Richard Dawkins is of course a man held in high regard by many, if not most, atheists, but this was not his finest hour. He looked at, and pulled apart, astrology, water dowsing, contacting the dead via spirit mediums, brought in Derren Brown to talk about cold reading, and... is this starting to look like a list of 'the usual suspects'? But that's probably because they've all been done to death before. We all know that astrology is garbage. We all know that mediums just keep pulling out words until someone in the audience picks up on them (cold reading). Dowsing is twaddle. Aura photographs are cack. So why does Richard Dawkins feel he has to cover the same territory?

I was disappointed. There was nothing new here. Worse, there was nothing here I'd not seen Derren Brown demonstrate a whole lot better. I'd have much rather seen Dawkins as a guest on a Derren Brown documentary than what I saw tonight.

Click to watch Derren Brown - Messiah if you want a truly fascinating look at how easy it is to pull the wool over gullible people's eyes.

And I'm sorry to say that the pull of the Coronation Street 2-parter on ITV was too great. I watched the first 30 minutes of Richard Dawkins, then switched back over at 8:30 to watch Steve McDonald explain to Michelle and the whole pub that he had kissed a transvestite man in Malta. I watched a few more minutes of 'The Enemies of Reason' during the ad break, but all I got was that 'whatever' feeling.

Sorry, this was definitely not something you 'must not miss'. Make your own list of superstitions and pseudo-scientific practices and tell yourself 'they are all bullshit'. You'll save yourself an hour of your time. I'll still watch part 2 next week, but it will again clash with Coronation Street, so there's going to have to be something pretty special to get my attention. If you still want to see the series, and if you're outside the UK, I will add links to the site as soon as someone uploads the videos, but believe me, the Derren Brown special is far more enlightening than this, and Penn & Teller's 'Bullshit' shows are another source for entertainment and education about a variety of similar practices.