WEBVTT - Magic, Skepticism, and Success w/ Dr. Richard Wiseman 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.200 Let's imagine none of this is true. We're still going 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:07.120 to learn something about why people have out of body experiences, 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:10.120 or think they're in telepathic contact with their loved ones, 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:13.000 or go to a medium and think they've contacted the dead. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.960 We're going to learn something interesting about psychology. And that's 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.040 true of magic. You know, when you study magicians and 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.120 how they manipulate attention and all sorts of other things, 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.600 you're learning about psychology, and people are fascinated by this stuff. 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.760 What psychologists are really good at, academic psychologists is taking 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:37.440 people who I find very interesting in our lives and emotions, 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:39.320 and we love and we hate, and we have beliefs 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:42.440 that aren't true, and we argue with people and we 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:44.320 get on with people, and so taking all of that 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:48.240 buzzing complexity and reducing it to something really quite dull, 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.720 and so that saddens me. And a lot of my 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:57.040 work is about trying to celebrate the role of people 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.360 in society and keep psychology interesting. I mean, that's why 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:03.480 I got into it in the first place. You know, 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.920 I read these things, and yet psychologists have this rather 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.920 uncanny ability to take something as interesting and convert into 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:12.760 something quite dull. 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.720 Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. I'm doctor Scott 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.600 Barry Kaufman, a cognitive scientist interested in the science of intelligence, 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:29.720 creativity and human potential. Today we have doctor Richard Wiseman 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.600 on the podcast. Doctor Wiseman holds Britain's only professorship in 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.360 the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:40.920 and has published over one hundred academic papers examining the 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:45.759 psychology of magic and illusion, deception, luck, and self development. 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:50.120 Doctor Wiseman has written several popular psychology books, including The 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:54.760 Luck Factor, Paranormality, Why We See What Isn't There, Quircology, 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.520 Shoot for the Moon and Rip It Up, The Radically 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.320 New Approach to Changing Your Life. I've been a longtime 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:05.200 admirer of doctor Wiseman's wide ranging research on magic, well 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.080 being and success in life. As you will see in 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.200 this episode, we share a lot of mutual interests. I 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:13.640 really enjoyed chatting with doctor Wiseman, and I know you 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.840 will enjoy listening to our discussion. So that further ado 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:22.080 I bring you Doctor Richard Wiseman, Professor Richard wise Man. 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.160 It is so so good to have you on the 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:26.040 Secondlogy Podcast. 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:30.040 Finally pleasure, pleasure to be here, and greetings from and 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:32.520 not very sunny Edinburgh in Scotland, which is where I 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:33.240 find myself. 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.000 It's not sunny, but I do love Edinburgh. 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.040 I love it. It's a very very beautiful city and 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:41.360 I'm lucky enough to live right in the middle of it. 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:45.520 So yeah, yeah. Every year the Fringe Festival rolls into 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.960 town and thousands of shows all over the city. But 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.000 right now it's a fairly quiet time, particularly as it's 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:53.280 quite late at night. 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:58.240 Wonderful. Well, we have so many areas of mutual interest. 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.840 I have a great and rest in magic and a 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.000 great interest. I see you on the Facebook groups I'm on, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:05.840 you know, and I'm like, oh, there's Richard. You know 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.880 the magic the secret magic groups. Won't mention what any 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:09.519 of them are called. 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.960 Yes, yes, the interconnected world of magic. Yes, the small world. 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.200 It's incredible, it's it is. 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.920 It is remarkably small, and everyone's trying to, you know, 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.919 make sure that we keep the secrets, keep the secrets. 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.920 But also psychology and the psychology of success. That's a 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:31.519 very very common area of interest. Not common, that's a 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.840 mutual area of interest of ours. Is the maybe some 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.520 of the unexpogant talk today about some of some unexpected 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.920 things that people, you know, might not realize really matters 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:43.720 for success. And maybe we'll talk about some of the 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:45.920 things that everyone says matters for success and maybe it 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:47.720 doesn't matter so much. So that'd be great to have 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.600 that conversation. So that's that's all, just uh preamble, you know, 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.040 just setting the stage, setting the stage. 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:55.400 Letting people know what's going to happen. 0:03:55.560 --> 0:04:01.400 Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Well you're you're you're a lifelong entertainer. 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.000 So I want to start there a little bit to 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.400 your childhood, because you were a street performer when you 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:08.840 were what twelve, no. 