Watch this two-part documentary about psychics, mediums, alternative medicine, and pseudoscience in general. Discuss.

Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
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Part 2: The Irrational Health Service
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The bit in the second episode (43:19, I believe) when Dawkins appears to find a squirrel more interesting than what the woman is telling him cracked me up at the time

0:28 of the first video cracked me up

i particularly enjoyed the part on dowsing.

what's to discuss?
seriously, nothing in the first video (so far- about 15 minutes in at this point) is either news or debatable.
I mean, people have beleived whatever they've wanted to believe forever, there's no rhyme or reason to it, and just because they're told their beliefs are incorrect, doesn't mean it's going to change their minds.

making things up is how people cope with problems they aren't equipped (either emotionally or intellectually) to handle in any other way.
That's the role religion plays in most people's lives, and that's why people read their horoscopes or see a 'psychic' etc- because they perceive on some level that they can't control their lives to whatever extent they want to be able to control it, so they surrender to something they feel is bigger (and by inference more capable of handling problems) than them.

this is how people are, and no amount of practical discussion about it, nor well presented documentaries will do anything to change that.

We aren't evolved enough to give up on our superstitions otherwise we would have, you know?...

I think it is a big deal. Because frauds prey on credulous people willing to pay for these scams.

Maybe you should watch the second video. It has to do with alternative medicine. So having these irrational beliefs does have a negative influence on their livelihood.

you're not paying attention to what I just wrote- I made no comment whatsoever about whether it was having a negative influence on people or not, I said no one cares- it's what people do, and have always done, and will continue to do until such point in our development when we no longer need these security blankets that we've made throughout history to help us cope with the enormity and complexity of life and the relatively small amount of control we're able to exert over it.

is there a cliff notes version?

read 'how mumbo jumbo conquered the world' by francis wheen

Your assessment was dead-on. However, the ones behind the curtains know about the motivations and manipulate money out of people. To me, those people are inexcusable.

What's odd is the flow of logic for believers in the unusually mystic: realizing the small amount of control, they take to something that can, in the instance of astrology and psychic pseudophenomena, give them a definite assessment and guide for their future. In all of this is ignored the fact that it removes the little control one has and leaves it to an entirely deterministic system, set by the stars, so that one is essentially a robot controlled by huge burning bodies of gas millions of light-years away.

My point is that it is just a mechanism for con artists (i.e. that pathetic lowlife who wrote "The Secret") to feed off of credulous naive people. It is a multimillion dollar venture. The second video, about alternative medicine, is the better part of the documentary, because most people think "ya, astrology, that's mumbo jumbo", whereas alternative medicine falls through the cracks of and is accepted as, well, an alternative to most people. Dawkins' assessment about the actual amount of active substance in solution (something like 30c is equal to one particle in the entire solar system) is a real slap in the face.

Oh ya, and it's also all lies.

One of my professors in college wrote a book that has a chapter on just that idea.


http://books.google.com/books?id=xzCK6-Kqs6QC&pg=PA46&vq=voodoo+science&source=gbs_toc_s&cad=1&sig=9nysvvP_7yM76kDE0U51DDIlk8U

Cool book. Some pretty astounding info in it. Such as:



This is hilarious.... except for the fact that millions of people believe this drivel- and pay for it!

clearly some people do.

i'm meeting dawkins tonight. just bought a copy of the blind watchmaker so i can get that signed along with the god delusion.

What's the occasion?

book signing/discussion at the barnes and noble across the street from my workplace. it starts at 7; i think i'll get there at 5 or 5:30.

That's cool. Let us know if you find him arrogant

actually i was going to bring my copy of the bible or koran and hand him that to be signed just to see his reaction, which i imagine would be laughter.

Once he realised you weren't a religious nut then yeah, I imagine he would