Science of Scams

On November 13 2009 07:34 Foucault wrote:
Um yeah but the ghost thing for instance only explain an occurance where people deliberately set up a scam. It doesn't explain anything about other sightings, although one might argue that they are all psychological

On November 13 2009 08:23 B-612 wrote:
Props on pointing this out sir! I'm a self identified skeptic and really dig this kind of stuff, as someone who has a scammer is his family I'm happy to see more people getting the message out about the scam-esque activities of others.

On November 13 2009 08:29 sixghost wrote:
Is this the same guy that did the lottery prediction thing?

On November 13 2009 12:49 ShoCkeyy wrote:
This is pretty cool thing to know, I Always thought the ouiji board was a hoax.

On November 13 2009 13:37 biomedical wrote:
ouiji board isnt necessarily due to idiomotor (and theres fuck-all research into idiomotor anyway).
a spirit doesnt need to channel itself through the glass...the glass is just there as a marker for the board. the spirit can just channel itself through the person, the persons arm etc.

On November 13 2009 13:37 biomedical wrote:
ouiji board isnt necessarily due to idiomotor (and theres fuck-all research into idiomotor anyway).
a spirit doesnt need to channel itself through the glass...the glass is just there as a marker for the board. the spirit can just channel itself through the person, the persons arm etc.

On November 13 2009 13:23 EvilTeletubby wrote:


"Always thought" implies you weren't sure... how the hell were you not sure it was bs -_-

On November 13 2009 13:27 ilovejonn wrote:
i remember the ghost trick from the magic school bus @_@

On November 13 2009 13:37 biomedical wrote:
ouiji board isnt necessarily due to idiomotor (and theres fuck-all research into idiomotor anyway).
a spirit doesnt need to channel itself through the glass...the glass is just there as a marker for the board. the spirit can just channel itself through the person, the persons arm etc.

On November 13 2009 08:36 freelander wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

who is the scammer in your family lol

On November 13 2009 15:20 B-612 wrote:


Without getting too detailed about my family I’m related through marriage to a guy named Robert (BoB) Barefoot who sells a product called Coral Calcium. He claims that it can cure all diseases with wildly different causes; Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, diabetes and tons more. Basically this guy uses the fear and lack or critical thinking in others to make millions it is really lame.

To see people on TeamLiquid speak about critical thinking is inspiring, I’m glad to see people here working to spread the ideals of critical thinking and scientific principles of investigation.

If you want to learn more about the scam that is Coral calcium check out this site, it is the TeamLiquid of medical scam debunking.

http://www.quackwatch.com/

On November 13 2009 15:36 gameguard wrote:

lol this barefoot guy's claims are even more ridiculous than kevin treadeu's garbage and thats saying something.

On November 13 2009 13:37 biomedical wrote:
ouiji board isnt necessarily due to idiomotor (and theres fuck-all research into idiomotor anyway).
a spirit doesnt need to channel itself through the glass...the glass is just there as a marker for the board. the spirit can just channel itself through the person, the persons arm etc.

On November 13 2009 15:59 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:

Did you see that Penn & Teller Bullshit where they blindfolded a Ouija group and turned the board upside down?

It was hilarious.

On November 13 2009 10:09 Kennelie wrote:
Yang I am the science of scams. When u buy something expensive go back to the store(doesn't matter if its the same store or not) and pull the same product that you bought. Now what you do is go to the customer service desk and ask for a refund with the receipt of the expensive product that you bought earlier. Voila now you got your product for free.

Science of scams~

edit: of course this will not work with many products like high end electronics but it does work. I usually do it with alot of medicine that cost me more than 10 bucks.

On November 13 2009 15:49 B-612 wrote:


Here is the sad part; they have worked together a lot in the past, Coral Calcium was one of the 'cures' from the book by Treadeu called 'Cancer cures they don't want you to know about'

On November 18 2009 17:08 AtlaS wrote:
the person being scammed didn't seem to bright.

On November 13 2009 08:56 thopol wrote:
I dig science > mysticism. I don't dig over-dramatized television. How much of each of those segments consisted of repetitions of that same graphic?

On November 18 2009 18:01 Osmoses wrote:

This made it impossible for me to watch all of the clips. Also, both the guy and the girl have really annoying mannerisms.

As for the tricks, I'd seen most before, so it was kind of a letdown, though sometimes the explanations were a little too shallow. I'm not a superstitious person, but just like when Mythbusters have to do a show over because they didn't do it properly the first four or five times, these people are just touching on the subject. Like the ghost, a very specific use of a deliberate scam, and the Ouija board, explaining it away with "oh they're moving it, psychological phenomenon you know" is very shallow.

Those two vids were the only interesting ones imo, the other ones were a bit too obvious.

On November 18 2009 18:23 Angel[BTL] wrote:
You have to look under the hood so to speak when you watch Penn and Teller or Derren Brown. Indeed they claim to clearly show that most of the things are scam and so on. Yet they select the people who are the most notorious for this kind of scam.

I've never seen any of them take under serious investigation for instance people who have real credentials like Joe McMoneagle (he does remote viewing to target locations and has done many tests to show that what he did decipher was accurate). And there are a whole range of phenomena unexplained but they don't bring it to show people evidence in favor of this experiences. They present one-sided opinions. You cannot make assumption that if in the cases studied you've discovered that they are scams then in all cases this is the case.

Take in mind they select the most weak examples. After I watched one of the series with Deren Brown I searched on the google the names involved in the show, a few of them. It was clear evidence even from the websites format. It was made for making money.

I understand this is show-biz that brings money to producers but people who watch should look into the phenomena themselves and make an opinion after studying in more detail.

As a conclusion the shows are one sided and I do still watch them but I also do my own research and have my own conclusions which are different from the show. I view it as entertaiment for a good laugh. For this purpose they are doing a good job.

On November 13 2009 08:56 thopol wrote:
I dig science > mysticism. I don't dig over-dramatized television. How much of each of those segments consisted of repetitions of that same graphic?

Also, cute chick is cute.