Yesterday I saw an article from a website called Earth We Are One that claimed that hugging a tree can be good for our health (read the article here).
Obviously I am skeptical of this, and with a very good reason.
First, the title alone makes it sound like trees can affect your physical health, but in the third paragraph it clearly states that all it affects is your mental health (with the exception of headaches), particularly mental illnesses, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), concentration levels, reaction times, and depression, and that they can do all this through altering your "vibrations".
While being around and touching a tree might affect you mental health and help you with all the things stated, the effects are only temporary and can be achieved through other means, such as meditation or listening to soft music.
In other words hugging a tree is nothing more than a placebo, and doesn't alter your vibrations because the vibrations that are being talked about do not exist.
As for being able alleviate headaches, headaches tend to go away on there own, but a person can make a headache go away faster if they put themselves in a relaxing situation, which I imagine being near a tree and away from other stresses can do for a person, but the tree itself is not doing anything to help you, it's all you.
Second, there are only two references in the entire article, and neither one are even close to being reliable.
The first one is a site called Blinded By Science, which is a website created to sale a book that is nothing more than a bunch of New Age woo coupled with pseudoscience.
The author of the book, Matthew Silverstone, is not a scientist. It clearly states so in his "about" section, and that he has no scientific or medical degrees, just ones in economics and international business.
The second reference is from Natural News...
Besides the fact that the part that the article is referencing Natural News is talking about water vibration, which has nothing to do with what is being discussed, the Natural News article itself is pretty much just a rewritten version of the article from Earth We Are One, and it also only has links to two other sources: Natural News and Blinded By Science.
Plus, it's Natural News, the worst "science" website out there. Referencing it in any way other than to show why you shouldn't reference it would for most people automatically invalidate whatever it is you're talking about.
The third and final thing that stuck out to me is that the article talked about how other studies confirmed that hugging trees are good for you.
While this sounds goods and makes it seem like there may be something to this tree hugging thing, the problem is that there are no links to these so called studies. There should be atleast a few on there because the article claims that there are "countless" studies confirming tree hugging is good for you, but the only two references on there are from non-reliable sources.
This is nothing more than a mixer of pseudoscience and New Age woo, and despite it's claim it has no science proving that tree hugging does anything for you beyond the placebo effect.
Showing posts with label placebo effect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label placebo effect. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
5 Things I've noticed about... Homeopathic Medicine
Homeopathic medicine is probably one of the oldest forms of alternative medicine there is. Infact it was invented in the late 1700's by German physician Samuel Hahnemann, and has been with ever since.
Now there are lots of claims about homeopathy and what it does, and after looking into them I've noticed several different things about homeopathic medicine.
So here are five things I've noticed about homeopathic medicine:
5. You can make it at home.
Homeopathic medicine is very easy to make. You don't even need a complex chemistry lab inorder to make it. You can make it right in your kitchen!
Got a headache and you want to make some homeopathic aspirin inorder to get rid of it? Well here's what you do:
Step 1: Get one tablet of aspirin and about ten bottles of water.
Step 2: Crush aspirin and put it into one of the bottles of water.
Step 3: Shake up bottle.
Step 4: Take one drop from said bottle and put it into the next bottle.
Step 5: Repeat steps 3 and 4 until done doing so with all bottles.
Now if you do all of this you will have homeopathic aspirin and your headache should go away in a few hours... same as any other normal headache would if you were to take nothing at all.
Actually this might not work, and this is because...
4. You're suppose to use something that can cause the problems that you currently have inorder to cure them.
Inorder for homeopathic medicine to actually work (atleast according to people who make and deal with homeopathic medicine) you don't use heavily diluted medicine that would cure whatever it is that you have. What you actually are suppose to use is something that could cause the symptoms that you're having rather than actually cure them. Think of it as a kind of like a vaccine, minus any backing from the scientific and medical communities.
So if you want to cure that headache of yours using heavily diluted aspirin isn't going to work. What you actually want to use is something that can cause a headache if you take it in it's pure form, like beer, only it has to be heavily diluted.
So using homeopathy logic the best thing to take when you have a headache is a ball park beer, because those things are watered down all to hell.