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:10.760 A little bit older than that. I got into magic 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.760 when I was probably eight or nine something like that, 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.120 and by my grandfather, who showed me a very good 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.640 magic trick. Hearly knew one magic trick, but it's a 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.200 very good one. A coin that would disappear and appear 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.080 in a nest of boxes. And so I kind of 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.760 badgered him every weekend to just tell me how this 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.159 trick was done. He wouldn't do that. Eventually, he said 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.160 the secrets in the local library. So I went and 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.440 read everything about magic and That's how I got hooked 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.400 on it, and it is an amazing hobby. I mean, 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:38.479 I've just written a book on all the kind of 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.680 benefits of learning magic, and they are sizable, you know, 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:45.280 in terms of confidence, in terms of problem solving, getting 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.720 a can do attitude, and so on. So I got 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.720 into magic, got into a local magic club, and then 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:56.440 went to study psychology because of magic. Actually, I read 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.280 a book that said, as handed magicians are likable and 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.120 so therefore you should read How to Win Friends and 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.880 Influence People by Doubt Canigi, which is an amazing book. 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:08.680 I mean it's it's dated now, but it's incredible. That 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.400 and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living his other book, 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.880 both of them incredible. So I read those then when 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.520 I studied psychology at University College London, which is right 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.120 in the middle of London, and the reason for that 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.640 is that it's very close to the Magic Circle and 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.200 also very close to Covent Garden, which is an area 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.960 in London where all the street entertainers are, and so 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:32.960 in my summer breaks I would go and do street 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.560 entertaining down there. I guess they're in my sort of 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:39.880 early teens, and I was pretty awful. I was pretty 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.520 bad at it's it's a hard way of making a 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.599 living because people can walk off, you know, they don't 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:48.920 like what you're doing, They just they wander off, and 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.480 they did in large numbers when I was doing street entertaining. 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:57.480 So I did that. And then I mean, we'll talk 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.839 about sort of as you say, success, but in terms 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.839 of opportunity. You know, most of the opportunities that have 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.840 come my way have been by chance. And so at 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.039 the end of my degree, I was walking along my 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.640 friend was walking in the opposite direction and bumped into 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:13.880 him and he said, you know, that's the weirdest thing. 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.600 I've just seen this poster for a pH d position, 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:18.919 which would be perfect for you studying the psychology of 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.960 magic up in Edinburgh. And I often think, well, you know, 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.320 if that somebody hadn't put that post up, or he 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:26.720 hadn't walked that route, or I hadn't walked the route 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.720 and bumped into him, I wouldn't have known about that opportunity. 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.040 This is all prior to email and so on and 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.400 the web. And so this was a professor up in 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.320 Edinburgh who's doing work on the paranormal wanted a magician 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.440 and so I came up to here and studied psychology 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.240 and magic for four years. That's my pH d. And 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:46.080 then after that went back down to the University of 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.240 Hertfordshire and did some of the research which a spect 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.200 you may I read about. So that that's my kind 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.839 of career in terms of magic and psychology coming together. 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:57.719 I love it. What was the name of your advisory. 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.799 Up here is Professor Robert Morris who was the Curseler 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:06.560 Professor of parapsychology. So Bob was. I don't think he 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:09.280 believed in paranormal stuff or not. He's certainly very open 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:11.440 to it, but he also knew that lots of the 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.440 psychics and mediums and so on were cheats, and he 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.120 wanted someone to do some work on psychology and magic 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.160 so he could sort of separate the two outs. And 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.840 what was amazing about that experience, I was working in 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.520 a parapsychology unit, which is the psychology of the paranormal. Now, 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:30.040 I'm skeptical about that stuff, most tragicians are. I was 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:33.920 deeply skeptical, and you I was surrounded by people who 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.880 kind of believed that stuff. And I think it's very 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.440 healthy to be working an area and to meet people 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.080 whose belief systems you don't share, because it kind of 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.640 teaches you how to be tolerant and respectful when you 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.800 don't agree with somebody. So it set me in a 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.440 good kind of stead for that. So yeah, that was 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:58.200 Bob Morris up here, and that was four glorious years 0:07:58.320 --> 0:07:59.800 doing psychology and magic stuff. 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.680 That's so cool. I feel like the psychology of the 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:08.040 paranormal is a very fringe area of psychology. When I 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.520 go to the APA conferences, I just don't meet many 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.400 paranormal psychologists. 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.080 That's definitely true. Yeah, probably. I mean I was doing 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.520 it's probably about fifty people. Now there's probably about twenty 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.679 people around the world. So yes, it's not an area 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:23.920 that attracts many people. 