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By David Barr
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As part of my job, being on
the cutting edge means that I have to subscribe to every newsletter
available.
I have to gather as much information
as possible to keep people apprised of the most recent scam,
and occasionally the coolest new technique (assuming I haven't
already discovered or refined it).
Most
often, this simply means reading a lot of crap.
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Take this one doctor for example:
he's a self-made millionaire many times over, based on his website.
Now although this site contains a lot of interesting information
much of it is garbage. He's been in trouble with the FDA numerous
times for making false claims -and those are simply the claims that
the FDA has bothered to file against.
Now you'd think that this guy would
be recognized as a joke and no one would buy his information, let
alone his products. But the sad truth is that he's one of the most
financially successful medical personalities on the entire web!
People eat his stuff up!
The Extra Dimension
I have to admit that his clientele
are definitely fringe -and I don't mean cutting edge fringe the
way we do it at Raise The Barr. His fans have what we like to call
in the scientific community as having an "extra dimension"
to their personality. They seem to gorge on everything he says as
though it were dogma, praising him, bashing the FDA and traditional
medicine, and then invoking the supernatural all in one impressive
fell swoop.
It's important to understand that
I'm not talking about the clientele in this manner in order to pass
them off as stupid or anything so simply derogatory. I'm simply
discussing them as a fascinating psychological case explaining how/why
it's possible for almost anyone to get away with anything.
Take a look at the hate mail received
from people to QuackWatch -an amazing site devoted to investigating
spectacular medical claims- and you'll quickly see who's doing all
the bashing.
Yes, a site that simply investigates
claims receives hate mail. And a lot of it.
As bizarre as this sounds, you may
recognize this type of ridiculous reaction as the cognitive dissonance
discussed in the NO-Xplode article. Some people cling so desperately
to their beliefs that they actually feel angry at evidence to the
contrary. This isn't to say that we can't be passionate about our
beliefs (it's great when we are!), but to get angry at contrary
evidence is patently absurd.
"How To Live
Forever!"
What actually prompted me to write
this came in the form of last week's miracle newsletter from this
doctor. The product he was pitching came with all kinds of wonderful
claims, including cellular regeneration. To put this in perspective,
that's is about as significant of a medical claim as you can make.
To his credit, the article was "fully
referenced" (punch line to come) so I quickly set off to investigate
further. After all, if the claims were valid, there's no doubt that
I'd be using the ingredient in his product, and would eagerly share
it with you!
When I got to the references I was
actually quite stunned. I all but froze, and in spite of blinking
a couple of times, the information as still there.
The problem was that numerous claims,
which were all cited by different reference numbers, all led to
the same web site. This isn't a simply faux pas or me being a grammar
nazi (reference nazi?). This is actually an intellectually dishonest
and intentionally deceptive trick used to boost the number of references
and make ones story (word use intentional) look more credible than
it is.
The worst part is that when you go
to the site, they simply repeat the claims without the slightest
bit of reasoning or evidence behind them! That's tantamount to me
writing "you can live forever" in this article (1) and
then having someone reference this to market a product to fit that
claim! This isn't evidence! It's just someone's typing on a web
site.
It's both deceitful and shameful.
No wonder
this guy gets in so much trouble with the FDA (and quackwatch).
As if to complete the circle of fascinating
psychology, this reasoning is lost on the doctors followers because
they "know" that traditional medicine is a big conspiracy.
So anyone who employs any kind of critical thinking is not to be
trusted. North Korea has the same kind of thought trap set up to
ensure that its citizens won't believe any extraneous "outside"
information.
In conclusion: watch out for anything
that's simply too good to be true.
Raise your expectations. Raise The
Barr!
About The Author
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