Mon 6 Sep 2010
What Sound Does a Theremin Make?
Posted by anaglyph under Hokum, Idiots, Skeptical Thinking, Sound, Technology, WooWoo
[72] Comments
If you answered wooooooooooooo… to the title question, then you were entirely correct! Yes that’s right – today’s post features woo and sound, two of my most favourite subjects.
Well, as we all know, it seems that for treatment of their medical ailments, more and more people are turning to ordinary water, coloured water, crystallized water, flower water, needles, colours, smells, lack of food, enemas and just about every other nutty thing under the sun except actual medicine.
It was only a matter of time before someone realised that there was a niche for an ‘alternative’ medical treatment based on sound. Today on The Cow, I will examine one such treatment(i) – something named Human Bioacoustics, the amazing cure-all featured on a site called NutraSounds.(ii) Human Bioacoustics was created by a personage named Sharry Edwards™,(iii) who claims that her process ‘has unlimited health and wellness potential.’ Unlimited! Human Bioacoustics can make you weller than well!
BioAcoustics Voice Spectral Analysis can detect hidden or underlying stresses in the body that are expressed as disease. The vocal print can identify toxins, pathogens and nutritional supplements that are too low or too high. In addition, vocal print can be used to match the most compatible treatment remedy to each client. The introduction of the proper(iv) low frequency sound to the body, indicated through voice analysis, has been shown(v) to control(vi): pain, body temperature, heart rhythm and blood pressure. It has also been shown to regenerate body tissue(vii) and alleviate(viii) the symptoms of many diseases (in some cases, even those considered to be incurable).(ix)
Oh yes, there it is! Gobbledigook piled on balderdash layered on crapola. I’ve given you a helping hand with the shifty language and vague promises. I wonder why the disclaimer that is hidden away at the bottom of the NutraSound pages in very small print isn’t placed in slightly closer proximity to the above paragraph?
Disclaimer: Human BioAcoustics, as originated by Sharry Edwards, M.Ed., does not diagnose or prescribe for medical or psychological conditions nor does it claim to prevent, treat, mitigate or cure such conditions. HBA researchers do not provide diagnosis, care, treatment or rehabilitation of individuals, nor apply medical, mental health or human development principles.
Hmm. On the one hand Human Bioacoustics cures everything and then, somehow, when it comes down to a real-world, write-your-name-here-in-blood guarantee, it doesn’t. Is Ms Edwards a little nervous about getting her ass sued off, one wonders? She certainly isn’t shy of making unsubstantiated claims though. In big bold print on her bio page:
Edwards was named scientist of the year in 2001 for her work in BioAcoustic Biology.
Really? Scientist of the Year! Very impressive! That’s not something you could just make up! Let’s see what teh internets have to say about that! Oh, right, here it is. The award was presented to her by a body called the International Association of New Science. Funny… all those links are either dead or seem to point back to organizations with which Sharry Edwards™ has affiliations. She was given the award by her pals!(x) Elsewhere she claims that all her work is peer reviewed. I think she is (obviously purposely) conflating the concept of scientific peer review (which is a strenuous intellectual process designed to weed out errors and bad science) with the idea that you get a few of your ‘peers’ to peruse what you’re doing and give you the thumbs up.(xi)
(By this logic, you, my Faithful Cowpokes, could all agree that I was Scientist of the Year and I could boast that on Tetherd Cow! In fact, what a good idea – I need a few endorsements so that I too can plaster it across my banner! Feel free to wax lyrical!)
The phenomenal power of Human Bioacoustics is completely free to all and sundry in the form of the nanoVoice™(xii) program, software which is, sadly, only available for PC.(xiii) Of course, you can only freely download the ‘micro’ version – you have to pay (surprise) for the real deal.(xiv) nanoVoice ‘uses frequency-based biomarkers within the frequencies of your voice to allow you an enlightening peek into your Secret Self.’
I bet you didn’t even know you had ‘frequencey-based biomarkers’ hidden inside your voice. I certainly didn’t and I’ve been working as a professional sound person for thirty years.
This is how it works, as near as I can make out from reading about it: you load a recording of your voice into the program and it analyzes the ‘frequencies’(xv) and spits out a bar graph in a rainbow of colours. Here’s what the colours supposedly mean (click to get the full chart):
Gee, now what do all those vague waffly non-specific phrases remind me of… oh, that’s it – the local paper’s astrology section! There are some classic howlers:
Yellow (E): ‘uses words first to convey messages and meaning’
Oh yeah, like that’s not going to apply to everyone except mute people.
Green/Blue (G): ‘likes to mix and manage the physical aspects of life’
What? That could mean just about ANYTHING.
Blue (G#): ‘wants to make a difference’
Oh please.
