have you watched derren browns "the experiment"

John Albert said:
I've learned something new in this thread. Even a so-called "skeptic" community has its sacred cows.
Click to expand...

I've learned that even "skeptics" are prepared to pass judgment dispute only being in possession of very few facts, and even fewer correct ones.
 
Last edited:
Does this issue really boil down to "I don't know how he does it so it must be fake!" ?

I don't know how Derren Brown does a lot of his tricks, but I see no reason to assume that they must be all audience plants or stooges.
 
Last edited:
LandR said:
Does this issue really boil down to "I don't know how he does it so it must be fake!" ?
Click to expand...


Of course it's fake! It's stage magic! Do you think the effects he's presenting are real?!? Are you suggesting that Derren Brown has some kind of supernatural mind control powers?

:boggled:

Brown himself admits it's all trickery:

"I happily admit cheating, as it's all part of the game. I hope some of the fun for the viewer comes from not knowing what's real and what isn't. I am an entertainer first and foremost."
Click to expand...

You guys are really serious about this?!?


LandR said:
I don't know how Derren Brown does a lot of his tricks, but I see no reason to assume that they must be all audience plants or stooges.
Click to expand...


What the hell is it with you Derren Brown fanboys and your strawman arguments?

Point out where the hell I ever said he uses audience plants and stooges for all his tricks. I said it's likely he uses them for some of his tricks.

Why would you think he doesn't use them? Just because he says so? He also says he uses neuro-linguistic programming (a pseudoscientific pop-psych woo) to hypnotize random strangers into just handing him their wallets and then walking away, and he also claimed he used the random guesses of schoolchildren to predict the winning Lotto numbers. Do you really believe him when he says that kind of nonsense? If not, then why would you believe him when he says he doesn't use stooges or pre-selected audience members to call up on stage?

This is ridiculous. I never expected to catch this much heat from self-described "skeptics" for speculating about the possible techniques of a celebrity stage magician. You guys are talking down to me like I'm some kind of credulous woo-slinger defending a paranormal belief on faith alone. I guess it just goes to show that even some self-proclaimed critical thinkers have their own odd little bastions of credulity that they refuse to abandon.
 
Last edited:
Matthew Best said:
John Albert said:
He also says he uses neuro-linguistic programming (a pseudoscientific pop-psych woo)
Click to expand...

Does he? I thought he said he thought it was rubbish. Can you quote him in context, please?
Click to expand...


I don't own any of Derren Brown's books at this time. I used to have a copy of Tricks of the Mind as an e-book a few years ago when I first took an interest in his work after reading some online discussion of his videos. In that book he devotes quite a few pages to the subject, and I certainly don't recall him characterizing it as "rubbish." If you're really interested, I'm sure you can find a bittorrent for the book and download it within a few minutes. Or you could pick it up at your local public library.

His association with NLP is also mentioned in his Wikipedia article.

That one video of him demonstrating the "Russian scam" has also been picked to bits, analyzed, and exhaustively commented by NLP practitioners on YouTube. Most of what they're saying is of course totally unsubstantiated woo, and those videos tend to come off as silly as the bigfoot analysis YouTubes.

He also gives an NLP rationale for how he did the Simon Pegg birthday present trick. Have you seen that video? The effect is masterful, but you'd have to be a total creduloid buffoon to believe his own explanation for how he did it. It's nothing more than an elaborate magic trick, not some woo-woo psionic power derived from arcane psychology.
 
Last edited:
The Straight Dope has a quote from Tricks of the Mind (in bold):
What does NLP have to do with Derren Brown's feats of "mind control"? Here, at last, we can offer a definitive answer: nothing at all. In his own book, Tricks of the Mind, Brown writes, “I now have a lot of NLPers analysing my TV work in their own terms, as well as people who say that I myself unfairly claim to be using NLP whenever I perform (the truth is I have never mentioned it)." He adds that he does what he does using a mixture of "magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship."

