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Randi endorses Darren Brown??

Patejdl

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Patejdl
Joined
May 15, 2007
Messages
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I didn't check if Darren Brown is already covered on this forum and I deliberately hope he was. But why is Randi posting news about him??

I've seen some episodes of his shows and alot of them were totally fake. Hypnotizing people with a tv screen where he plays a zombie game?? Please....

On the other hand.. he has also made a few episodes that showed things that clearly weren't fakes. But still the real/fake ratio is horribly leaning towoard the fake stuff.

So is it really worth endorsing or positively announcing a 3/4-quack ????
 
What? Darren Brown doesn't claim to have any paranormal ability. In fact, Darren Brown is a magician/conjurere/mentalist.
 
But with the Zombie episode, there's the possibly that the fakery was faked. That is, done with editing and a fake audience to make it more of a television show arrangement than a conjuring or mentalism feat.
 
Derren Brown is a magician. In the course of his magic, which is presented solely as entertainment, he often offers apparent explanations for what is happening that differ from the reality of what is actually happening. It's really no different than a card magician claiming that he is putting a card in the middle of the deck and magically bringing it to the top when the card was really on top of the deck the whole time.

In the case of the zombie bit, while clearly the presentation of the effect can not be taken strictly at face value, to say it was totally faked (which would imply that the kid involved was simply an actor who was in on it the whole time) without any evidence beyond "I don't know how they did it" is a touch bold.
 
I make no claims to where or not this is happening, I merely clarified the accusation.

As to the importance, if a magician on tv claimed to be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat, showed the empty hat, reached in, and then the tape was edited to remove the props people switching the empty hat to a rabbit filled one, I would be singularly less than impressed.

It's the cross-over between special effects work and conjuring. We expect special effects to produce the fantastic, it is ordinary. The point of watching an illusionist is to get a sense of the extraordinary. In my humble opinion of course.
 
He does really dilike psychics, and performs "psychic" readings, where afterwards he explains it was cold-reading. His book "tricks of the mind" discusses this.

He used to be a devout Xtian, but is now an evanjelical atheist.
 
Patejdl said:
I didn't check if Darren Brown is already covered on this forum and I deliberately hope he was. But why is Randi posting news about him??

I've seen some episodes of his shows and alot of them were totally fake. Hypnotizing people with a tv screen where he plays a zombie game?? Please....

On the other hand.. he has also made a few episodes that showed things that clearly weren't fakes. But still the real/fake ratio is horribly leaning towoard the fake stuff.

So is it really worth endorsing or positively announcing a 3/4-quack ????
Click to expand...

Derren Brown is covered quite well on this forum, yes.

What gives you the idea that he is a "3/4 quack"? Nowhere does he state that he has real paranormal powers. He specifically says that it is trickery, manipulation, etc.
 
Who ever mentioned he has paranormal abillities? What I thought he's going to show were real non-paranormal abilities on how to fool people. What I did not wanted to see according to his description of his work were not any staged scenes where he looks he can trick people by using real techniques.. get it???
 
Derren is one of the best mentalists/magicians in recent years, so I'm not surprised to see that Randi likes him.
 
Patejdl said:
Who ever mentioned he has paranormal abillities? What I thought he's going to show were real non-paranormal abilities on how to fool people. What I did not wanted to see according to his description of his work were not any staged scenes where he looks he can trick people by using real techniques.. get it???
Click to expand...

Let me get this right:

Your complaint is that he fools his audience?
 
Mr Brown is not only a fantastic magician/mentalist who clearly states that he has no paranormal powers, but has also publicly debunked such claims. His shows "Seance" and "Messiah" spring to mind.
 
That said, some of his tricks look very much like poor TV stunts done with actors rather than magic tricks showing any cleverness or skill.
 
-Fran- said:
What is that?? :confused:
Click to expand...

Absolutlyu nothing, his book is worth reading, he wanted to do a TV series showing psychics, but with the cold teadings it was tedious, and without it, it looked as if they were still fairly crap, but still poor TV, and misleadingly convincing...
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
That said, some of his tricks look very much like poor TV stunts done with actors rather than magic tricks showing any cleverness or skill.
Click to expand...

Which ones, specifically?

I think I'm pretty good at spotting actors. Even the best can't seem to perform spontaneously the way 'real' people do. I've never seen anyone that I thought was an actor in Derren Brown's work, although I don't rule out spontaneous stooges - members of the public who go along with the illusion rather than spoil it, but have no advance knowledge.

In contrast to you, I believe that his act deploys considerable 'cleverness and skill'. More so than any other mentalist or magician that I can think of, anyway.
 
Patejdl said:
Who ever mentioned he has paranormal abillities? What I thought he's going to show were real non-paranormal abilities on how to fool people. What I did not wanted to see according to his description of his work were not any staged scenes where he looks he can trick people by using real techniques.. get it???
Click to expand...

Read what you wrote dude. I can't tell what you said. I think your post should read like this:
"What I thought he was going to show were real non-paranormal abilities on how to fool people. What I did not want to see, according to his description of his work, were any staged scenes where he looks like he can trick people by using real techniques.. get it??? (bolding/corrections mine)
 
Derren is a self-proclaimed skeptic, it's hardly unlikely Randi would promote him.

He's a good showman and entertainer but I personally don't like some of his methods as he claims to use psychology when instead it's hidden cameras and microphones. In that regard he does promote pseudoscience because he makes those claims offstage as well as on.

I saw him live and he did the best debunking of spiritualism I've ever seen. It was superb. A little bird tells me he thinks it's worth mangling people's understanding of what psychology can acheive in order to debunk the paranormal. Not sure I agree but in TV nothing is honest and I'd rather we had fifty Derren Browns than one Derek Acorah.
 
Patejdl, if you ever get a chance, go see one of Derren's live performances, or find a DVD copy of his "Something Wicked This Way Comes" performance. It will give you the chance to enjoy and appreciate the extent of his talents without having to worry about whether he's "cheating" or not.
 
Both Randi and Brown are magicians, both are sceptics.
I see no reason why they shouldn't be friends.
 
I think Darren Brown gets all he deserves,the fraudster!
Derren Brown ,on the other hand,is a very clever magician. :)
 
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