Archive for category Pseudoscience
Tarots And Tattoos In Tijuana
Posted by Marsh in Pseudoscience on April 7, 2010
Last week, CBS News posted the following report, which can be filed firmly in the THAT’s The Harm box:
“Police running scared from drug gangs in one of Mexico’s deadliest cities are using bizarre rituals involving animal sacrifice and spirit tattoos to seek protection from raging violence on the U.S. border” – Source: CBS
As the story continues (and it’s worth reading the whole thing), an increasing litany of pseudoscience emerges as being relied-upon by police involved in one of the most dangerous drug wars on the planet, including:
- Tarot card symbols
- Magical protective tattoos
- Animal sacrifices – chicken
- Haitian Voodoo, Cuban Santeria, Mexican Witchcraft
- Priests
- Patron saints (including Jesus Malverde, patron saint of drug traffickers)
- Statues and skulls
- Ritualistic behaviour
- Spirits
- Full moons
What strikes me most about the story is the extremity of the situation – given the grip drug gangs have on the region, and the inevitable supply of funds this affords criminals in their war with the police, the local authorities are understandably up against the wall. Many are forced (often at gunpoint) to switch sides and work for the gangs. Clearly, the honest police are fighting a losing battle, and one with deadly consequences… and so they turn to whichever belief system might offer them a chink of hope.
Psychologists often talk about the habit of the human mind to delve into unscientific, ritualistic behaviour at times of great stress or anxiety. Rarely have I ever seen a case so illustrative of that simple fact. We truly are just pattern-seeking pigeons, it seems.
Pssst! Needle-Free Acupuncture: Reality-Free Bullshit
Posted by Marsh in Acupuncture, Pseudomedicine, Pseudoscience, Quacks, Skepticism on April 6, 2010
Mind Body Wallet Bullshit Spirit festivals are an endless source of textbook woo – be it past-life regressionists taking people back to prehistoric times, psychics claiming to have been involved in all manner of police investigations, or dowsers explaining that wooden dowsing rods work because wood naturally seeks out water. Come to think of it, I’ve seen all of those things – in the very same room. They really do have to be seen to be believed.
Often, the contents of a MBWBS event tend to vary from the silly, to the deceptive, to the outright ridiculous and offensive – that’s relatively standard fare, really. Sometimes, however, an exhibitor is thrown up that’s simply and utterly dangerous – and it was the charming practitioners from Innersound that filled the role at the last festival I visited. (Listeners to our Skeptics With A K podcast will already know all about Innersound and their needle-free ‘Qi’ therapy).
Before you all dash off to Google Innersound and check out their woo-filled website (don’t worry, I’ll be doing that for you in a bit anyway), let me first explain to you how I came across them initially. Wandering around said MBWBS event, checking out the various stalls, I got chatting to an elderly Korean woman with a massage table. She explained to me that, due to fear in the West over the use of needles, she was giving people the chance to try needle-free acupuncture. Or ‘acu’, you might call it. Obviously, I was intrigued, I was mystified, and above all I was skeptical. “How do you do acupuncture without needles?”, I thought.
“How do you do acupuncture without needles?” I asked her.
“Oh, it’s simple – we use sound vibrations applied along acupressure points, which resonate with the frequencies of our own bodies, so that they interact with the healing centre of our inner core and unlock the healing energy within”, she replied Read the rest of this entry »
Political Astrology: Star Guff In The Huff-Po
Posted by Marsh in astrology, cold-reading, Pseudoscience on March 25, 2010
As our educated, smart and – I’ll say it! – downright sexy readers are doubtlessly aware, the Huffington Post is a great source of… well… crap. For one thing, there’s Dana Ullman making wild statements about homeopathy, Jenny and Jim trying to kill babies… it’s rarely a tome worthy of a great deal of respect.
However, even I was surprised to see the angle taken by the Huff-Po this week, when I spotted Patricia Martin’s column ‘The Politics of Astrology and the Secret Lives of CEOs‘. In an interview with Astrologer Susan Miller, the article explores the ways in which astrology can play a part in politics and business… and, bizarrely, doesn’t come to the conclusion ‘none’. Quoting the article:
Over slabs of glazed salmon at the Drake Hotel dining room, Ms. Miller and I discussed the astrological year ahead for American politics. Cheerful even when delivering hard news, Ms. Miller offered up the following outlook:
So, lets take a look at what the stars predict for the political year ahead in America -
Healthcare reform will pass, but undergo tweaks and revisions for several months to come.
I think that’s fair to call it a hit. I think it’s also fair to say it’s a hit I could have come up with – the political weight behind the healthcare reform definitely had it in the ‘plausible’ pile, and the opposition to it most certainly had it in the ‘undergo tweaks and revisions’ pile. What’s more, what controversial bill doesn’t get tweaked and revised? Poor hit.
