Derren Brown's Blog, page 42
February 27, 2011
Jedi-ism, Britain's fourth-largest religion.
In 2001, when the last Census of the UK was carried out, nearly 400,000 people claimed "Jedi" as their religion. Not only did this confirm Jedi-ism as a religion in the UK – but meant it was the fourth largest, with more followers than Judaism or Buddhism.
With the 2011 Census forms sealed in their envelopes and ready to post to households across Britain, numerous Facebook groups have been created to encourage even more people to put their faith in the 'Force' and claim to be Jedis.
The religion question is the only voluntary question on the form but Mr Benton says that the responses directly affect community services. "People are developing their local policy and activities on the basis of this information. I would urge people to give an accurate response," he said.
The Times sent a video team to one of the largest Star Wars memorabilia shops in the UK to find out just who considers themselves a Jedi.
Via Richard Dawkins – Full article at The Times (paywall)
On this day in history: Derren Brown born.
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Derren Victor Brown (born 27 February 1971) is an English magician, mentalist, painter and self-professed sceptic regarding paranormal phenomena.
Your comments welcome.
February 25, 2011
Evolution, Creationism, and the 'Cautious 60 Percent'
"The recent headlines were disturbing:
13% of H.S. Biology Teachers Advocate Creationism in Class
Troubling: 13% of Biology Teachers Supporting Creationism
13% of US biology teachers advocate creationism: Welcome to 2011
These articles were responding to a commentary in Science by Penn State political scientists Michael B. Berkman and Eric Plutzer ("Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom"; 28 January 2011). Berkman and Plutzer's research — detailed in several articles and a book–involves large surveys of science teachers. In this most recent study, 926 public high school biology teachers were surveyed, and 13 percent reported "explicitly advocat[ing] creationism or intelligent design."
The 13 percent number is bad — 1 in 8 public school biology instructors teaches creationism. As the headlines above show, most reporting focused on this 13 percent. But Berkman and Plutzer identified an even greater problem: a "cautious 60 percent" of teachers who, while not preaching creationism, nevertheless fail to be "strong advocates for evolutionary biology."
Berkman and Plutzer write,
The cautious 60 percent may play a far more important role in hindering scientific literacy in the United States than the smaller number of explicit creationists.
There are more of these cautious teachers, and their reluctance to present evolution forthrightly not only impedes their students in learning biology, but also undermines understanding of the nature of science. They fail to teach evolution in the way recommended by the nation's leading scientific organizations, such as the National Research Council — as the central, unifying principle of the life sciences.
Why is "neutrality" toward evolution such a disaster for college-bound kids?
Evolution is the foundation of biology. Just as geologists cannot decipher the earth's features without plate tectonics, and physicists cannot understand the interaction of light and matter without quantum electrodynamics, biologists cannot explain the diversity of life on earth without evolution. Trying to teach biology without evolution is like teaching auto mechanics without discussing engines. Teachers should not be neutral toward evolution because scientists are not neutral about evolution."
Read more at Huffington Post (Thanks Annette M)
How Joshua trained his brain and became a world-class memory athlete
"Sitting to my left was Ram Kolli, an unshaven 25-year-old business consultant from Richmond, Va., who was also the defending United States memory champion. To my right was the lens of a television camera from a national cable network. Spread out behind me, where I couldn't see them and they couldn't disturb me, were about 100 spectators and a pair of TV commentators offering play-by-play analysis. One was a blow-dried mixed martial arts announcer named Kenny Rice, whose gravelly, bedtime voice couldn't conceal the fact that he seemed bewildered by this jamboree of nerds. The other was the Pelé of U.S. memory sport, a bearded 43-year-old chemical engineer and four-time national champion from Fayetteville, N.C., named Scott Hagwood. In the corner of the room sat the object of my affection: a kitschy, two-tiered trophy of a silver hand with gold nail polish brandishing a royal flush. It was almost as tall as my 2-year-old niece (if lighter than most of her stuffed animals).
The audience was asked not to take any flash photographs and to maintain total silence. Not that Kolli or I could possibly have heard them. Both of us were wearing earplugs. I also had on a pair of industrial-strength earmuffs that looked as if they belonged to an aircraft-carrier deckhand (in the heat of a memory competition, there is no such thing as deaf enough). My eyes were closed. On a table in front of me, lying face down between my hands, were two shuffled decks of playing cards. In a moment, the chief arbiter would click a stopwatch, and I would have five minutes to memorize the order of both decks."
Read the rest at NY Times (Thanks Christopher C)
Self-Doubting Monkeys Know What They Don't Know
"The number of traits chalked up as "distinctly human" seem to dwindle each year. And now, we can't even say that we're uniquely aware of the limits of our knowledge: It seems that some monkeys understand uncertainty too.