The apparently erroneous belief that Brown achieves some of his effects via NLP, or has ever claimed to do so, seems remarkably persistent among his legions of baffled fans. This may be because it strikes some as a plausible explanation, filling the vacuum left by want of alternative ways to account for his remarkable feats. In truth, Brown is a very skilled exponent of what is known to magicians as mentalism - the branch of magic that involves illusions of mind-reading and related mental powers. Those who attend NLP courses hoping to emulate Brown's feats might just as well study flower arranging for all the good it will do.; they would be better advised to join a magic club and learn about mentalism. Even then, it might take a while. Mentalism is another vast subject, and achieving results like Brown's will require a lot of practice and experience, not to mention talent and charisma.
Click to expand...
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2272/does-nlp-work
 
John Albert said:
Point out where the hell I ever said he uses audience plants and stooges for all his tricks. I said it's likely he uses them for some of his tricks.
Click to expand...

You didn't say it was likely, you said he DOES use stooges and that he'd been caught. Stop back-tracking.

John Albert said:
Despite what he says, he has of course been caught doing both (using the same audience plants in multiple performances, using actors, and using editing to alter the outcome of his performances)
Click to expand...

He's pretty insistent that he doesn't, even at the Internation Magic Convention 2010 (I'm pretty sure it was) he was using words such as "repugnant" in connection with stooges.

All of his effects can be done without them, so what's the point in staking his career on saying at the beginning of every show, in his books and in his lectures that he doesn't and then using them anyway? It would be far easier/safer to just... not.

Yes, they're tricks. No, they aren't some mystical "mind control". No, they don't need stooges. No, we can't prove a negative - you said he'd been caught, the burden of proof is on you.
 
John Albert said:
I don't own any of Derren Brown's books at this time. I used to have a copy of Tricks of the Mind as an e-book a few years ago when I first took an interest in his work after reading some online discussion of his videos. In that book he devotes quite a few pages to the subject, and I certainly don't recall him characterizing it as "rubbish." If you're really interested, I'm sure you can find a bittorrent for the book and download it within a few minutes. Or you could pick it up at your local public library.

His association with NLP is also mentioned in his Wikipedia article.
Click to expand...

That's quite impressive. So your evidence for your assertion that "he says he uses neuro-linguistic programming" is a book you don't own and can't quote, and an article in Wikipedia that says he has never mentioned it outside of his book.

Brilliant!
 
Matthew Best said:
That's quite impressive. So your evidence for your assertion that "he says he uses neuro-linguistic programming" is a book you don't own and can't quote, and an article in Wikipedia that says he has never mentioned it outside of his book.
Click to expand...


What do you expect me to do? I don't own the damn book any more.


tuoni said:
You didn't say it was likely, you said he DOES use stooges and that he'd been caught. Stop back-tracking.
Click to expand...


He has allegedly been caught. It's up to you whether to believe that issue with the actress was evidence that she was a paid stooge, or whether the other stories (about the same people showing up in the front rows at different performances) have any merit. It's not like he can be convicted in a court of law for employing "repugnant" showbiz practices.


tuoni said:
He's pretty insistent that he doesn't, even at the Internation Magic Convention 2010 (I'm pretty sure it was) he was using words such as "repugnant" in connection with stooges.
Click to expand...


Yeah well, you know, he also says he can hypnotize a person into a deep trance simply by uttering a few homophones while tapping them on the shoulder. What do you believe? You're just going to take him at his word?

He rants about how much he detests the use of stooges because he wants to dispel the notion that his shows are just fictional stage plays. Can you blame him? Part of the problem as I see it, is the "documentary" presentation style he uses for his programs. It looks very scripted, staged and controlled, even more so than your average reality show. His bitter attitude regarding stooges has probably arisen because of suspicions that his entire shtick is a fraud.

Maybe he really does use stooges, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he just plants people he's met once or twice before into the front row, so he can call on them for certain tricks.

Regardless of his detestation for "stooges," he obviously doesn't have any qualms about using camera and editing tricks, which are at least as egregious as using a stooge or stocking the front row with audience plants. Even more so, in my opinion.


tuoni said:
All of his effects can be done without them
Click to expand...