The colours are also arbitrarily tied to various kinds of organs and body parts. When I say ‘arbitrarily’ I mean that there is absolutely no scientific substantiation to say that, for example, the colour green has anything to do with your kidneys, or that the colour blue ‘retrieves nutrients from your bowel’. This is just utter, unmitigated hogwash. And Sharry Edwards™ knows it, or else she wouldn’t have put the comprehensive disclaimer on her site.(xvi)
For an example of nanoVoice’s extraordinary powers of deduction, you can amuse yourself by visiting an analysis of Mr Mel Gibson’s phone ‘conversation’ with his estranged wife Oksana Grigoreiva, in which he uses bad language, racist terms and is generally an obnoxious prat. I want to say two thing here: first of all, the pages of unbelievable rubbish that you will find here could be attributed to just about anyone, viz:
You have an unusual sense of time. Not having all the information needed to make a decision stresses you. Your reputation is very important to you. You will go to great lengths to protect it. It is important to you that spirituality be a part of everyday life. You think that feeding the mind is just as important as feeding the body. You are aware of how painful thoughtless words can be. You push yourself and others to finish the job. You love new ideas that mean you can have a project to work on. A sense of belonging is important to you.
… and secondly, these ‘frequency’ analyses were made from a telephone recording. To someone like me who knows anything about sound, this constitutes the epitome of ridiculousness. Telephones severely restrict the frequencies of voices, in order to squeeze intelligibility down the lines. Ms Edwards is asking us to believe that her software uses inherent voice ‘frequencies’ to make its divinations, but is simultaneously independent of frequency restrictions. It is the utmost peak of buffoonery. Not only that, it demonstrates without any equivocation, that Sharry Edwards is completely ignorant about how sound works.(xvii)
Like many similar pseudoscientific concepts, Human Bioacoustics uses as its basic modus operandi the general ignorance of most people in a specific field of expertise. Few people understand how sound works, but to someone like me who does, Human Bioacoustics, nanoVoice, ‘vocal profiling’ and the ‘Institute of Bioacoustic Biology’ look about as convincing as a pig in a tuxedo.
_________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
- Oh yes, there are many more than just one. Perhaps I will cover Tama-Do at some later stage… [↩]
- Oh dear. Already with the dumb. [↩]
- Yes, that’s right, she’s trademarked her name. [↩]
- If you don’t do it ‘properly’, it won’t work… [↩]
- By whom? [↩]
- ‘Control’? What does that mean? [↩]
- Body tissue regenerates anyway. This means nothing. [↩]
- Alleviate? In what way? [↩]
- Note the equation of the symptoms with the disease itself – a common ploy of pseudoscentific medicine [↩]
- Searching on International Association of New Science turns up some frightening crosslinks. The IANS appears to have been concocted by Dr Brian O’Leary a UFO ‘expert’ and Cleve Backster, who is quite famous for writing books about communicating with plants. The frightening part is that the IANS name also appears in conjunction with legitimate research into climate change. These people are being given government money for their idiotic beliefs… If you follow the links even further, it’s worse – there are ties to the whole anti-vaccination hoodoo and a whole other world of medical stupidity. [↩]
- This is what really gets my goat with these kinds of people – they shamelessly trade on the credentials that genuine science affords, while simultaneously bashing all its accomplishments as worthless. If you adopt science, you adopt science. Play properly by its rules, not by some airy fairy ones that you make up yourself! Otherwise, stay off its turf and name yourselves as the magic peddlers that you really are. [↩]
- Yep, Ms Edwards has her whole racket trademarked up the wazoo. [↩]
- Well, technically it could be installed under Virtual PC on my Mac, apparently, but I ain’t running VPC just for this piece of crap. [↩]
- Curious, when the organization that produces it boasts that it is ‘non profit’… [↩]
- There are those goddamned frequencies again. Teh woo just loves the vibrations and the frequencies! [↩]
- I’m sure she justifies the disclaimer by saying that she ‘was forced to do it’ by the ‘system’ which ‘persecutes her for her beliefs’. A song that we’ve heard many times before. [↩]
- Oh, I’m sure she’d come up with some piece of silliness to ‘explain’ how she can get readings from a telephone conversation – I’d be disappointed if she couldn’t! [↩]
_________________________________________________________________________
This song always seems to cure my ills.
What song, Malach? WHAT SONG? Or is it just the music in you head that no-one else can hear…?
I’d like to be ‘weller than well’ but I’m afraid I’d self-combust.
Yeah, I know what you mean EoR. What if you practised homeopathy, iridology and bioacoustics all at the same time! Just how much health can any one person bear!
My practitioner is a herbalist, does bodytalk and EBA. I’m the healthiest person I know.
What’s EBA?
Every Bloody Alternative?
Electrical Balance Analysis – sort of like kinesiology, but only better. It can tell you at what level your organs and glands are working.
Joey’s acronym makes a lot more sense. The only way anything could be ‘better’ than Applied Kinesiology, is if it was something else entirely.