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.400 It's not an area that attracts many people. Yet, Like, 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:32.040 if there is something to this, then like it's like 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.160 the most important thing. That's the interesting thing about this 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:39.480 is like it's you know, it's the most fringe area. 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:44.360 But let's say a psychologist does someday actually find something 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.640 that replicates within the parent because yeah, no one's replicating 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.199 this shit. Well let's say soone actually replicates. Well, then 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.360 it's like wait a minute, hold on, maybe we should 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:53.280 now focus on this. 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:56.800 Yeah, now that that's true, it has the opportunity or 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:01.640 the possibility of revolutionizing exactly obviously the mind and so on. 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.280 But you do need evidence, good evidence. I don't believe 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.000 the evidence is there for extrasensory perception. But Bob's argument, 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.520 even back then, this would have been the late eighties, 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:14.440 early nineties, his argument was, I think it's true. Let's 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.240 imagine none of this is true. We're still going to 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:21.040 learn something about why people have out of body experiences 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.040 or think they're in telepathic contact with their loved ones, 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:26.960 or go to a medium and think they've contacted the dead. 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.920 We're going to learn something interesting about psychology. And that's 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.000 true of magic. You know, when you study magicians and 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.080 how they manipulate attention and all sorts of other things, 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:41.520 you're learning about psychology, and people are fascinated by this stuff. 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:46.679 What psychologists are really good at, academic psychologists is taking 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:51.440 people who I find very interesting in our lives and emotions, 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:53.320 and we love and we hate, and we have beliefs 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.360 that aren't true, and we argue with people and we 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.280 get on with people, and so taking all of that 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.199 buzzing complexity and reducing it to something really quite dull, 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:06.640 and so that saddens me. And a lot of my 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.960 work is about trying to celebrate the role of people 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:15.280 in society and keep psychology interesting. I mean, that's why 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.400 I got into it in the first place. You know, 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.880 I read these things, and yet psychologists have this rather 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.880 uncanny ability to take something as interesting and converting into 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:27.560 something quite dull. 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.360 Well, you're so right. I mean, you're the literally, you're 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:36.079 the professor of public understanding at your university. Yes, yes, 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.640 and uh, you know, like you literally I've never heard 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:43.760 of that, but maybe Richard Dawkins the only other time 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:45.520 I ever heard of someone who was a professor of 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.920 like public you know, why the public should care about something, and. 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:54.480 Him Richard started he was public understanding science, I think, 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:57.920 and then when I got my professorship, I went with 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.880 public understanding of psychology because it allows me to move 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:06.280 in many different spheres. But also, you know, fundamentally, people 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:12.120 should be so honored and excited to study psychology. When 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.920 I first speak to undergraduates on their first day in 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.440 the university, they're all excited. And then when you speak 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.319 to them in year three or year four, they've kind 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.120 of lost that excitement and it's all become a little 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.920 bit dull. And I think that's because psychology is quite 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:30.920 a lot of it isn't very interesting. So I always 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:33.600 think we should remember why we're doing this stuff, and 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.760 how wonderful, you know, how wonderful brains are, how wonderful 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.280 minds are. We've got no idea how the brain creates 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:41.920 the mind. We don't really have very much an idea 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.680 of how brains work, and we're still only scratching the 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.680 surface in terms of the complexity and getting our heads 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.280 around that. So yeah, I always sort of choose topics 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.120 that I find interesting and I think other people will 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.680 find interesting. For that reason, I don't do much work on, 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.679 you know, short term memory, because I would find it 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:02.760 difficult to bring that live. 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:06.320 But you did write a book on helping people with 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:07.439 their memory memory. 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:15.280 I forgot about that. Yes, that's eronic crazy, yes, so, yeah, 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:17.680 a short book on memory. But again, it was about 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.640 how to improve your memory, right, Well, it wasn't about 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.720 you know, the intricacies of how memories long. 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:28.240 Term Well, exactly, that's right, that's it. Well, I know 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.760 I find the well, I definitely find the topics study 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:35.280 interesting for sure. I remember, it's just a shame in 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:39.000 psychology that we don't in grad school promote people more 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:43.120 or encourage encouraged students who want to do public outreach 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.560 of their science. When I was in grad school, I 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.400 started blogging for Psychology Today, right when that blog network started, 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.280 and my advisor called me into his office and he's like, 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.120 we need to talk, like, you know, this is really 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.760 you're really out there, you know, in this department for 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.200 doing this, and you realize this is going to hurt 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:06.120 your your chances at tenure, and and you know, it 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:12.440 turns out he was right, But I mean that was. 