Derren Brown pulled off a wonderful illusion in “predicting” the numbers for the National Lottery and there are dozens of mainstream theories around concerning his methods.

I’m an amateur magician myself and whenever I’m trying to figure out how a trick is done I always start with the simplest solution so here is my first theory…

The stand has a curved image matching the background running all the way up it. This is a simple image “mask” on paper or card and can be pulled out very quickly by an assistant from underneath so that the it becomes truly see-through in the blink of an eye showing the true background through it. There are “shell” balls (ie only the back halves) on the stand’s tray to start with. A compressed air system exists that blows air up the centre of the hollow stand and re-routes some of it into one side of the tray. The first four balls blown up the tube are 2, 11, 23 and 39. They all travel up the tube and are then blown to the right by the constant air pressure coming from the left. (This assumes that the airflow is from left to right as seen from the front. Of course it could just as easily be from right to left, in which case the order would have to reflect this.) These four are followed by the 35 which hits in the middle of the 39 and 23 balls displacing the 39 to the left. The last ball, the 28, hits the middle of the 35 and 23 displacing both the 39 and 35 to the extreme left. The balls would simply have to be loaded into the system by an assistant in 123654 order then the assistant would have to whip out the mask from the stand.

I know this isn’t a perfect theory but I think the basis is sound. A great trick however it was done although I’d hate to think it was a split-screen camera wipe which brings me to Theory No.2…

I’ve worked in video production and so I’m well aware how easy it would have been for him to have used camera trickery to pull off something like this. To do it one would have needed to merge pre-record video of the left side of the empty stage with the live right-hand-side showing Derren doing his patter.

The live video picture would have to have been filmed with a static camera in order to make a seamless wipe from showing the whole studio to showing the merge and it would then have been an easy matter to feed the resulting split-screen video picture into a video digital signal processor to create the illusion of camera shake.

Doing it this way, Derren would have needed the help of an assistant to simply place the correct balls in the stand when the results were being announced. All this helper would have needed is a silent gliding trolley with all the balls easily accessible. Derren does allow about six seconds for such a person and trolley to make an escape to stage left before entering the left-hand side of the video window, so this seems plausible.

There are many video “solutions” at YouTube and a few of them illustrate exactly how this camera trickery could have been used. The embedded videos shown above and below are two of the most amusing ones.

Whatever the secret there is no denying that Derren Brown is a very entertaining and accomplished magician. He has a naturalistic outlook and would be the first to admit that all magic is trickery. Check out his very interesting interview with Richard Dawkins on the subject of Cold Reading (posted on YouTube) to verify this.

“If you steal someone’s car you will go to jail but you can steal someone’s idea with impunity.”

How hypocritical can one be?

Mr Baylis is not an inventor; an innovator maybe but he did not invent the torch, dynamo or the radio; he just mangled them all together, encased them in a nice looking plastic moulded shell and attached a handle. He has made a bundle out of doing it too. If he’d have kept his mouth shut I would have admired him for what he is. Now I’m just left with a bad taste in my own mouth and the feeling that he is just another litigious pompous old git cashing in.

This sad story seems to be a mixture of “dumbing down” (because the definition of “inventor” is clearly being misused) and an otherwise great mind having gone astray.

See:
“Inventor of wind-up radio calls for tougher patent laws” (Telegraph 02.09.09)

A large part of religion is about following a specific moral code which is usually set out in the scriptures of every religion but a “natural morality” can be shown to exist that is apart from any particular doctrine. Different religions share many common moral values but few religions share exactly the same set of morals with others. Anglicans have no restriction on what meats they may eat but both Jews and Muslims may not eat pork and Hindus don’t eat cows.

It is easy to see that some religious moral codes have developed for logistical reasons. Dairy products are many and a cow’s value over its lifetime is more than the immediate value of the meat. Pork spoils very quickly in high temperatures and is hard to preserve without refrigeration.