As for your assertion, well, I don’t use homeopathy, iridology, Breatharianism or enemas and I’m the healthiest person I know. I also drink coffee and whisky. Ergo, coffee and whisky are the secrets to a long and healthy life.
Do you see how that kind of daft argument works?
No probably not.
I followed a couple of links to the CUIM – Capital University of Integrated Medicine. The idea that these “graduates” can call themselves ‘Doctor’ is both frightening and ludicrous.
I’m glad that your Reverendnessity was the product of many years of study.
Yeah, well, on the Internet you can call yourself the Grand Imperial Emperor of the Golden Mountain but it don’t mean diddly squat. People still don’t seem to have gotten that concept.
(my reverendnessity is a completely different matter, of course…)
Queenwilly, doctors are what scare me the most (and our health care is free). Mostly because they don’t do any testing of nutritional deficiencies. I know a guy who was in the hospital for over a week and they could find nothing wrong with him. His mom kidnapped him and brought him to my practitioner and I saw him back at work within a week. It was a deficiency of vitamins A & D.
Your paranoia is illogical. You simply would not be here if it wasn’t for modern medicine. Without it – one serious infection, you die. One severed artery, you die. Diabetes? You die. smallpox, you die.
Vitamins might keep you healthy, but all those you need you get through proper nutrition. You can’t fight smallpox with vitamins or coloured water.
I’m not paranoid. I would trust a doctor if my arm was broken. The cure for diabetes was discovered at the University of Calgary in 1998 by Dr. Youngsoon Kim. It’s called eleotin available at eastwoodcompanies.com. For infection, there’s always colloidal silver. Sorry anaglyph, you cannot get all your nutrition from food. Unless you like to eat bales of broccoli?
I would trust a doctor if my arm was broken
Yes, and you know why?Because you couldn’t fool yourself that Applied Kinesiology would fix it, like you can colds, or stomach ailments or cancer.
Oh, and WHAT????
Sorry anaglyph, you cannot get all your nutrition from food.
Jesus H Christ. Of course you can! What planet are you on? Of course all your nutrition comes from food? Where the fuck else do you think it comes from? Don’t tell me you’re a Breatharian too.
Oh – and what? WHAT? There’s a cure for diabetes that millions of diabetics around the world (and their doctors) don’t know about? You are completely addled. Eleotin DOES NOT CURE DIABETES. Give me ONE scientifically endorsed example of this being the case. Just ONE. You can’t do it. There are none. And, if you read the Eleotin literature, every single bit of it says that ‘as part of a controlled diet’ Eleotin ‘can’ be effective. Well of course. DUH! You can control diabetes with your diet without the use of Eleotin! That’s been known for decades. Type 2 diabetes (for which Eleotin claims to be efficacious) can be completely effectively controlled by exercise and diet. Do you just believe everything you read about this crap? Do you have NO critical thinking facilities at all?
I don’t trust ANY chart written in Comic Sans.
“I declare Anaglyph to be Scientist of the Year” says nursemyra of Sydney.
There’s your endorsement, don’t abuse it now will you?
Abuse it? Moi?
I promise to use it in a similar manner to Sharry Edwards.
you’re an ass
Now, you could have put up a scientific defense of your techniques (if you had any), Ms Anonymous from Sound Health Inc, or you could, instead, have typed a childish insult.
Your choice speaks volumes.
I wonder if bioacoustics would have any effect on my tinnitus, you know, ringing in the ears? What? I’m sorry. Did you say something? I can’t hear you. Is that machine turned on yet?
What colour is your tinnitus? Your chakras probably need aligning (and a thorough lime juice and olive oil enema wouldn’t go astray either)
Ed W, if you really have tinnitus, you should look into prolotherapy. All major athletes use this method of healing (well in my country anyway).
Every single one of them? In every sport? WIth every ailment or injury? All of them? And if it works so well for “all major athletes”, why don’t the minor athletes do the same? Just, you know, wondering. With my mind.
Because minor athletes can’t afford it like the major athletes whose corporation pays for the best modules of keeping an athlete at optimal levels. I feel sorry for you if you think the only way to go is through pharmaceutical corporations making up new drugs (using old ones) and doing unlimited testing, but always hiding those reports that show that drug in a bad light. Yes we are on totally different planets. Did you hear the new study in the U.K. about massive doses of Vitamin B in older folks, stopping brain shrinkage? Wow who knew vitamins are that important? And to anaglyph, how the heck would you be able to get all your nutritional needs from your food, if your food is not getting the right amounts? If there is ever any doubt, go down to the nearest place that sells feed supplement to livestock and find out what they need. That’s a good indiction of what you’re lacking.
I can’t think of any major athletes with tinnitus.
Cauliflower ears, yes. Tinnitus, no.
