Tetherd Cow Ahead

About 7 times out of every 10 that I blog about WooWoo beliefs, I get someone taking exception to what I’ve written and alleging that I’m ‘close-minded’ or ‘I should give it a go’ before I cast any criticisms on whatever it is upon which I am casting criticism.

Mostly those comments are placed well after the post is relevant, and just go unread by anyone except me (unless, of course, you’re fond of scrolling back through old Cow comments for entertainment). Occasionally, though, I decide to bring such commentary up front and attempt to throw some illumination on why irrational thinking annoys me so much. Today, I offer you one such example. On the recent post Global WooWoo, Luc writes:

There are many aspects of human life which we don’t understand. Just because we don’t understand how something work doesn’t mean it doesn’t. Skeptics are everywhere. Reading something and actually doing it or in this case try the product are different if not opposite. Just because it doesn’t work on you, name calling those who actually tried the product and them experience something from the product is not some one I would call an expert. You called yourself a Reverend, how do I know that. To me you’re some guy blogging in the internet. I don’t think we should be so quick to judge something or in your case condemn it before trying.

Sigh. Where to start. I think it’s gotta be a line-by-line. Luc. Are you sitting comfortably? Very well, let’s begin.

There are many aspects of human life which we don’t understand.

Yes there are. I have never disagreed with that statement. But if you’re going to try and sneak idiotic thinking under the fence with that, you picked the wrong guy.

Just because we don’t understand how something work doesn’t mean it doesn’t.

Also true. However, if you have a good, rational, grasp of the world, you can infer the probability of something working or not working for a good many practical cases. I will provide an example in a moment.

Skeptics are everywhere.

Yes we are. And our numbers are growing. Be afraid.

Reading something and actually doing it or in this case try the product are different if not opposite.

Even though that sentence is fairly incoherent, I think I get the gist of it. You’re saying that I should try before I sound off, right?

Luc, let’s do a little experiment together, you and I. Do you have a hammer, Luc? Yes? Do you have some ordinary table salt?[tippy title=”*”]This is a typical piece of WooWoo misdirection – an implausible claim is dressed up by some irrelevant distraction thrown in to lead your thinking process astray. Why salt? Same reason as Schumann Waves/holograms/magnets etc[/tippy] Good. Now take that hammer and sit at your dining room table – clear a little space in front of you to make it easier. Now Luc, put a little salt on the table – about a teaspoonful, and spread it out a bit. Now, place your left hand on the table on top of the salt, and take the hammer in your right hand (or vice versa if you’re left-handed). OK, now, put your trust in me and follow my instructions very carefully – raise the hammer as high as you can from your sitting position and with it, hit your left hand as hard as you can. I know it sounds scary, but you have to try it! Seriously! The salt will stop the hammer from doing any damage! Trust me, this really works! It won’t hurt a bit.

Oh Luc… I see you’re not trusting me here! Don’t you believe me? You don’t have any faith, Luc!

Can you see what’s happening here, Luc? You chose not to hit your hand because your rational knowledge of the world gave you enough useful information to make an appraisal of the probable outcome. Your brain balanced up the usefulness of trusting me against the likeliness of the excruciating pain of crushed fingers and you sensibly chose to ignore my instructions.[tippy title=”†”]At least I hope so – if you actually went ahead and did it, then you’re an idiot beyond salvaging and I wish you the best of luck for the rest of what will almost certainly be a short and crappy life.[/tippy]

This is how critical thinking works. You can make intelligent, informed choices about things (and avoid pain or financial embarrassment) without trying them yourself. As I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t need to try and live on nothing but fresh air for three weeks to know that that’s a fairly moronic idea. Do you see what I’m saying here? I don’t have to try idiotic magic bracelets or socks to have an informed opinion on the likelihood of them having any practical effect. And you see how it works, Luc? The more you understand about the world, the better positioned you are to form such opinions.

Just because it doesn’t work on you, name calling those who actually tried the product and them experience something from the product is not some one I would call an expert.

Again, navigating around the baffling sentence structure, I infer you to be attempting to say that if something doesn’t work on me, then I can’t say that it doesn’t work on someone else.