There are many horrible moral practices in both the Old and New Testament’s but modern-day Christians do not follow the most abhorrent ones. Instead they cherry-pick the “good” ones and then call their whole moral code “Christian” when this is patently not true.

Surely in order to cherry-pick one must use a moral code that is separate from that of the religion; a moral code that might be called a “natural” one. Otherwise what determines which values are kept and which are discarded.

An article in the Telegraph published in May of this year suggests that animals have morals but if religion were the only moral compass wouldn’t animals have to have religion for that to be true? I somehow doubt that any animals have religion so where do they get their sense of moral values from? Is there a way of behaving that could be called “natural”?

“Experiments with rats have shown that they will not take food if they know their actions will cause pain to another rat.”

“Experiments with domestic dogs, where one animal was given a treat and another denied, have shown that they posses a sense of fairness as they shared their treats.”

“A laboratory experiment trained Diana monkeys to insert a token into a slot to obtain food. A male who had grown to be adept at the task was found to be helping the oldest female who had not been able to learn how to insert the token. On three occasion the male monkey picked up tokens she dropped and inserted them into the slot and allowed her to have the food. As there was no benefit for the male monkey [it could be argued] that this is a clear example of an animal’s actions being driven by some internal moral compass.”

There is also evidence to show that morals can cross species divisions:

“In 2003, a herd of 11 elephants rescued antelope who were being held inside an enclosure in KwaZula-Natal, South Africa. The matriarch unfastened all of the metal latches holding the gates closed and swung the entrance open allowing the antelope to escape.”

Man is the only animal that kills for pleasure and that kills its own kind purely because of disagreement (i.e. politics). Yes, other animals do kill their own kind but only when there is an overall good survival reason to do so. However, even those humans who kill other humans have an in-built knowledge that killing other human beings is wrong. They may justify their killing with flimsy reasoning but they still normally have a sense that what they have done is wrong. The only exception to this is when brain damage has occurred (as in the case of abnormal sociopathic or psychopathic behaviour).

I would argue that not only do we not need religion to tell us what is right or wrong but that some moral values of religion itself can cause normal human beings to override their natural sense of morality. It is this mechanism that is responsible for a suicide bomber believing that he is somehow doing a “good thing” when he pushes his trigger button.

In the same way that anything else is discussed why is it not considered important for the peoples of the Earth to come together and agree on common moral values using their natural sense of morality as a basis? We could reach consensus for all the important “big” stuff while still leaving room for individual local “by-laws”.

See:
“Animals can tell right from wrong” (Telegraph 23.05.09)

Related posts:
“Atheist morals. Are atheists “bad people” just because they are atheists?” (TEWNC 17.08.09)

The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe is a weekly podcast which can be easily downloaded from the site in MP3 format. To download just right-click on the “podcast” link and choose “Save link as” with Firefox or “Save target as” with Internet Explorer.

All their podcasts are archived going right back to May of 2005 when they started broadcasting.

Each show is from an hour to and hour and a quarter long and over the years they have had some interesting “big name” guests such as Dawkins, Shermer et al, as well as some interesting regular weekly features.

The Skeptics’ Guide is well worth bookmarking but you can also use the permanent link to it on the right-hand side of The Emperor’s front page.

See: The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe

The media are speculating that he wanted to be caught so that he can claim a conversion from “the dark side” but even this is so, I somehow doubt he’ll ever be given his freedom again.

I think there is a small chance that he may play his cards differently. Judging by what he is saying on his blog site I think it’s possible that he suckered his wife into believing that the two births were “immaculate”. If so, might he be planning to re-use this story for judge and jury?

As I typed that last sentence a news flash came on claiming that Mr. Garrido will plead “not guilty”. I could be on completely the wrong track (I often am) but I think the chances of a “virgin birth” claim just went up.

Commenting on the World Trade Centre attacks of 2001 Lorenzo Albacete said:

“From the first moment I looked into that horror on September 11th, into that fireball, into that explosion of horror, I knew it, I recognized an old companion. I recognized religion.”

