Homework 31/10/10

How does 'The System' illustrate the features of Science discussed in 'The Truth is Out There' (Inductive reasoning, falsification, Occam's Razor, Paradigm Shift)?


"The System" created by Darren Brown demonstrates the four features of science highlighted in the article "The Truth is Out There", one of these features includes inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is when someone makes a prediction that is solely based on their past experiences. In this case, Khadisha's belief that "The System" truly works is based on the fact that as a result of it, she had won four times in a row at horse racing. She continues to believe in "The System" until it is falsified at the end of the documentary.

Falsification is the possibility that a statement could be proven wrong by certain observations or physical experiments. When something is "falsifiable", it does not mean that it is wrong but, more specifically, it means that if the statement were to be false, then it's falsehood could be revealed. This scientific feature is demonstrated when the secret behind "The System" is revealed to Khadisha at the end of the documentary. We find out that there were actually 7,776 people involved in the process of "The System", and that Khadisha was the last one left in the group to experience the falsification of "The System" - when the horse she thought she had bet on lost the race. Moreover, falsification in "The System" is illustrated when Brown flips a coin ten times, guaranteeing that it would land on heads every time. However, later on we are shown that in order to do this, Brown had to go through the process of falsification by flipping the coins for nine hours until he got the results he wanted.

Occam's Razor states that the simplest explanations are the best. For "The System", the simplest explanation is that it does not exist, because if it was to work, it would be widespread and everyone would know about it, thus betting on horse racing would be pointless because everyone would win.

A paradigm shift is a change from one way of thinking to another. A paradigm shift changes our perspectives of a belief. In "The System", a paradigm shift is illustrated when Brown demonstrates the "highly improbable" chances of "The System" to the horse racing experts. Their doubts about "The System" are altered and a paradigm shift has occurred.