Aussie TV - Secrets of Psychics Reavealed

[SquishyDave]

It's on Prime TV Tuesday 4th of November at 9:30 PM. I am sure our international brethren have seen it, but if I haven't seen it, it's new to me.

[SquishyDave]

What? Oh I thought someone said something.

[reprise]

I'm definitely looking forward to watching this.

I'm also still very pissed of with Nine for dropping Mind Control after only one episode and hoping that they'll let another network (even if it is the Seven "we take journalism to new depths" network) pick up the screening rights.

[SquishyDave]

I never saw mind control, or even heard of it before now. I will probably tape that show tonight to have it on hand, you never know when it might come in handy.

[reprise]

Mind Control homepage (http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/M/mindcontrol/) with some fun interactive stuff.

[SquishyDave]

I showed the video of him pick pocketing to everyone here at work, we all pissed ourselves laughing. It was great :)

[RonSceptic]

Originally posted by reprise
I'm definitely looking forward to watching this.

I'm also still very pissed of with Nine for dropping Mind Control after only one episode and hoping that they'll let another network (even if it is the Seven "we take journalism to new depths" network) pick up the screening rights.

If the Secret of The Psychics show is the Uk one, rather than the US show of the same name, Derren Brown (Mind Control) does feature several times, but only as an interviewee rather than as a peformer. All the tricks are perfromed by Alastair Cook.

[tim]

If it's the programme recently shown here with Alastair Cook it's excellent.
How to demolish nearly all woo woo beliefs in short order.
COMPULSORY WATCHING! WE WILL BE ASKING QUESTIONS LATER!
Let us know what you think!

[SquishyDave]

It was the yank version, and I didn't like it. They left too much open, they said you could bend a spoon by pre cutting it, but didn't say it could also be done in other ways, so if you took your own spoon, a unique spoon, and saw someone bend it with their mind, even after seeing this show you would believe they used their mind, coz you [i[know[/i] the fake guys pre cut it. Also in a card trick they said they use marked cards, and in another card trick a mirror in the guys shoe. I don't know much about magic tricks, but I'm fairly sure magicians would scoff at using marked cards or hidden mirrors, am I right?

They also said cold reading was just a series of pre scripted comments that apply to everyone, which is part of it, but so is getting info out of people without them knowing, but they didn't say that, so if you went to a psychic who somehow knew specific stuff, you woould think they are real.

If anything that show left people more susceptible to charlatens.

And Tim, when are you going to grow up? ;)

[tim]

Well Dave, I don't WANT to grow up.
My flawless reasoning tells me that if I refuse to leave my first childhood I cannot enter my second childhood therefore I cannot die therefore I am immortal.
Also being small and cute has it's advantages!;)

[tim]

And anyway, that's a picture of me after Renata's evil minions kidnapped me and forcibly shaved me in some bizarre initiation ritual they have. She needs help, poor girl!

[a_unique_person]

No, it is a picture of you as a little, cutesy baby.

[tim]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
No, it is a picture of you as a little, cutesy baby.

Nah, it's not. See this thread "Renata's Evil Plan" in the forum community section for the truth!

[reprise]

Originally posted by SquishyDave
It was the yank version, and I didn't like it. They left too much open, they said you could bend a spoon by pre cutting it, but didn't say it could also be done in other ways, so if you took your own spoon, a unique spoon, and saw someone bend it with their mind, even after seeing this show you would believe they used their mind, coz you [i[know[/i] the fake guys pre cut it. Also in a card trick they said they use marked cards, and in another card trick a mirror in the guys shoe. I don't know much about magic tricks, but I'm fairly sure magicians would scoff at using marked cards or hidden mirrors, am I right?

They also said cold reading was just a series of pre scripted comments that apply to everyone, which is part of it, but so is getting info out of people without them knowing, but they didn't say that, so if you went to a psychic who somehow knew specific stuff, you woould think they are real.

If anything that show left people more susceptible to charlatens.

And Tim, when are you going to grow up? ;)

Interesting. My conclusion about that show was totally different. It was that those people who are really REALLY determined to believe in this crap will do so IN SPITE OF being told that they are being decieved. Derren Brown does it better in that he tells people uprfront that he is deceiving them (and they still argue at the end of the show that he only "thinks" that he doesn't have psychic powers) but the repetitive script segment of the show we both watched pretty much proves the Fox Maulder theory of "I want to believe".

You - as a skeptic - are complaining about the manner in which they told people they are being conned (and you are quite right in stating that many of those cons have alternate delivery mechanisms) and that they didn't disclose ALL of the ways in which they could be conned. I look at this programme and wonder how many different methods of conning you have to demonstrate before people accept that it's ALL horsecrap. I remain horrified at the people who don't believe that they have been conned even after they have been shown how they were conned, but our mission as skeptics is to protect the gullible not to indulge the wilfully stupid.

[SquishyDave]

Originally posted by reprise
Interesting. My conclusion about that show was totally different. It was that those people who are really REALLY determined to believe in this crap will do so IN SPITE OF being told that they are being decieved. Derren Brown does it better in that he tells people uprfront that he is deceiving them (and they still argue at the end of the show that he only "thinks" that he doesn't have psychic powers) but the repetitive script segment of the show we both watched pretty much proves the Fox Maulder theory of "I want to believe".

You - as a skeptic - are complaining about the manner in which they told people they are being conned (and you are quite right in stating that many of those cons have alternate delivery mechanisms) and that they didn't disclose ALL of the ways in which they could be conned. I look at this programme and wonder how many different methods of conning you have to demonstrate before people accept that it's ALL horsecrap. I remain horrified at the people who don't believe that they have been conned even after they have been shown how they were conned, but our mission as skeptics is to protect the gullible not to indulge the wilfully stupid. Well, to me it wasn't so much that they didn't show EVERY method possible for each trick, it's that they showed the most bleedingly stupid solution for some of the tricks. Like the spoon bending trick, pre cut spoons? Come on, if uri gellar had tried to use pre cut spoons he would have been laughed off the planet before he got famous. And marked cards? Do magicians who know what they are doing use marked cards? I didn't think they did. And mirrors hidden in the shoes?