This is exactly what we need more of to encourage folks to learn critical thinking skills. Mentalist Derren Brown in partnership with Kat Akingbade have set up a website called Science of Scams with a matching YouTube Channel. I could give a lengthy description of what it’s about, but I’ll let Derren handle that:
What their plans are beyond the first seven videos remains to be seen, but hopefully this will be an ongoing series for quite some time to come. There’s a lot of nonsense that gets posted to YouTube and then passed around as authentic and having another group out there exposing the reality is more than welcome. Incidentally, if you’ve never seen Derren Brown’s act then you should check it out. He’s amazing.
They’ve already revealed three of the seven videos including a debunking of the Psi-Wheel trick and a pretty common fake ghost effect. I’ll embed the psi-wheel video after the jump. I’ll be keeping on eye on this channel to see what the remaining four videos are.
Found over on Boing Boing.
I wouldn’t mind doing a Psi-Wheel with her!
But Les, don’t you remember, before you watched Derren you were a Christian Fundimentalist who voted GOP and listened to Rush Limbaugh?
I anticipate a lot of “Well that was OBVIOUSLY a trick, but what happened to me was different.” in their future.