All of them? Are you sure about that?

If so, then prove it.


tuoni said:
so what's the point in staking his career on saying at the beginning of every show, in his books and in his lectures that he doesn't and then using them anyway? It would be far easier/safer to just... not.
Click to expand...


I already pointed out that it doesn't matter so much that he doesn't, but that the public believes he doesn't. Even if he is using them, his career is not in jeopardy as long as people don't believe he's used them.

On the other hand, the chances of him getting caught simply pre-selecting willing participants and planting them in the audience are practically nil. I'm sure he has a sizeable guest list for every performance. Is he going to get busted for giving away free tickets to random people he deems likely to might work out as audience participants?


tuoni said:
Yes, they're tricks. No, they aren't some mystical "mind control". No, they don't need stooges. No, we can't prove a negative - you said he'd been caught, the burden of proof is on you.
Click to expand...


The link has already been posted. Go back a couple pages and have a look.
 
Last edited:
Matthew Best said:
I expect you to back up your assertion with evidence. Asking me to find your evidence isn't really how things are done around here.
Click to expand...


I already found you the evidence. The link is right there in my post. Why don't you just read the Wikipedia article if you're too shiftless to download the book?

Read about NLP on Wikipedia and then go watch the BMX bike video with Simon Pegg that was posted a few pages back. I don't have the time nor the inclination to educate you about the details of NLP just for the purposes of this pointlessly trivial and pedantic argument.


ETA: second thought, I deleted the link. I don't want to catch a warning or worse for posting a link to a blog with copyrighted material.

Please remove the link from your post as well.

Thank you.
 
Last edited:
John Albert said:
Of course it's fake! It's stage magic! Do you think the effects he's presenting are real?!? Are you suggesting that Derren Brown has some kind of supernatural mind control powers?


You guys are really serious about this?!?
Click to expand...

Of course not. I'm saying that he really is doing tricks with audience participants, you are saying he is using plants. I'm saying he's not.



John Albert said:
What the hell is it with you Derren Brown fanboys and your strawman arguments?
Click to expand...

I'll just quote you in response to this nonsense. I'll also add I'm no fanboy. I don't even particularly like Derren Brown. I don't like his style of presentation and in the past have been critical myself of his ways of presenting his tricks as pyschology based tricks when they clearly aren't.

John Albert said:
Point out where the hell I ever said he uses audience plants and stooges for all his tricks. I said it's likely he uses them for some of his tricks.
Click to expand...

And I'm saying I think it's unlikely he uses audience plants for any of them.
 
Wow. Next you will tell me it wasn't a live bullet in the Russian Roulette trick and he filmed it somewhere boring like Jersey....

Oh. Wait.

Saying Derren Brown uses plants or stooges in some tricks is not amazing, controversial, or anything that needs to be disproved. No matter how he dresses it up he is a stage magician. Just like James Randi. What he is doing isn't real, and I thought half the fun was meant to be working out how he does it.
 
John Albert said:
I've read parts of his books, and a lot of what I read is garbage. You seem to have been taken in by it regardless.
Click to expand...

You've likley read Tricks of the mind as that is only book available to public,Other two are out of print. Saying that he does not " also endorses the same kind of pseudoscience in his books. " I havent been taken in by anything.I KNOW he is a magician.

It's the topic of the original post. The one where he purported to have brainwashed a guy to commit an assassination.
Click to expand...

Your original quote:
He actually did a show where he purported to "brainwash" volunteer into becoming an unwitting robotic assassin. He does this in all his magic shows with no disclaimer.
Click to expand...
Now you know this is a lie as you apologise here


OK, I stand corrected about the disclaimer.
Click to expand...
So whats the score on you backtracking so far? ;)
 
I admitted I was wrong about him not having a disclaimer on his new show. I was not wrong about the fact that, despite that disclaimer, Derren Brown's show blatantly promoted the totally unfounded, woo-woo conspiracist belief that normal people can be brainwashed into committing cold-blooded murder and having no recollection of their crime afterwards.


