Houdini, Crop Circles and the Need to Believe

[snopes]

What happens when a hoaxer owns up and nobody believes him? Dan Gardner's new book "Future Babble" explains the many ways in which experts refuse to admit that they were wrong about something. They ignore contrary evidence, point selectively to facts that weigh in their favor or simply shrug off the mistake as a problem of timing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...969207014.html

[crocoduck_hunter]

Sounds interesting.

[BenPenguin]

I have learnt this all too well. I am a magician who specialises in psychological influencing (Derren Brown style). The amount of times people have claimed that what I do using psychology has made them even more confident in the fact psychics exist and can read minds paranormally astounds me.