The anti woo thread.

[LetThereBeRock]

Can all those who don't believe in homeopathy,ghosts,talking to the dead,reading minds etc,please check in here?

There must be a few of us.

I feel as though I've logged onto allthingswoo.com rather than Mumsnet.com at the moment,and I'm not referring to this particuarly forum,but chat and AIBU?.

And if anyone says anything about how we should be openminded,I'm afraid I'll have to beat you to death with a a stick,one cut from an ash tree by the light of the first Summer moon of course.

Why would you think that? Just because you transpose your own horrible attitudes onto other people I suppose. Can't imagine that there's anything wrong per se with pointing, sneering, insulting, abusing etc etc and that someone might point it out.

Why do you feel this need to be so smug?

God it just get worse.

just checking in.

no not anti-woo esp., But AM anti "Gradgrind" attitude - 'we only want facts,facts, facts' that we can see, feel and measure. Such a narrow little view.

Go on. Tell me what brings you to spend time creaming each other off about how clever you are and how stupid other people are.

Do I really want to know

Actually I really don't give a shit.

I am anti woo and here is a poem by Tim Minchin for all other antiwoo-ists out there:

have a and listen!

"I'm almost embarrassed for you."

Only "almost"? I'm very embarrassed for you, if it's any consolation.

You seem a little bitter and miserable, Appletrees. Do go off and have your aura cleansed, there's a dear. Then perhaps come back when you are feeling a little more... serene.

But Pan, what is so arrogant about only wanting to believe in things you can hold, or measure, or perceive in a measurable way?

What is arrogant about saying to someone, who guarantees you relief from something if you will pay £10 a bottle for a microscopic quantity of an arguably active ingredient, that you want them to prove it will work first?

Water-devining - just noticed BB's post. I have seen this done, in my own house here. Not sure what the qualities are in devining rods, but it was fairly clear and dramatic.

I don't think we do only believe in things we can measure. I believe in love, for instance, and friendship. But when things are sold, to treat illness, it's good to have proof they work.

Oh dooo come back Appletrees. You were sooo persuasive. I've changed my mind now, you were right all along.

coldtits - not saying at all it is arrogance. Am just pretty sure there is more going on in the universe than we mere mortals know of and can explain away easily.

the only thing I DO get a bit uncomfortable is the mockery that goes on from so-called 'empiricists' when alterantive theories are offered. They do get all tetchy and defensive.

And when these things are proven, discovered, whatever, then I will believe in them ... until then, I will put my faith in things that can stand up to questioning.

I think that for anything which is reported anecdotally, it may not be actually made-up but there needs to be some kind of other way of verifying it as evidence. With some sort of control. Otherwise we have no way of telling what other factors were involved.

Crude example: I could bang my elbow three times on the desk, and go out into the street and narrowly avoid being run over by a lorry. I could then, if I wished, attribute my enormous fortune in the vehicular accident avoidance department to the Power Of The Elbow Bash.

It's not quite as simple as reductively saying "want facts", it's more "Sure, well, you may be mistaken or you may not, we can't tell from an anecdote, so let's check it out in carefully-observed conditions, where there is no possibility of confirmation bias." What can be the objection there? That's what the James Randi £1m prize offers, and yet the fact that nobody has won it speaks volumes.

I feel for Appletrees if she can't see the funny side of Hopi ear candles.

Do you think she's actually a Hopi Ear Candle saleswoman in real life?

I thought Hopi ear candles were like having your ears syringed? I thought that was the point/

I call them Hopi Earwax Candles.
I used to wonder if they were actually made of earwax.

Me too UQD.

A man sold me a magic stone that protects me from being attacked by wild animals. Not been attacked yet so I think you should open your minds.

And when the phone rings I think that'll be my mum and sometimes it is. Spooky.

Couple of weeks ago I was chatting to a woman who was telling me all about a 'healing centre' in Blackburn ( no, not a hospital!), where the walls are filled with special fibres to "keep the positive energies inside"..
I modestly suggested this could be 'heat conservation' and the fibres could have been cavity insulation material...

she was def. a wooista..

I always get it right who's on the phone! I have a near 100% record because I have caller ID psychic powers.

but they don't work - here

'Several studies have shown that ear candles produce the same residue when burnt without ear insertion and that the residue is simply candle wax and soot'

and, sadly, 'However, in one trial, ear candles neither created suction nor removed wax and actually led to occlusion with candle wax in persons who previously had clean ear canals'.

but they have the name of a Native American tribe in their (totally made up) name so they must contain ancient spiritual wisdom

they are a triumph of woo marketing.

The new age middle class hippy bollocks I really don't care for,and when in the mood will have a mock-a-long with everyone else.

I do get a bit more spikey when people's spiritual beliefs, avec or sans a structured religion, get picked at. Don't see recognising your spiritual dimension in the same slot as wooism, though some do.

Appletrees, really - what do you want to tell us about that we should not be dismissing as woo?

So far you just sound a bit vaguely disgruntled?

I don't recognise that spiritual beliefs are in a separate, special category that should somehow be spared enquiry, or indeed mocking. Why should they be?