Pigasus (Randi)

Pigasus is the name of an award given out by the James Randi Educational Foundation on a yearly basis. There are four categories, characterized as follows:

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• Category 1 - for the government official who said or did the silliest thing related to pseudoscience or the occult; awarded in 2003 to the South African Minister of Health Dr. Manto Tshabala-Msimang
• 2004: We vote for Dr. Rogerio Lobo, professor/chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University. He co-signed a paper titled, "Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer"
• Category 2 - to the funding organization that supported the most useless study of a supernatural, paranormal or occult claim;
• 2004: We honor the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, who paid $25,000 to Dr. Eric W. Davis (PhD, FBIS) at a Las Vegas company called Warp Drive Metrics to study the "conveyance of persons by psychic means" and "transport through extra space dimensions or parallel universes."
• Category 3 - to the media outlet that reported as factual the most outrageous supernatural, paranormal or occult claims: The 2004 prize goes to the film "What the #$*! Do We Know?,"
• Category 4 - for the "psychic" performer who fooled the greatest number of people with the least talent; awarded in 2003 to Sylvia Browne.
• 2004: We honor the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, who paid $25,000 to Dr. Eric W. Davis (PhD, FBIS) at a Las Vegas company called Warp Drive Metrics to study the "conveyance of persons by psychic means" and "transport through extra space dimensions or parallel universes."