Video clips that are good examples of skepticism or psudeoscience?
I'm starting to put together an idea for a possible blog post, or maybe an eventual presentation, about skepticism in popular culture. I'm looking less about stuff of skeptics debunking and more for examples of scenes debunking or discussing psudeoscience in television movies and other fiction. For example, this scene in The Wizard of Oz is a good example of cold reading. The guy is pretending to be psychic and read Dorothy's mind, but he's very clearly using tricks to find out what he wants to know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvkEMO3JkXU
Looking for clips that are popular, accessible, and preferably on YouTube. Randi/Penn/Teller are good, but I'm looking for stuff in other shows that is a little more accessible to a non-skeptical audience.
Kind of a tall order, so offering a nice tip. Ask if you've got questions or are confused. Thanks in advance!
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M$15 Answers
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M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$This can be observed in traditional religious societies. In a current world title boxing match for example, it is mentioned that Manny Pacquiao vanquished his foes (the latest of which is Oscar de la Hoya) because of hard prayer coming from him and from the Filipinos as can be seen in the following videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNtZxbvV574
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObEycb_E098
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDR4EIjrwu0
You could also check the articles and comments around the internet regarding Manny and prayer.
http://www.google.com.ph/search?q=pray+pacquiao&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://news.google.com.ph/news?q=pray%20pacquiao&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn
It's current and I hope this helps.
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M$
Very helpful, thank you. It reminds me of a comedian, Jeff Stilson, who had the joke about people thanking god for winning sports games, but not blaming him when they didn't. The punch line was "yeah, the game was going great until Jesus made me fumble." Unfortunately i can't find the video anywhere online. Alas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxu_MQSTTY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKq2udn37j0
http://www.wikihow.com/Cold-Read
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M$
They are showing up fine for me now, so I think you're right that it was a temporary bug. If you have that problem again, just send it to feedback@mahalo.com.
edit
Thanks for the answer, but all your html code is showing wonky.
You can just cut and paste a YouTube URL directly into your answer. You don't need to add the embed code. You have about an hour to edit after you post an answer.
Lots of good links, though, thanks!
Seems to work with just the links. So, here's just my text.
Well, the humorous answer is this spoof of David Blaine that's been viewed a bazillion times.
If you have Netflix, I'd recommend streaming episodes of Penn and Teller's Bullshit. While not strictly on pseudoscience, are certainly with the "debunking flair".
Now, there are other discussions of Psychic Surgery as mentioned in Penn and Teller's movie "...Get killed". Here is a lecture on the matter.
Here's a wonderful guide on Cold Reading, which, once you read it, exposes all the techniques of these fakes.
But, the classic starting spot is James Randi's debunking of Uri Geller and others. Linked below.
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M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
1. Carl Sagan, wonderful interview (about his last book, The Demon Haunted World which you should suggest to your readers) -
2. Penn & Teller's BS! - entertaining clip of "doctor" letting unsuspecting shoppers try out ridiculous "magnet therapies" and, best yet, a "snail mucus facial." (may have some adult language)
3. Penn & Teller: UFOs
4. Penn & Teller: Bigfoot
You can easily find the Penn & Teller episode "Alternative Medicine" on videos.google.com and it has the PERFECT example of pseudoscience - a hilarious reflexologist. The video is 30 minutes long, but you could cut the reflexologist part and use it -
Let me know if you have additional requests or questions.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
The new TV show The Mentalist is also a good source of this, as you could probably guess from the title. The main character is a man who used to feign psychic ability, but now helps police work by using what he freely admits is nothing more than advanced perception, "paying attention" in his words. Several people perceive his abilities as psychic, but the show makes a point of him telling them there is nothing supernatural about his abilities. The first few episodes do this more than the others (it would get boring otherwise, so that's not a bad thing once the audience 'gets it'); I'll link you to the pilot and you can check it out.
Also, there isn't much about it yet, but there is a TV show in the works that aims to do precisely this called The Skeptologists. You can see the teaser trailer on my blog; the post is linked below.
Hope that helps.
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M$
http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesRandiFoundation
Specifically regarding cold reading
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btP_vy5cQq4
A classic from the Tonight Show, Randi debunking Uri Gellar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNKmhv9uoiQ
More Randi vs. Gellar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YJDh1xjSeU&feature=related
Penn and Teller did a BullS**t episode covering cold reading very well a couple of years back.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$If kid's vids are okay, Scooby Doo has this debunkings all the time.
The show MythBusters takes on pseudoscience frequently as well.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&resnum=0&q=skepticism%20or%20pseudoscience%3F&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#
Hoe you enjoy it!.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