3. A lot of it is REALLY watered down.
If you think that the homeopathic aspirin that I gave instructions above on how to make sounds really diluted (probably to the point where three to four bottles in you're not going to find any aspirin molecules) that's nothing (pun intended) compared to what some homeopathic medicine makers sell.
Some homeopathic medicine that is currently on the market is so diluted that you would have to consume the equivalent of all the water on the Earth inorder to have a chance of getting one molecule of whatever the original ingredient was...
Then there is Oscillococcinum, which is so diluted that one would have to consume it equivalent of 10321 times the number atoms in the known universe inorder to have a chance of consuming even one molecule of whatever ingredient it is that the that the manufacturers used.
Now I bet many of you at this point are probably wondering how exactly is homeopathic medicine suppose to work? There is actually a explanation for that...
2. It's suppose to work off of water memory.
According to homeopathic practitioners water has memory, and that water can somehow contain the memory of whatever it is that it has come in contact with, and somehow this memory transfers over to us, and thus the more you dilute something the more memory the water retains of it...
If water memory is real then how would putting something in our water that is suppose to make us sicker make us better? Infact if water memory actually is real then drinking any water should kill any one of us instantly due to water memory retaining memory of all of the pollutants and toxins that's ever gone into it.
Fortunately we are all still here, so it leads me to think that there is nothing to this water memory stuff, and that much like the rest of homeopathic medicine...
1. It all sounds like BS.
Multiple dilutions. Using something that's suppose to make you sick inorder to cure you. Water memory. It all sounds like BS, right?
Well there's a reason why it all sounds like BS. It is.
Homeopathic medicine has never been proven to work. At best you may get a placebo effect where you think it's curing you but really you're healing no faster than you would if you took nothing at all.
Homeopathic medicine is a fraud. It always has been and it always will be.
The only reason why anyone would believe that homeopathic medicine works is either they have been tricked into believing that it works, or they are so into alternative medicine that they refuse to believe that it doesn't work.
Now there are lots of claims about homeopathy and what it does, and after looking into them I've noticed several different things about homeopathic medicine.
So here are five things I've noticed about homeopathic medicine:
5. You can make it at home.
Homeopathic medicine is very easy to make. You don't even need a complex chemistry lab inorder to make it. You can make it right in your kitchen!
Got a headache and you want to make some homeopathic aspirin inorder to get rid of it? Well here's what you do:
Step 1: Get one tablet of aspirin and about ten bottles of water.
Step 2: Crush aspirin and put it into one of the bottles of water.
Step 3: Shake up bottle.
Step 4: Take one drop from said bottle and put it into the next bottle.
Step 5: Repeat steps 3 and 4 until done doing so with all bottles.
Now if you do all of this you will have homeopathic aspirin and your headache should go away in a few hours... same as any other normal headache would if you were to take nothing at all.
Actually this might not work, and this is because...
4. You're suppose to use something that can cause the problems that you currently have inorder to cure them.
Inorder for homeopathic medicine to actually work (atleast according to people who make and deal with homeopathic medicine) you don't use heavily diluted medicine that would cure whatever it is that you have. What you actually are suppose to use is something that could cause the symptoms that you're having rather than actually cure them. Think of it as a kind of like a vaccine, minus any backing from the scientific and medical communities.
So if you want to cure that headache of yours using heavily diluted aspirin isn't going to work. What you actually want to use is something that can cause a headache if you take it in it's pure form, like beer, only it has to be heavily diluted.
So using homeopathy logic the best thing to take when you have a headache is a ball park beer, because those things are watered down all to hell.
3. A lot of it is REALLY watered down.
If you think that the homeopathic aspirin that I gave instructions above on how to make sounds really diluted (probably to the point where three to four bottles in you're not going to find any aspirin molecules) that's nothing (pun intended) compared to what some homeopathic medicine makers sell.
Some homeopathic medicine that is currently on the market is so diluted that you would have to consume the equivalent of all the water on the Earth inorder to have a chance of getting one molecule of whatever the original ingredient was...
Then there is Oscillococcinum, which is so diluted that one would have to consume it equivalent of 10321 times the number atoms in the known universe inorder to have a chance of consuming even one molecule of whatever ingredient it is that the that the manufacturers used.
Now I bet many of you at this point are probably wondering how exactly is homeopathic medicine suppose to work? There is actually a explanation for that...
