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.

How about acupuncture?

(Wonders if dares to publicly come out as believing in at least some effects of acupuncture but still not able to spell it).

Joining here... a little late, I only just spotted it!

Agree that woo seems oddly prevalent on here. And if you speak out against it and in favour of actually using your brain, you are called "closed-minded".

And of course we have to hear "both sides" of the argument. Yes, so let's hear from the Flat Earthers and the supporters of the Stork Theory of Childbirth.

At least if it's only in Woo Monthly Magazine we can avoid it. It's when it fills the health sections of actual mainstream newspapers, for which we pay good money, that it get particularly annoying.

Undutchable - there's a Mitchell & Webb sketch for that one too:

And I think this thread might appreciate .

Perhaps we need a woo-o-meter?

Surely if you are relgious you believe in x and therefore you don't beleive in y? I'm religious, and THEREFORE I don't believe in homeopathy, chakras, auras, divination, the Rapture, spirit healing, ghosts, fairies, gnomes except the concrete ones, the tarot, creationism, UFOS or life on other planets (balance of probability is against it), aromatherapy (much cheaper for the NHS than anaesthesia) TENS machines, acupucture, chiropractors (yes, I know they really exist, but what I mean is their treatments), reflexology, reiki, shiatsu, the Alexander method....All of it is utter utter rubbish.

None of these are tenets of my faith, of course, and none are explicitly disproved by it. Just saying you can believe in one kind of supernatural and not in other kinds, just because one kind might be a but better attested and slightly more intelligent. But I bet somebody will now jump on me for saying this, and force us back to some kind of solipssism of the its all according innit variety.

Singing up here also.

Haven't read all the pages but going back to the OP:
'I feel as though I've logged onto allthingswoo.com rather than Mumsnet.com'....

I generally feel that MN has an incredibly healthy level of scepticism. In contrast, I can imagine (some of) the nethuns clutching at woo straws to try and make sense of it all.

Oops - signing up, although I do have a reasonable mezzo voice

TENS actually does work though and not just on gnomes. The unicorns told me when I was astral flying (well it helped me in labour and it helps my mum- quite possibly because you think WTF is that? and ignore the pain you have)

I think the Alexander Technique works too and isn't woo. Though when I did it, my Alexander teacher was so woo in other respects that she put rescue remedy in her pond when her goldfish got sick. the goldfish died anyway but perhaps a happier death than it would otherwise have had.

Bach's rescue remedy for goldfish

AFAIK there is some good quality evidence in favour of acupuncture and TENS working, I think.

Placebo effect is well documented and should be taken advantage of more IMO - safe, effective AND cheap: what more could the NHS possibly hope for ??

Re faiths (of any kind): I have no issue with anybody believing anything as long as they do not try to 'sell' it to me as fact. The whole point of faith is to just believe rather than require any proof, isn't it, and it happens to be something I just cannot bring myself to do...

Don't get me started on food 'allergies' diagnosed by holding a vial with the suspected substance in one hand and some kind of electrical probe in the other - a fool and his money and all that...

oh nice, an immature smug know it all twat thread

can I join?

I did use a TENS machine though - don't see the woo there

oh God just made the mistake of reading some of the thread

what a bunch of self-important smirking bores

"At least if it's only in Woo Monthly Magazine we can avoid it." "Perhaps we need a woo-o-meter?"

por favor

I think I may have found my spiritual home on this thread!

Don't have any time for any sort of woo, and tbh I always find myself questioning the sense/sanity of those who do.

It's a no brainer, really, isn't it - there's no proof that any of it works. Therefore, since most of it goes against all known laws of physics/science etc, there is no reason to believe any of it works.

And what REALLY pisses me off is being called closed-minded, when in general it's the believers themselves who are more closed-minded than anyone - "I know there's no proof but I like the sound/idea of it so I intend to go on believing in it so there"

I do rather hmmmm when people discuss past-life experiences imean how many were on the titanic?

And when wooers have a spirit-guide it is invariably a native Indian Chief one, it's never a tax inspector from Birmingham.

Oh well, I pride myself on not being suggestible enough for the placebo effect to work on me... I tried TENS in labour and would have done just as well with an iPod strapped to my bump.

there are a lot of laughably big-headed people on here

Go on, then Appletrees, hit us with some wisdom and enlighten us poor deluded rational souls. What should we be believing in and why? With peer-reviewed evidence notes, please.

What I don't understand is if ghe population is growing how can we all have had past lives??? Granted I don't know much about it as I have been busy.

And thanks to Appletress for the first 'smug' acvusation to everyone on 'the thread. Am hoping fir a 'passive aggressive' very soon.

I am smirking (indeed) at the idea that not believing in woo is associated with immaturity, as if it is somehow more mature to believe in it.
that's as good as the 'closed minded' line, honestly....

I like Dara O'Briain's view:

?Herbal medicine?s been around for thousands of years! Indeed it has. And then we tested it all, and the stuff that worked became medicine. And the rest of it?s just a nice bowl of soup and some pot pourri.? - Dara O?Briain