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Derren Brown is no different than Uri Gellar.

We didn't get to see any up-front disclaimer. There was a couple of seconds of "If anyone asks, I'll say it was a trick" but that was it. Although, Channel Seven who showed it here treated is sceptically - which is amazing given their tendency to promote "genuine psychics" at every opportunity.
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I disagree. That WAS the disclaimer.

In the magic forums I hang out in, there was a discussion concerning Criss Angel's "talking to ghosts" episode. I haven't seen the episode myself, but appearently, Criss did seance magic for an ep. He made no disclaimer before or during the show, but after the credits, there was a little clip of Criss saying "Do you believe in ghosts? I don't!" with a little wink. That was a disclaimer.

Hell, just being called a "magician" is a disclaimer in itself... :)
 
JFrankA said:
Hell, just being called a "magician" is a disclaimer in itself... :)
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Derren isn't normally referred to as a magician. If Derren was referred to as a magician I suspect there would be less of a problem here. Once people start being magicians who call themselves 'escapologists', or magicians who call themselves 'mentalists', or magicians who call themselves 'psychological illusionists' things get more confused.
 
StanUpshaw said:
Why would I... A) Support a fraud by buying his book, or B) Believe anything that he has to say, on stage or in print? No, I prefer to get my information from legitimate sources, thanks though.
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The reasons to read his book are:

A) Because you might learn something about stage magic
B) You can gather information rather than jumping to conclusions and using confirmation bias.

I agree with Tapio....
 
For my money, calling him a magician would do more to inform people about what he is than the disclaimer.
 
shuttlt said:
For my money, calling him a magician would do more to inform people about what he is than the disclaimer.
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Not sure where you are, but remember that DB is from the UK and it's where he gets most his work. In the UK, the last big name magician was Paul Daniels and as good as Daniels was, I wouldn't want to be lumped into the same classification if I had the skills DB has.
 
By the way, the line "...as good as Daniels was..." was an attempt to be nice. Daniels was crap.
 
JFrankA said:
The reasons to read his book are:

A) Because you might learn something about stage magic
B) You can gather information rather than jumping to conclusions and using confirmation bias.

I agree with Tapio....
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But how am I supposed to know he's being honest in the book? Why wouldn't the book be just another venue where he offers shreds of truth to make the lies seem believable? It's been beaten into my head that first and foremost, he is an entertainer. Now I'm supposed to believe that he's trustworthy source of information? Which is it, how am I supposed to know, and how do YOU claim to know?
 
StanUpshaw said:
But how am I supposed to know he's being honest in the book? Why wouldn't the book be just another venue where he offers shreds of truth to make the lies seem believable? It's been beaten into my head that first and foremost, he is an entertainer. Now I'm supposed to believe that he's trustworthy source of information? Which is it, how am I supposed to know, and how do YOU claim to know?
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Your argument fails because if you (3rd person) adopt that stance then you don't believe what he says in his act so there isn't any confusion.
 
StanUpshaw said:
But how am I supposed to know he's being honest in the book? Why wouldn't the book be just another venue where he offers shreds of truth to make the lies seem believable? It's been beaten into my head that first and foremost, he is an entertainer. Now I'm supposed to believe that he's trustworthy source of information? Which is it, how am I supposed to know, and how do YOU claim to know?
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Because I said so.

....you're welcome.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist. :) )


Because then you can compare it to real scientific evidence you trust and see what is scientific and what is not scientific. That's what I do.
 
StanUpshaw said:
It's been beaten into my head that first and foremost, he is an entertainer. Now I'm supposed to believe that he's trustworthy source of information?
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My apologies, I did not answer this question adequetly.

Yes, he is an entertainer, a magician and the book is basically a "Stage Magic 101 for non-magicians" kind of book. He teaches more about how he performs along with his ideas and philosophies about the performance magic entertainment craft.
 
Darat said:
Your argument fails because if you (3rd person) adopt that stance then you don't believe what he says in his act so there isn't any confusion.
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Right, in that idealized situation, there would be no problem, but that doesn't reflect the real world. Sure, the audience should educate themselves more, but the performer is also being intentionally deceitful. And now we're back to the question of what proportion of responsibility does each party hold?

To me, it seems that society has, in nearly every scenario I can think of, deemed it unacceptable for the more capable party to deceive and take advantage of the less capable party. For some reason, magic seems to be immune, but I question if it should be.
 