There is no evidence to suggest that prolotherapy (which in itself is highly questionable) has any efficacy with tinnitus. justsayupyours is just making all this stuff up. I ask for the scientific support, I get none. Just the explanation that ‘I think it works, so it must’.
That’s in YOUR country, Reverend.
What about in HIS?
Or are you just ASSUMING that science is the same, no matter WHERE it’s practiced?
Tsk.
Prolotherapy is only questionable to those who have never heard about it before. Like you. My nephew was struck by an arc of lightning and lost his hearing. Prolotherapy brought it back and he no longer has migraine headaches. Btw, none of this is bullshit.
Ah yes, Joey – silly me for thinking that science has a measure of reproduceability…
Hey wow a new troll, looks like you’re feeding him up Rev – poor old Malach!
The King
Sigh. I know. I shouldn’t bother. But I just can’t let outrageous claims go unchallenged…
>>I feel sorry for you
First of all, don’t.
>>if you think the only way to go is through pharmaceutical corporations making up new drugs (using old ones) and doing unlimited testing,
I never, once, said that I thought ‘the only way to go’ is through pharmaceuticals. In fact, if you read my writing on this subject you will see that my opinion is that the science behind Western medicine makes it the best bet when you become ill, but that sensible diet and nutrition, exercise and generally healthy living will give you a very sound basis for good health. Meditation and stress-free living also help. At this time in the 21st Century our comprehensive knowledge of diseases and illnesses has allowed us to create solutions for conditions that are not treatable in any other fashion. If you have advanced diabetes, you need insulin. It’s as simple as that. If you want to be sure you don’t get smallpox, you need a vaccine. If you break your leg and you’re in excruciating pain, you need morphine. You can pretend to ignore all these things because, as long as you are healthy you don’t need them. But as soon as you get a gall bladder infection I defy you to say no to the pethidine.
You also seem to think by that phrase that drug companies just use old drugs to create new ones, which is complete baloney.
>>but always hiding those reports that show that drug in a bad light.
There is no doubt that pharmaceutical companies, like all businesses, are sometimes guilty of dubious practices. But here’s your paranoia kicking in again – what you want to believe is that this is the status quo; that all pharmaceutical companies are doing this all the time. That’s just rubbish.
>>Did you hear the new study in the U.K. about massive doses of Vitamin B in older folks, stopping brain shrinkage?
Yes, I read about it, but you are not telling the full story. The study is still in progress and the results are promising but equivocal. You can read criticisms of the paper and the reply of the SCIENTISTS who did the study here. Like all good researchers, they are not drawing conclusions, but attempting to make the science accurate.
But in any case, even if the conclusions come out in favour of Vitamin B having some prophylactic effect, SO WHAT? Human beings aren’t evolved to live to ripe old ages. We are genetically programmed to die. As you get older, your system breaks down and all kinds of things go wrong – Vitamin B is suppose to offset higher levels of homocysteine in some people who experience cognitive decline. No-one actually knows why the homocysteine levels go up. Or why they are elevated in some old people and not others. Or why some of those people with elevated homocysteine levels don’t go on to have cognitive impairment.
>>Wow who knew vitamins are that important?
EVERYBODY knows that vitamins are important. You need vitamins to live.But you can get them from your diet, as bizarre and impossible as you seem to think that is.
>>And to anaglyph, how the heck would you be able to get all your nutritional needs from your food, if your food is not getting the right amounts?
Oh I get it – because SOMEONE is making our food poisonous (or some other conspiracy) so that it’s not nutritious anymore. Sheesh.
>>If there is ever any doubt, go down to the nearest place that sells feed supplement to livestock and find out what they need. That’s a good indiction of what you’re lacking.
No it’s not. Wow, you really have serious problems with rational thinking don’t you? Livestock – let’s take cows – can live perfectly healthily on munching grass. Yes, I know, sounds like science fiction doesn’t it? But that’s what they do. They eat grass. Nothing but grass. And they stay healthy.
HOWEVER, if you want livestock to get fat really quickly, and to reliably produce high-quality meat you need to make their diet overly nutritious (plus, acres of high quality grass are actually more expensive than supplements). Understand this – cows DON’T NEED the kind of diet that they are fed by humans to merely stay healthy. We give them all that stuff because we farm them to consume.
Likewise, humans can stay perfectly healthy on a wisely chosen diet. For many many years. This is not something I’m making up. What’s the first thing every general practitioner in the world recommends for general good health? Diet and exercise. Pure and simple.
Okay which pharmaceutical company do you know of that doesn’t practise hiding bad reports? Please do tell, that would be interesting to know. Of course all corporations are guilty, but not to the extent that their product can cause death, like pharmaceuticals.
