Penn & Teller: Bullsh1t

leddpipe

sorry if this is a repost


http://www.megavideo.com/?v=6RLATJXP

maccored

if you disagree with them then you are 'F*cking stupid' - yeah ... well done penn and teller. as usual - another episode where the easiest to debunk ghost stories are once again dragged out for all to feel intelligent about.

I suppose if it make ones feel smart, important and intelligent then ......

maccored

you should at least watch Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman which at least looks at theories that may explain some paranormal events through various scientific theories rather than the usual 'laugh at the plebs who 'believe' in the paranormal and boy oh boy Im so intelligent to be able to do that' junk.

leddpipe

yeh, the big guy does use brashness as a vehicle to deliver his point!
i still found it funny though!
and how do you know what I've watched, or read for that matter?

Zombrex

maccored wrote: »

you should at least watch Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman which at least looks at theories that may explain some paranormal events through various scientific theories rather than the usual 'laugh at the plebs who 'believe' in the paranormal and boy oh boy Im so intelligent to be able to do that' junk.

Are any of the theories in anyway plausible? You often here people invoking funky quantum mechanical theories that on a superficial level sound like they could explain a paranormal event but in reality never could due to the impractical nature of such a phenomena occurring where required.

easychair

maccored wrote: »

if you disagree with them then you are 'F*cking stupid' - yeah ... well done penn and teller. as usual - another episode where the easiest to debunk ghost stories are once again dragged out for all to feel intelligent about.

I suppose if it make ones feel smart, important and intelligent then ......

It's ironic that you berate them for being selective with their "evidence", yet you produce no evidence at all yourself!

Gerry.H

Penn and Teller are yesterdays fish and chips

KeithAFC

easychair wrote: »

It's ironic that you berate them for being selective with their "evidence", yet you produce no evidence at all yourself!

I think she was on about the intelligent approach to it. Penn and Teller is a fun show and is obviously very cynical. I am very cynical towards psychics but they should go about it in a more intelligent way I suppose.

easychair

KeithAFC wrote: »

I think she was on about the intelligent approach to it. Penn and Teller is a fun show and is obviously very cynical. I am very cynical towards psychics but they should go about it in a more intelligent way I suppose.

I don't think Penn & Teller ever set out to present themselves as intelligent, but set out to expose hypocrisy and lies. Even their show is often entertainment, they have done valuable work in exposing charlatans and fraudsters. The world would be a poorer place had they not gone down this path.

Reoil

Penn and Teller have nothing to do with the paranormal. At all.
Illusion. That's it.

kylith

That's the point. They make no claims to be involved with the paranormal. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Over the years some magicians have set themselves up as debunkers; Houdini, James Randi, Derren Brown, Penn & Teller. Being illusionists they're used to looking at other people's tricks and working out how they're done, and they're well versed in things like cold reading from their stage act.

Genghiz Cohen

kylith wrote: »

That's the point. They make no claims to be involved with the paranormal. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Over the years some magicians have set themselves up as debunkers; Houdini, James Randi, Derren Brown, Penn & Teller. Being illusionists they're used to looking at other people's tricks and working out how they're done, and they're well versed in things like cold reading from their stage act.

After seeing the show Svengali, I'm not so sure about Derren... Like, some of what he did should be impossible!

krd

kylith wrote: »

Over the years some magicians have set themselves up as debunkers; Houdini, James Randi, Derren Brown, Penn & Teller. Being illusionists they're used to looking at other people's tricks and working out how they're done, and they're well versed in things like cold reading from their stage act.

But Derren Brown isn't really a debunker. He's a bunker. There's a clip on Youtube with Penn & Teller complaining about him.

Brown is a real fraud. And it's a nasty kind of show. You're kind of meant to be in on the joke.

He did his lottery trick. And then said he would reveal how he did it. And his explanation was he'd used the wisdom of crowds to pick the numbers. This is complete fraud. With the wisdom of crowds, you can get a crowd to guess the weight of a bull at an agricultural show, and the average of their guesses will be very accurate. But you can't pick random numbers like this. So he's playing on some kind of psychic communication of crowds to pick his numbers. This is not how he did the trick.

I really hate television magicians. It's one thing to do a trick in front of a live audience. It's a very different thing to use scripting and editing to pretend a trick has happened, when it hasn't.

kylith

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

After seeing the show Svengali, I'm not so sure about Derren... Like, some of what he did should be impossible!

I saw that show too, and there were defilitely think there were some things that he should have explained if his goal is to educate.

It's still refreshing to see someone do this and say 'it's not magic', though.