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.120 True of me. When I finished by parapsychology stuff in 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:17.680 ninety two, I was looking for a job. It turns 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.240 out nobody wants to employ a parapsychologist or something that's 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:22.600 done to work. And so it is that that is 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:24.720 totally true that the system is set up for a 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.599 certain type of psychology. Were publish in certain types of 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:29.959 journals and get certain types of grant and if you're 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.920 going to sit outside of that, it can be quite challenging. 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:37.640 But you know that the key question to me is, well, 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:41.400 why are you're doing anything? Quite frankly, what makes something meaningful? 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.679 And when you ask that psychologist, their answer is, well, 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.920 because I published journal articles and I get grants. That's 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.080 the end point. The end point isn't to understand or 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:56.400 to celebrate humanity. And so the number of times people 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.240 are confused when you go, well, let's just forget about 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.560 the articles and the why are you studying this? And 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:04.480 people just psychologists look kind of a bit bewilled and go, 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.760 I'm just doing it because that's to get those publications, 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.600 get those grants, and that's how you get on. So yeah, 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.280 I think it'd be nice if there was a dramatic 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.720 change in my lifetime of encouraging people to think about 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.520 why they're doing what they're doing and what is meaningful? 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.560 Well, that would be nice, wouldn't that be nice? Yeah, well, 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:29.160 sign me up for that. That that club I view 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.560 you as part of a tradition of that includes James Randy, 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:38.120 the Amazing Randy, and includes Banacheck. And but it's it's 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.000 a it's a smaller club than that because you're a 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:45.080 psychologist who was formerly I mean, they I put you 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.120 in this sort of tradition because they you know, James 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.480 Randy tried to test to see some of those bullshit, 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:59.120 but he didn't really do rigorous double blind me for TV. Look, 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.440 I'm going to show you how I'm smarter than you. 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:05.040 You know that you're dumb, that you wired and that. Look, 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.200 I'm the amazing Randy. But with all due respect, I 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:10.240 have a lot of respect for him. But that's what 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:11.720 the TV show is about. 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.960 Yeah, no, I'm not quite the same as that. 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:16.400 I mean, look at me. 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.960 Yeah right, yeah, I mean I suppose in terms of 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.600 going back, I'd probably close to Ray him and Jim 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:26.160 Orcock people like that who were and still are doing 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.200 that kind of work within psychology. We should say, though, 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.880 Randy who and I knew James very well. You know, 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:34.840 it was an amazing guy. I mean, it was the 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.560 amazing Randy. But he's amazing in many many ways. And 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:43.360 one is he just very charismatic, very clear thinking, very bright, 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.400 and had a great ability to take skepticism and make 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.280 it exciting on the media. And that is not an 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.040 easy thing to do. I mean, it's more exciting to 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.160 talk about why ghosts are real than why they may 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.240 not exist. But James could bring that alive. You know 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.360 that famous line of people prefer the bunk to the 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.040 d bunk where he was able to overcome that. And 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.960 he was great, and some of these investigations are very 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:11.080 brave as well. He went after people that he knew 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:13.960 were going to kind of come back at him. So yeah, 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.480 he was a good, big, big fan of his work. 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.040 Banichick is wonderful as well, really talented. Have you ever 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.440 seen Banichick doing the spoon bending, which I saw in 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.600 Vegas a few years ago. My goodness, it's really good. 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.800 It's really really good. But yeah, you are right. My roots, 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.680 I suppose, because they're in academia, will be closer to 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.200 people like Ray him and Jim l Kock who'd come 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:37.920 more from that that kind of tradition. 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.320 And I was very careful and what I said, because 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.080 I could have easily just put you in the camp of, oh, 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:45.960 you come from the tradition of Daryl Bem But I 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.000 don't feel like you come from the tradition of Daryl 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.960 in a sense in a sense because in one sense, yes, 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.680 because you're both rigorous scientists, right, But another sense is 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.480 that I feel like you're even more critical of it, 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:01.400 of it than he is. 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.040 But yeah, I mean, Darre's not particularly critical. Now, I mean, 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.959 he starts off, I think, being quite skeptical. He's very 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.760 good magician. It was actually taught I think by Slodini, 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.680 and does some great magic. Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:15.920 I think that's right. Certainly I've seen him do Sladini, 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.080 which we should explain to people is a very particular 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.720 type of magic. I've seen him do those those those 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:29.960 sorts of routines. And Darrell's great published main parapsychological papers 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.800 suggesting there was something to it in mainstream journals and 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:40.160 inadvertently kicked off the current crisis in replication in psychology 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:47.240 because people looked at those articles started to criticize his research, saying, oh, well, 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:49.480 you know, maybe he looked at the data pre analyzed it, 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.520 or he's not reporting everything, or whatever it is. And 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:54.760 then other people went old on a minute, that may 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.160 be true of that parapsychological work, but it's also true 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.359 of a lot of psychology as well, And so that 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.240 kicked off this whole kind of we need to be 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:05.760 able to replicate and need to look critically our own studies, 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.000 And now that's become a huge movement, and because of 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.800 that movement, psychologists now are talking about a thing called preregistration, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.600 which is where you write down what you're going to do, 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:19.119 the way in which you're going to analyze data, and 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.480 so on before you conduct the study. And the full 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.359 circle on it is that parapsychologists were doing that for 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:29.480 fifteen years many many years ago, I mean pro twenty 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:34.359 years ago. Now they ran those sorts of systems because 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.360 they knew there were problems with the data. So it's 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.560 another way to which parapsychology can kind of overlap with psychology. 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.480 Yeah, just on a nerdy note, pregistration is kind of 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:49.479 like mentalism. I mean, aren't they making a prediction? We 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:51.520 predict this will be our hypothesis. 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.440 Correct, that's right, yes, But unlike mentalism, it's quite hard 0:18:55.440 --> 0:19:01.760 to change that prediction. So so so yeah, it's an 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.240 attempt to kind of sort if it. 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.480 Was right, If it goes right, you know it looks impressive. 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.679 You make a big fuss, that's right. Yes, yeah, yeah, 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:17.159 So Daryl contributed to that. And actually, weirdly, there's another 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.960 overlap there because before you go into parapsychology, Darrel was 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:24.479 doing stuff on self perception theory, which is this notion 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.760 that you figure out how you feel by looking at 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.280 how you're acting. So it's this idea that if you 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.359 force your face into a smile, then you cheer yourself 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:37.679 up because you look at yourself. I think I'm smiling, 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.120 I must be happy. And he did some great work 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.320 on that, quite early work. And then one of my 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.040 books was about entirely about self perception theory, the rip 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:48.760 it Up Book, or called the Asif Principle and states. 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.320 So I interviewed Daryl for that when I did that book. 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:54.439 It was odd talking to him entirely about that and 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:57.920 not about parapsychology because that's not viewing. But no, it 0:19:58.760 --> 0:19:59.160 is great. 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:02.400 Have you ever talked to him about parents because you're 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:04.920 a rep You have a study right that found it 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.640 didn't replicate. Weren't an author on that at Cothora? 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.480 Well yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we didn't replicate stuff. No, 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.919 I've spoken to Daryl and we did summer schools together 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.280 in America on parapsychology, so I know him reasonably well. 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:21.760 And yeah, this is what I mean. We within parapsychology. 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.520 I don't see eye to i with most parapsychologists in 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.159 terms of whether this stuff is true. But you have 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.960 to sit down the room and have a conversation with 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:35.960 somebody without shouting. And that's a that's a useful skill. 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:38.600 I mean, we all know about confirmation bias. We love 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.680 to surround ourselves with people that agree with us. And 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:46.200 I mean talking going back to success. I know I'm 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.320 not going to name them. I know two very very 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:53.399 famous magicians and I went to see their shows, and 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.080 I go and see them, see them afterwards. I'm not 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:57.960 gonna say who is. I'm not gonna say who is? 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:02.399 Uh and uh. Each of them said to me, what 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:04.720 do you think of the show? And so there's always 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:07.200 this tradition that you say nice things about someone's show. 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:08.960 And I said, I enjoyed this, and both of them 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.199 cut me dead. I said, never mind about that. What 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.600 did you hate? What can I change tomorrow? And that 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:16.760 they were at the top of their game, and all 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.160 they're interested in is what can I change? How can 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.280 I improve? And it's an odd skill. It's it's something 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.200 that we don't embrace easily as saying to somebody, yeah, 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.960 but how can I get how to get better? What 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:30.640 do you disagree with about what I'm what I'm doing? 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:32.040 Not what do you agree with? We all want to 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:34.200 be surrounded by people that go, oh, you're wonderful, you're great. 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:36.960 Actually you learn far more from the people that go yeah, 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:40.560 not for me. So that was always an important lesson. 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:48.560