Azrael 5 said:
So whats the score on you backtracking so far? ;)
Click to expand...


Um, the score is that I'm honest enough to admit when I make a mistake. Do you consider that some kind of a weakness or character flaw?


LandR said:
Of course not. I'm saying that he really is doing tricks with audience participants, you are saying he is using plants. I'm saying he's not.
Click to expand...


I happen to know that mentalists have traditionally used stooges and audience plants a lot. That being the case, I naturally assumed that Derren Brown, being a mentalist doing classic mentalist tricks, is also using this very common practice despite his vehement denials.

So we disagree about that. Being that neither of us is either willing or able to prove our case, we're at an impasse. Therefore, it's pointless to carry on this argument.


LandR said:
I'll just quote you in response to this nonsense. I'll also add I'm no fanboy. I don't even particularly like Derren Brown. I don't like his style of presentation and in the past have been critical myself of his ways of presenting his tricks as pyschology based tricks when they clearly aren't.
Click to expand...


I agree. I think the documentary-style presentation he uses is rather disingenuous, and it detracts from the artfulness of the craft. It hides things that ought not to be hidden, and even worse, it hides things that ought to be hidden in an elegant, finessed manner, via a cheap-and-dirty TV editing manner instead. That's another reason why I believe if magic is his thing, he ought to just do magic, instead of passing himself off as possessing some psychological superpowers. I also think it's wrong for him to address political issues in such a way as to knowingly spread disinformation and feed into conspiracy theories.


LandR said:
And I'm saying I think it's unlikely he uses audience plants for any of them.
Click to expand...


That's not what you alleged. You originally said:

LandR said:
I don't know how Derren Brown does a lot of his tricks, but I see no reason to assume that they must be all audience plants or stooges.
Click to expand...
(emphasis mine)

So you see why that statement, as you phrased it, constitutes a strawman argument?
 
Last edited:
Fair enough. That was just unintentional bad wording on my part. I'll try to be more clear in the future.

I stand by what I said though, I don't think Derren uses plants because I don't think the tricks require plants.
 
John Albert said:
I happen to know that mentalists have traditionally used stooges and audience plants a lot, so I naturally assumed that DB, being a mentalist doing classical mentalist tricks, is also using this very common practice.
Click to expand...
This is second time you've claimed this,and second time I'm asking: who are these mentalists?
 
LandR said:
I stand by what I said though, I don't think Derren uses plants because I don't think the tricks require plants.
Click to expand...


You've already admitted you don't know how the tricks are done, so how can you say that none of them require plants?
 
Azrael 5 said:
This is second time you've claimed this,and second time I'm asking: who are these mentalists?
Click to expand...


Tony Corinda, for one. He mentions the use of stooges in his definitive treatise, 13 Steps to Mentalism.


I'm pretty sure Kreskin has been known to employ stooges, though he has also denied doling so.
 
Last edited:
John Albert said:
I admitted I was wrong about him not having a disclaimer on his new show...
Click to expand...

1. "New Show" means: "The Experiment: The Assassin". Correct? If so:

2. By "disclaimer", you mean he clearly acknowledges that their are NO hidden or secret methods used to achieve the results seen by the viewers. Correct? If so:

3. Who claims Brown gives a disclaimer? And what exactly does it say?

4. Because I must have missed it. To the contrary, what I heard at the beginning of the show was the opposite of a disclaimer. Rather it was an affirmative claim that no subterfuge was used to achieve the results presented in the show.
 
LandR said:
How ?

You want someone to go through and give you an explanation of how to do every single trick ?
Click to expand...


How, indeed.

That's what happens when you try to prove a negative.

I'm saying I am not ruling out the use of stooges because I don't know how he does all his tricks, and I'm not willing to just accept his word that he doesn't use them at all, ever. He's a magician. His vocation is to deceive people for entertainment sake.

