab manager, for the doublespeak of promoting studies whose "experimental results display increases in information content that can only be attributed to the influence of the consciousness of the human operator", while simultaneously insisting that PEAR is "not in the business of demonstrating 'paranormal' abilities". 2006 – Biologist Rupert Sheldrake for research funded by Trinity College, Cambridge on his theory of "telephone telepathy", supposed precognition experienced by the recipients of telephone calls and e-mails, (i.e. knowing who is calling before picking up the phone or viewing the caller ID.) 2007 – Intelligent Design promoter and professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University Michael Behe for his book The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism. 2008 – Colin A. Ross, for claiming that he can shoot electromagnetic radiation from his eyes. 2009 – Mehmet Oz, for his promotion of energy therapies such as Reiki. 2010 – NASA engineer Richard B. Hoover and the Journal of Cosmology; Hoover for claiming unfounded evidence for microscopic life found on meteorites and the Journal of Cosmology for publishing articles advancing the scientifically unsupported idea that life began before the first stars formed and was spread throughout the early universe on meteors. 2011 – Daryl Bem, for his shoddy research that has been discredited on many accounts by prominent critics, such as Drs. Richard Wiseman, Steven Novella, and Chris French. 2013 – Stanislaw Burzynski, for "[selling] expensive cancer cures by administering ‘antineoplastons’, costing his customers tens of thousands of dollars, and which have never been shown to be efficacious in controlled trials."
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