They have known about vitamin B, specifically niacine in the treatment of schizoprenia since the ’50′s. Why is it only now, these scientists are willing to do studies with it?
http://www.doctoryourself.com/life_hoffer.html
You call your website tetherdcow, but know nothing about them. The biggest seller at livestock supplement stores are mineral and salt licks. You must remember licking them, when you were a kid? Where I grew up there was no selenium in the ground, so how do our cattle get it? Lack of selenium causes weak muscles, so since it’s not in the pasture fields or in the local hay, how do you think they got it? I wonder if that had anything to do with the two headed calf my uncle had? You know, before he started supplementing them. Do you actually know of any farmer who doesn’t use salt or mineral licks? But don’t believe me, go to the local veterinarian and ask what your local cattle are deficient in. It’s really that simple.
But you are right, diet and exercise are important. You also need at the very least, a multi vitamin.
I plan on living longer than both of my grandmothers, who passed away at 99 and 104.
>> Do you actually know of any farmer who doesn’t use salt or mineral licks? But don’t believe me, go to the local veterinarian and ask what your local cattle are deficient in. It’s really that simple.
OK, you either don’t bother to read what I say, or you read it and don’t understand. I’ll repeat this: the cattle that we breed for human purposes are not living in anything near a natural environment. They need dietary supplements because we farm them.
Here’s what happens in nature – let’s take buffalo, because, unlike beef cattle, there are still some that are not domesticated living in their natural habitats . Buffalo are, within the bounds of any wild animal’s life scope, perfectly healthy. They don’t need vitamins or minerals or homeopathic remedies added to their diets to roam the prairie and mate and do everything else that nature intended them to do. Why? because they have evolved over millions of years to get what they need from their surroundings. If there’s no selenium in their diet, or salt, or potassium or whatever the fuck you like, one of two things happen: they die, or they move to somewhere where there is some of the thing they’re lacking. Otherwise, there would be no buffalo living on the prairie.
Do you understand what I’m saying?
The livestock that we farm are not living in natural conditions. Aside from anything else they have the legacy of centuries of breeding that have made them dependant on humans.
Are you understanding this?
Also, we are not interested in their welfare so much as in how much food value they give us. As a result, we optimize their ability to return the best product in the most expedient amount of time.
That’s why we add things to their diet.
Do you understand what I’m saying?
The salt licks and the selenium and the antibiotics and whatever else are added to cattle feed, are there because the cattle aren’t able to go find these things for themselves, locked up in restricted paddocks and bred in numbers far exceeding their probability in nature.
And you say I don’t now anything about cattle.
As far as humans are concerned, we are not living any longer in natural conditions, but, and here’s the critical thing – we can choose what we eat. And if we choose well, and eat the right foods, we can get ALL THE NUTRITION WE NEED from it. We also need sunlight and fresh air and water. But that’s it.
And your assertion that ‘You also need at the very least, a multi vitamin’ is completely wrong. No, you do not. You have been sucked in by advertising. If you need any kind of dietary supplement, it’s because you’re not eating properly. If YOU need a multivitamin, it’s because YOU are not eating the right foods.
Why didn’t you say you were talking about feedlots. Around here, we don’t call those people farmers, we call them feedlot operators. The true farmers that I know, pasture their cattle out in the 160 acres or more of natural grasses that they own. In the winter, they are fed hay (which are a bunch of grasses that have been harvested, for this specific purpose). And farmers actually do care about their animals and try to prevent diseases which are preventable, using vitamins and minerals. For example ear and tail biting sydrome in swine is much the same as bipolar in humans. A concoction of 24 vitamins and minerals fixes those pigs right up. But when the human version was put to the test, Health Canada shut them down. Thank goodness the judge (in 2006) ruled in truehope’s favour and said that Health Canda was vexatious. Now that product is available from truehope.com called Empowerplus.
Btw salt and mineral licks are left out for the free range buffalo. Another thing, you are forgetting one difference between the buffalo and cattle. Buffalo (and deer) eat wood bark, whereas cattle do not. Weirdly enough one of the cancer treatments I’ve seen has woodbark in it.
I’ve never been sucked in by advertising. I go right to the source and ask a lot of questions.
So do you go by the RDA (recommended deathly allowance) when it comes to getting your nutrients from your food? My literature says the RDA for Vitamin C is between 1,000 and 1,500 mg per day. Each orange on average has 53 mg, at the very least, about 19 oranges per day. Are you eating that many?
>>Why didn’t you say you were talking about feedlots.
Gah! Because I’m NOT talking about feedlots. I’m talking about that thing where humans get animals and do something with them THAT IS COMPLETELY UNNATURAL FOR THE ANIMAL like putting them somewhere that they don’t belong, making them mate when they don’t want to and feeding them in order to get some kind of HUMAN REQUIRED productivity from them, whether that is meat, milk or more cows.
Do you have no understanding at all that animals on farms ARE NOT THE SAME as animals in their natural habitat.
>>And farmers actually do care about their animals and try to prevent diseases which are preventable, using vitamins and minerals.