Of course he's going to deny using some kind of confederates because being thought to do so would ruin the public's confidence in his game. Of course it doesn't mean he doesn't use them; he might just hide the use very well.

Other mentalists use stooges, magicians use them, 3-card Monte swindlers use them, faith healers use them. Stooges are a common tool in the arsenal of tricksters. I have no proof that DB does use them, and you have no proof that he doesn't. I'm just not willing to discount the possibility, especially in light of some of the things I've seen and read.



lane99 said:
1. "New Show" means: "The Experiment: The Assassin". Correct? If so:

2. By "disclaimer", you mean he clearly acknowledges that their are NO hidden or secret methods used to achieve the results seen by the viewers. Correct? If so:

3. Who claims Brown gives a disclaimer? And what exactly does it say?

4. Because I must have missed it. To the contrary, what I heard at the beginning of the show was the opposite of a disclaimer. Rather it was an affirmative claim that no subterfuge was used to achieve the results presented in the show.
Click to expand...


You've got it all wrong. The disclaimer Derren Brown says at the beginning of each episode is:

I achieve these results through a mixture of magic, misdirection, suggestion, and showmanship.
Click to expand...


It's intended to let the audience know that all the goofy pop psychology pseudoscience blatantly promoted within the show is not to be taken seriously.
 
Last edited:
Azrael 5 said:
This is second time you've claimed this,and second time I'm asking: who are these mentalists?
Click to expand...

What since victorian times? I should think that Robert Heller, a guy born in the town where I live who crossed the atlantic to introduce Mentalism magic to the states used Stooges. I seem to remember that he developed a code where he could "read your mind" by counting the pauses between gestures by his assistant or a stooge.

Certainly those who devoloped the act into spiritualism or mediumistic acts (or just held seances) used stooges as a crude, but often effective tool since pretty much day 1.
 
Malfie Henpox said:
That's not how I see it at all. I see a guy doing all these things and then openly admitting it's a trick.
Click to expand...

Where did this "open admission" occur? What part of the episode?

Or was this something people were "just supposed to know"? Even when he admits he uses magic tricks, he still insists it's in combination with "psychology" and/or "hypnosis".

That's not much of an "open admission"; all it is, is a waffle. It would be like Sylvia Browne saying "I don't really talk to dead people; it's a combination of cold reading and Jesus whispering answers into my ear."
 
John Albert said:
...You've got it all wrong. The disclaimer Derren Brown says at the beginning of each episode is:

///Quote: I achieve these results through a mixture of magic, misdirection, suggestion, and showmanship.///Unquote

It's intended to let the audience know that all the goofy pop psychology pseudoscience blatantly promoted within the show is not to be taken seriously.
Click to expand...

No, I don't have it wrong. You have it wrong. What you quoted is the disclaimer Brown used several years ago for his "Trick of the Mind" series (series in which he secretly used an actress in the "Voodoo Doll" effect).

He does not say this (or anything like it) in the program, "The Experiments: The Assassin".

There is no DIS-claimer given at all for that show. To the contrary, they try to portray it as a legitimate scientific experiment.
 
DB wrote this in his blog, regarding The Experiments shows:

3. If I make a statement on these shows, it will be true. Nowadays, the Channel 4 lawyers check every word to make sure there is no misleading of the viewer: this is a huge issue in the TV industry at the moment. The joke in the office is that a magician can’t even say ‘this is a normal deck of cards’ on TV nowadays if it isn’t, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.
Click to expand...
http://derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2011/11/claim-claim-2/


Is anyone familiar with the legal side of the TV industry in the UK who can chime in on whether this is accurate or not? Seems to me that if it's not actually true, it's a mistake for Brown to claim it in writing--it could easily be disproven.
 
AdMan said:
DB wrote this in his blog, regarding The Experiments shows:


http://derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2011/11/claim-claim-2/


Is anyone familiar with the legal side of the TV industry in the UK who can chime in on whether this is accurate or not? Seems to me that if it's not actually true, it's a mistake for Brown to claim it in writing--it could easily be disproven.
Click to expand...

