1. Get out of here, atheists!

Comment #156523 by CargoShip359 on April 7, 2008 at 6:24 pm

Just a quick comment. Isn't it Rob Sherman that thanks Monique Davis and not the chairman as has been suggested. Richard Dawkins has suggested flooding the chairman's mailbox for refusing Rob Sherman a reply to the abuse. This seems a little unfair. The meeting was meant to be about 'shuffling a million dollars to benefit a Baptist Church', a fairly serious issue. The chairman simply brings the meeting back to the question in hand and states the previous outburst was 'superfluous for the moment'. I think I have to agree with him. Maybe a two sentence reply would of been fair. However, I understand the attempt to prevent the meeting becoming an atheist v religion battle when the meeting was meant to be dealing with the shuffled million dollars. I'm not sure about flooding his email? This seems a bit harsh. Just a thought.

2. Get out of here, atheists!

Comment #156370 by CargoShip359 on April 7, 2008 at 12:12 pm

I know it's a small positive but the guy at the end seems okay : /

3. Beware the Believers

Comment #152361 by CargoShip359 on March 30, 2008 at 8:04 pm

It's pure gold!!! Count me in!

4. Messiah

Comment #53208 by CargoShip359 on June 30, 2007 at 5:38 am

Post 81 by Neal

Yeah I think you're right in saying the programme is useful. Also, I really can't work out if he's actually able to reliably use suggestion to the level he suggests in performing his tricks. No doubt he does use some, as it is a part of being a magician. I also agree with insomicman that it is very easy to dismiss this stuff as a fake, and on the basis of just this programme I doubt I would have questioned it. However, stunts like The Heist. Take four people out of thirteen and expose them to the correct colours, phrases and music and three of the four will commit armed robbery. Is this true? It could be, but it sounds amazing. I mean truly ground-breaking science amazing. I realize the card trick Simon Singh mentions is just one part of one show but it does demonstrate his apparent willingness to attribute completely the wrong rational reason for what we see him do. At the same time he also does things like reenact the Milgram experiment and therefore starts to associate himself with scientists carrying out peer-reviewed research in order to add credibility to what he is doing. As is almost suggested in the Simon Singh article we need a Derren Brown version of the James Randi prize to find out if any of his suggestive techniques work under controlled conditions and to what extent. I feel this is even more necessary for Derren Brown than for Uri Geller, who is clearly talking nonsense and, as far as I know, doesn't invoke science to back up his claims. Anyway I'm probably taking this Derren Brown thing way too seriously as in the long run he does make people question and that's got to be good.

5. Messiah

Comment #53166 by CargoShip359 on June 29, 2007 at 10:40 pm

It really does matter how he does it. If we are trying to understand the ease with which people are willing to suspend their critical faculties, which I think this program is demonstrating, should we not be reasonably confident the whole thing is not a set up. Read the article posted by Axulus by Simon Singh. Derren Brown takes a card trick that only requires him to play the correct cards in the correct order (a perfectly good card trick) but is willing to say the following about that same trick:

"through watching the three of you I think that your signals are the easiest to read."

"Are you aware of your own signals when you play a game of poker? You're telling me with your nose which one you're going to go for. This time I am going to rearrange the cards into an order that I can sort of influence you with."

If we didn't know any better, you could say isn't it interesting how people give signals without knowing etc. However, although that is an interesting subject, this card trick tells us nothing about this phenomenon.

If he interested in these subjects why bother wasting time on your show with this type of stuff, other than to get on TV and sell books (a very difficult thing to do if you are a magician) In the same light, is this an attempt to demonstrate how easily people suspend their critical faculties, or is it a group of actors demonstrating how easy it is to pretend to suspend their critical faculties. From the point of view of understanding religious belief, isn't that is a massive difference? One tells us a lot and the other tells us nothing, other than people are willing to accept his explanation of events at face value? Which I suppose does tell us something but only he and the people/actors know what the lesson is.

6. Messiah

Comment #52714 by CargoShip359 on June 27, 2007 at 10:36 pm

Thank you Jamougha for the link and Axulus for posting the link to the Simon Singh article (I read it ages ago but forgot who wrote and where). Taking this article at face value, it is clear that Derren Brown is happy to attribute cold reading/suggestion/manipulation to events that actually require no such skill. With this in mind, I think it has to be perfectly plausible to suggest that when he states no actors/stooges are used this may well not be the case. Clearly, I cannot be sure about this. However, to what extent people are susceptible to 'neuro-linguistic programming and cold reading, simple tricks of reading and mirroring body language' is very interesting and when watching Derren Brown it is impossible to be sure to what extent, if any, these are actually being employed. Perhaps I'm being too fussy but this ruins any of the real interest. Although I can see why he does it, as saying 'I'm going to get a group of extras that want to be actors to fake a heist on a security van' doesn't sound too great. However, I have seen this happen on an episode of The Bill.

7. Messiah

Comment #52664 by CargoShip359 on June 27, 2007 at 4:46 pm

I have to agree with JazzX and the later comment by fin

I have a strong suspicion that whereas Uri Geller claims supernatural, Derren Brown claims psychological manipulation but both claims are false. I agree he does very impressive tricks, however, I suspect he has no more powers of psychological suggestion than I have (which is none, other than those every human probably has to some extent). I'm not saying it is not possible to use these powers but I have doubts they would be reliable enough to do sell-out shows night after night. You would have to be sure the suggestions would work every time. I think he gives the suggestion 'sail through your mind…don't go overboard on detail' etc, but in reality is using the same batch of very impressive but standard tricks and then markets himself as a great psychological manipulator, which is fair enough of course. In other words, I suggest he gives a rational explanation for his stunts but that doesn't mean it's the actual explanation. People have shown him attributing mind manipulation to card tricks that don't require any mind powers.