2. It's suppose to work off of water memory.
According to homeopathic practitioners water has memory, and that water can somehow contain the memory of whatever it is that it has come in contact with, and somehow this memory transfers over to us, and thus the more you dilute something the more memory the water retains of it...
If water memory is real then how would putting something in our water that is suppose to make us sicker make us better? Infact if water memory actually is real then drinking any water should kill any one of us instantly due to water memory retaining memory of all of the pollutants and toxins that's ever gone into it.
Fortunately we are all still here, so it leads me to think that there is nothing to this water memory stuff, and that much like the rest of homeopathic medicine...
1. It all sounds like BS.
Multiple dilutions. Using something that's suppose to make you sick inorder to cure you. Water memory. It all sounds like BS, right?
Well there's a reason why it all sounds like BS. It is.
Homeopathic medicine has never been proven to work. At best you may get a placebo effect where you think it's curing you but really you're healing no faster than you would if you took nothing at all.
Homeopathic medicine is a fraud. It always has been and it always will be.
The only reason why anyone would believe that homeopathic medicine works is either they have been tricked into believing that it works, or they are so into alternative medicine that they refuse to believe that it doesn't work.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Debunking Earthing
A few days ago I was alerted to a short video on Youtube about something called "Earthing", which is something to do about humans getting energy from the Earth (and I'm not talking about geothermic energy either).
Here is the short video that I watched:
Now the first claim in this video says this:
This is true. The sun's light is necessary for the production of Vitamin D inside of our skin, which is necessary for our bodies. Of course to much exposure can also led to the production of skin cancer too...
The video then goes on to claim this:
Now this is where we get into the pseudoscience part.
Human beings do not receive energy from the Earth, and there are no studies that show this. In fact, other then from eating and drinking food, we can't receive energy by any actual means.
If you are outside and you "feel" like you are receiving energy from the Earth, what you're experiencing is not the receiving of energy from the Earth, but a placebo effect in which you only think you're receiving energy from the Earth.
The next claim in the video states that:
Back in the "good old days" working outside was far more common then it is today. This is because most people tended to have jobs that required working outside. It was also far more common for people back then to die in their 40's and 50's than it is today as well.
People simply didn't live as long in the past as they do today. The reason for that is because of a combination disease and the occasional lack of food. While a lack of food could be a hard thing to prevent back then, one of the things that helped prevent some diseases then (and now) however is shoes. Shoes help prevent us from cutting our feet on things like sticks and rock, and then getting infections from stepping in bacteria and parasite infested water and animal droppings.
Besides all of this, there is still no proof what so ever that we have ever been able to absorb energy from the Earth through our skin.
This claim makes it appear that we better off in the past when more of us were barefooted, when in reality the exact opposite is true.
The next claim then goes on to say:
This is implying that people back in the "good old days" didn't get tired at the end of a work day. This is not true at all. In fact people tended to work themselves to death back then.
Besides that, all people have varying amounts of stamina. Some people can work from dawn to dusk and not get tired, some people can only work for a couple of hours before they feel like they need a nap. Touching the Earth has nothing to do with how we feel during the day.
The following claim made says this:
Really?! Because I've gone outside barefoot many times, and it's never been life changing to me...
Standing out in your yard barefoot for a few hours is not going to change your life. That's just wishful thinking. It takes a lot more then just standing outside barefooted for a person to change their life.
The final claim made states:
It figures. Ultimately they are trying to sell you something.
Feeling refreshed in the morning isn't going to result from sleeping on some special "pad" that's suppose to send energy from the Earth into you body (in fact I imagine if that was to actually happen, it might keep a person awake). It actually has allot to do with your comfort level, which can be affected by multiple factors (the mattress, room temperature, noise, how dark it is) and also much sleep you actually get.
I've checked out the website listed at the end of the video (Earthing.com), and the only things that they are selling are some (in my opinion) over priced "Earthing" pads, some over priced grounding rods (which most people won't even need in first place, as most of the time the grounding holes in the power outlets tend to be grounded), and of course a book on Earthing.
Now also on the website itself there is a lot of inform in the FAQ section about how Earthing (and the products being sold) allegedly works, along with a testimonials section. What the website does not provide is a peer reviewed, scientific study stating that Earthing itself even works, more or less that the products being sold will give you more energy.