Britsish TV is tightly regulalted by OFCOM so any dodgy disclaimers would be a big no-no.
Reading back through this thread at least 3 members have stated Derren uses stooges,yet no-one has backed up these claims. "Read it on a forum" doesnt really cut it.;)
I'd actually bet money that he doesn't use stooges. I don tknow about hynosis and such thigs like instance inductions etc,but I'm inclined to believe whatever "IT" is,stooges isnt one of them.
 
lane99 said:
No, I don't have it wrong. You have it wrong. What you quoted is the disclaimer Brown used several years ago for his "Trick of the Mind" series (series in which he secretly used an actress in the "Voodoo Doll" effect).

He does not say this (or anything like it) in the program, "The Experiments: The Assassin".

There is no DIS-claimer given at all for that show. To the contrary, they try to portray it as a legitimate scientific experiment.
Click to expand...


Well, that's a much different story then, isn't it?

So you're saying that Azrael was lying when he said this?
↓​

Azrael 5 said:
John Albert said:
Where does he make that admission, explicitly?
Click to expand...


At begininning of every show,see my sig.
Click to expand...


I just took him at his word, because I live in the USA and consequently have never seen an original airing of Derren Brown's The Experiments. I have only watched the show on YouTube, so I just trusted that Azrael was telling the truth, figuring there must be a disclaimer that I didn't see at the beginning of the show that had maybe been edited out by the person posting it on YouTube.

Azrael, would you please give a response to this allegation?
 
Last edited:
John Albert my comment you quoted was in response to this comment of yours
He does this in all his magic shows with no disclaimer.
Click to expand...
He doesnt have a disclaimer on "Experiments" as they aren't "magic" shows.Nor does he present them as science -which you at claimed at some pointl
 
Last edited:
John Albert said:
I've read parts of his books, and a lot of what I read is garbage. You seem to have been taken in by it regardless.
Click to expand...

It's possible that if you read all of one of his books you'd have a better understanding of where people are coming from. For instance, if you only read part of 'Tricks of the Mind' for instance, then it would be easy to come away with the idea that he is promoting eg NLP. However, if you read the whole thing then you would see that he dismisses it as nonsense (other than at some superficial, common-sense type level). Blimey, if you read the wrong bit of it you may come away thinking he was a radical christian! It's a tour through his life, what he's studied and what he used to believe in.

For what it's worth, I understand some of your concerns and criticisms (not the stooges thing, I think you've been shown likely to be off base with that - at least on the selection process). Whilst other posters are right that Derren Brown makes it absolutely clear at the start of his shows (indeed sometimes during - see Medium) and outside his shows and in his books that he's a classic magician with a neat new way of dressing it up, many people really don't pick up on that. Unfortunately a lot of people are way too gullible / naive for their own good - it is easy to misunderstand just how naive many people are (compared to us hard-bitten cynics ;)) and I can quite believe (in fact I've seen it with my friends) that what Derren does, ends up convincing / selling people on NLP etc.

What I would argue though is it really isn't his fault - short of completely ending his own career (and how many of us would willingly do that) by either stopping his particular schtick or bashing people over the head continuously that 'it's all a trick' to the extent there's not even a temporary suspension of disbelief and it stops being fun, there's not a lot more he can do.

In his position my conscience would be clear (he's said it's all a trick and that once the show starts you can't believe anything he says as it's now 'a show' - he can't really be blamed if people won't listen) but tinged with regret that people can be so stupid that they don't listen to his own disclaimers and want to believe in 'superpowers' so badly.
 
Looks like "Malfie" lied about the disclaimer as well:

Malfie Henpox said:
The guy says it's trickery at the start of every show.
Click to expand...


Is it me, or do most of these hardcore Derren Brown fans seem to have more than average difficulty telling the truth when it comes to him and his material?


Azrael 5 said:
He doesnt have a disclaimer on "Experiments" as they aren't "magic" shows.
Click to expand...


I see.

