Harriet Hall: The End of Chiropractic

A reader of my blog just forwarded me a link to Harriet Hall's article on Science Based Medicine.

I have some "posts in progress" that I haven't had a chance to finish - doing research is a lot more work than simply making stuff up - regarding Chiropractic but, until then, head over to The End of Chiropractic on the Science Based Medicine blog.

Newsweek Isn't Afraid of Oprah

And that is a great thing. Too often, it seems, Oprah gets a free ride - especially when it comes to supporting woo-woo (Jenny McCarthy, alternative medicine, The Secret etc.). Newsweek obviously felt, like I do, that something needs to be said - and they said it.

Check out the article for yourself at http://www.newsweek.com/id/200025/output/print

Enjoy!

Why Didn't I Think of That?

I do feel that there is value in creating a website that alerts visitors to businesses that participate in woo-woo - kind of a "stay clear, this crap isn't based on science and is only successful of relieving you of your money" site.

I realized that it'd be time consuming - compiling the list of businesses and entering the data about what they claim to do as well as getting valid contact information for the business. The idea was good, but the data collection process would be a substantial burden for a single person.

It would be nice if you could get people to volunteer to submit their own information about their own woo-woo establishment and even have them maintain the data but that is a bit unrealistic - who would volunteer to be giggled at?

Well, someone has successfully started such a site and with some mild success (it is sure to grow). The part that I didn't think about was where she pretends to be a legitimate site supporting pseudoscience and tricks (hey, they started it!) woo-wooists to send in their information.

People in Sarnia, thanks to one enterprising woman (why is it that most of the people listed in the directory are women, by the way??), now have a place to go to see if they are being fleeced. Simply search the directory for a type of service you are interested in and, odds are, if it is listed, it's woo-woo.

Though I don't like to promote whack-jobs and woo-woo pushers, this site is far from that - it is disguised as a valid "holistic services" directory but it is really just a method of getting woo-woo artists to self identify! Check it out for yourself - http://www.holisticbusinessnetwork.com. Congratulations Lin Oliver - you are an inspiration to all skeptics. (What? Lin is a Reiki Master/Teacher? Oh well, I guess WE'll just have to use the site for identifying woo-woo practitioners while others use it to find their favourite fleecer.)

Note: If you didn't click on the Reiki link, you'll miss a funny story about a major woo-woo group slamming another woo-woo method. Enjoy!