In a way it's similar to the "Translator Amulet" which consists of a few randomly selected electronic components: I see some small carbon film resistors,
"The Translator helps to understand angelic messages, communications from the higher self, your guides, and it helps in channeling. This is the vertical aspect - between the higher and lower vibrational realms. It also works horizontally - around you, on this level and this reality. It helps you to understand what is being said, what is being communicated in this realm, person to person, animal or plant - through words, images, music, sound or otherwise. This Quantum device helps you to understand what is being communicated, with trust, openness and keen intuition".
Ordinarily one wouldn't have to explain to people that this bit of ad captandum vulgus escapes being outright fraud only because the description is gibberish and claims of helping you understand or avoid or rid yourself from what doesn't exist are hard to refute. At least it's "artisinal" I can't refute that.
It's called quackery and it's an ancient practice as old as religion and probably older than what we sometimes call the oldest profession. It's also called Shamanism and it's alive and growing faster and faster with the power of the Internet and the decline in scientific literacy and critical thought. I used to collect late 19th and early 20th century technology which included a few quack-medical items, like "violet ray" and high voltage shock coils. The former was sold to cure almost anything and had attachments which would, when turned on, glow in the dark. It regrew hair, cured skin conditions and a certain one could be inserted in various orifices for purposes I don't want to know about. Needless to say it didn't work. Needless to say they sold millions of these things. Needless to say lack of evidence was not an impediment to sales.
The Electro-Medical Shocking Coil or a "Faradic Battery" was a very popular item a hundred years ago when electricity was still mysterious and frightening (perhaps it still is) and it was sold to cure things like Neurasthenia, a disease of mostly "sensitive" and intelligent people - or so the health hipsters of yore titled themselves. Working stiffs were said to be immune to it. Of course the disorder doesn't exist any more than do Tesla waves or ELF stress fields, so it's hard to accuse the sellers of quackery with fraud -- and besides all these quack devices had countless customers who swore by them and mocked the "orthodox" and closed-minded detractors. There was never a lack of "experts" and studies and anecdotes to reassure them of their elite status. Some call it the Barnum Effect, others the Whole Foods business plan. Nonetheless, the cultic aspects of consumerism are quite powerful. Flatter the masses and the masses will follow you with open wallets.
eBay abounds with "detox" machines you put your feet in which remove unspecified toxins you don't have in some pseudo-scientific way. foot pads, foot baths and pieces of duct tape to remove those "toxins' we love to believe in and rid ourselves of, as the ancients once performed rituals of purification. Enemas, "cleanses," magic bracelets and rituals have evolved to take on the white coats of science while rejecting scientific method with prejudice, fable and anger.
Impurity, impiety and sin are made-up things that have plagued us for eons and power and riches have accrued to those who told us we were tainted and sold us stuff to make it go away. Those who told us the world was in decline from some golden past have shaped the course of history and proof to the contrary be damned. Nothing has changed. People are easily frightened in this world of randomness and easily sold quackery in both verbal and mechanical and chemical form and he who can sell the cure will have customers and fanatical followers. The fear doesn't have to be real the malady doesn't have to be real and the cure doesn't have to be real, such is the power of suggestion and the power of belief.
True scientific tests of medicine and medical devices include a control group given placebos and of course the results invariably show much support for the empty pill and non-functioning device. Harvard Medical School has a program for placebo studies and so do their hospital affiliates. The placebo, the suggestion prove that the power of the mind is strong. People leave faith healers and places of miracles like Lourdes convinced they're cured - at least for a while - and they will defend such things assiduously while the purveyors use their stories to continue the business.
Billions believe that prayer can effect changes in nature contrary to evidence, People will go to war to defend their tribal name and description of deities who don't exist. Parents let their children die because scientific medical practices aren't "natural" and don't fit the beliefs the power of suggestion cemented in their minds. They turn to quack medicine because doctors are bogeymen and Big Pharma is out to poison us. They vote for policies that have failed to work and repeatedly.
Are we still no more than the upright apes that evolved on the savannas of Africa? Do we still believe in magic and shamans and mysterious forces even if we've dressed them differently? I think the ape answers that question every day.
Well heavens to Thor, I never heard of that one. The amulet precedes civilization, but seems to have staying power. Dr. Puharich appears to be the latest practitioner of pseudophysics with a bit of Kabbalah, Astrology and I Ching
ReplyDeletemixed in for flavor. We presume he is working on the problem of trillions of neutrinos passing through our body
every second?
Perhaps we can expect to see Dr. P's anti-neutrino tonic any day now. Experts say Neutrinos are linked to genital warts.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePlus, genuine acupuncture works. And there is no scientific proof for how that works....only results. Tesla would be proud. Also genuine speculative science.
ReplyDeleteWell, if you could demonstrate results in any statistically valid way, those results would be proof now wouldn't they? Or at least evidence. There is evidence that it works in some cases, perhaps strong evidence. We can say there is a quantifiable probability that it will work. I'd call that science and of course "proof" is for mathematicians. "How that works" is irrelevant, isn't it - when the question is whether it works or just feels that way.
DeleteThose last two sentences mean nothing as far as I can tell. Speculation is the motivation for science, I can sort of understand scientific speculation, but science is a method of investigation and not the practice of gathering fragments to shore up a conclusion.
"not the practice of gathering fragments to shore up a conclusion"
DeleteOn this point, I am not in total agreement. Sometimes we speculate on the basis of observable patterns or anecdotal accounts, but the statistical sample is too small to be testable or meaningful. Nevertheless, what little we know oftentimes guide our thoughts.