In other words, magician Derren Brown's new show The Experiments is not a magic show, but a woo mockumentary along the same lines as Ancient Aliens, Monster Quest, or that one conspiracy theory show with Jesse Ventura.


Although it was originally intended in jest, it looks like I unwittingly hit the nail on the head with this comment:

John Albert said:
You UK types better watch out, because it looks like Derren Brown is doing his level best to see that caliber of "educational" programming brought to the British Isles.
Click to expand...


Yet people on this forum are still considering this guy a "good skeptic"?!?

:confused:


Azrael 5 said:
Nor does he present them as science -which you at claimed at some pointl
Click to expand...


I never said that. That's yet another lie coming from you, though it's not unexpected at all by this point.

You're really establishing an untrustworthy reputation for yourself.
 
Last edited:
Ethan Thane Athen said:
It's possible that if you read all of one of his books you'd have a better understanding of where people are coming from. For instance, if you only read part of 'Tricks of the Mind' for instance, then it would be easy to come away with the idea that he is promoting eg NLP. However, if you read the whole thing then you would see that he dismisses it as nonsense (other than at some superficial, common-sense type level).
Click to expand...


I only fully read the NLP part, because his take on that was the information I was most interested in learning about Derren Brown at the time. Other than that, I sort of skimmed through the book and read a few other passages here and there that looked intriguing. It was a few years ago and I fully intended to read the whole thing, but nowadays my interest in Derren Brown isn't all that great.


Ethan Thane Athen said:
In his position my conscience would be clear (he's said it's all a trick and that once the show starts you can't believe anything he says as it's now 'a show' - he can't really be blamed if people won't listen) but tinged with regret that people can be so stupid that they don't listen to his own disclaimers and want to believe in 'superpowers' so badly.
Click to expand...


Yeah I think that a show like that, produced in a documentary-style format with information presented as factual, definitely ought to have a disclaimer. Just like I think all the woo documentaries we have here in the US ought to carry one. Of course that would not stop the true believers from swallowing that stuff, but it might inform uneducated fence-sitters that the material is totally unproven and therefore "iffy" at best.

Better yet, I think they should cobble all that garbage together and just have one network called the Creduloid BS Channel that runs woo docus 24 hours a day, leaving all the other educational channels free to present real, fact-based educational material.
 
John Albert said:
You blatantly lied by putting words into my mouth, and have not yet offered any apology.
Click to expand...

I didn't put words in to your mouth, I showed you the logical end point of the statements you're making when taking in to account the testimony of people who know more about the subject than you do.

Then you should have no trouble at all explaining the difference in a clear and concise manner.
Click to expand...

The difference is that you read what I said (or, at least, I assume you did), and then wrote something else as if that was my viewpoint.

A likely story. In the plain vernacular, you're fulla ****. They probably never said it, at least not publicly.
Click to expand...

I'd be somewhat silly to make a false claim about something that has been viewed by millions, wouldn't I? It is interesting, though, that you consider that more likely than that you might even possibly be mistaken, even with testimony from other stage magicians saying that your method is highly improbable and completely unnecessary.

Provide proof, just as you're asking me to do, or quit arguing this point that you have no intention of defending.
Click to expand...

What have I asked you for proof for? That wouldn't be another straw man, would it?

One more of those and you're going on ignore.
Click to expand...

What, again?

You're lying again. He has used a frisbee, and you know for a fact that he has.
Click to expand...

I know I know for a fact he has. I've even explicitly posted that he has. But he did so only briefly, and hasn't done in a long time. As you also know for a fact. Yet you knowing this fact hasn't made you think that the conclusion you draw, based partly on this fact not being true, is any less likely. It's almost like you're trying to fit the evidence to your conclusion, rather than drawing a conclusion from the evidence.

Another dishonest ad hominem. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. A stage magician who uses audience plants does not constitute a conspiracy.
Click to expand...

You have a theory which isn't supported by evidence, which is entirely unfalsifiable. It may not involve a conspiracy, but it certainly has all the other attributes of a conspiracy theory.