Well, sadly for your argument Luc, I can say exactly that. You see, in a case like this, it’s not me that has to put up the proof. I’m not the one making the far-fetched claims. If someone makes magic socks that are supposed to have magical effects, then the onus is on them to show me persuasive evidence that the magic socks are doing what is claimed. And – listen carefully – this does not mean diffuse, imprecise, anecdotal evidence that could easily be explained in numerous other ways. This means clear, unequivocal, testable substantiation of the claims.

You called yourself a Reverend, how do I know that.

Oh, so now you’re a skeptic! You see how easy that was?!

As for me being a Reverend, well, I was ordained by the Universal Life Church on November 16, 2005, and have the documents to prove it. My credentials are as good as, or even better than, anyone selling QLink or EFX.

I don’t think we should be so quick to judge something or in your case condemn it before trying.

Exactly what makes you think I’m being ‘quick’ to condemn this nonsense, Luc? Quite to the contrary, my condemnation of these idiotic tsotchkes is based on many years of experience of thousandss of similar trinkets all claiming to deliver a cornucopia of incredible results. Do you hear what I’m saying? Whatever gadget happens to be your particular favourite is just as much a piece of junk as a Biorhythm calculator, a razor-blade sharpening pyramid, a carbolic ball, a violet wand, a magnetic fuel saver, an electronic pest repeller, BluWave & RedWave and any of hundreds more implausible devices created by people intent on bilking you of your money.

Luc, I will end this reply by asking you one simple thing: show me your evidence. If it is good, I WILL be convinced. But I will put up with no airy-fairy maybe-it-did-maybe-it-didn’t nonsense. I want results. Clear, unequivocal, unbiased results. Surely that’s only a small thing to ask? If your favourite gadget does something easily defined and obvious, then that should be a pretty easy thing to provide. If, however, the claims of its manufacturers are blurry, vague and equivocal, then maybe you should be asking yourself some serious questions.

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*This is a typical piece of WooWoo misdirection – an implausible claim is dressed up by some irrelevant distraction thrown in to lead your thinking process astray. Why salt? Same reason as Schumann Waves/holograms/magnets etc

†At least I hope so – if you actually went ahead and did it, then you’re an idiot beyond salvaging and I wish you the best of luck for the rest of what will almost certainly be a short and crappy life.

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In this modern age, pretty much everyone is aware of Global Warming and the threat to rising sea levels which it poses. But I stand before you today Brothers and Sisters of the Church of the Tetherd Cow, to remind you of another evil which slowly seeps upon us. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about the menace of Global WooWoo and its rapidly rising Oceans of Stupidity – great raging seas of Brobdingnagian nonsense that threaten to wash away every last grain of precious logical sand from the few remaining Islands of Rationality.

Take the fad for ‘magical bracelets’, which has been with us for some time, but now seems to be gaining a new lease of life if the prices being charged for these meretricious trinkets is anything to go by.

Exhibit 1: The Ludicrous QLink:

Q-link® works by balancing out the body’s energetic fields. Many liken Q link® to a microchip. Q-link® is programmed to each wearers unique human resonating or energy emitting frequency. Like an acupuncture treatment works to restore the body’s energy flow, so too does Q link® work to help restore energy imbalances in the body.

Yeah, I bet. Sounds like it probably gets rid of fleas too.

QLink first surfaced some years back as a magical pendant, but has now increased in range to magical necklaces, magical watches, magical rings, magical ‘cell phone protection’ chips, magical bracelets (above) and magical USB devices. I kid you not. Go take a look. And the Shoo!Tag™ people better watch out because you can even get a QLink for your pet. Of course, the magical benefits of QLink don’t come cheap – the bracelet pictured above will set you back $199.00. Many liken that to a tidy sum for a bit of cheap metal.

Some famous people who endorse QLink are: Oprah Winfrey, Tony Robbins and Madonna. The Cred-O-Meter is pinning at zero as a result. I bet Tom Cruise has a couple too.

As usual with these kinds of devices, the makers of QLink claim that their product delivers a grab-bag of diffuse and unverifiable subjective benefits for a pantheon of complaints. Woo at its finest. No science, no accountability, no conscience.

