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Stan Lee's Superhumans -- Chris Robinson

Bpelta

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I was watching Stan Lee's Superhumans last night and they had this Chris Robinson guy from Scotland on. He claimed to be able to predict the future through his dreams. I've seen some skeptics (e.g. Tony Youens, Susan Blackmore) have tested this guy in the past and he's failed.

But he claims to have helped Scotland Yard prevent a past IRA attack and showed the host a binder with letters from government officials thanking him for his work. Anybody have an idea what the deal with that is?
 
Bpelta said:
But he claims to have helped Scotland Yard prevent a past IRA attack and showed the host a binder with letters from government officials thanking him for his work. Anybody have an idea what the deal with that is?
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Sylvia Brown says **** like that all the time too. I can almost guarantee the actual facts surrounding the incident aren't going to bear much resemblance to what was presented on television.
 
I don't know about "preventing" a past attack, but in 1990 he went to RAF Stanmore to tell them that he'd dreamed there'd be an IRA attack in the London area, on a naval base. Nine weeks later the base he went to itself was attacked. Chris has been using that story ever since as proof of a prediction. Sometimes the story also says he was arrested, but recently released papers from the MoD refute that.
 
Has anyone from the JREF been in touch with the folks from this program? I am watching an episode now and they are examining a guy in India that claims to be able to pass electricity through his body while not causing any harm to himself. He his performing the tests on himself. The Stan Lee rep is just observing.
Here is link to the claimant.
http://www.history.com/shows/stan-lees-superhumans/bios/
Is this possible or is this some kind of trick?
 
godofpie said:
....
http://www.history.com/shows/stan-lees-superhumans/bios/
Is this possible or is this some kind of trick?
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Yes. It is a trick. Here is a video of the guy on the Stan Lee site.



Without getting too technical, "current" is the measure of flow of electricity. You need a low "resistance" to permit enough current to flow to light large bulb. Skin is relatively high resistance, unless it is soaked with salt water.

It is not possible for a human body to conduct enough current to cause a large bulb, as displayed, to light without killing the person. Nor is it possible for a cadaver to conduct enough current through dry skin to light the bulb in the first place.

Note that as he touches the wires to his skin, the bulb lights immediately to full brightness. This would not happen unless there were some sort of current amplification, since the skin would vary in resistance depending upon the pressure applied to the electrodes.

In short, he has rigged up a gimmick, likely a triac, to impress people, for some reason.
 
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By the way, I saw the episode with Chris in it. They were talking about an attack in St Albans, not the one at Stanmore. He didn't prevent the attack - no streets were cordoned off beforehand, and the two terrorists died when their bomb exploded prematurely. In all fairness, though, Chris Robinson himself doesn't claim to have prevented it (not according the his book on his site). I think it was the TV show making the story a bit more exiting.
 
I've only seen the one show, and they had a martial arts master that did the "1-inch punch". It might have been more impressive if it had actually been one inch, but in the slo-mo you can see he reared back several inches from the starting point, and then hit the target. I would have liked to see how all his attacks registered on the graphs using the same scale, not different criteria like they did for each one.

Me, I've done a true 1-inch punch, breaking a standard board, as recently as last year. Granted, it takes some knuckle conditioning and the ability to get your entire mass behind the punch (and a lot of training besides...), but superhuman it's not.
 
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dlorde said:
If that's not rigged, it's extraordinary... even if he tried many times until he got it right!

Does the slo-mo video count as extraordinary evidence?
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It is very impressive. I remember Mythbusters trying to catch an arrow. If it's a trick, I have no idea how it is done.

I was curious about the pellet--it is white. I used to have a pellet gun and all the ammo was metal of some sort. Well, you learn something new every day:
http://www.airgundepot.com/tsd-tactical-20g-180-bio-precision-bbs-5000-round-bag.html

Biodegradable BB's! How cool is that?
 
Olowkow said:
Yes. It is a trick. Here is a video of the guy on the Stan Lee site.



Without getting too technical, "current" is the measure of flow of electricity. You need a low "resistance" to permit enough current to flow to light large bulb. Skin is relatively high resistance, unless it is soaked with salt water.

It is not possible for a human body to conduct enough current to cause a large bulb, as displayed, to light without killing the person. Nor is it possible for a cadaver to conduct enough current through dry skin to light the bulb in the first place.

Note that as he touches the wires to his skin, the bulb lights immediately to full brightness. This would not happen unless there were some sort of current amplification, since the skin would vary in resistance depending upon the pressure applied to the electrodes.

In short, he has rigged up a gimmick, likely a triac, to impress people, for some reason.
Click to expand...
Thank you for that. Since I generally call an electrician to change a light bulb, your explaination was simple enough for me to understand.:)
 
dlorde said:
If that's not rigged, it's extraordinary... even if he tried many times until he got it right!

Does the slo-mo video count as extraordinary evidence?
Click to expand...

The doctor (professor?) they have present gives a good hint on how he does it. It's an anticipatory action, related to a reflex that's been practiced over and over most likely. I'd wager that he wouldn't be able to repeat the trick if he couldn't choose the person shooting the BB.
 
GreNME said:
The doctor (professor?) they have present gives a good hint on how he does it. It's an anticipatory action, related to a reflex that's been practiced over and over most likely. I'd wager that he wouldn't be able to repeat the trick if he couldn't choose the person shooting the BB.
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My thoughts exactly. However, the fact that he taught himself to do that is impressive.
 
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