Well, there you have it. It's one thing to lie and hope not to get caught, but only a true idiot lies with one breath and then blatantly exposes his own lie with the next.
Click to expand...

And then you have what I did, which is to make two statements which don't contradict each other, but which you've chosen to interpret as if they do.

So I take your argument to mean it requires even more skill to accurately toss a toy monkey to a group of people that it would to throw a frisbee to them?
Click to expand...

I don't know. Why don't you wibble on for a while about the aerodynamics of monkey flight and how it can fool the casual onlooker, and then I'll draw my conclusions from that?

John Albert said:
I can't remember where I originally read about it. It might have been a message board related to computer science or information security. It was a couple years ago when Derren Brown started becoming really famous here in the US.

What I remember is, a certain individual from the UK claimed that DB had done a show for a psychology class at his university. He went on to say that after the show, Brown was talking with some students who came up to him, and he offered some of them free tickets to see a live public performance. The poster claimed he also attended that performance himself, and the people who DB had invited were seated right up front, and one of them was even called upon for a trick. He said he later saw one of the same students on DB's TV show, again seated right in the front row. This was a couple years ago, so the show in question was probably Derren Brown: The Events.

I tried Googling the discussion in question, but all I seem to get are links to people claiming Derren Brown never uses stooges because he's repeatedly said so and they believe he's honest. Maybe that alone is proof that he's capable of mass hypnosis. Who knows? ;) On the other hand, maybe your Google-fu is better than mine and you'll be able to find it, but I lost interest after picking through the first 5 or 6 pages of the tens of thousands of results.
Click to expand...

You find this a satisfactory thing to say after whinging on about me not directly linking to a television programme watched by millions? And then later you post about not wanting to link to copyrighted material because it's against board rules. Interesting double standards.
 
Last edited:
Just on the NLP thing. I think Brown uses it - but as a smokescreen. He performs NLP-type actions on his subjects to make you think thats what hes using. When in reality it is probably something more basic and much less exciting. That would tie in with his assertion that he doesnt use NLP to achieve his 'tricks'.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
[a wall of waffle, strawmen, and lies]
Click to expand...


That's it, I'm through with you. Welcome to my "ignore" list. Make yourself at home.

Lying liars and the lies they tell...


Le Jab said:
Just on the NLP thing. I think Brown uses it - but as a smokescreen. He performs NLP-type actions on his subjects to make you think thats what hes using. When in reality it is probably something more basic and much less exciting. That would tie in with his assertion that he doesnt use NLP to achieve his 'tricks'.
Click to expand...


This is precisely what I've been trying to get at. Thank you for articulately the case so clearly.

Regardless whether he openly claimed NLP is "rubbish" at some point, Derren Brown's "explanations" often blatantly describe typical pseudoscientific NLP techniques, like mimicking of stance and body movements, timed, repetitious physical contact, phrasing statements in such a way to contain homophones that imply a suggestion, reading of eye movements, etc. "NLP" has associated foundations and practitioners who make a lot of money off that nonsense. Derren Brown's TV performances have positively validated the NLP woo in the eyes of NLP practitioners, even if he has refused to publicly give lip service to the practice. Just like his Lotto trick gave false validation to the "Wisdom of Crowds" concept.
 
John Albert said:
That's it, I'm through with you. Welcome to my "ignore" list. Make yourself at home.
Click to expand...

I've never understood why someone would put someone else on an ignore list and therefore lose their right to reply, but if you want to wave your handbag at me stroppily, then feel free. I suppose it does mean that you're not inconvenienced by inconvenient people pointing out where you're talking bollocks, if that's what you're looking for in a debating forum.

Lying liars and the lies they tell...
Click to expand...

Indeed. I'm a liar for referencing a TV programme watched by millions, and you're telling the truth referencing something that you read someone say on a message board once - when you've demonstrated that you can't even accurately describe the contents of a book you've read.

Hypocritical hypocrites and the hypocricies they spout.

Have fun with your fingers wedged in your ears...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom