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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday March 13 2014, @12:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the better-living-through-solopsism dept.

Papas Fritas writes:

Michael Schulson writes that if you want to write about spiritually-motivated pseudoscience in America, you can drive hundreds of miles to the Creation Museum in Kentucky but that America's greatest shrine to pseudoscience, the Whole Foods Market, is only a 15-minute trip away from most American urbanites. For example the homeopathy section at Whole Foods has plenty of Latin words and mathematical terms, but many of its remedies are so diluted that, statistically speaking, they may not contain a single molecule of the substance they purport to deliver.

"You can buy chocolate with "a meld of rich goji berries and ashwagandha root to strengthen your immune system," and bottles of ChlorOxygen chlorophyll concentrate, which "builds better blood." There's cereal with the kind of ingredients that are "made in a kitchen-not in a lab," and tea designed to heal the human heart," writes Schulson. "Nearby are eight full shelves of probiotics-live bacteria intended to improve general health. I invited a biologist friend who studies human gut bacteria to come take a look with me. She read the healing claims printed on a handful of bottles and frowned. "This is bullshit," she said, and went off to buy some vegetables."

According to Schulson the total lack of outrage over Whole Foods' existence, and by the total saturation of outrage over the Creation Museum, makes it clear that strict scientific accuracy in the public sphere isn't quite as important to many of us as we might believe. "The moral is not that we should all boycott Whole Foods. It's that whenever we talk about science and society, it helps to keep two rather humbling premises in mind: very few of us are anywhere near rational. And pretty much all of us are hypocrites."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Thursday March 13 2014, @03:33PM

    by bucc5062 (699) on Thursday March 13 2014, @03:33PM (#15914)

    So I will walk a line here. I had been confused between what I understood to be homeopathy and what it is defined as by most articles (and their own text). I was defending the use of natural elements in caring for medical issues, not homeopathy its self. So in that regard I was incorrect in my thoughts.

    I still find your statement about "civilized countries" to be disingenuous and it did not enhance your viewpoint. Of course all quackery should have the light of day put upon it, but you made a position like civilized countries don't have quacks (that is how it read). I'm not moderating, but I did not see you point as insightful mainly because of that one statement. Since they all lie, there is no real "civilized" country on this planet. Only those that try to lie less in the interest of their population. Currently my country is looking less and less civilized then some others so homeopathy seems to fit in right along with "we're not spying on you" or "trust your money with us".

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  • (Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:43PM

    by pe1rxq (844) on Thursday March 13 2014, @04:43PM (#15967) Homepage

    Ah, that makes sense. Although it doesn't suprise me much, it is very easy to get confused what exactly the quackers are peddling, and that is the way they like it.

    I have no problems with using 'natural elements', as long as it is evidence based.
    There is a lot of evidence for e.g. willow bark. So much evidence that it led to the development of aspirin.
    For both there is a lot of evidence and with this evidence you can choose which one works best in your current situation.
    If your stomach is sensitive use one, do you need something really potent and pure, use the other.

    And my personal definition of a civilized country indeed is a bit of an utopia...