Cable Craziness

I've written before about the guilibility of some audiophiles.  They'll spend ridiculous amounts of money on stuff that supposedly improves their audio systems.  Today I came across another example. 

Chances are you're the owner of at least a couple of USB cables.  After all if you're reading this you probably own a computer, and chances are you own at least one device that needs a USB cable to connect it to your computer, like a camera or MP3 player.  Bujt if you believe the folks at the Locus Design Group your current USB cable likely isn't good enough.  Instead you need something like their Cynosure USB cable.  The price?  A mere 3549 dollars for a 3 foot cable.

Reading the blurb methinks the designer of this thing doesn't have a clue how USB devices work.  Of course the potential customers likely don't either.  After all they're the same kind of people who think that replacing a metal knob with a wooden one will make an audible difference.  And no doubt Locus will have happy customers who will rave about how the "stage" of their audio has improved, and how this was the best 3549 bucks they've ever spent.

Nice money if you can get it.

Woo Warning.

A post by Les over at Stupid Evil Bastard hipped me to this, a handy comic list of telltale words that indicate (in the proper context of course) you're dealing with a woo monger.  These will be familiar to anyone who pays attention to woo, but they're a good reminder of what to watch out for.

None For Me.

PZ Myers is a lucky guy.  He gets bizarre e-mail from weirdos, and even the occasional book, to entertain him for free.   Me, the weirdos ignore me.  They can't even go to the effort of leaving a comment when I criticise their favourite conspiracy theory or silly religious belief.  Apparently I don't come up in the incessant internet searching some people seem to do in order to counter any criticism they might face.

Don't Listen To Your Father, Jane.

As you've probably heard by now Jim Carrey's daughter Jane has given birth to a son, Jackson.  I can only hope that she won't take his advice on vaccination when the time comes.  Since getting involved with actress Jenny McCarthy Carrey has come to share her opposition to vaccinating children.  McCarthy blames vaccination for her son Evan being autistic.  Unfortunately far too many people have fallen for this idea, despite there being no convincing evidence vaccines cause autism.  So an obvious worry is that Carrey will try and get Jane not to vaccinate the little guy when the time comes.  Hopefully she'll have more common sense than her father.

Be Aware And Beware!

Apparently the British Homeopathic Association has decided that this week is Homeopathy Awareness Week. I'm afraid they won't appreciate me making you aware, if you didn't know already, that homeopathy is a load of nonsense. Homeopathic preparations are nothing but water or alcohol. There is no active ingredient. None. They are made by taking a substance and diluting it over and over again until there is no actual material left. In other words if you are buying a homeopathic product you are paying for useless liquid. You could get the same effect from drinking a normal glass of tap water. All taking such a preparation does is delay your going to see a doctor or other medical service provider who can actually help you.

Just say no to homeopathy.

Naughty CJYM.

Guys, I do appreciate you since you play Blue Jays games. But I also have to give you a slap on the wrist for having a morning horoscope. Pushing woo is not a good thing.

Don't Go To San Diego!

Seriously, dear readers, if you're planning on going to San Diego over the next couple of days, don't. Someone has discovered that the Bible says its going to be destroyed on July 8th. And you just know these guys are right because the Bible is involved, and their website has lots and lots of numbers in all sorts of eye catching colours.

Yeah, right. Ah, numerology. One of the classics of woo, and in some ways even more suited to our era than past eras given that you can buy a calculator for nothing and find even more "significant" number combinations than if you had to do it with pencil and paper. And it's a good bet the weirdo(s) behind this site will just recalculate things when nothing happens Tuesday and produce a new "doomsday date."

Geez, Oprah!

You're going to have a show about past life regression tomorrow. Given your influence, a bunch of people will take that crap seriously. After all, if it's on your show it must be true. But you should bloody well know better. You're one of the richest women in the world, so you must have some common sense. Yet you keep giving this crap credibility. And you should damn well know that falling for it will get people in trouble, whether by keeping them away from real solutions to their problems or creating entirely new ones.

But hey, maybe I'm assuming too much.

The Emperor's New Audio Gear.

Once again I'm amazed at the nonsense people will fall for in the land of audiophiles. How about special electrical outlet covers? I'd say this was a joke, but far too many people believe in similar crap in other areas of life not to believe the testimonials given are real. The company in question, Machina Dynamica, also produces such wooboxes as the Clever Little Clock. It would be interesting to know if the folks behind such products really believe their claims, or are just another batch of clever rip off artists. I suspect the number of out and out crooks are far outnumbered by true believers in this or any other field where woo has a foothold.