K.Flyer

leddpipe wrote: »

sorry if this is a repost


http://www.megavideo.com/?v=6RLATJXP

It looks like US authorities have seized Megavideo .com under the new laws clamping down on copyright infringements.

Genghiz Cohen

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

After seeing the show Svengali, I'm not so sure about Derren... Like, some of what he did should be impossible!

If Derren Brown can do what he says he can do, how come people are not out there making millions doing this. All you have to do is talk to the person and you can get their pin code.

Or you can just bet on a horse and tell the teller "i have the winning ticket"

Genghiz Cohen

You can't prove he doesn't!

Genghiz Cohen

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

You can't prove he doesn't!

True , HAHA

Dave!

krd wrote: »

kylith wrote: »

Over the years some magicians have set themselves up as debunkers; Houdini, James Randi, Derren Brown, Penn & Teller. Being illusionists they're used to looking at other people's tricks and working out how they're done, and they're well versed in things like cold reading from their stage act.

But Derren Brown isn't really a debunker. He's a bunker. There's a clip on Youtube with Penn & Teller complaining about him.

Brown is a real fraud. And it's a nasty kind of show. You're kind of meant to be in on the joke.

He did his lottery trick. And then said he would reveal how he did it. And his explanation was he'd used the wisdom of crowds to pick the numbers. This is complete fraud. With the wisdom of crowds, you can get a crowd to guess the weight of a bull at an agricultural show, and the average of their guesses will be very accurate. But you can't pick random numbers like this. So he's playing on some kind of psychic communication of crowds to pick his numbers. This is not how he did the trick.

I really hate television magicians. It's one thing to do a trick in front of a live audience. It's a very different thing to use scripting and editing to pretend a trick has happened, when it hasn't.

He might be misleading during his shows, I presume he's of the opinion that people go to and watch his shows TO be misled and tricked. Even if the 'reveal' is misleading or fake, it's just a continuation of the show.

Outside of his shows, he's quite skeptical. He had a show last year called Derren Brown Investigates, where over 3 episodes in primetime on Channel 4 he exposed various charlatans. He also appeared in Richard Dawkins' Enemies of Reason show, explaining cold reading and other tricks of the trade.

It's a bit much to call him a fraud - he uses his popularity to do quite a lot of good.

krd

Dave! wrote: »

He might be misleading during his shows, I presume he's of the opinion that people go to and watch his shows TO be misled and tricked. Even if the 'reveal' is misleading or fake, it's just a continuation of the show.

There's a big difference between performing an illusion and using stooges.

Magicians always have used stooges and accomplices, but for creating illusions. Not decking an audience with them to pretend they can read minds.

Genghiz Cohen

krd wrote: »

There's a big difference between performing an illusion and using stooges.

Magicians always have used stooges and accomplices, but for creating illusions. Not decking an audience with them to pretend they can read minds.

Does Derren use stooges?

Say it ain't so!

Actually I'm not sure there is a huge difference, since an illusion is just giving the appearance of doing something.
He would be giving the appearance of reading minds, regardless of how he actually did it, as long as he wasn't actually reading minds and it wasn't obvious he was cheating then I think it counts as illusion.

Genghiz Cohen

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Does Derren use stooges?

Say it ain't so!

Actually I'm not sure there is a huge difference, since an illusion is just giving the appearance of doing something.
He would be giving the appearance of reading minds, regardless of how he actually did it, as long as he wasn't actually reading minds and it wasn't obvious he was cheating then I think it counts as illusion.

You have to remember the producers and the editors have the final say on what goes on the TV. Derren can do 10 attempts at cold reading and it might only work 3 times. The producers might only use one of those in the final cut.

krd

Deleted User wrote: »

You have to remember the producers and the editors have the final say on what goes on the TV. Derren can do 10 attempts at cold reading and it might only work 3 times. The producers might only use one of those in the final cut.

He has admitted to doing that kind of thing.

But one of the worst things I've seen him do, was the racetrack. Where he says he's going to go up to the teller and use a mind trick to get her to pay out on a losing ticket. When he's doing the "trick", you can see he's surrounded by a camera and light crew. These things take a long time to shoot - they require various set ups. They can't just have people walking up to the teller. So he goes up to her and says something like "this is the winning ticket, this is the winning ticket". And she reads it and pays out. That's complete and utter nonsense. She wasn't in a hypnotic trance. And then he blabs on about the power of suggestion. There was no trick.

And this is the whole thing with him. There are no tricks. He is a magician that does not perform magic tricks.

The other thing to look for. He's not using actors as his stooges, he's using real people. The thing about real people, is when they're themselves they look normal, and when they try to act they don't. The "amazement" is a little exaggerated.