I do this all the time ... in the domain of psychosocial conjecture. Why there are loud-mouth bellicose politicians, for instance, and why they appeal to a certain segment of the population. My hypothesis: They were raised in families of rage-aholics, alcoholics, domestic abusers, and verbal abusers, etc. Case in point: The current governor of Maine (LaPage), literally raised homeless on the streets because one parent was a stumble-down drunk. LaPage appeals to the "adult children" raised in similarly stressful environments, and there are lots of "adult children" in the general population.
I can't prove this hypothesis, but I'll stand by it and continue to argue it because most anecdotal accounts support the transgenerational transmission of such behaviors.
That's not at all what I'm talking about. Arguing from incomplete data is not asserting by fiat without data. It's not treating speculation as data and it's not science. I'm sure you wouldn't argue against experiment because it might contradict you and you wouldn't favor selecting only the anecdotes that fall on the curve and reject all others. Your hypothesis contains some data. It's more than speculation, it's observation. That A causes B and must be considered without evidence is not a hypothesis. That A causes B must be observed to make it a hypothesis. Without controlled, disinterested, objective observation it's speculation, conjecture and in the worst cases fraud.
DeleteAnything can be said to be true if we don't ask for evidence or ignore evidence to the contrary and if anything can be true, true can equal false than we can't know anything so why not just echo Hassan and say nothing is true? I'm fine with that, but don't call it science.
Now I know you don't understand science. Science testing is called proving the null hypothesis. All the statistics are meant to prove something speculated or surmised is not true. Correlations are meant to bring probability analysis to proving the null hypothesis. Not the opposite.
DeleteI don't try to put bits and pieces of information together to prove a theory. I try to disprove it if I use the scientific method. What I try to say is the the affirmative statements in 2015, are often the disproven errors of 2019. The realm of the speculative is the ideal home of the scientist, because it means he hasn't lost his imagination.
And, just for fun, your original ancestors came from bits and pieces of DNA and/or RNA in a soup in some pond somewhere way back when. What was the speculative scientific probability of that? I know, I know, I'm being unfair. Funny, but unfair.....not?
Delete“I'm sure you wouldn't argue against experiment because it might contradict you …”
DeleteIn some cases, I might. In other cases, I might not. It depends on the experiment, the test hypothesis, and the motive behind the experiment.
If William Shockley, inventor of the transistor, or author Charles Murray, of Bell Curve fame, wanted to study intelligence versus race, I would fight them tooth and nail. My reason, in this case, is not to suppress science but to suppress racism justified by pseudoscience.
Another example of an investigator I would put out of business is Joseph Mengele, for reasons needing no explanation.
Can science be conducted by persons of faith? One example is Joseph Lemaître, the Catholic priest who first proposed the idea of a Big Bang and an expanding universe, i.e. the so-called Hubble Constant should have been named after Lemaître.
Speaking of constants, Albert Einstein clung steadfastly to the idea of a static universe and introduced the Cosmological Constant to hold back the influence of gravity. Like gravity itself, firmly held beliefs held back Einstein’s work on General Relativity.
Can antibiotics cure stomach cancer? This was considered heresy until a few years ago; now a proven fact.
My point: Never constrain the speculative imagination. There is always a surprise … somewhere!
"The realm of the speculative is the ideal home of the scientist, because it means he hasn't lost his imagination."
DeleteMight I ask what the hell you're talking about? Does this pompous Popperesque romp have anything to do with telling people gluten is bad in the absence of evidence because it might be found that way some day in the future? Speculative imagination is not science, is not science, is not science. I will not dignify that nonsense with an argument.
Trying to counter the observation that there is no evidence in support of gluten causing harm with gibberish and an avalanche of anecdote is insulting. Turning it into a discussion about Mengele doesn't seem different from equating Obamacare with slavery or facism. Why is OK when we do it? Telling me imagination is evidence demands an insulting reply I'm not willing to make out of respect for what used to be an objective forum.
If then imagination should not be suppressed but investigation should be because we reject the imagined outcome even before investigation occurs, I wan't no part of it. Science, if it is science must lead where it leads and that's why I have departed company with many otherwise good causes. Science should not be the servant of politics. It has become so and it has at the hands of people of all political persuasions. It disgusts me. Existence is not fair nor does it owe anything to our our ideals.
I was thinking of going of on an irrelevant rant about Shockley getting too much credit for the work done by Brittain and Bardeen, but I doubt anyone here would get my point.
I will add one more bit of science trivia for Mr. Fogg's benefit: models are based on data with multiple correlations or autocorrelation providing the power to drive the model. But models are speculative.....see, not so hard?
DeleteAlors! Le canard est toujour vivant!
ReplyDeleteIndeed - a veritable dynasty of ducks.
ReplyDeleteAll you have to do is find one exception to the rule, and science gets excited about running down a new concept of why. Science is about the excitement of discovery, and much as it is tedious hard work. That's why people do it. Ruling out speculative ideas, because they are just exceptions to a viewpoint or a rule, is anti-science, anti-discovery.
ReplyDeleteOh, and while I am at it, every answer poses another series of questions. Answers are never the end of the tale. For a scientist. Sort of like the Tao, where there is no final answer, only the darkness (and the light), as we carefully explore the ether.
ReplyDelete....with flashlights.
ReplyDeleteMario Livio once said that Instead of acknowledging error people tend to reformulate or restate their views in some way that justifies them. And so it is.
ReplyDeleteNone of your bricolage, your wistful poesie on your smorgasbord of subjects has any bearing on what you wish you could refute or supports your irrational defense of baseless, incoherent, self negating speculation. All you have said is that you believe. You can call that science but you know it isn't.
There's a thing we call the "Schwäbischer Gruß" Like Aloha you can say it coming or going, but for the record, I'm going.
And no humor either. Apparently. Let's just get rid of all those speculative TED Talks while we are at it. They are just too much fun!
ReplyDelete