Right. So farmers have big collections of cows because they don’t want to see the poor things going hungry and getting cold. Or something. Not because, oh, they might want take their milk? Or to sell them to the slaughterhouse for meat?
>>For example ear and tail biting sydrome in swine is much the same as bipolar in humans.
Oh jesus christ.
>>A concoction of 24 vitamins and minerals fixes those pigs right up. But when the human version was put to the test, Health Canada shut them down.
Paranoia again.
>Thank goodness the judge (in 2006) ruled in truehope’s favour and said that Health Canda was vexatious. Now that product is available from truehope.com called Empowerplus.
Empowerplus may or may not work. The anecdotal evidence is equivocal. But as with anything like this, all the makers have to do is some science to convince the world that they have a miracle cure to all OCD/schizophrenia/bipolar and so forth (which is what they effectively claim). As of this date, there have been no double-blind clinical trials, and TrueHope refuses to do any such trials. In my view, in an area like mental health where there is so much ‘wiggle room’ and space for subjective assessment, this screams ‘snake oil’. Why should TrueHope care? They’re happily making lots of money out of their product.
Still, I’m easily convinced – show me the proper science. That’s all you have to do. Not anecdotes. Anecdotal evidence is notoriously open to error.
>>Btw salt and mineral licks are left out for the free range buffalo.
Yes, because back in the times before humans, God left salt licks out for the buffalo, off the back of his Godmobile. Do you have any idea how daft you sound saying things like this? Maybe people leave salt licks out for buffalo, but that’s probably because they now have habitat problems or something – I don’t know. BUT THEY DIDN’T EVOLVE OVER MILLIONS OF YEARS TO BE DEPENDENT ON SALT LICKS.
>>Another thing, you are forgetting one difference between the buffalo and cattle. Buffalo (and deer) eat wood bark,
Oh dear god. YES! THEY DO! Because they are in their natural habitat, and have not been bred for FARMING. Are you completely incapable of following a rational line of thought?
>>I’ve never been sucked in by advertising.
Yeah, right. You think multivitamins are a good idea. The whole multivitamin industry is an advertising concoction. You are so completely sucked in.
My literature says the RDA for Vitamin C is between 1,000 and 1,500 mg per day.
Yes, and what ‘literature’ would that be? That’s not the RDA, that’s the MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE DOSE before toxicity. The average human body can metabolize about 200mg of vitamin C per day. If you’re taking more than that, you are literally just pissing your money away.
You do know that the idea of vitamin C keeping away colds is a myth, right, based on erroneous thinking in the 1950s and perpetuated ever since? No? I thought not.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/jul/18/medicineandhealth.sciencenews
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/colds.html
And that the trend for megavitamins (like your massive doses of vitamin C) is also complete bunk?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255920,00.html
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/centrum.html
Get this straight – additional vitamins can be helpful if you have medical issues or bad dietary habits. But if you eat sensibly and get plenty of the right foods you DO NOT NEED VITAMIN SUPPLEMENTS.
But hey. If you’re happy to give your money to the already-wealthy companies who sell you supplements, don’t let me stop you. Many of them are the very same companies who you think are ‘hiding’ all their evil drug research. How you can be sure they’re not experimenting on you with vitamins is beyond me.
>>Gah! Because I’m NOT talking about feedlots. I’m talking about that thing where humans get animals and do something with them THAT IS COMPLETELY UNNATURAL FOR THE ANIMAL like putting them somewhere that they don’t belong, making them mate when they don’t want to and feeding them in order to get some kind of HUMAN REQUIRED productivity from them, whether that is meat, milk or more cows.
Do you have no understanding at all that animals on farms ARE NOT THE SAME as animals in their natural habitat.
Yeah, let’s put them back into their natural habitat. Let’s all help anaglyph “free the cows”. There’s going to be a lot of angry drivers, lol. Or better yet, anaglyph is going to start a home for old cows and bulls, so they don’t have to be slaughtered. Btw they always like to mate and no one stops them. They don’t even care who it’s with. Do you know how many gay bulls and steers there are out there?
>>Right. So farmers have big collections of cows because they don’t want to see the poor things going hungry and getting cold. Or something. Not because, oh, they might want take their milk? Or to sell them to the slaughterhouse for meat?
Farmers have cattle for the same reason you have a job. And how are you going to finance your home for old cows anyway? Maybe you could sell the manure, lol. As you seem quite full of it.
>Empowerplus may or may not work. The anecdotal evidence is equivocal. But as with anything like this, all the makers have to do is some science to convince the world that they have a miracle cure to all OCD/schizophrenia/bipolar and so forth (which is what they effectively claim). As of this date, there have been no double-blind clinical trials, and TrueHope refuses to do any such trials. In my view, in an area like mental health where there is so much ‘wiggle room’ and space for subjective assessment, this screams ‘snake oil’. Why should TrueHope care? They’re happily making lots of money out of their product.