According to the website, QLink utilizes ‘Sympathetic Resonance Technology’ (SRT™) that exploits ‘a new class of energies’ including ‘subtle’ energy:

‘Subtle energy refers to a physical energy, such as electromagnetic or acoustic, that is of such low intensity that we have no means of measuring it presently. It is a physical field of very low magnitude.’

So it uses a form of energy that can’t be measured? Interesting. I’ll leave it to you to ponder, then, how anyone can know it actually exists, let alone corral it to do anything.

Exhibit 2: The Preposterous EFX Performance Edge::

EFX is an embedded wearable holographic technology designed to maximize performance and overall well-being by increasing balance, strength, and flexibility. EFX’s technology consists of frequencies that are highly compatible with both humans and animals on a cellular level

Hmmm. Sounds strangely familiar. The Psychic McGuffin in this case, though, is not a magnetic strip but a ‘hologram’ attached to the devices, which is supposed to deliver all kinds of wondrous benefits. The swindlers peddling EFX have also resurrected the hoary old carnival pony of applied kinesiology as a demonstration of the ‘effectiveness’ of their cheap trash. I defy anyone to make sense of the idiotic demonstration video on the EFX website in which an oleaginous fellow pushes down on a girl’s arm while she balances on one leg to prove… what, exactly?

The EFX FAQ is a treasure trove of doublespeak and waffle words. You don’t even need to go past Question #1 to get the idea:

Q. What is the major benefit of EFX?
A. EFX helps restore natural in harmony to the body.

The effect is believed to stabilize and harmonize the body’s bioelectric current. When the body is in harmony, the muscles relax, cells un-clump, and blood circulation increases, allowing for greater stability, easier movement and pain relief.

Natural in harmony? Stabilize and harmonize the body’s bioelectric current? Cells un-clump? WTF? What does any of that stuff actually mean??? They just make it all up!

And further down the list:

Q. Is EFX Safe?
A.”Yes”

EFX does not emit any potentially harmful electromagnetic radiation
EFX is non trans dermal
EFX does not contain any restricted substance
EFX has not been evaluated by the FDA
EFX Safety results are available upon request.

Did you notice how not being evaluated by the FDA becomes an endorsement of safety? Genius!

As with QLink, EFX trinkets come in a variety of forms – wristbands, pendants, necklaces, energetic ‘dots’ (!) and best of all, socks. Yes that’s right – magical holographic pain-relieving socks.

Faithful Acowlytes, I know it defies common sense, and I sense you sitting there shaking your heads and wondering how anyone with the remotest wisps of intelligence can swallow this claptrap. But have no fear! As always, the boffins in the TCA Labs are one step ahead of us all, and in recent years have been beta-testing a device that will allow you to understand the thought processes of the intellect-challenged folks who fork out money for gew-gaws like QLink and EFX.

This morning it is my great pleasure to bring you the exciting news that CowLink™ is out of beta and shipping!

CowLink™ is a harmonic resonant energy focussing technology that uses Shoo!MAN Waves and FeelyGood™ along with time invariance according to Noether’s Theorem to actually reduce your capacity for any kind of critical thought whilst inside its field of influence.

Yes, my friends, with CowLink™ you will never again find yourself frustrated and flabbergasted at the sheer idiocy and slack-jawed gullibility of suckers who fall for implausible pseudoscientific hogwash, because, with CowLink™ you will think just like them! That’s right! CowLink™ is guaranteed to strip up to 100 points off your IQ and empty thousands of dollars from your bank account or your money back![tippy title=”*”]Conditions apply. See reverse.[/tippy]

But don’t just accept our word for it! Here’s what some of our customers had to say:

“CowLink™ worked for me! I bought one for everyone in my company!” ~ Sean McCarthy, Steorn

“I’ve been using the techniques behind CowLink™ for years! My personal astrologer has never been wealthier!” ~ Shirley MacLaine

“Without CowLink™ I would never have found the Fountain of Youth!” ~ David Copperfield

“CowLink™ convinced me to give up all my wacky beliefs and turn to science!” ~ Madonna

“Not only did CowLink™ reduce my capacity for logic to near zero, it eradicated the cockroaches in my kitchen! Send me another one!” ~ Melissa Rogers, inventor of Shoo!TAG™

OK, now someone tell me they’re not persuasive endorsements! The CowLink™ bracelet is hoof-crafted from meteoric brass, set with red eye crystals from one of the Seven Holy Mountains and blessed by George King. At only $249.00 (discounts for bulk), it’s a steal!

