Quackademics

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Where I live I know of prominent doctors, MDs, sharing their practices with naturopaths and acupuncturists for a "complementary" approach. I don't know about Reiki much other than the energy of touch can be therapeutic, or the merits of spoon bending in medicine...sounds out of place, but I support complementary medicine.
 
I read about that, and I thought that the skeptics should go to the workshop...it should not have been cancelled...videotape it...and if it's all crap, then critique it. Stay neutral until after they've been.

Except spoon-bending has been debunked since at least the 1970s if not earlier and is a staple in magic acts where it is made clear that no psychic powers are involved or required to do it. It's done with pre-weakened spoons (Carson defeated Geller by providing the spoons himself so Geller had no chance to prepare them). There is no reason for skeptics to wait for the workshop to critique it when it is promoting something that is already well known to be crap.
 
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Where I live I know of prominent doctors, MDs, sharing their practices with naturopaths and acupuncturists for a "complementary" approach. I don't know about Reiki much other than the energy of touch can be therapeutic, or the merits of spoon bending in medicine...sounds out of place, but I support complementary medicine.
Sure, touch can be very therapeutic - if you believe it will be. It's called the placebo effect Cousin.
 
Except spoon-bending has been debunked since at least the 1970s if not earlier and is a staple in magic acts where it is made clear that there are no psychic powers involved. It's done with pre-weakened spoons (Carson defeated Geller by providing the spoons himself). There is no reason for skeptics to wait for the workshop to critique it when it is promoting something that is already know to be crap.
That was the 70s and these students probably weren't born yet. This is a new resurgence of interest in alternative practices (of all types - some I think do have some merit). Have them conduct an undercover experiment...or even an open one. Check out all the spoons. Look for slight of hand magic tricks. If the presenter has conviction that what they are doing now (do they claim it's the same as the 70s) is valid - respectfully - let them try to prove it. If it is being done at a big university and turns out to be all hocus pocus, then it won't go anywhere. Now, the spoon benders have more fuel to say..."Well they refused to see for themselves because they don't want to believe it."
 
That was the 70s and these students probably weren't born yet. This is a new resurgence of interest in alternative practices (of all types - some I think do have some merit). Have them conduct an undercover experiment...or even an open one. Check out all the spoons. Look for slight of hand magic tricks. If the presenter has conviction that what they are doing now (do they claim it's the same as the 70s) is valid - respectfully - let them try to prove it. If it is being done at a big university and turns out to be all hocus pocus, then it won't go anywhere. Now, the spoon benders have more fuel to say..."Well they refused to see for themselves because they don't want to believe it."
Why should students in a professional program and profs be taking time out to deal with that nonsense? There's also funding that also goes along with it.
 
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Have them conduct an undercover experiment...or even an open one.

Why should the university pay for such an experiment? Why give credence to such hokum?

Kimmio said:
Check out all the spoons. Look for slight of hand magic tricks. If the presenter has conviction that what they are doing now (do they claim it's the same as the 70s) is valid - respectfully - let them try to prove it.

Why?

Kimmio said:
If it is being done at a big university and turns out to be all hocus pocus, then it won't go anywhere.

If... it turns out to be all hocus pocus? You imagine it's possible that it isn't?
 
Why should students in a professional program and profs be taking time out to deal with that nonsense? There's also funding that also goes along with it.
Somebody hired them to do the workshop in the first place. It's optional. Nobody was forcing anyone to register for it, for credit, were they?

That sounds like elitist no humour nonsense to me. Go and see - it's an opportunity to learn what gets presented to their potential patients as medicine so they have a better idea of what kinds of "alternatives" people are willing to pay for, and then maybe they can tell them, from experience, "I've seen it, and it's crap." Or "I've seen it myself and it wasn't entirely convincing but I did learn..."
 
Somebody hired them to do the workshop in the first place. It's optional. Nobody was forcing anyone to register for it, for credit, where they?
Students and profs are often expected to go. Attendance was actually taken for some seminars even though they weren't worth credit. Things are different when it's not entirely a course-based program.
 
Somebody hired them to do the workshop in the first place. It's optional. Nobody was forcing anyone to register for it, for credit, were they?

That sounds like elitist no humour nonsense to me. Go and see - it's an opportunity to learn what gets presented to their potential patients as medicine so they have a better idea of what kinds of "alternatives" people are willing to pay for, and then maybe they can tell them, from experience, "I've seen it, and it's crap." Or "I've seen it myself and it wasn't entirely convincing but I did learn..."

But it's already proven to be crap. No one can bend spoons with their minds Cousin. It's hocuspocus, abracadabra, ishkibbible.
 
People can move robotic limbs - even remote robots - with their minds now, using technology. So...I don't know how this spoon bending workshop was set up or what it was trying to demonstrate, do you?
 
That was the 70s and these students probably weren't born yet. This is a new resurgence of interest in alternative practices (of all types - some I think do have some merit). Have them conduct an undercover experiment...or even an open one. Check out all the spoons. Look for slight of hand magic tricks. If the presenter has conviction that what they are doing now (do they claim it's the same as the 70s) is valid - respectfully - let them try to prove it. If it is being done at a big university and turns out to be all hocus pocus, then it won't go anywhere. Now, the spoon benders have more fuel to say..."Well they refused to see for themselves because they don't want to believe it."

Does that mean we need to prove the world is round again for every generation? Do we need to retest Newton's laws for every new generation? As Jae says, you can't bend spoons with your mind and we don't need to keep proving that over and over, esp. since we have the clip from Carson that I posted upthread on Youtube.

And, to be honest, if PK exists, going around bending spoons is such a bloody waste of it. I'd be finding practical uses for it and charging people money for my services (e.g. pruning high tree limbs without needing a ladder or pruning pole) and laughing at the spoon benders if I had PK.
 
Does that mean we need to prove the world is round again for every generation? Do we need to retest Newton's laws for every new generation? As Jae says, you can't bend spoons with your mind and we don't need to keep proving that over and over, esp. since we have the clip from Carson that I posted upthread on Youtube.

And, to be honest, if PK exists, going around bending spoons is such a bloody waste of it. I'd be finding practical uses for it and charging people money for my services (e.g. pruning high tree limbs without needing a ladder or pruning pole) and laughing at the spoon benders if I had PK.
I agree that bending spoons doesn't have much practical purpose. Neither do some of the robot prototypes that are developed...they only point to possibilities when further developed. Maybe there is some connection between PK and the same brain impulses used to move robotic limbs - if the impulses can be transmitted and translated into "commands" to move phantom limbs attached to prosthetics, and can be done even wirelessly - maybe similar things can be done without machinery. The machinery acts as a vehicle, a sensor, and a measurement tool for the energy already existing.
 
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I agree that bending spoons doesn't have much practical purpose. Neither do some of the robot prototypes that are developed...they only point to possibilities when further developed. Maybe there is some connection between PK and the same brain impulses used to move robotic limbs - if the impulses can be transmitted and translated into "commands" to move phantom limbs attached to prosthetics, and can be done even wirelessly - maybe similar things can be done without machinery. The machinery acts as a vehicle, a sensor, and a measurement tool for the energy already existing.

Cousin, it seems that you don't understand. Bending. spoons. is. a. magic. trick.

 
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