Still, I’m easily convinced – show me the proper science. That’s all you have to do. Not anecdotes. Anecdotal evidence is notoriously open to error.
One of the people who started the company had a violent teenager, a daughter who had just given birth and could not be left alone with her child, and a wife who had commited suicide a few years prior. Some incentive, eh?
Just call Dr. Charles W. Popper at Harvard. For the first time in his 20 year practise, his patients have gotten so well, that he’s been able to take on new clients.
>>Yes, because back in the times before humans, God left salt licks out for the buffalo, off the back of his Godmobile. Do you have any idea how daft you sound saying things like this? Maybe people leave salt licks out for buffalo, but that’s probably because they now have habitat problems or something – I don’t know. BUT THEY DIDN’T EVOLVE OVER MILLIONS OF YEARS TO BE DEPENDENT ON SALT LICKS.
From a guy that doesn’t believe in God! Where are the freaking natural salt licks now, buddy?
>>Oh dear god. YES! THEY DO! Because they are in their natural habitat, and have not been bred for FARMING. Are you completely incapable of following a rational line of thought?
Where the hell have you been? There are many buffalo farms around here. They just have to build higher fences.
>>Yeah, right. You think multivitamins are a good idea. The whole multivitamin industry is an advertising concoction. You are so completely sucked in.>>
Of course I don’t buy that crap that the pharmaceutical companies try to sell….I only buy the good shit.
Yes, and what ‘literature’ would that be? That’s not the RDA, that’s the MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE DOSE before toxicity. The average human body can metabolize about 200mg of vitamin C per day. If you’re taking more than that, you are literally just pissing your money away.
You do know that the idea of vitamin C keeping away colds is a myth, right, based on erroneous thinking in the 1950s and perpetuated ever since? No? I thought not.
Yeah right, I take high amounts of vitamin C and I’m not dead yet. I don’t have scurvy either, lol.
You believe some dumb shit that sits in his basement and only looks at papers that come from the FDA? And you’re going to put all your eggs in his basket? And I thought you actually delved into things like this and just didn’t take some guys word for it. Boy was I ever wrong.
>>Get this straight – additional vitamins can be helpful if you have medical issues or bad dietary habits. But if you eat sensibly and get plenty of the right foods you DO NOT NEED VITAMIN SUPPLEMENTS.
But hey. If you’re happy to give your money to the already-wealthy companies who sell you supplements, don’t let me stop you. Many of them are the very same companies who you think are ‘hiding’ all their evil drug research. How you can be sure they’re not experimenting on you with vitamins is beyond me.
Like I said, I get the good shit. You know the kind (I guess you don’t) with the least amount of fillers. Made from purer products and as much organic as possible. And never ever coming from some damn pharmaceutical company, you know something like Centrum.
I give up.
Anaglyph Scientist of teh Year? I’ll say!
Wunderbar. I’ve hit the ‘MAKE IT SO’ button. My peers have spoken!
i second the nomination btw … do we get a cut of any profits ?
Science is its own reward!
An intensive review of the work of our peer at http://www.tetherdcow.com finds a SOTY award to be an unwarranted diminution of his sustained and outstanding contribution in support of scientific endeavour. This panel of independent adjudicators is unanimous in conferring upon the Reverend Anaglyph the award of Scientist of the Decade.
Duk Headbridge III Ph.O(OL), B.Sh, Dip.Sy
Who am I to dispute the accolades of my peers?
Now, I’m the last person to quibble about how much The Rev deserves these accolades, but I wonder about the ‘decade’ part of the encomium.
If 2001 was the first year of the decade, then 2010 is the last. The chances of anyone besting Anaglyph’s stupendous achievements in the next 3 months are slim.
But if 2000 was the first year of the decade, it makes this a fairly early call..
Puh-leeese queenwilly! Let’s not open that old chestnut. This is a serious scientific forum. There is no year zero, hence 2010 is obviously the last of the decade.
The independent panel of adjudicators, while in agreement with your contention that Reverend Anaglyph’s accomplishments will remain uneclipsed, is most unimpressed with your likening the Reverend’s accolade to baby’s first poo and has no desire to further engage with such a quibbling tall poppy cutter.
Ha ha ha
I knew the Rev wasn’t going to reply because I was just winding him up. :-)
Hey – who am I to quibble about details? Someone said it! That’s enough of an endorsement for me!
Muffins, hang gliders and tile
A bumbershoot whistles a mile
One out of five
When Bill was alive
The neck tie all wet from the Nile.
Curiosity question, Rev …
What’s your whisky of choice?
That’s not a trick question is it…?
Currently, Ardbeg Rollercoaster (although it’s impossible to get pretty much) and Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban.
No trickski. I’m becoming more of a whisky-drinker, and thought I might sample someone else’s fave.