President Obama should not stop with health care reform, she twinkled. “He’s going to be very powerful these next few months and he should use it to his advantage”
Excellent, this is interesting – for one, she’s saying the President of the USA will be powerful. Which is obvious. What’s more, she’s not actually making a prediction there at all – his level of power isn’t quantifiable, for one thing, so nobody can dispute it. On top of that, she’s said he should use it to his advantage, not that he will, or can, or anything definite. So if he doesn’t make the most of it, she can claim that she told him he should have! These kind of predictions of potential (rather than actuality) are classic examples of cold reading, and something to look out for – a good psychic (ie someone who’s good at faking magical powers) will never tell you anything for certain, instead they’ll give you statements about your potential, leaving themselves the exit strategy of the ‘untapped potential’. Add to that the fact that Obama’s potential is to use his power to ‘his advantage’ – an entirely vague outcome – and we can see how lame this ‘prediction’ really is. Read the rest of this entry »
The Healing Powers of Ringtones
Posted by Colin H in Fun Stuff, Pseudomedicine, Pseudoscience on March 20, 2010
Japan has a reputation for originating new and pointless technological novelties, and its latest youth fad doesn’t disappoint.
The youth of Japan are apparently currently obsessed with a new selection of ringtones created by a company called the Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory. This isn’t another ‘Crazy Frog’ though. If it was, I would have shot myself rather than write this post. No, it’s something altogether more interesting, although just as moronic. These ringtones are “therapeutic ringtones”. Yes, forget acupuncture, hypnotherapy or the pleasures of a good sit down: simply play the ringtone on your phone and all your cares and health troubles will float away down the winding river of easy cures, along with your wallet and your self respect. Only in Japan. Well, for now.
Read the rest of this entry »
When Is A Watch Not A Watch?
Posted by Andy in Pseudoscience, Skepticism on February 13, 2010
When is a watch not a watch?
There’s something about a certain type of selling that really gets my goat. It’s the really well written, apparently credible, charismatic selling that shows itself in marketing brochures and various collateral online or in print. Mostly this happens where the commercial entity that seeks to benefit is well-funded. They can employ the best marketing people and get the best writers.
To people like me, and I hope, you, the marketing speak comes over as a cloud of bullshit arrows, words desperately devoid of facts and trying to strike home between whatever neurones aren’t paying close attention.
For example:
Philip Stein has recently introduced its first Automatic timepiece with Swiss movement, its unique e-tailing program that includes profit sharing for local retailers from online sales and the opening of the company’s first store in the Americas. For a complete history of Philip Stein or technical information related to natural frequencies or the new Natural Frequency Disc, please visit www.PhilipStein.com.
Oh, hold on. Did someone mention frequencies? Oh yes. Get ready for it. It’s the latest solution to the everyday stresses and strains that YOU can’t cope with. It reduces stress, increases how quickly you get to sleep, increases how well you feel AFTER you’ve slept and makes you have better dreams. Read the rest of this entry »
I Believe in… Miracles
Posted by Allan in Crop Circles, Media, Pseudoscience, Skepticism, UFOs on February 5, 2010
Well folks, I think everyone is pretty much recovered from the events following the big swallow and with all of us swallowers retaining the use of body, mind and ‘energies’, then it must be time to turn some attention further out, deeper into the big, bad, wild and woolly world of woo. Woohoo!
The “I Believe in…” series that is currently playing out on BBC Three at the audience-friendly time of ‘midnight-ish’ is, by far, the most incredulous, poorly thought-out, nonsense-laden idiot-fest seen on British TV since, well… *cough* erm… Jeremy Kyle is on every day… and The Wright Stuff… and then there’s almost all of Channel 5’s output… Satellite channels… (has anyone ever watched anything of Conspiracy TV? *giggles*)
OK, so there’s stiff competition out there in the time-rich and thought-poor facets of British media, and anything that comes with short sentences, a couple of nice locations and a pretty face or two is likely to get up there on the box at some point, no matter how inane the subject material, or how utterly bonkers the take on said substrate may be. This is where Danny Dyer, Jodie Kidd and “I Believe in…” come in.
Danny Dyer’s effort, “I Believe in UFO’s”, deserves its own lengthy analysis, but I’ll just relay one little element that really made me chuckle… Loveable, credulous, silly old Danny has just been out in a crop field with a ‘Crop Circle Expert’, who is in fact just some random dude with a VW campervan and an IQ problem, calmly explaining how crop circles must be produced by aliens, because the ‘knees’ of the stalks on the crops can only be bent over in this way by high temperatures of some sort, and thus ‘steam’ in the joint and… WHOOM… down go the grasses into this week’s pattern picked out of ‘Flying Saucer Crop Patterns Lightyearly’ (WHSmith will get it in if you ask nicely, have two green heads and 6 limbs (but don’t tell Danny!)) by our Alien UberSturmFuhrer on duty to watch over us puny Earthlings and molest cattle on that particular night. Our hero, swollen with ‘knowledge’, goes into the local pub to meet some thoroughly delightful chaps at the pool table – very casual. These delightful chaps then go on to tell him that it’s all a load of bollocks. It’s them! They go into the crop circles at night, mob-handed, and proceed to inflict criminal damage on a lot of innocent arable crops and the brains of gullible, half-witted townies… without actually admitting it of course – the local constabulary might be watching. Cue Danny’s almost weepy lament pouring out of his drizzle-stricken grid. For everything else there may well be credit cards, but these moments which warm the heart… Priceless. Read the rest of this entry »
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