Buy yours today!

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*Conditions apply. See reverse.

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Acowlytes! I have some amazing news to bring you!

According to American astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, a white dwarf star in the constellation of Centaurus, next to the Southern Cross, has been found to contain a 3000-kilometre-wide toilet into which you can throw all your money!

Well, that’s not exactly the way they put it on a site I just found called Space Diamond – I’ve just fixed it so it’s closer to the truth.

What the people at Space Diamond actually want you to believe is that the white dwarf in Centaurus contains a GIANT DIAMOND[tippy title=”*”]It actually might, believe it or not. But that’s entirely beside the point.[/tippy] and if you send them some money for a ‘Space Diamond Gift Certificate’, you will be entitled to… well… to a gift certificate. That’s right Cowpokes, these people are selling NOTHING. OK, to be accurate, the certificate promises that it is ‘good’ for ‘the first carets harvest from space’. Hahahaha! The first carets harvested from a white dwarf star that is in a constellation five light years away from our own solar system! By my calculation, even if they sent up a spaceship with accredited jewellers right now, we’d all be well and truly dead before they got back.

With this in mind, I wrote to the smiling lady at Space Diamond’s ‘Customer Service’ department. I think I’ll call her Wanda. This is a picture of her:

Dear Space Diamond,

When do you anticipate the first diamond harvest will occur? Your offer seems almost too good to be true, and I don’t want to waste my money on something that is not scientifically feasible.

Yours sincerely

Reverend Anaglyph

I expect to hear from Wanda promptly with a detailed description of Space Diamond’s near light-speed propulsion system and their strategy for the penetration of the core of a massively dense star and the excavation thereof. I’m also curious to peruse their proposal for how they plan to get several trillion tons of diamond back here, and why doing so wouldn’t immediately cause diamonds to become as worthless as gravel.

Stay tuned.

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*It actually might, believe it or not. But that’s entirely beside the point.

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It was recently brought to my attention that the purveyors of the ludicrous Shoo!TAG™ have a bunch of clips up on YouTube that feature all manner of spurious claims. Since they have already demonstrated the scale of their ignorance here on The Cow, this will probably not come as a surprise to anyone, but seeing that there is virtually no balanced criticism of the product on the net, and because of their increasingly bad behaviour (see below) ((Oh, alright – and because I’m enjoying the sport…)), I feel obliged to bring to your attention some further egregious idiocy.

The Shoo!TAG™ YouTube presence includes a number of short vox-pop style grabs in a question-and-answer style, where various Shoo!TAG™ personages pose and then answer questions about the product. Here are two examples that talk about Shoo!TAG™ and EMF, or electromagnetic fields. For your convenience I have included the verbatim transcript of each segment under the video.

Q: Does Shoo!TAG™ use a radio frequency to transmit its signal?

Kathy M. Heiney: No! We use no radio frequencies, we use no harmful EMF frequencies. (We…) the Shoo!TAG™ is a Schumann wave based frequency which supports life.

Q: Are there any dangers associated with Shoo!TAG™?

Melissa Mowrer Rogers: Not to my knowledge. It’s chemical-free, it’s non-toxic, um… it’s made of earth-friendly frequencies and they’re… it’s not a EMF frequency that everybody’s worried about with cellphone towers and that type thing. It has nothing to do with that. So to my knowledge there’s really no dangers at all with Shoo!TAG™

Got that? Shoo!TAG™ DOES NOT use EMF frequencies. Oh, n-o-o-o-o – it uses ‘Schumann waves’. I guess that what they’re talking about (who can do anything but guess?) is Schumann resonances which, according to Wikipedia, are

… a set of spectrum peaks in the extremely low frequency portion of the Earth’s electromagnetic field spectrum. (emphasis mine).