Tapping Your Way To Health.

I'm not Orac, and this isn't Friday. But once again I'll take a crack at taking a poke at some woo.

Of late while passing the pamphlet bin at the Saskatoon Public Library's main branch I noticed what appeared to be pamphlets for some sort of so-called alternate medicine seminar. Picking one up today it turned out to be for something called BodyTalk Access. This is the "lite" version of the more elaborate BodyTalk system as the International BodyTalk Association "has recognized the critical need for a simplied version of the system to provide access to many of the key benefits of BodyTalk to as many people as possible." The cynical part of me figures they've realised a cut price version of this stuff will attract a bigger clientel, and hence a bigger revenue base, than the full blown system. A local practitioner will be offering courses on BodyTalk Access for a mere $140 per person, $125 if you register early.

What is BodyTalk, you ask?

The BodyTalk System is a well-established system of health care utilizing state-of-the-art energy medicine in a safe and comprehensive manner. Its power is based on increasing the levels of internal communication within the body-stimulating the body's own ability to regain and maintain a healthy balance.

If you've had a bit of exposure to altmed stuff this will seem familiar. Energy fields are a popular concept in this kind of thing. The fact that conventional science has found no evidence these energy fields exist doesn't stop woo merchants from using the concept. Vague ideas of the body being out of balance when ill, and in balance when healthy, are quite common. Another is the idea that your brain isn't being used at its full power, something that is supposedly improved by the BodyTalk Access Cortices technique:

The Cortices technique is designed to improve and balance the communication between the two halves of the brain. (It's like hitting the rest button on your brain's computer.) This will improve the efficiency of the brain-thereby improving overall health.

Wow, betcha didn't know your brain had a computer, and one with a reset button no less! This of course is a variation on the old, and inaccurate, saw about humans only using 10% of their brain power, and how much more wonderful we'd all be if we used the other 90%.

A look at the BodyTalk system website turns up more familiar ideas, such as that "Each system, cell and atom is in constant communication with each other at all times." No doubt this was inspired by some of the misreadings of quantum physics all too common these days. The system is a creation of Australian Dr. John Veltheim, an acupuncturist and chiropractor. Veltheim admits on a video on the website that many of the concepts he incorporated into BodyTalk come from previous alternative medicine practices, such as Applied kinesiology.

And how do BodyTalk treatments work? By the practitioner tapping you on the head and breastbone. Yep, after determining what's out of whack they whack you on the noggin. To quote the website:

The BodyTalk system works by first identifying the weak energy circuits that exist within the body. The practitioner relies on the innate wisdom of the body to locate the energy circuits that need repair by using a form of biofeedback, which is a subtle muscle testing technique.

For every malfunctioning energy circuit that is found, the practitioner or client contacts the corresponding "points" with their hands. The practitioner then lightly taps the client on the top of the head, which stimulates the brain centers and causes the brain to re-evaluate the state of the body's health. The result is that the general energy balance of the body is greatly improved.

The practitioner then taps the client on the sternum to "announce" the corrected energy flows to the rest of the body. This is beneficial because the heart is responsible for communicating the state of the body's health to the rest of the body. Stimulating the heart by tapping the sternum forces the heart to store the corrected energy patterns in the body's cellular memory. This means that the body will remember these changes after the treatment.

It's interesting that one of the pluses given for BodyTalk is that it's non-invasive. I agree. At least it's not like some other woo that requires you to ingest questionable compounds or flood your lower intestine with coffee. But I don't agree that one has "nothing to lose and everything to gain" by using BodyTalk, since an "incorrectly" performed BodyTalk proceedure will have no effect. Someone going to a practitioner of such nonsense will lose valuable money, but more importantly could risk their health deteriorating by wasting time getting tapped on the head instead of getting a treatment that actually works.

No diagnosis is given, no medications prescribed, and no invasive techniques imposed upon the patient. The BodyTalk System does not conflict with, or legally contravene, any existing health care system or law.

Nice ass covering there. If a BodyTalk client doesn't go see their doctor as well as their BodyTalk practitioner and gets sicker it's not their fault, since they didn't tell them they shouldn't see a mainstream doctor as well. Conversely you know BodyTalk proponents will claim that someone's illness being healed was primarily the result of BodyTalk if a person does see conventional doctors. It's also interesting that they state in several places that no diagnosis is given, another way of protecting themselves from legal problems if someone becomes sicker after their BodyTalk sessions, or for that matter from treating someone when they don't actually suffer from any illness at all.

