How Did Derren Brown Predict the Lottery Result Live on TV?
Derren Brown supposedly predicted the UK national lottery result last Wednesday live on TV, then on Friday he came back on TV to tell us all how he had done it. Lol - thanks Derren it was a hoot ! Unfotunately it won't make me a millionaire so I shall continue blogging about how to earn money on the Internet blogging.
Let me say from the outset that the lottery prediction was rubbish (although the numbers were correct) and the 'explanation' provided by Derren Brown was nonsense.
Derren Brown is famous in the UK for doing TV shows where he hypnotizes people or influences them to do things that are supposedly totally random e.g. predicting that somebody left alone in a supermarket and told to buy one item, will buy a bottle of vinegar. He achieves this by influencing the person to buy precisely what he wants them to buy (assuming the shows are not completely fixed) by gluing the thought 'must buy vinegar' in their sapien brain cell without them noticing it. In that respect he is impressive. Although bear in mind that according to statistics most people rival Homer Simpson in their ability to think for themselves.
But this week Derren Brown would have us believe that a) he predicted the lottery results live on TV and that b) he did it by a mixture of deep maths (or was that deep moths?), the "wisdom of crowds", and tapping in to the subconscious mind. Ha ha, what a load of nonsense. Very entertaining though to see people converted to this new true religion !
What Derren Brown actually did was to stitch up his set of volunteers (assuming that they weren't all accomplices) so that they believed they were predicting the lottery results using 'deep fried moths' and the automatic writing methods he suggested. He then used their conviction about what they were doing to try and convince his TV audience that this is what actually happened. After which they had a group hug and said how wonderful life was - allelujah ! (Jesus's mother Mary wasn't a virgin by the way - 'virgin' is a mistranslation from the original Aramaic. So it just goes to show what can be achieved by deep automatic brainwashing).
What really happened is that Derren Brown waited till the lottery result and placed 6 white balls on a stand and showed those balls to his TV audience as proof - hmmm balls - must get some balls.
The most plausible explanation of how he achieved this is with a split screen video feed but other theories have been put forward e.g. balls with built-in displays and a remote control to choose the numbers. There are no doubt other ways. (You can see the clip on youtube if you feel the need and come up with your own theories.) Personally I have now been convinced by the split screen explanation.
The nonsense about 24 people coming up with the numbers before the event is just that, nonsense. For those who saw his 'explanation' and the whole circus of people in a room picking numbers and working out averages, consider this - the first result was totally unimpressive - 3 numbers is nothing, thousands of people pick three correct numbers every week, yet he somehow managed to convince his volunteers that this was a real achievement (the gullibility of crowds comes to mind). He then convinced his volunteers that they might do better if they only worked out the averages AFTER the reults were known - arguing that the emotion of wanting to win influences the subsconscious brain cell and prevents you from picking the correct numbers - ha ha ha the guy should be a double-glazing salesman ! - I wonder how many people win the lottery without wanting to win it ? Probably millions. Mmmmm - I must not win the lottery, I must not win the lottery ! This working out the averages AFTER the lottery result was a necessary step to set up the audience to believe they were picking the winning numbers.
The second result was 4 correct numbers allegedly. Except that the guy who said it was 4 numbers was the American cheerleader Tyler who somehow couldn't manage the 'automatic writing' and so was chosen by Derren Brown to work out the averages instead. We only have Tyler's word that the averages were what he said they were, and he only worked out the averages after the lottery result had been announced. Tyler could quite easily have been an accomplice and also good enough at maths to know his 23 times table.
For the final draw Derren Brown didn't even let Tyler work out the averages - he was relegated to the back of the room, presumably now sufficiently recovered to be able to handle the automatic writing. Derren Brown then supposedly worked out the averages himself, although he didn't tell anybody in the room what they were, he then supposedly chose the numbers and put the numbered balls in a tube without showing them to anybody and went off to the studio to reveal them after the lottery.
It was all smoke and mirrors. Even setting everybody up by telling us there were only 3 ways he could have got the numbers right. He conveniently left out the most obvious 4th way i.e. writing the numbers down after the lottery was drawn.
So why did he go to the trouble of doing what he did? Probably to show just how much he could influence the Great British public with a bit of hocus pocus, 'deep fried moths'and the afore-mentioned gullibility of crowds (thank God Derren Brown is not a lunatic fascist megalomaniac).
Maybe it was all a stunt to increase lottery sales ? Lottery sales have definitely been flagging, with even rollovers only getting up to around £5 or £6 million. I predict that, after all the hype, this week's rollover will be higher than normal, as thousands of people huddle together in groups up and down the country to try and predict tomorrow's lottery by a mixture of automatic writing and the lunacy of crowds (ha ha - in my experience people are even worse in crowds than they are on their own - 80% of people may known the capital of France isn't Madrid but what's that got to with statistics and influencing random events ? - nothing). They'd be better off having a 24-some.
I also predict that somebody will win the lottery using Derren Brown's deep fried automatic writing and the randomness of moths thus further increasing Derren Brown's status as a whatchamacallit and proving that it is all true !
But it was all good fun - except for the mouse who almost got its head smashed in (good job people associate the number 13 with bad luck) - but that's another story. Nice one Derren. I hope you succeed in your next trick of gluing people to their couches.
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