talkmagic.co.uk

8pm, Tonight, Channel 4.

From the Radio Times web site:

"Hello and welcome to Shooting Fish in a Barrel with your host, Professor Richard Dawkins. He's looking for trouble again, dead set on challenging the superstitious thinking that for him impoverishes our culture. His point is simple: when science has brought us so much, "from sewage systems to satnav", why embrace tosh like astrology? So he goes after the culprits and politely skewers them. The look on a dowser's face when she discovers in an experiment that she can't, in fact, find water with wavy sticks, is priceless. And the tarot reader fl ailing to "read" something, anything, relevant to Dawkins is almost sad. (Derren Brown explains how such "psychics" work.) Dawkins is like a knight on his charger of reason cantering through thickets of delusion and bogs of nonsense. But there's a nagging sense that, with the number of physics A-levels halved in the last 25 years, he may be a voice crying in the wilderness."

I cannot wait for this.

I will be sat at home jeering and scoffing with delight as all this superstitious nonsense is treated with the distain it deserves. I have a crate of rotten fruit at the ready.

Sounds like good clean fun! Trouble is though (and thankully for those of us who operate on the darker fringes of magic) psychic ability is such that it can never be proved nor dis-proved. For all the fakes in the world, it only takes one psychic to be genuine to upset science's apple cart. And anyway, there's a certain percentage of society that will always believe, will always want to believe, and will never be convinced otherwise no matter what facts, figures, or proofs are placed before them.

I believe personally that deep down there is a primeval desire within all humans to believe in something, anything, greater than that which they experience in day-to-day life. Hence the beleif in psychics, mediums, religions, and even political doctrines. It is this "irrational" beleif system that magic (and certainly mentalism) taps into.

Im back home at 8 today Ill get to watch this.. cant wait..

themagicwand wrote:
Just a quick observation. Why do these people never make a programme denouncing other "irrational" beleif systems such as Christianity or Islam? Perhaps it's because the psychic community is a far softer target than...oh I don't know...Islam?

Actually this documentry is an kind of follow up to Dawkins previous one 'The Root of all Evil' where he rightly gave religion what for too.

greedoniz wrote:
Actually this documentry is an kind of follow up to Dawkins previous one 'The Root of all Evil' where he rightly gave religion what for too.

Yes, you're right. I remember now. Will edit my above post accordingly. Cheers for pointing that out!

whats the old argument - just cos all the psychics youve met or tested have turned out to be cheats, does not mean that psychic ability doesnt exist...

dawkins is smug-on-a-stick though...

lol

Yeah he is very smug but perosnally I think he has the right to be.

If psychic or any supernatural ability exists then I say it is within the interest of human kind to prove it and try and understand it. Once it has evidence to support its claims it then becomes part of science. The idea that science hates this sort of thing is rubbish, all that science demands is empirical evidence that can be tested by anyone, believer or not.

perhaps its not quite so testable...perhaps it depends on the day, the circumstance...all kinds of things...dunno mate...

Dr. Wiseman has a book about how to conduct safe and proper esp tests, Max Maven is in the credits!

Ah nothing can be proven at the end of the day. For all I know you're all just figments of my imagination (where's his rational evidence for the existence of an external world? Granted we have to take something as a starting point, but hey ho - how's that for a quality argument, 'hey ho' ).

But this will be interesting viewing (if not an old and well-worn premise on TV) nonetheless!

abraxus wrote:whats the old argument - just cos all the psychics youve met or tested have turned out to be cheats, does not mean that psychic ability doesnt exist...

dawkins is smug-on-a-stick though...

I'll tell you who really gets to me on the smugness scale: "Sally Morgan: Star Psychic."

I was watching the show where she did a reading for Bez from the Happy Mondays. She revealed that, "I see policemen all around you."

Well, dur... It's Bez, for crying out loud! It's like saying "Later, a blackness will descend upon the land, and you'll feel an overwhelming urge to sleep. Fear my power!"

yeah, morgan's a right...well...im not allowed to type what i really think..

im getting a real sense from you Bez, i see you next to a man with a beaky nose...and your holding a whisk! no...not a whisk...maraccas..does that make sense to you?

cos it does ya idiot...i was in the Mondays werent i...

Even more nonsense on ITV right now. "Have I Been Here Before?"

Gorgeous pouting Kim Ryder's subconscious fills in imaginary details from a "past life" when asked to by a suspiciously good looking female hypnotist. Lots of candles on set, dramatic reconstructions to add credibility, etc.

Bored housewife telly: 10/10
Rational discourse on reincarnation: 0/10

Something I love about TV is that they will often choose bad examples of a profession to include in programmes as they make better television. Now before some of you jump on me and beat me to a pulp, I'm not saying that this is the case here, I just like reminding people that it always pays to keep a suspicious mind when watching the old goggle box, because what you see is not always an accurate portrayal of reality.

Flash wrote:Something I love about TV is that they will often choose bad examples of a profession to include in programmes as they make better television. Now before some of you jump on me and beat me to a pulp, I'm not saying that this is the case here, I just like reminding people that it always pays to keep a suspicious mind when watching the old goggle box, because what you see is not always an accurate portrayal of reality.

That's just sparked something about paranormal TV in general. Listen to the soundtrack, not the dialogue. Watch for the parts that are emphasised.; the dramatic stabs of music, the eerie ambiance. Now look at the images being used. Same thing. some of the stuff Channel 5 buy in is like that a lot.

It's almost as if there's a vested [advertising?] interest in preaching to the converted.