A team of researchers taught macaques how to maneuver a joystick to indicate whether the pixel density on a screen was sparse or dense. Given a pixel scenario, the monkeys would maneuver a joystick to a letter S (for sparse) or D (for dense). They were given a treat when they selected the correct answer, but when they were wrong, the game paused for a couple seconds. A third possible answer, though, allowed the monkeys to select a question mark, and thereby forgo the pause (and potentially get more treats).
And as John David Smith, a researcher at SUNY Buffalo, and Michael Beran, a researcher at Georgia State University, announced at the AAAS meeting this weekend, the macaques selected the question mark just as humans do when they encounter a mind-stumping question. As Smith told the BBC, "Monkeys apparently appreciate when they are likely to make an error…. They seem to know when they don't know.""
Read more at Discover (Thanks Christopher C)
February 24, 2011
Derren Brown (the artist) show now at Rebecca Hossack Gallery
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Last night was the opening of the new art show for Derren's latest works. The gallery will be showing them from 24th Feb until 12 March at 28 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2NA. The gallery is free and you can just turn up – but please check the opening times and details on their website by clicking here.
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February 23, 2011
Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity
Irish Times: TWO GERMAN lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity.
Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel, based at Marktheidenfeld in the Pope's home state of Bavaria, last week submitted a 16,500-word document to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, Dr Luis Moreno Ocampo.
Their charges concern "three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward 'ecclesiastical authority' has clouded the sense of right and wrong".
They claim the Pope "is responsible for the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats".
They allege he is also responsible for "the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-Aids infection exists" and for "the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and abets ever new crimes".
They claim the Catholic Church "acquires its members through a compulsory act, namely, through the baptism of infants that do not yet have a will of their own". This act was "irrevocable" and is buttressed by threats of excommunication and the fires of hell.
February 22, 2011
China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
"Tibet's living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China's atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing's authority over Tibet's restive and deeply Buddhist people.
"The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid," according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.
The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet's exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing.
It is the latest in a series of measures by the Communist authorities to tighten their grip over Tibet. Reincarnate lamas, known as tulkus, often lead religious communities and oversee the training of monks, giving them enormous influence over religious life in the Himalayan region. Anyone outside China is banned from taking part in the process of seeking and recognising a living Buddha, effectively excluding the Dalai Lama, who traditionally can play an important role in giving recognition to candidate reincarnates.
For the first time China has given the Government the power to ensure that no new living Buddha can be identified, sounding a possible death knell to a mystical system that dates back at least as far as the 12th century."
Read more at The Times
February 20, 2011
New paintings for exhibition
Well, that's how you'd look if you were as overworked as me at the moment. Three new large acrylic-on-canvas portraits – my Mother, me, my Father – ready for my exhibition at the Hossack Gallery, Charlotte St, central London. They look after my paintings and sell prints and originals for anyone who has the wall-space and the stomach to want one at home. The exhibition runs from Thursday (Feb 24th) until March 12th. Details are here.
The self-portrait has been tricky, and involved a complete false start. I realise it may not be the image of quite the sparky so-and-so that you know and love… but hey, things don't get more introspective than self-portraiture and I find this more interesting. And yes, that's a more honest representation of my hairline once the very kind make-up artist has removed her handiwork after filming. I've been tweeting them as they've come together over the past few weeks, which has been much fun. And difficult in some ways: it's normally the case that I wouldn't show anything until it was ready.
After many fun years, I'm going to close down the derrenbrownart.com print-sale site and gallery, and hand over all sales and management to the Hossack Gallery. Aside from the originals, they will most likely only sell a very limited range of high-end Giclée prints, so if you've been thinking of getting a less expensive digi print, or any style of print of a particular portrait, it might be worth browsing the art site in the next few days while it still exists and they're still for sale. Meanwhile a small gallery of some of the caricatures from that site along with new paintings will soon be viewable on my main site (www.derrenbrown.co.uk – part of which you are currently reading). And any new paintings will be posted, as they appear, on this blog.
Right! That done , I must use the rest of my Sunday to sign off the Faith Healer documentary special and work on the Svengali script. We open soon. Eek.
Must dash.
February 19, 2011
Google's self-driving car: What's in it for Google?
"As ZDNet's Sam Diaz reported, when Google CEO Eric Schmidt told an audience at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference that "Your car should drive itself. It's amazing to me that we let humans drive cars. It's a bug that cars were invented before computers," many analysts suggested that he needed to be just a little less disruptive and a lot more focused on search. Even Sam suggested
Schmidt wasn't implying that such technology is coming. It was more of a side thought in a speech that he delivered about the interactions that computers and humans can have to share day-to-day tasks and learn from each other.
Guess what? Not only is the technology coming, but it's already here and Google is already testing it extensively. Google announced today that its drivers had logged over 140,000 miles in the company's self-driving cars around the San Francisco Bay area. According to a blog posted today by Google Distinguished Engineer, Sebastian Thrun,
Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people's time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use.
So we have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They've driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe."
Read more at ZDNet (Thanks Duncan)
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