Science, Pseudoscience and Junk
I’m hosting this video here just in case it disappears from youtube again. This is Dr Charlene Werner butchering physics beyond all recognition and tarnishing the names of Einstein and Hawking along the way. Unlike Werner I won’t be removing the video if the comments become less than complimentary.
I won’t bother giving a critique of the errors in this video, they are all glaringly obvious, I’ll allow you to have the fun of trying to spot them all.
According to this all us bloggers who decided to defend another’s freedom of speech are shills for the GMC. We are sponsored by them apparently, as were the journalists who wrote the articles referenced by Quackometer, and others, about Obi previously.
When I was told that the Enemies of Alternative Medicine had recruited 5000 (Five Thousand) Bloggers to write rubbish about me 24 hours a day , ( every single day of the year ) , I said OK . . . Let’s wait and see precisely what they will say . . . (Because in my view , it is a perfectly Good Military Tactic to sit back and watch them all come creeping out of the woodwork , so that I know precisely what their capabilities are).
…Now , after speedreading almost everything that they have written , and also carefully analyzing their strategies , I have reached the simple conclusion that their plan has massively backfired ; as all that their 5000 Blogposts have done is provide me with even more ammunition for my Multiple Lawsuits . . . both against the Hosting Company of the Defamatory Blog Itself and the General Medical Council.
Maybe Obi should go and read up about libel and defamation. If those earlier articles are defamatory as stated he’s had several years to take legal action; and should have won if they were. British libel law is renowned for putting the emphasis on the defendant to prove their innocence rather than the complainant to prove their guilt. All the Quackometer and other commentators have done is take those articles in good faith, backed up with information provided on Obi’s own websites. He appears to have provided himself with no ammunition at all, particularly against the GMC who seem completely unrelated other than be the target of one of his campaigns. Being struck off obviously makes you bitter.
I have absolutely no criminal record or criminal convictions whatsover . . . and anyone who implies otherwise should be firmly made to pay the supreme price for their actions. . . and that is why they are all so worried that my Legal Team is going after them all ; because they know that when we do eventually catch them , they will certainly not escape their due punishment.
When has anyone implied that Obi had any prior convictions? To reiterate, Quackometer wrote:
He was being investigated by the police for taking thousands of pounds of a 58 year old woman to in order to cure a long standing illness.
This does not imply that Obi has any criminal convictions.
All Obi appears to have done with this article is further defame those who have criticised him as well as the GMC. Luckily my fellow bloggers and I don’t tend to go in for legal suits and prefer to respond to criticisms rather than try and silence them. For the record I have never had any dealings with the GMC. I am not in the medical profession. I am a research scientist and PhD student in chemistry, but as a scientist I know the difference between quackery and medicine. And I think that anyone will agree that throwing allegations of of racism and corruption can hardly be described as ethical.
The attempt by Joseph Chikelue Obi to silence the Quackometer really hasn’t helped him much. As a consequence their is a considerable number of mirrors of the original posts and LCN has uncovered some interesting looking info on his business dealings. Joseph Chikelue Obi seems to have experience with defamation suits having previously had one of his (seemingly endless list of) sites removed on such grounds before.
Currently a google search for Joseph Chikelue Obi yields several of the mirror sites or related articles on the front page of hits. According to another of his websites, the whois info gives his name and one address mentioned in the quackometer post, this does not worry the good doctor.
Alternative Medicine Strongman , Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi , has today survived one of the Most Lethal Bloggers Assaults in Modern History , with almost Five Thousand Defamatory Bloggers woefully failing to sink him despite their use of the very latest Internet Spamming Technology.
[Gratuitous use of italics his]
5000 bloggers? The most comprehensive lists of mirrors I’ve seen only have about 1/100th of that many. He’ll also be disappointed to know that the `Internet Spamming Technology’ of which he speaks is simply the same technology he uses to create his site: ordinary blogging software, email and people writing. [Edit: I’ve just reread that quote - “one of the Most Lethal Bloggers Assaults in Modern History” - even if you take blogging back to the early days of Usenet you’re only in the 80s, still modern history. Were there `Bloggers Assaults’ before the beginning of the internet? Did Rome fall because of a very small minority of people sticking bits of papyrus on public notice boards?]
Apparently, from the comfort of Belfast, he is quoted:
” Let them drink Bile if they so wish : In the Interim , my Multiple Legal Actions have already started , and will maverickly proceed as planned . . . Come what may “
I’ll look forward to receiving my letter from Tanya then, even though we still have no evidence she is a solicitor.
Yesterday Joseph Chikelue Obi also declared victory over the GMC. His petitions (here and here) have 272 and 64 signatories at the moment, the former has now closed as well. That really is a HUGE crushing blow to the GMC especially considering the 1,000,000+ road-pricing petition was pretty much ignored by the government. He also seems to have made a rather large logical fallacy in his analysis of these petitions.
