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Derren Brown perpetuating junk / pseudo-science
- Thread starter stuart
- Start date
He said it wouldn't work if uploaded on the internet, but I can't think of any reason why that would be true, since all TVs are of varying quality and they supposedly worked, so it's probably just to stop people viewing it illegally.
You may want to actually go on youtube and put it on fullscreen. I will be interested if anyone actually feels stuck.
borrofburi
New Member
Meh... he does the same thing all hypnotists do... "talent" "if you fight it won't work" "only works on creative bright individuals"... Basically "it won't work on you unless you let it, but cool people let it work."
OnkelCannabia
New Member
Derren Brown actually talked with Richard Dawkins about the danger of perpetuating pseudo-science in his profession.
It is a very interesting interview:
It is a very interesting interview:
This is not about derren specifically but about magical skeptics as a whole.
Some years ago I found out that there was a skeptics society who met near my home. I read some of their work and went to a few of their meetings. This particular group was affiliated with the amazing randy. After some research I had a few questions and a few answers.
These purveyors of illusion always talked about their awesome scientific reasoning While exhibiting the same flaws as any creationist. After many articles which used bad science to refute the paranormal, It struck me that people like derren and randy only refute pseudoscience which makes their competitors more money. If you use bad science to screw poor people for free, then you will never have to worry about these. So the question is - why would a scientist of any kind support a magician or mentalist? They are professional liars! Their only purpose is to find people who want to pay others to lie to them. This whole thread has been a discussion of, simply, how far the lie goes. You can lose your wallet on any city street corner and be witness to more skill than any of these performers can show.
And they don't refute pseudoscience since their status and money depends upon peoples lack of scientific ability. Without the illusions they would be comedians, salesmen, politicians, or actors. They don't use jokes to misdirect your attention from the tricks. They use the tricks to misdirect your attention from their bad stage show. Their whole purpose in putting on a show is to support pseudoscience, otherwise they are just liars. Every skill they use requires that they misrepresent cause and effect to promote poor scientific reasoning on the audience. You can't refute pseudoscience because it doesn't work. There is no pseudo-scientific device that you can point to which does anything that you can reason is the result of flawed scientific reasoning. The devices simply don't work. They don't make you healthy or produce a death ray or levitate. They just don't work. When someone does show evidence of an actual result and one of these magicians finds out, they just play a word game until they can disrupt the event and pretend that it didn't really happen. I don't know about derren but randy used to misquote people and then use that misquote to redefine and refute people. The reasoning is the same as every time I have been told that I am not really saved.
All of these performers are liars who need pseudoscience to exist for them to make money. They write books which do not teach the art of illusion by teaching scientific principles so much as teach "performers" how to lie in a convincing manner. The illusion with the lottery is funny because you think that there might be one ringer as opposed to every person involved in the show including the phone calls being ringers. While it is possible that a person could choose the correct lottery numbers eventually, since they do all the time or there would not be any winners, It is not possible to choose them for a given moment in time or derren would not bother to charge for his show since he would just play the lottery whenever he needed the money. Even the crap about affecting the machines is simply a misdirection from how these are always done. Someone behind a curtain wrote these numbers down by having access to the numbers before the audience did and pulling a bait and switch to get the numbers to derren's hand.
He is not more honest than others, he is simply a more skilled liar.
Some years ago I found out that there was a skeptics society who met near my home. I read some of their work and went to a few of their meetings. This particular group was affiliated with the amazing randy. After some research I had a few questions and a few answers.
These purveyors of illusion always talked about their awesome scientific reasoning While exhibiting the same flaws as any creationist. After many articles which used bad science to refute the paranormal, It struck me that people like derren and randy only refute pseudoscience which makes their competitors more money. If you use bad science to screw poor people for free, then you will never have to worry about these. So the question is - why would a scientist of any kind support a magician or mentalist? They are professional liars! Their only purpose is to find people who want to pay others to lie to them. This whole thread has been a discussion of, simply, how far the lie goes. You can lose your wallet on any city street corner and be witness to more skill than any of these performers can show.
And they don't refute pseudoscience since their status and money depends upon peoples lack of scientific ability. Without the illusions they would be comedians, salesmen, politicians, or actors. They don't use jokes to misdirect your attention from the tricks. They use the tricks to misdirect your attention from their bad stage show. Their whole purpose in putting on a show is to support pseudoscience, otherwise they are just liars. Every skill they use requires that they misrepresent cause and effect to promote poor scientific reasoning on the audience. You can't refute pseudoscience because it doesn't work. There is no pseudo-scientific device that you can point to which does anything that you can reason is the result of flawed scientific reasoning. The devices simply don't work. They don't make you healthy or produce a death ray or levitate. They just don't work. When someone does show evidence of an actual result and one of these magicians finds out, they just play a word game until they can disrupt the event and pretend that it didn't really happen. I don't know about derren but randy used to misquote people and then use that misquote to redefine and refute people. The reasoning is the same as every time I have been told that I am not really saved.
All of these performers are liars who need pseudoscience to exist for them to make money. They write books which do not teach the art of illusion by teaching scientific principles so much as teach "performers" how to lie in a convincing manner. The illusion with the lottery is funny because you think that there might be one ringer as opposed to every person involved in the show including the phone calls being ringers. While it is possible that a person could choose the correct lottery numbers eventually, since they do all the time or there would not be any winners, It is not possible to choose them for a given moment in time or derren would not bother to charge for his show since he would just play the lottery whenever he needed the money. Even the crap about affecting the machines is simply a misdirection from how these are always done. Someone behind a curtain wrote these numbers down by having access to the numbers before the audience did and pulling a bait and switch to get the numbers to derren's hand.
He is not more honest than others, he is simply a more skilled liar.
borrofburi
New Member
I do believe penn and teller directly acknowledge that they are performers. As for the rest of your rant, again, I don't think penn and teller are great evil bastards peddling pseudoscience, and yet they are magicians. Brian Brushwood isn't too bad, though he may delve into it once in a while... Jury is somewhat out on "the amazing randy" though, I mean he did start JREF, and I like what I've seen of JREF.stnrvr said:
ImprobableJoe
New Member
Is it really? Or is it about a made-up strawman that bears little resemblance to reality?stnrvr said:
Marcus
New Member
ImprobableJoe said:
No, it's absolutely true. They only go after their direct competitors, the psychics and so on. If they were genuinely interested in debunking junk science, people like Randi would be equally vocal against pseudoscience with no "entertainment" value, like homeopathy.
ImprobableJoe
New Member
Marcus said:
Yeah, and Penn & Teller's Bullshit only exposes other people who do magic tricks. They never go after things that they don't themselves make money on, like alien abductions, PETA, or the Boy Scouts. There show is just eight seasons of attacks on their financial competitors, and never focuses on religion, sex, or politics.
SchrodingersFinch
New Member
Should Derren Brown start debating creationists or just stick to what he knows best (i.e. psychics, mediums etc.)?stnrvr said: