Some aspects of alternative medicine go back a long way in time, long enough that I won't just say 'bunk' at them without taking a closer look. I don't have time to take a closer look, so I leave them to others to examine.
This one though, I did look at, only because it was mentioned in New Scientist in derisory terms. It's not old and established, it's a new one. I didn't get further than the first few FAQ entries before deciding what I thought of it.
It's utter bunk. We are not talking about a single bunk here, we are talking every bunk on the biggest ship on the sea, added together and compressed into a mass so dense it forms a black hole of bunkiness.
One example: the site states that since silicon and carbon are close together on the periodic table, and since carbon is the basis of all life on Earth, then anything made of silicon must also be alive. Rocks, in other words, can be pets.
Here's a periodic table. Silicon is directly below carbon. below that is germanium, then tin, then lead. Lead? A potential basis for life? Why not - if silicon can do it, so can lead. It has the same valency. I bet a lead based life form won't move too fast. Still, it's good news for the Tin Man in the 'Wizard of Oz'.
Move two to the right of carbon, and you get to oxygen. Directly below oxygen is sulphur, so if silicon can be a basis of life, then by the same bizarre logic, sulphur must be safe to breathe. I'm not going to be first to try that.
This week's New Scientist has an article on the medications used by the ancient Egyptians. Many of the preparations they used are still in use today - although they are now in synthetic form rather than as plant extracts. They did not claim to have access to the liquid light of Pleiades, nor did they claim to have Atlantean or Lemurian formulae. They used things that worked. If this guy had been born in Ancient Egypt, they'd have laughed as hard as today's scientists at this nonsense.
They would not have laughed at astrology, they would not have laughed at the idea of life after death. They took those things very seriously indeed. They might have laughed at homeopathy (it hadn't been invented then) but this idea of dipping a rock in water and selling the water, they would have laughed very hard at that.
And yet now, in this modern world, you know and I know that this stuff is going to sell. Read the FAQ's and tell me this guy, if he believes half of what he claims, shouldn't be sectioned. People will believe it. People will read about 'Zargunel, the Deva of Zircon' and nod in sage incomprehension. They will give this guy money. Heck, it worked with Thetans, why shouldn't it work with Zargunel?
Why do I care? Because people will say this is part of the 'paranormal'. It is not, any more than a bicycle is part of the auto industry. This is a con trick. Well, if he doesn't believe what he's saying, it's a con trick. If he does believe it, he should be on medication.
Sometimes people tell me they hear voices in their heads. I suggest they visit a psychiatrist, and if he gives them the all-clear, talk to me again.
This guy could keep a whole psychiatric department busy for years. He could keep a chemistry department busy for about ten minutes, or however long it takes them to stop laughing. Nobody is going to test this. No scientist is going beyond 'placebo effect' here. This is not a case of 'It's been seen/used for thousands of years, let's take a look at it and see if it has any merit'.
This is a case for the long-sleeved jacket and the room with soft walls. It is not part of that area of study known as 'paranormal'. All this sort of thing does is make it easy to dismiss a whole field of study, a field where this absolute and utter crap does not, and never will, belong.
There is nothing paranormal about a con trick.
11 comments:
I have one of those little smileycons that lies on the floor, rolling with laughter, and use him to rate the spam and jokes and so forth that people send me. Unfortunately, he doesn't work in "comments" or I'd give your post today five rolls.
I really came over to ask you about this:
http://www.spirits-speak.com/store.html
I'm shopping around for a new Ouija board mouse pad because mine is worn out, and I saw this "white noise" (which I "get,") and "colored noise." What's the colored noise supposed to do? Any idea how it's different or better?
Ouija board mouse pads? Sounds like fun - but I'd probably spend too much time looking for patterns of mouse movements that spell out swear words.
You could really freak out someone with one of these pads, if you set up a website such that the pattern of mouse movements required to navigate it spelled out the name of the website on the pad.
White noise I know about - it's a hiss over all frequencies, with no frequency dominant. You don't need a CD of it, most recorders will produce it anyway at full sensitivity.
The only other one I've heard of is 'pink noise'. A sound technician will know what that is. As far as I remember it's not as uniform as white noise, either it's a limited range of frequencies or they're not all at equal strength. It has some application in sound technology, testing speakers or something like that.
I've never heard any other colour assigned to noise. Know any hi-fi geeks? It's their field, they'd know, and they'd probably tell you far more than you ever wanted to know about it. My first suspicion is that the other colours are made up, but I could be wrong.
Those mouse mats are only ten dollars. I wonder what the postage is to the UK?
I've had mine for more than ten years and love it, but it's really getting worn out now, chipping all along the edges and corners. The one on that particular site says theirs is cloth covered, so it probably wouldn't chip. I tried some experiments with it when I first got mine -- like leaving my word program running overnight, just in case any spirits wanted to contact me, but I never heard from any. Maybe I'll try again in the next few days. I'm just concerned it would be my cats typing out messages, instead of spirits. If it says "feed me, then let me out," I'll be really suspicious.