As I lay down to go to sleep after watching the beginnings of the Jaycee Lee Dugard story I had a similar thought. I recognised religion.

Sure enough, this morning’s TV news reported that one of her abductors and probable father of her two children, Phillip Garrido, was questioned by police at the Berkeley University campus after having inquired about the procedure for handing out religious leaflets. The Telegraph website also reports that Mr. Garrido ran a blog called “Voices Revealed” and a quick Google search revealed the religious “method” behind his madness.

The author of the blog talks about “government mind control” and has links to another web address, godsdesire.net, which presently points to a web-host’s holding page. The blog seems to be the rantings of a madman and in the last post on the 14th of August the author writes:

“The Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world.”

It’s “early days” and I’m sure much more will come out.

See:
“Jaycee Lee Dugard: kidnapped woman found alive 18 years after abduction” (Telegraph 28.08.09)
“Voices Revealed Blogspot“

“I couldn’t believe it. It’s just like the descriptions of Nessie.”

Below are two blown-up pictures of what can be found at the coordinates given. The first in a normal blow-up and the second has been filtered to show up the edges.

Assuming this is in fact an object, the Google Earth ruler shows it to be about 21 meters long which does fall within the boundaries of sensible measurement for your average sea monster. If this measurement was for example a mile, then it would have to be dismissed.

The picture does appear to show something of the same shape reported by witnesses who claim to have seen the monster. It seems to have a long neck, massive body and four limbs, two at the front and two at the back. It certainly fits with the well known “Surgeon’s Photograph” of Nessie, supposedly taken by Colonel Robert Wilson, a respectable Harley Street gynaecologist who claimed to have seen “something in the water” on April 19th 1934.

This story also appears in the Mail Online along with the “Surgeon’s Photo”, which is described as:

“‘Surgeon’s photograph’: A highly respected British surgeon, Colonel Robert Wilson, claimed he took this picture, which appeared to show a sea serpent rising out of the Loch, in 1934″

The "Surgeon's Picture" of the Loch Ness Monster taken in 1934

In a death-bed confession however it was admitted that the “Monster” in the “Surgeon’s Photograph” was a toy submarine fitted with a head and neck made from plastic wood. The Mail says nothing about the photo having been faked however thus helping to perpetuate the myth.

As for the “Google Earth Nessie”, without corroborating evidence we can not jump to any conclusions. The object could be the wake of a small craft that just happens to have created a Nessie shape as the Google Earth cameras were snapping away.

See:
“Is the Loch Ness monster on Google Earth?” (Telegraph 26.08.09)
“The Surgeon’s Hoax“
“Picked out by a Google Earth satellite, is this the Loch Ness monster… or just a boat?” (Mail Online 26.08.09)

Sebastian Faulks: Koran has ‘no ethics’

A few posts back I commented on a report of author Sebastian Faulkes and  the “elephant in the room” that he was brave enough to point out after reading the Koran in order to research a new character for one of his books (click here to read the original post). Faulkes gave a very forthright and honest opinion saying:

“It’s a depressing book. It really is. It’s just the rantings of a schizophrenic. It’s very one-dimensional…With the Koran there are no stories. And it has no ethical dimension like the New Testament, no new plan for life. It says ‘the Jews and the Christians were along the right tracks, but actually, they were wrong and I’m right, and if you don’t believe me, tough — you’ll burn for ever’.”

Today we learn that a respected Muslim has issued what could be called a veiled warning and after all, how could anyone be surprised. Ajmal Masroor, an imam and spokesman for the Islamic Society of Britain said Faulks’ statements ran the risk of stirring religious hatred against Muslims. He said:

“Attacks on Islam are nothing new, but the danger is this will have a ‘drip, drip’ effect… People don’t seem to understand the consequences of saying things like this could be quite severe. History tells us it can encourage hatred.”