It should be hard to imagine that there are people who seriously think that getting tapped on the head and chest is a cure for anything. But it really isn't. We live in a world where large numbers of people think that having someone wave their hands over your chest will change your energy field, or that a vial of liquid with every last bit of active ingredient diluted out of it will cure their affliction. An idea like BodyTalk really isn't a stretch.

Addenda: One oddity on the seminar info sheet that came with this pamphlet was this:

The BodyTalk System is registered with the Saskatchewan CASS(Canadian Agricultural Skills Service) Program as a Learning Activity Provider.

Eligible students may be sponsored in full to take BodyTalk Courses.

Say what? It would be bad but understandable if Health and Welfare was giving this stuff credence and support, but the Agriculture Department? Someone in Regina seems to have forgotten what their department is supposed to be doing.

Wiggle Your Way To Perfect Health.

I can only wonder if this product would get any sales if the word "chi" wasn't involved. After all invoking the mystical concept of chi makes it sound much more esoteric and powerful than calling these gizmos Wigglesizers or something similar. It would be interesting to know what practitioners of traditional Chinese and other Asian medicines, from which the concept of chi was ripped-er, I mean borrowed from, think of these devices as well.

Time Travel Healing.

Chiropractic is a controversial discipline, especially when chiropractors hew to the early ideas of the practice that spinal manipulation can cure ailments unrelated to the skeletal and muscular system. But one Ohio chiropractor has become too outre even for the Ohio State Chiropractic Board, because he claims to heal his patients remotely by "reaching back in time" to when the injury first occured. You don't even have to see James Burda, just send him your money and he'll heal you at a cost of 60 bucks a session. The Board accuses Burda of being mentally ill. Hmm, being able to do your work without having to leave your home or office sounds pretty rational to me. Nonetheless I think I'll stick with actual hands on treatments of any ailments I might suffer from

(This one comes via Respectful Insolence.)

I occasionally get spam from alternative health types. I presume this comes from posting to places on Usenet like sci.skeptic and alt.fan.art-bell. Today I got some for something called The Health Freedom Expo, scheduled for Dallas, Texas November 4th. One of the speakers will be Hulda Clark. I knew the name sounded familar and so I looked her up. Her ideas are very dubious. Imagine my surprise to learn that Clark has a degree from the University of Saskatchewan! Its ironic a practioner of kookie stuff like that would have a degree from a university where various medical advances have been worked on, such as the "cobalt bomb" cancer treatment device of the 1950s. Of course it should be noted that Clark's degree was not in medicine, and she possesses no recognised training in mainstream medicine. Her Ph.D is in philosophy.

Looking at some of the other speakers at this conference the thought comes to mind that it would be interesting to get them in the same room together. Their beliefs tend to be in contradiction with each other in one way or another. Clark's bugaboo is parasites in the body, which she claims cause things like cancer. Dr. Joel Wallach on the other hand claims all diseases are the result of not taking sufficient amounts of the right minerals, and if you do you'll never be sick and can live to be over 100. Of course what these people do share is a common foe, mainstream medicine.

I have nothing against investigating alternative medicine claims. If they can be proven valid scientifically we should use those concepts that are effective. Unfortunately the world is full of people like Clark, who make claims but are unwilling to properly test them, and who denounce any testing that proves their inefficacy as mainstream medicine trying to suppress "the truth."

Here's another interesting tidbit from Bradley K. Martin's Under the Care of the Fatherly Leader, his look at North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il. It seems that however Communist North Korea may claim to be elements of Korea's folk medicine tradition continue to linger. As Kim Il Sung aged the Kim Il Sun Institute of Health and Longevity was established(at the behest of Kim Jong Il) to help the Great Leader live a longer and healthier life. One of its recommendations was that Kim Il Sung consume dog penises of at least 7 centimetres in length.

Of course my response, as it would be of most Western readers of such a prescription, was disgust. Eating dog is bad enough, but dog penises is even worse. But as we all realise this is a culturally ingrained response. Koreans have long consumed dog and so would not find consuming unusual bits of dogs for health reasons odd. Similarily people who grow up in Muslim countries, even if they are not Muslims themselves or abandon the faith, may find the idea of eating pig odd and disturbing.