I've also recorded a few hours of white noise, but I can't stand that sound, so never had the patience to listen to all of what I'd recorded to see if I caught an EVP. I knew I could count on your for an answer about it though. Thanks.
People will spend their money on anything that promises to make them thinner, more beautiful, richer, or smarter. All you need to do to be a millionaire, Rom, is hang out a shingle that claims your touch can pass on spiritual vibrations that will lead the recipient directly to one of the above. I mean, heck, I'd stop in.
SW - The noise 'colours' are real after all:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise
There's even a 'black noise' but you can't hear it.
Greeny, it's too easy to make people believe the unbelievable. In fact, the more bizarre the story, the more people fall for it. Scientology exploited that particular human failing very well.
I wondered a few times about starting a cult, getting a load of people to join and then standing up and saying "Ha! I made it all up, and you're all fools!"
Trouble is, I don't think many would believe that. They'd think their 'guru' had been possessed. I'd be replaced and my fictional cult would carry on without me. It's much easier to get that cult mentality into a brain than it is to get it out.
Nobody wants to admit they've been fooled. That's why people buy things that can't possibly do what they claim to do, and never admit they don't work.
I could take advantage of that too, if I wasn't so damn honest.
I'm not sure I could keep a straight face though.
If you were vain and worried about losing your attractiveness as you age, you'd probably believe it, too. If you tuned in to a youth-obsessed culture and didn't know how to argue with it, you'd want a tourmaline-charged cream or a silicon-enhanced hair gloss or an silver-tinted toenail cream. Seriously.
I'm not the sharpest fish in the bowl, but I am in the top 10%. And I know how to fight The Man. Honest. But I also want to believe that a cream will make me beautiful.
Sad but true.
That was interesting, especially the black noise. I followed some links there and saw the various fractals, but that stuff is way over my head. I can relate black noise to the way I believe planetary energy works, though. The mysteries of the universe never cease to amaze and confound me.
Greeny- check out what goes in those creams and you might change your mind ;)
Lard doesn't work either, but it's cheaper.
I've never understood peer pressure completely because I've never experienced it. Never wore Adidas or Reeboks, never bothered with the latest fashions. My wardrobe would make a fashion-chaser faint: there is very little variation in there. All of it cheap and generic, and most of it scruffy. Well, I spend a lot of time falling down holes or kneeling in grime so Armani suits will never appear on me.
Intelligence isn't necesarily connected: I know people with PhD's who buy the sort of things you mentioned. Advertisers are clever people.
SW - just because you can't hear it doesn't mean it has no effect. There is a particular low frequency sound, below the range of anyone's hearing, that will turn your guts to water. Very messy.
Subsonic and ultrasonic sound can affect us, even though we can't hear it. It's not impossible that the gravitational pull of other planets might set up resonances in the Earth's crust that result in particular sound frequencies, and the frequency would depend on the relative positions of those planets.
I can't test that. You'd need a team of astronomers and geologists, among others. Still, I'd say that if that were the case, the strongest influences would be the sun and moon, followed by the planets based on some function of their mass and distance. All speculation, but speculation can be fun.
One example: the site states that since silicon and carbon are close together on the periodic table, and since carbon is the basis of all life on Earth, then anything made of silicon must also be alive. Rocks, in other words, can be pets.
Hmmm. Wasn't there a Star Trek episode in which our heroes solved the mystery of man-eating monsters on some mining colony. They could tunnel through solid rock! Because they were - yes - silicone based! See, they were mad because the miners were digging tunnels through their home and using their round eggs for bowling balls or whatever (not knowing what they really were). Be honest, Rom, you'd be mad too, if it were you.
I almost think (I am recalling more as I type) that when one of them got wounded, McCoy patched it up by trowling in cement - silicone based! And of course,
Spock was able to do his mind meld with them, even though they had swapped carbon for silicone.
A nifty Star Trek epidode (did they have that in the UK?) That's all the proof Ineed.
:-)
We did get that one in the UK, yes. Star Trek was a great programme, which proved once and for all that all aliens speak English, and that every planet in the universe has one of those pointed rocks, handily placed for Kirk to run up when being chased.
I do have firm evidence it wasn't real though. I'll get Scotty to beam it over.
The possibility of silicon life forms has actually been seriously considered but nobody can figure out how the biochemistry would work. It wouldn't be a rock, that's for sure. The nearest thing on Earth are the diatoms (a kind of marine alga) that make their shells out of silicon - but the silicon part isn't alive. It's just a shell with the normal, carbon-based alga inside. They don't come from Pleiades, either.
Post a Comment