Firstly, both what Mr. Masroor says and the fact that he was asked for his opinion and quoted in the first place is pathetic. There are plenty of smarter and younger Muslims to ask who have a better understanding of what it is to live peacefully in the West. Why wasn’t Maajid Nawaz or anyone else at the Quilliam Foundation asked for their opinion? Why were none of the members of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain asked. Are cultural Muslims who happen to have left the actual faith of Islam unworthy of an opinion?

Sebastian Faulkes is an author who has the right, just like we all do, to give an honest opinion about a literary piece of work. To accuse him of “stirring religious hatred” simply because he gave his opinion is unfair.

Secondly, Ajmal Masroor is being foolish when he says that “people don’t understand the consequences” because the consequences are plainly there for all to see. We do understand is that any criticism of Islam or the Koran is liable to be met with violent thoughts, words and deeds. This is not our problem. It is an Islamic problem and therefore it is up to Islam to get its own house in order.

We have learned from history that what “encourages hatred” more than anything else is a dogmatic adherence to a hateful belief system. Islam hates freethinkers, atheists and homosexuals. It is a racist ideology that oppresses women and essentially looks down on all those who who disagree with its doctrine. Branches of it quite openly advocate killing these people who it sees as “enemies”.

We are very “respectful” of Islam already and most of the time we, who hold western values, keep our mouths shut even when criticism is warranted. Sebastian Faulkes is a mild-mannered and humble author who has had the temerity to criticise Islam. His view is based on his own values and Ajmal Masroor’s attempt to redefine his values as prejudices must not be allowed to succeed. When Mr. Masroor says that Foulkes’ words “encourage hatred” he is wrong. It is Mr. Masroor who is doing all the encouraging and the hatred is coming from within Islam rather than being directed towards it.

“Words are being used quite shamelessly to try and engineer an artificial sense of guilt in western society, to redefine our values as prejudices and to silence legitimate opinion and the free exchange of ideas that have made us what we are and that have given us our strength and that’s why this is damaging our society in a fundamental way and it has got to stop.”

“All over the western world we’ve become so intimidated into watching every word and thought in case it might offend somebody’s precious faith. It’s as if the free world has forgotten to inhale. What happened to our birthright? We need to take a deep breath. We need to get the oxygen of freedom flowing through our veins again and through our brains again and get things back in perspective.” (Pat Condell)

Nice try Ajmal, and who could blame you for trying? You are simply using the same tactics that most of Islam has used against its perceived “enemies” for countless generations; fear and intimidation. It just won’t wash. Even the apologist “new liberal left” is starting to realise the folly of giving in to people like you for the sake of appeasement. Our culture is founded upon freedom rather than submission and we will stand up to any twisted values that are based on blind faith alone. We will attempt to do this with the pen rather than the sword because reason is the most powerful weapon of all and however many senseless killings there are we have empirical evidence that the path of violence and fanaticism ultimately leads to failure.

Issuing warnings, threats and fatwas against authors for airing their opinions, amongst a majority who expect that of them, is a misguided way to deal with what is essentially in internal Islamic problem. The West has come a long way towards attempting to accommodate Islam. We are inclusive by nature. We are ready to accept people for what they are but we are not ready to compromise our hard-won freedom to do that.

See:
“Is it really “courting controversy” to say that there is an elephant in the room?” (TEWNC 24.08.09)
“Sebastian Faulks: Koran has ‘no ethics’” (The Times 23.08.09)
“Author Sebastian Faulks risks Muslim fury by describing the Koran as the ‘depressing rantings of a schizophrenic’” (Mail Online 24.08.09)
The Quilliam Foundation
“Apologists for Evil” (by Pat Condell – Video & Transcript)
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain

I’m no fan of the BNP and my feelings about them parallel those of internet YouTuber Pat Condell:

“I believe the BNP has a racial agenda and is therefore a racist party so I would rather vote for nobody at all in fact I’d rather drive a garden fork through my own foot than vote for the BNP.”