JFrankA said:
My apologies, I did not answer this question adequetly.

Yes, he is an entertainer, a magician and the book is basically a "Stage Magic 101 for non-magicians" kind of book. He teaches more about how he performs along with his ideas and philosophies about the performance magic entertainment craft.
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You have my assurances that before I hold any Derren Brown protests or burn him in effigy, I will do my best to become as fully informed as I possibly can.

For a message board discussion, however, I'm willing to wing it.
 
StanUpshaw said:
Honestly, I think that gets down to the crux of the issue. Overall, magic is pretty lame BECAUSE no one is really fooled anymore. He's popular (good) because he does fool people.
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Yes, exactly. So you do get it! You're not opposed to Brown so much as you are opposed to the entire art of magic. Down with magic!
 
StanUpshaw said:
To me, it seems that society has, in nearly every scenario I can think of, deemed it unacceptable for the more capable party to deceive and take advantage of the less capable party. For some reason, magic seems to be immune, but I question if it should be.
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Really then, it comes down to the fact that most 'magicians' are that crap that it's obvious it's a trick, yet Derren Brown is so damn good that he can't be using a box with a trap door, it must be real magic.

Therefore, Derren Brown is merely the target of your angst because he's so damn good.

I wish I'd realised this from the start. You're absolutely right, we need a new classification, maybe government legislation or Oftel rules to cater for the fact that...

Derren Brown is do damn good.

I'd be happy with that. I hope Derren's reading this. Unless you are Derren Brown and you've constructed this whole thing just to get someone to state that you're above classification.

Clever bugger.
 
shuttlt said:
You've made me wonder about whether Houdini has got me fooled about how he did his stuff all these years after the event. I'm aware that he sometimes concealed tools to pick the locks. Did he not really escape from straight jackets in the way he appeared to?
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Well, he certainly could pick a lock and get out of a straightjacket but he also used a mixture of real locks and gimmicked locks, along with gimmicked boxes or whatever he was locked inside. Very similar to what Brown does in a sense. I believe that Brown does use some psychological forces, stage hypnotism techniques, etc. and when they work then the effect is really strong, and if they don't work he still has an out because his tricks also work based on other principles. And sometimes the B.S. explanations actually have a kernel of truth to them which is why they are so believable. For example the stuff he says about the way advertising infiltrates our minds is largely true even though it has nothing to do with the trick he's performing.

shuttlt said:
In any case, Houdini did a heck of a lot for rationalism. I find it hard to believe he wasn't way ahead on points.
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Did you take a look at the subject of Brown's next series?
 
Compare it to something like hacking. There are people who are so great at it, that you have to respect their skill, even if they happen to be doing some questionable things. On one hand, I would be blown away if someone managed to hack Google and turn the "O"s into tiny little Goatses...BUT I can't really condone it.

Derren is Goatse-ing people, which is not as bad as Sylvia breaking in and helping herself to people's Visa numbers, but I still see it as a breach of ethics.

On the flipside, of course, it's an boon to have a master hacker on your payroll to be a security consultant, and that's what makes Randi so great.

At the end of the day, I just wish Derren would stop goatse-ing people.
 
StanUpshaw said:
Compare it to something like hacking. There are people who are so great at it, that you have to respect their skill, even if they happen to be doing some questionable things. On one hand, I would be blown away if someone managed to hack Google and turn the "O"s into tiny little Goatses...BUT I can't really condone it.

Derren is Goatse-ing people, which is not as bad as Sylvia breaking in and helping herself to people's Visa numbers, but I still see it as a breach of ethics.

On the flipside, of course, it's an boon to have a master hacker on your payroll to be a security consultant, and that's what makes Randi so great.

At the end of the day, I just wish Derren would stop goatse-ing people.
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Sounds like to me you don't like his style of magic. I won't say you don't like magic, because I'm gathering that you enjoy Penn & Teller.

*shrug* can't please everyone......
 
shuttlt said:
Derren isn't normally referred to as a magician. If Derren was referred to as a magician I suspect there would be less of a problem here. Once people start being magicians who call themselves 'escapologists', or magicians who call themselves 'mentalists', or magicians who call themselves 'psychological illusionists' things get more confused.
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So when he states he achieves results via "magic,misdirection... "etc that's not being a magician is it? It's like complaining that Thrash and Grunge and Speed metal aren't forms of metal just because they have different titles. Mentalist,Mind Reader illusionist are just sub genres of magic.
 
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