Talk:Penn & Teller/Archive1

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This is an archive page, last updated 17 July 2013. Please do not make edits to this page.
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[edit] Serious cleanup

Is anyone emotionally attached to the mess that the page is in at the moment? The two "versions" aren't really needed and the references to Human's dislike of the dynamic duo are really distracting. Plus, I reckon if the P&T article is going to concentrate on Bullsh!t it should be moved to Penn and Teller: Bullsh!t or similar (it's already linked to in the bullshit article. Scarlet A.pngbomination 17:34, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the two versions thing was just a cheap and easy way to save two sets of "efforts" when we fixed the ampersand problem. I'd say leave the title alone, even if our main interest in them is as debunkers. Feel free to merge/rewrite. I don't mind my "personal" comment being removed as long as some criticisms remain. ħumanUser talk:Human 18:36, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Page rewrite

Hello, longtime reader and first-time contributor. I decided I would rewrite this page to better explain who Penn and Teller are and their relation to the skeptical community. I am not a libertarian and strongly disagree with that worldview and there is no doubt that many of their episodes are controversial. But they are also a regular feature at skeptics conventions like The Amazing Meeting and their role in debunking things we all hate, like creationism and Truthers, means that I think they at least deserve a fair shake on the wiki. I've left the previous version of the page in hidden-tags in case someone wants to re-incorporate it. ShadowUltra (talk) 20:55, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Nice, a much-needed rewrite. I disagree with their politics quite a bit, but I think a good deal of their libertarian-oriented shows are funny and well-done. The environmental stuff is really what grates me the most (especially when they credulously present some Cato "scholar" as an expert, you'd think they'd be a bit more, well, skeptical about the massive amounts of astroturf and denialism that comes out of Cato). They've done decent take-downs of things like the woo-peddlers at Greenpeace screeching about "Frankenfoods," but stuff like the AGW and smoking episodes really should have episodes dedicated to debunking them (Bullshit! is bullshit!). Fortunately for guys like Shermer and P&T, unlike many of their libertarian brethren, they finally did an about face on the AGW issue, so credit where credit is due. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 21:10, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Gun control

The amusing bit about that one seemed to be that their main argument was that it allowed you to have a revolution, practically calling for an uprising by the end of the episode. Which I think is a fairly valid reason for gun ownership. It's considerably less pretentious, and a lot more fitting with what the Cult of Gun in America was meant to be about. ADK...I'll sniff your magnet! 00:40, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect name for Teller

Teller has not legally held the name "Raymond" since 1977, it should not be part os his name.. his full legal name is only Teller. Any source that tells you he used to have this name mentions this as well. -Cen

Wouldn't it be great if, when you spotted an error on a website, there was, oh I don't know, button you could click to fix it, at the top the page labelled with "edit" or something. ТyBother me 19:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Hey, that's my line! Scarlet A.pngmoralModerator 20:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 :P ТyBother me 21:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I made the edit. Usually when I edit something myself an admin yells at me for vandalism even when its legit so I tend to avoid it anymore. -Cen

Create an account, you can be an admin in 20 edits. Scarlet A.pngbominationModerator 20:21, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Na, you need to stump up the dosh nowadays. Redchuck.gif ГенгисIs the Pope a Catholic?Moderator 08:48, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Recycling ammendum

I added in a note on recycling that P&T do in fact disagree with their own episode now after the fact and currently don't support that viewpoint anymore. -Cen98.114.179.115 (talk) (block) 2012-10-11T02:57:14‎

Interesting. Thanks! LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 04:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Unsurprising, the recycling episode was on par with the obesity and second-hand smoke episodes in terms of how much BS got crammed into it. Scarlet A.pnggnosticModerator 07:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Libertarianism

"Penn and Teller are controversial figures in the skeptic community because of their libertarian political views. ... your mileage may vary on episodes dealing with politics and economics." It's unclear why their libertarianism is a supposedly legitimate reason to make them controversial or to give them less credibility. 50.132.101.24 (talk) 17:14, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Because they often throw reason to the wind and merely assert that anything that has anything to do with government in any form must be bad. Recycling was one thing, Penn may have changed their official stance on it slightly, but the episode was entirely "guv'mnt can't tell me what to do!!" ditto with much of the episode on the Americans with Disabilities Act, which focused on some BS stunt with an iron lung to prove that... well, not sure what it was meant to prove, but the take home message was "you can't actually accommodate all these people, so why bother". That's poor, at best. And it was much the same with the obesity epsiode, where it was "guv'mnt can't tell me not to eat pie!!" ad nauseam for 25 minutes. Scarlet A.pngnarchistModerator 09:52, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
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