Thursday, February 04, 2021

Stuff people believe..


It's amazing how many of these fallacies you can find out there today, especially in social media circles! Although, actually, you don't even have to dig that deep, quite often you can find one or more of  these on the 10 o'clock news!

Ancient Wisdom - Not everything that is old is good. Don't forget we used to think that diseases were caused by demons and witches flew on broomsticks. Quite a lot of ancient wisdom is, when you don't look at it through rose-tinted spectacles, actually incredibly stupid.

Quantum - Classic pseudo-science, use complicated words to sound authoritative and lean on the hard work of actual scientists to make it sound like you know what you're talking about to the uninitiated, but actually spout complete nonsense. Deepak Chopra is world-class at this (and makes a ton of money from the gullible) Never forget, something that explains everything, explains nothing.

Miracle Cures - It's a well known fact that "miracle cures" occur at exactly the same frequency as natural rates of remission from diseases in question, funny that. 

Naturalistic Fallacy - Viruses are 100% "natural", end of.

Toxins - Repeat after me, there is no such thing as a "detox" diet, in the same way that there's no such thing as "original sin". Don't forget, every chemical ever conceived or discovered is made from the same "natural" stuff.

Conspiracy - The tyrant's favourite, if you can't do something properly and you are incompetent then the easiest way to distract everyone from this fact is to claim it's all the fault of some imaginary "other", the less falsifiable the better.

Energy (crystal vibrations) - There's no such thing as "ley lines" or crystal energy, there are statistically more lines between pizza restaurants in London! See Ancient Wisdom.

Orifice obsessions - Why do some people just love to stick obscure things into their orifices, I've never really understood this? Is it a cry for attention or just a complete lack of medical judgement, I guess the upside is all the hilarious emergency room stories out there concerning live eels and light bulbs.

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