Preliminary Comparative Analysis of the separate Downing Street Petitions above clearly suggests that 4 out of every 5 people would rather have the General Medical Council comprehensively abolished altogether , instead of trying to patch it up with one particular Investigation or another.
Assuming no duplicates in the two petitions 336 people have signed to date, approximately 4:1 abolishion:investigation. So 4 out of every 5 people would rather have the GMC abolished than investigated in a sample size of <350.
But the profound beauty of the matter is that because we selflessly devoted one full year of Ear-Deafening Mayhem to our cause , over 200,000 Doctors in the United Kingdom will soon be enjoying the Profound Regulatory Benefits of an Absolutely Fabulous year”.
If over 200,000 doctors are going to `benefit’ from the abolition of the GMC you would think a few more would have signed up, especially as they are the people being regulated by this supposedly unethical and institutionally racist body.
I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that all celebrity `nutritionists’ walk hand in hand with quackery. Whilst perusing my RSS feeds earlier I came across some useful detox advice in the Torygraph. To be honest the article isn’t that bad, just some helpful advice for when you need feel like detoxing. Although, as any medical professional worth their salt could tell you, detoxing isn’t necessary as long as you eat a healthy balanced diet (read “eat less, mainly vegetables, exercise more”). All this article does is make the middle classes feel better about themselves if they spend a few weeks eating healthily every 6 months or so.
What interested me more was the link to the authors website Farm Living. This is a company that want to charge you extortionate amounts of money to give you basic nutritional advice and some other psuedoscientific BS.
Combining nutritional therapy and lifestyle coaching with a more holistic approach, she [Linzi Boyd] includes practices such as Yoga, Chi Gong, Meditation, Positive affirmations, Chakra clearing, Vision boards, Emotion Freedom Technic (E.F.T.) and Emo trance
Some of these practices are not without merit, especially if you ignore the crap about `energy’ and what have you, but some I’d never even heard of so I thought a little investigation was in order.
Emotional Freedom Technique
Only one hit in PubMed for this one, under the pseudonym Emotional Acupuncture (Jebus!) unfortunately it’s in Nursing Standard which I have no access to but google leads us to the exciting emofree.com* that tells us it can help with pretty much everything.
For proof, here is a sampling of our actual cases. They are written for you by everyday citizens, physicians and therapists: Pain Management, Addictions, Weight loss, Allergies, Children’s Issues, Animals, Vision, Headaches, Panic/Anxiety, Asthma, Trauma, PTSD, Abuse, Depression, Dyslexia, Carpal Tunnel, Anger, ADD-ADHD, Fears/phobias, Eating disorders, OCD, Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Neuropathy, Fear of Flying, Claustrophobia, Agoraphobia, Anorexia/Bulimia, Sports and other Performance
Not what you’d call evidence, more a list of anecdotes. A quick read of the What is EFT? page tells me all I need to know.
The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system.
There’s also mention of meridians and I really can’t be bothered with that, the final nail is hammered in when you see who the first testimonial comes from the legendary Deepak Chopra.
*Is it me or does emofree just sound like someone trying to get rid of kids wearing eyeliner and black.
Vision boards
This appears to be great for people with more money than sense. Visit their website and you too can learn from their truly awful video. For only $39 dollars you could own a piece of software that makes slideshows from pictures and add words to them as well. Apparently by watching this slideshow your life will improve beyond your wildest dreams. Seriously who buys this crap?
Emotrance
More energy healing, possibly crazier than EFT.
I really can’t take any more of this shit.
I realise that I seem to be posting a lot tonight but boredom, beer and thesis avoidance has led to me following some interesting links. Thanks to the comments on DC’s latest post of homeopathy I’m come across this gem from Peter Chappell.
Those of you who read Bad Science will already have heard of this chap and his supposed ability to cure AIDS with iTunes. Not only can he do that but he cure H5N1 bird flu in humans with it too. You can download a free version of his resonance recordings from that site or you can download it here.*
Now to my, admittedly untrained, ear this just sounds a bit like rather mediocre jazz. Consequently I propose that if we take the Miles Davis back catalogue and use it to cure all ills. Although, as Peter Chappell is a homeopath, we may need to dilute it infinitesimally - Robbie Williams’ swing album should suffice.
Disclaimer
*According to the original download site:
In the event of Bird Flu (avian influenza - H5N1), we will endeavour to sustain pressure on our servers due to any increase in traffic however we are unable to guarantee uptime. Not only failure of the servers that support our site but electricity might fail, other unforseen factors may come in to play. For this reason, it is much wiser if you get supplied now.
Therefore I am mirroring the file here to reduce load on their servers in the event of a H5N1 break out. If the owners of the file wish for me to remove this file contact me at the email address here.
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