In what we are coming to expect from these people as typical fashion, Kathy Heiney (in the top clip) is spewing forth some half-baked nonsense as if it’s meaningful, based on a very poor understanding of science. Aside from anything, Schumann resonances would be entirely impossible to generate from a magnetic strip on a plastic card. Let me quote from the Wikipedia article:

Lightning discharges are considered to be the primary natural source of Schumann resonance excitation…

Since the makers of Shoo!TAG™ have claimed elsewhere that it contains no power source, this is quite clearly nonsense. Of course, Schumann waves could be a completely different proposition, but unfortunately there is no reference to them in the entirety of the internet (except, again unsurprisingly, on various and sundry pseudoscientific web pages to do with an assortment of ‘mystical healing’ techniques).

In the second of these clips, Melissa Rogers, the other of Shoo!TAG™’s creative masterminds claims that the frequencies are ‘earth-friendly’ and ‘non-toxic’ – vacuous hogwash if ever it was uttered. She also vacillates on the level of her responsibility by saying that there are no dangers associated with Shoo!TAG™ to her knowledge. Lady, it’s your product. If you know what it’s supposed to do and how it’s supposed to work, then I’d expect a lot more confidence than you’re exhibiting here. ((Of course this is a characteristic ploy of all practitioners of pseudoscience – equivocate. That way, you can never be caught out. In the event that the scary Schumann waves cause bolts of lightning to erupt out of the Shoo!TAG™ she can’t be called to account.))

Elsewhere in the Web-o-sphere, we find the following interesting exchange on Yahoo Answers:

Bigger in TX: Has anyone tried the Shoo Tag and gotten good results…?

The anonymous ‘B’ (who I think you will agree has all the insight and scientific acumen of a certain Ms Melissa Rogers): I haven’t, but am considering. Here’s what I’ve found so far: A three dimensional or trivector signature has been imprinted onto the magnetic field of a three field magnetic memory card. This card is then hung around the neck of an animal and the magnetic field can stimulate the biology of the animal to build up defense to invaders. This is completely safe and proficient. In our preliminary farm tests the researchers found 75% less infestation of the insect pests when using the strips than in control populations. Further testing is presently being done in Europe. ((Notice how the narrative voice changes from an ‘interested’ third party (‘I haven’t tried it’) to an informed participant (‘our preliminary tests’).))

Source(s):
http://www.thehealingbarn.com/equine/shootagscience3.html
http://www.petconnection.com/blog/2009/02/13/global-pet-expo-keeping-the-dream-alive/ http://www.thehealingbarn.com/equine/shootagproduct.html

A ‘trivector signature’? A ‘three field magnetic memory card’? The testing is ‘being done in Europe’? If anyone was thinking I’m being unnecessarily hard on a couple of nutty and deluded but well-meaning duffers, this should make it clear that these people are cynical con-artists. They make these ‘cards’. They know full well that all this stuff they’re peddling is hooey. If there are any such tests as the ones they claim, where are the published results? (As if it’s going to come as any surprise, the ‘sources’ quoted in the answer’ are nothing of the sort and just link back to either the Shoo!TAG™ site or other sites that empty-headedly endorse the stupid thing).

Show us the science, Shoo!TAG™ That’s ALL you have to do. Show us the science.

I said above that the Shoo!TAG™ people are guilty of bad behaviour, so let me end on that note. When I saw some of the YouTube clips go up, I posted a user comment (as one is allowed to do on YouTube). This is what I said:

ShooTag is a useless gadget based on pseudoscientific thinking. Ask yourself this question: if it was anywhere near as effective as the makers claim, why hasn’t it been picked up by doctors fighting malaria in all corners of the world?

(The answer is, in case you didn’t guess: Because it simply doesn’t work.)

Someone almost immediately marked it as spam. In the grand tradition of baseless claims throughout history, the Shoo!TAG™ mob are resorting to gagging any criticism of their daft gadget. Of course, that’s all they can do because they are manifestly unable to defend themselves or their product in any credible fashion.

UPDATE March 2015: The videos I linked above – like much of the other stuff that makes the claims of the ShooTag people look so ridiculous – have been redacted from YouTube. Nothing quite like rewriting history to cover up your mistakes.

Seeing red? Feeling blue? Got aches and pains that just won’t go away? Tried whisky and aspirin and bonox and nothing seems to work anymore? Why not shed some light on the problem: the iPhone Pocket Pain Doctor is here!

