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The Infinite Monkey Cage

Science vs The Supernatural: Does Science Kill the Magic?

The Infinite Monkey Cage

BBC

Comedy, Science

4.79.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2011

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Robin Ince and Brian Cox are joined on stage by actor and magician Andy Nyman, psychologist Richard Wiseman and neuroscientist Bruce Hood as they take on the paranormal. They'll be looking at some of the more popular claims of supernatural goings on, and asking whether a belief in ghosts, psychic abilities and other other-worldly phenomena, is just a bit of harmless fun, or whether there are more worrying implications in a belief in the paranormal.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is a download from the BBC to find out more visit bbc.co.uk

0:05.8

Slash radio for hello

0:08.0

He's Robin ins and he's Brian Cox and this is infinite monkey cage today

0:12.2

I'm going to test my psychic abilities with this audience here

0:16.0

Now did anyone in the audience know anyone who owned a hat?

0:22.2

Excellent, so there we are that's proved already that I have an uncanny ability to commune with the dead

0:28.3

Or at least make loose statements that are easily applicable to many different people. It's a gift

0:34.5

We're actually going to be looking at science and the supernatural

0:37.5

We aim to list every paranormal phenomenon that has occurred throughout all of human history that cannot be explained by science

0:45.0

Good night

0:47.7

But why do at least three out of four living people have a belief in the supernatural and that figure goes through the roof when you ask dead people

0:58.3

Thank you, and that was more effective than I imagined

1:04.3

To help us flesh out the answer beyond the negative we have a panel of experts are the nearest available equivalents

1:09.8

Our first guest to spend the last year terrifying audiences in his hit play ghost stories

1:13.8

He's also fought zombies and lost in Charlie Brooker's dead set and devised tricks for Darren Brown

1:18.4

He's an all-rounder. Well say all-rounder all-rounder on a sphere made of zombies Russian roulette and parapsychology

1:24.3

In fact, he's terrible at typing and not particularly impressed with volleyball

1:27.3

But nevertheless, it's Andy Neiman next guest started as a young magician and remains obsessed by the nature of illusion and people's fascination with the paranormal

1:34.6

As a psychologist and author he has asked many important questions like how can we find happiness?

1:40.1

Why does the human mind appear to trick itself? And is that a duck? Is professor Richard Weisman?

1:46.1

And our final guest is a neuroscientist at the University of Bristol and author of super sense why we believe in the unbelievable

1:52.2

His next book will investigate if free will is an illusion my anyone would choose to write about that

...

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