Penn Jillette SpeaksFrom: http://avclub.theonion.com/avclub3321/avfeature3321.html (not linked)
A short excerpt relating to skepticism...
"...there are obsessions that Teller and I have. One is that we're pro-science, and, strangely, being pro-science is one of the oddest things you can do in show business. Which is very strange, because it was science that, oh, cured polio. I could list others—isn't that enough? [Laughs.] Oh, Western medicine doesn't work; I'm sorry, we cured polio. What more do you want? Your herbalism has done jack; we cured polio. And guess what? It cures polio even if you don't believe in it. We don't have it on Earth anymore. And then there's also small pox, and then there's mostly dysentery, and we haven't even gotten into the stuff we're good at, which is physics. We're not good at medicine; we're good at physics. We were good at physics in the 20th century; in the 21st century, one would hope, we'll be good at medicine. But we [Penn & Teller] are pro-science, and when you're pro-science, that means you're an atheist, by definition, because religion... No matter how much they put "Ten Top Scientists Talk About Why They Believe In God" on the cover of Time magazine, you kind of have to look and go, "How come these ten top scientists are all teaching at community colleges?" [Laughs.] And how come this list is distinctly lacking any Nobel Laureates? What is that tellin' you? They don't have anyone on the A, B, C, or D-lists; they're down to the guests you can get on Home Shopping Club. So if you're pro-science, you're against superstition, and if you're pro-science, you're not spiritual. And if you're pro-science, you're in favor of people. And I think if you're pro-science—although this doesn't follow completely logically; it tends to follow in terms of the culture—you're pro-civil liberties, because you have a limited amount of time on this planet, and you know that other people do, too. So the fact that we are not spiritual people, the fact that we are material people, the fact that we believe in the real world I think permeates everything we do. It wouldn't necessarily permeate everything we do if we weren't in the field of doing tricks. When you are in the field of doing tricks, you are addressing every two minutes how one confirms truth, how we decide on truth. And if you're doing that, that's gonna come up a lot. You know, my feelings about politics, my feelings about rock 'n' roll, my feelings about art come up much, much less. My feelings about how one ascertains truth comes up a lot, because we're doing tricks. If you're doing a trick like shooting .357 Magnums into each other's faces, you have brought up viscerally some important intellectual issue.Skeptic organizations have wanted me to be a spokesperson and talk about the skeptics a little bit, and I just tell them that when there are truths to get out and important things to say, there are many different ways to do it. And you want in your organization a well-reasoned, not-shooting-from-the-hip, thoughtful position to be presented. You need guys to do that, and then you also need nuts who will just go out and scream, "No, you're wrong!" to people who are wrong. You just don't want those people on your letterhead. There's a big difference there. If you want to argue with me, any sort of how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people/what-do-you-think? type of stuff does not work. What you have to do to win an argument with me is you have to yell facts that you can back up, and do it with absolutely no finesse. And if you get enough facts on your side in the right order, and I'm smart enough to understand 'em, and all of that comes together, then I do a 180 instantly. And I go, "Oh, you're right. We've saved some time here. "
Where do you feel you would be without James Randi?"Oh, it's hard to say. I wouldn't be anything like I am. I hated Kreskin ["The World's Foremost Mentalist"] so much when I was a kid for his lying that I hated all magic and I hated all science. And it was Randi and Teller who told me I didn't have to. And if I hadn't been given that piece of information, I probably would have just stayed thinking that the idea of magic itself was evil. And I might have even gone so far as to think that scientists were just liars, because Kreskin used to present himself as a scientist. And I hated him so much—and this hate has not tempered in any way—that had Randi not come along... What magic is is using a shotgun for target-shooting, taking the most dangerous and evil thing you can do—lying to people—and going out to a target range and shooting it in a safe direction that you've thought about very, very clearly. Doing stuff like Van Praagh and Kreskin is like taking a shotgun and going into a mall, and discharging it in people's faces and stealing 20 bucks from each one of them. It's the lowest thing you can do, and it hurts all of society in the same way that killing a smart person does: When you lie to a kid like that, that may be a kid who was going to get a good idea. And once Kreskin got a hold of your head, you weren't going to be able to get a good idea. It's a complete poison."
From: http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/011002/ent_0110020009.shtml (not linked)
Excerpt two...
One such bad ''act'' out there, Jillette adds, is John Edward -- known as a medium who talks to 'people' beyond the grave, relaying messages to their living loved ones.
''Because my mom and dad died a couple of years ago, and knowing how overwhelming that grief can be ... it just seems almost inhuman to exploit that grief ... and make money off of it,'' he says, regarding Edward's tactics."
This incense toward those who benefit from the suffering of others is part of the foundation of the duo's objective, which ultimately aims to show us how easily we can be fooled. An integral part of their act is, as noted earlier, to show how their trick was achieved; how we were deceived.
''We feel very strongly about all sorts of things ... and our shows kind of show our obsession with truth,'' Jillette says. "It's an offbeat way to tell the truth, mind you. We say up front we're going to lie, cheat and mislead you -- and that something will happen (as a result of it in our act). Once you've put that framework around it, it allows you to do anything. And that's not to say people are to be blamed for being fooled by charlatans; that's blaming the victim for the crime.''
Sites Debunking John Edward and James Van Praagh
(linked, because the entire articles are of a skeptical nature)(1) "Deconstructing The Dead:
Cross Over One Last Time To Expose Medium John Edward" by Michael Shermer:
http://www.skeptic.com/newsworthy13.html
(2) "Crossing Fingers Over Behind Your Back" by Vicki Reed :
http://www.tv-now.com/vikireed/nov2000.htm
(3) "John Edward's Cold Reading Gig" by Brian Carnell:
http://www.re-quest.net/entertainment/movies-and-tv/tv/john-edward/index.htm
(4) A six-part series of articles by Michael Shermer, debunking James Van Praagh:
http://www.holysmoke.org/praagh.htm