What the hell is she a doctor of? Nutjobbery?

[khaosworks]

Beneath the cut, brought to my attention by Ben Goldacre's latest Bad Science blog entry, a video of a homeopathy lecture that is awe-inspiring in its stupidity and ignorance. I literally spent half of watching this yelling, "What the hell are you talking about?!?" and the other half slack-jawed in astonishment.

The stupid, it burns.
March 22nd, 2008 by Ben Goldacre in homeopathy, bad science

No column this week, sorry about that, I forgot that Jesus died for our sins yesterday so I couldn’t give the company I was writing about a fair chance to respond. The story will pop up later as a bigger feature.

In the meantime, no matter how hard I try to be bored of quackery, the email inbox keeps defeating me. This video is beyond parody, and it would be a genuine crime to deprive you of its pleasures.

And after that, I think you need a Feynman Chaser.

Comments

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

I stayed in up until she said that you could remove mass from special relativity's formula.

I think I need to hurt someone now.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

No, no, you're missing the best bits where she talks about how we're made up of strings. Discovered by Stephen Hawkings (sic). Not to mention the definition of disease.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

I watched it, and it took 3 points offa my SAN score.


AAAIIEEEE!

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't feel up to watching it right now, but I'll take your word for it that she's talking rubbish. I must admit to being a little curious as to why she's talking about special relativity in a lecture on homoeopathy, or why anyone would expect her to know what she's talking about in a field completely unrelated to her subject. But not that curious.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

Is this what happens when you drop a box of science-lab refrigerator word magnets?

[happyfunpaul.livejournal.com]

Ow. Ow ow.

(Watching the Feynmann does indeed help to relieve the pain, but I don't have the time to watch much of it right now.)

I'm pretty sure she vibrates like a vegetable.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

I figured I should watch at least to remember the name, because I imagine one of my family members is going to quote this woman to me at some point. But I couldn't make it past the definition of disease. Maybe I'll take a deep breath and have another go.

However, my husband's reaction online just made me laugh myself into a coughing fit:

gfish says, "woah"
gfish says, "She just dives right off the deep end"
You say, "yeah, no shit."
You say, "so we can just get rid of mass then!"
gfish likes his crackery with a bit of foreplay, usually

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

There are more effective means of reducing our mass. Of course, they tend to be more difficult.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

Ghu loves fools.

[susanscookietin.livejournal.com]

I feel abit weird. Primarily because everyone here says she's talking rubbish, but I actually understand and somewhat concur with what she's saying. She didn't say zero mass, because that would make E(nergy) zero, which would be absurd. She said neglible mass, after you compact yourself (plus the entire universe) into a bowling ball. Not entirely undoable perhaps?

[susanscookietin.livejournal.com]

But I didn't entirely agree with the theory on diseases. There are some energy transfers which cannot un-transfer itself back to the original state. Hence not all diseases can be "transformed" back to its original state.

I might be talking rubbish. "op

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

What makes the mass any more negligible in a compact form than in a non-compact form? It's still the same mass. Compress the mass of the universe into a bowling ball and you get a bowling ball as massive as the entire universe. It's not as if when you squish something down it automagically becomes less than what it is. It's meaningless drivel.

She's trying to suggest that if mass is "negligible", then we are all energy. Which ties into the homeopathic conceit that even it you dilute a solution to the point where absolutely none of the original solid remains, the "solution" still retains some mysterious, undetectable energy that can cure people.

And there are no energy transfers that can "transfer" itself back to its original state. There's this little thing called the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

(Bows to everyone) Forgive me!

[susanscookietin.livejournal.com]

(I) now feel like an absolute idiot.

Re: (Bows to everyone) Forgive me!

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Ah, don't feel bad. That's the insidious thing about these people - they can talk and it sounds reasonable as long as you don't think about it to hard. They take advantage of people not retaining too well the science lessons they were taught in school.

[susanscookietin.livejournal.com]

Wait, I just listened to her again. Is she saying that the little cell in our body, its mass to our entire body is as negligible as our mass when compared to the entire universe, and that it vibrates. When the little cell becomes diseased, good cells that was previously "encased" or stored away, if released to the diseased cell, will vibrate and release "good energy" and nurse the diseased cell back to the original good state?

Something like this:

[susanscookietin.livejournal.com]

What the "good" cells would tell the "bad" cells: "Fall in line! You're not vibrating right! Get your act together and March!"