Having grown up in Britain watching the National Front marching around and after seeing pretty much the same type of people morph into the more respectable-sounding British National Party, I don’t need to be constantly reminded that there are a few fascists in the woodwork. Nazis are Nazis and no matter what clothes or insignia they wear they are always easy to identify from their one-track agenda the general stink that surrounds them.

The BNP are bigoted people out there in the open for all to see, despise and ridicule and as long as they are permitted to remain in plain view then everyone can see them for what they really are. People are not stupid and don’t need to be continually reminded about the dangers. They don’t need government departments, quangos and self-righteous autonomous groups to be constantly keeping the BNP at bay in misguided attempts to provide  a “public service”.

I never thought I’d ever be writing an article or post defending the BNP but here it is. Let’s get it over with so that I can wash my hands of this keyboard all the sooner and rinse the sour taste out of my mouth.

I’m a libertarian and believe in the importance and power of free speech in any truly free society. My view echoes that well known saying:

“I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it?” (Attributed to Voltaire)

As I understand it, the BNP are a legal and legitimate political party. The British New Labour government (which happens to be in direct competition with the BNP) has already imposed what I consider to be unfair restrictions on its membership by forbidding police and members of the armed forces from joining. Members of these organisations and many others must at least declare openly their BNP interests.

Today we saw the Equality and Human Rights Commission commence a legal action against the BNP over “concerns about ethnic restrictions on its membership”. (The BNP restricts membership to those to whom it refers as “Indigenous Caucasians” and this, of course, is a crude euphemism for white people.)

Surely the Equality and Human Rights Commission exists to open doors for those people who find themselves discriminated against on the grounds of race. In this particular case however, it is not so much fighting for the rights of non-whites to join an elitist organisation; I mean really! How many non-white people or even white people actually want to join the BNP anyway? Are there hoards (if you’ll excuse the word) of non-whites queuing up to join the BNP. I don’t see the protest. It would be the equivalent of black African Americans having waited in line to join the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s. It didn’t happen then and it is not happening now.

What is happening is that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is using tax-payers money, as so many various different quangos and government departments have done in the past, firstly to try and make an example of the BNP and secondly to give itself a few “brownie points” and a big pat on the back.

There are many organisations that restrict membership. I’d be laughed at if I sent in an application to join the Women’s Institute and any serving white police officer would be refused membership of the Black Police Officer’s Association. Both women’s and men’s golf clubs litter the rural greens of England. Using the argument against the BNP is just an excuse.

So I say leave the BNP alone. Leave them to practice their own partitive brand of foolishness so that all may see how stupid they are. In a free society having obnoxious groups such as the BNP is the price we must all pay for freedom. There is no other way save authoritarianism.

See:
“Legal action over BNP membership” (BBC News 24.08.09)

Last one to leave the country please remember to turn off the light

As a libertarian I find it mind-bogglingly astounding that we should have reached a point in “democratic” history when we are so conditioned that we think nothing of letting our own government poke its nose into those places where it so obviously doesn’t belong.

From September 1st 2009 it will be illegal for British retailers to sell conventional light bulbs.

If that isn’t hard enough to believe then how about this…

“The public have been asked to ‘snoop’ on shopkeepers who continue to sell traditional light bulbs banned by Europe.” (Telegraph newspaper)

Nigel Farrage, the leader of UKIP, said the public should not be encouraged to snoop. He said:

“Under this Government we begin to resemble East Germany in the 1980s where we snoop and report on local businesses,” he said. “No doubt the next move will be to snoop on your parents if they continue to use old fashioned light bulbs.”

As an atheist I can say “there is no god” but as a British Subject I have to admit that I’m wrong. To all intents and purposes the European Parliament is God.

See:
“Public told to snoop on lightbulb law breakers” (Telegraph 24.08.09)
“Lock up your lightbulbs” (Telegraph 24.09.09 – Comment by Janet Daley)