Yes, dear Acowlytes, no matter what your problem, it can be solved by an iPhone app. And if your problem is a kinda sorta non-specific-type general one, then the right kind of app will obviously feature as its main operating principle – all together now – woowoo!!!

(The YouTube video has been removed for some reason. You have to imagine a long spiel from an unappealingly pushy man who shows you how you can make the iPhone shine coloured light on your skin. It’s far from persuasive).

That’s right Cowmrades – just by shining red or blue light on yourself using your phone, Pocket Pain Doctor will relieve all kinds of pain, make you more alert and cure your acne! Or, on the other hand, it might not. The bottom of the Pocket Pain Doctor site features this disclaimer:

BluWave and RedWave are not intended to treat or cure any disease. None of the statements on this website have been evaluated by the FDA.

(The Pocket Pain Doctor site has now been pulled, sadly. But unsurprisingly).

See, that’s the REALLY GREAT THING about woowoo! You can have your cake and eat it too! Your product may or may not work but people still pay you money for it. Marvellous!

Oh. But what’s this? There’s some references to ‘Clinical Studies‘ on the site! Hooray! This is bound to be enlightening… let’s see what we have. First a link to PubMed. OK, that’s impressive. It’s a draft of a paper (supposedly) called Seasonal Disorder & Body Effects Of Blue Light. ((It’s actually called “Action spectrum for melatonin regulation in humans: evidence for a novel circadian photoreceptor.” Do these people think that potential Pocket Pain Doctor customers are stupid? Oh.)) Hey waiddaminute! That’s got nothing to do with ‘Seasonal Disorder’ or blue light! It’s about the effect of light on melatonin suppression. OK – here’s another one from Modern Medicine: Blue Light Kills Acne Bacteria. Wow… so it appears. That is, if it’s catalyzing a chemical called 5-aminolevulinic acid! I wonder if the iPhone squirts some of that out too?

How about red light then? Here’s a link to a NASA article: Red Light Therapy Relieves Pain Naturally. Oh looky! It’s actually about how infrared light helps cell regrowth in a certain type of cancer, minimising the pain as a result. What about Red Light Relieves Arthritis Pain & Muscle Injuries? Well, that’s a link ((On a site called Healing Light Seminars – now that really looks reputable.)) to a pdf that appears to be a list of double blind clinical trials – but not including the findings of those trials! And anyway, they are trials of an entirely unrelated kind – various methods of infrared laser treatment. Just in case anyone isn’t clear on this – your iPhone does not emit infrared laser light. I’m astonished that anyone can get away with this kind of complete fakery.

In a comment on the home page of the Pocket Pain Doctor site, the person who created the app complains that over on Engadget they gave his toy a bit of an unfair bashing. From his tone, one might even come to the conclusion that this guy believes in what he’s pushing. But that’s a little hard to accept when you see the duplicity involved in those links to ‘scientific evidence’ that he has provided. At best he misunderstands what he’s reading and actually thinks his sources offer some kind of substantiation of his idea. At worst, his ‘corroboration’ is deceitful.

In any case, it’s all about to become academic. Down in the Tetherd Cow Ahead labs, the boffins have been hard at work on this very concept, and I’m sure it will not surprise you at all to hear that they have perfected a new technology which we call ChromaCow™. Incorporating the technology behind the TCA Virtual Glass of Water™, ChromaCow™ offers you everything that you get with Pocket Pain Doctor, only IT’S ABSOLUTELY FREE! Best of all, TCA Labs is introducing a third, even better alternative to RedWave™ and BluWave™ – YelloWave™! With TCA YelloWave™ active on your computer, we UNRESERVEDLY GUARANTEE ((Guarantee may not be guaranteed.)) that the true nature of your innermost self will be revealed to you!!! Simply click on the icons below for the complete ChromaCow™ experience! (Make sure you do them all in order or your spectral chakras may become misaligned, resulting in mood swings, sour milk or even anal haunting).

So off you go Faithful Cowpokes – tell all your friends that they need no longer waste their money on woowoo in the iPhone app shop when they can get it here at Tetherd Cow Ahead FOR NOTHING!

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(Thanks once more to Atlas for putting me on the trail. I suppose that now I really am going to have to give him a prize for the Pickled Herring Poetry Contest.)