The only thing that Earthing in itself seems to be is a bunch New Age woo and energy woo.
Here is the short video that I watched:
Now the first claim in this video says this:
- So we all know the sun's energy is crucial for good health.
This is true. The sun's light is necessary for the production of Vitamin D inside of our skin, which is necessary for our bodies. Of course to much exposure can also led to the production of skin cancer too...
The video then goes on to claim this:
- But did you know that the Earth's energy is also crucial for good health? When we make direct contact with the surface of the Earth, our bodies receive a charge of energy that makes our bodies feel better, fast. This is called "Earthing."
Now this is where we get into the pseudoscience part.
Human beings do not receive energy from the Earth, and there are no studies that show this. In fact, other then from eating and drinking food, we can't receive energy by any actual means.
If you are outside and you "feel" like you are receiving energy from the Earth, what you're experiencing is not the receiving of energy from the Earth, but a placebo effect in which you only think you're receiving energy from the Earth.
The next claim in the video states that:
- Throughout history people were always "naturally" absorbing the Earth's energy, but in today's world we live most of our lives inside, and even when we do go outside, we usually wear shoes, which prevent us from connecting.
Back in the "good old days" working outside was far more common then it is today. This is because most people tended to have jobs that required working outside. It was also far more common for people back then to die in their 40's and 50's than it is today as well.
People simply didn't live as long in the past as they do today. The reason for that is because of a combination disease and the occasional lack of food. While a lack of food could be a hard thing to prevent back then, one of the things that helped prevent some diseases then (and now) however is shoes. Shoes help prevent us from cutting our feet on things like sticks and rock, and then getting infections from stepping in bacteria and parasite infested water and animal droppings.
Besides all of this, there is still no proof what so ever that we have ever been able to absorb energy from the Earth through our skin.
This claim makes it appear that we better off in the past when more of us were barefooted, when in reality the exact opposite is true.
The next claim then goes on to say:
- So of course we often feel drained and achy, because we go for days, or even years, without ever touching the Earth.
This is implying that people back in the "good old days" didn't get tired at the end of a work day. This is not true at all. In fact people tended to work themselves to death back then.
Besides that, all people have varying amounts of stamina. Some people can work from dawn to dusk and not get tired, some people can only work for a couple of hours before they feel like they need a nap. Touching the Earth has nothing to do with how we feel during the day.
The following claim made says this:
- But it doesn't have to be this way. You can start receiving the benefits of Earthing by going barefoot outside. The more time, the better! This alone can be life changing, and it's free!
Really?! Because I've gone outside barefoot many times, and it's never been life changing to me...
Standing out in your yard barefoot for a few hours is not going to change your life. That's just wishful thinking. It takes a lot more then just standing outside barefooted for a person to change their life.
The final claim made states:
- And if you love feeling great while Earthing outdoors, now you can start Earthing indoors too! Simply connect your Earthing product into the third hole of an outlet, which directly connects to the existing ground rod of your home. This connection lets you safely and conveniently receive Earth's energy from where ever you are, whether that be working, or playing, and especially while you're sleeping, because while Earthing you'll sleep deeper, feel more refreshed in the morning, and wake up looking terrific! And the best part, any one can benefit from this life changing discovery!
It figures. Ultimately they are trying to sell you something.
Feeling refreshed in the morning isn't going to result from sleeping on some special "pad" that's suppose to send energy from the Earth into you body (in fact I imagine if that was to actually happen, it might keep a person awake). It actually has allot to do with your comfort level, which can be affected by multiple factors (the mattress, room temperature, noise, how dark it is) and also much sleep you actually get.
I've checked out the website listed at the end of the video (Earthing.com), and the only things that they are selling are some (in my opinion) over priced "Earthing" pads, some over priced grounding rods (which most people won't even need in first place, as most of the time the grounding holes in the power outlets tend to be grounded), and of course a book on Earthing.
Now also on the website itself there is a lot of inform in the FAQ section about how Earthing (and the products being sold) allegedly works, along with a testimonials section. What the website does not provide is a peer reviewed, scientific study stating that Earthing itself even works, more or less that the products being sold will give you more energy.
The only thing that Earthing in itself seems to be is a bunch New Age woo and energy woo.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)