Looks like I’d have to travel out-of-state if I wanted to find some Arbeg. Not sure about the availability of Glenmorangie where I am.
You can’t get Ardbeg shipped to you? I know a few places stock it the US. Glenmorangie should be available – it’s a very popular single malt and they have big marketing clout (in fact, Glenmorangie owns Ardbeg, although that fact isn’t widely trumpeted – they like to maintain the illusion that Scotland has dozens of little independent distilleries unsubsumed by big companies…)
Oh, I imagine I could have stuff shipped to me, yeah. I just looked at Ardbeg’s list of carriers in the U.S. and saw the closest to me is in Missouri.
I lookd for Glenmorangie at a huge liquor retailer in town and didn’t see any; but then again, it seemed that single malts were rather … ummm … underrepresented generally. :(
>>it seemed that single malts were rather … ummm … underrepresented generally. :(
Whoa. That’s a situation that needs some rectifyin’!
I found the Ardbeg and the Glenmorangie at my local liquor store. It’s all locked in a cabinet.
Quinta Ruban is $80 US per bottle. Some of the Ardbegs (no Rollercoaster) is $150.
Tell me, Reverend, is it really WORTH that kind o’ money?
I guess that depends on exactly why you’re drinking… Put it this way – if someone serves me up a shot of The Macallan I’m not going to turn it down, but I draw the line at Johnny Walker. And if I should be offered a nip o’ the Ardbeg Uigeadail, well, I know the conversation is going to continue well into the night…
Yeah, but what if the “offer” has a $150 price-tag attached?
You get what you pay for. The most I’ve ever paid for a bottle of whisky was about $200. I can’t say i thought it was worth it. But $80 is certainly worth paying for the Quinta Ruban. And Rollercoaster… let’s just say if I could GET another bottle, I’d pay the hundred bucks that I paid for the other one I had.
It amortizes across my drinking time. Cheaper than wine, in fact.
I probably need to slow down my drinking. When I look at bottle-price, I translate that to weekly expense.
O’course, if the liquor store would serve up a few free shots o’ Wild Turkey, I’d quickly get drunk enough to drop the $150 for some Ardbeg. Dang’d regressive business-model they’ve got!
Bio-acoustics?? Like beltching(sp)??
Or passing a good ripsnorter? It works wonders for me! I always feel much better after. Imbibing a naturopathic concoction of fermented barley and hops greatly increases the effect and warm fuzzy feeling! CHEAP and somewhat green beer helps the other end noticibly.
Rather a bit TMI, Timothy, as my kids would say…
Yeah I know,,,I find myself drifting off more towards the bathroom humour of my youth as I age. How long until the ‘mewling and puking’(memory?)part?
The only difference is that at the end you’re allowed whisky.
Maybe sound can provide some form of healing effect, since it can cause feelings of queasiness and unease. You can make people experience dizziness and nausea via a descending low-pitched sound frequency repeated over and over, “panned” in a circular fashion from left to right. People claim that the experience is what they imagine having your head turned inside-out would be like.
Sound can have gross physical effects on biological organisms – there’s no doubt about that. It has been demonstrated scientifically on numerous occasions. And there’s solid understanding behind it: sound waves are able to vibrate biological tissue at infrasonic and ultrasonic frequencies.
However, these are large uncontrollable and unpredictable effects. No one claims that they can focus sound in such a way as to give you cancer, or cause rabies, or make your nose bleed. All that is happening is that loud sound is smashing into you and causing you to feel ‘weird’.
What Human Bioacoustics claims to do is very specific and particular. These people are not just saying ‘nice sounds make you feel good’ (which is something with which I’d most certainly agree!) Instead, the sound ‘frequencies’ are supposedly able to diagnose and treat a staggering number of very specific maladies. Commonsense dictates that this is highly unlikely, but putting that aside, that’s exactly why we have science. Scientific process would fairly quickly determine if there was any likelihood that sound could specifically target certain illnesses.
If Ms Edwards has any kind of supportive scientific data that her ideas work, then all she need do is put it forward.
Simple.
I dunno, Reverend.
I’d say the Wilhelm Scream can adjust your spine as well as any chiropractor.
Reading your article on sound health and Sharry Edwards is ignorance in its true form.
Take the challenge and find a research practitioner in your area or have your vocal profile done by Sharry and lets see what we find
go to blog talk radio and find her on Monday nights. Get your print done for free.
You will learn something new and quit possible you may learn how to apologize.
So I should ‘learn to apologize’ for what, exactly? Being able to discern flim-flam for what it is? Offending people who can’t?
Getting ‘my print done for free’ would prove nothing at all, if the results are as vague and catch-all as the examples on Sharry Edwards’ website.
And calling people who do this stuff ‘research practitioners’ is the most egregious euphemism I’ve heard in a long while. Anyone who pretends there’s any science in this idiotic pursuit is no more a research practitioner than I am an astronaut.