Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/26/what-scam-artists-can-teach-us.html
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Obligatory reading:
Macknik, S., Mac King, J., Robbins, A., Teller, J., and Martinez-Conde, S. (2008). Attention and awareness in stage magic: turning tricks into research. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(11):871–879.
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The brain defaults to trust. They take advantage of that.
Most of them are masters at guiding your attention where they want it to go.
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One of the past grand masters of exposing scams was James Randi, aka The Amazing Randi. He’s a stage magician who put up a $1 million prize for scientifically testable proof of extrasensory abilities. Despite a lot of attempts (and howling from those who got exposed as fakes), no one has collected.
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When I was a kid, he was one of my favorites when he was a guest on Mike Douglas or Carson. I think the check was less than a million then… 
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