Yes I posted this on facebook this morning.
X-rated Bob wrote
Those bracelets are such obvious snake oil that I am surprised that there is any surprise about this at all.
Lack of thorough testing is quite common outside of the formal pharmaceutical industry. Most No homeophatic remedies aren't tested, certainly not with double-blind methodologies.
Fixed. Homeopathy is just water. If, as they say, it "remembers" the substances in it, why does it not remember all the poo? If they could prove it, it would overturn all known human science - which has been shown to work predictably, unlike homeopathy. Luckily they're shy about testing their utterly implausible assertions so that's unlikely to happen.
There is a two-fold harm in the useless power-balance bracelet as a placebo. Firstly, the people making it are deliberately deceiving you as the buyer for profit. It's not ok when a placebo is sold to you at high cost when the only intention of doing so
is to make money, and not out of concern for your well being. It's a con. It's wrong. Not realising you're being conned, doesn't make the con ok.
Secondly, giving people faith in implausible, untested devices continues to weaken their skepticism, and their need for evidence before accepting something as true. Sell someone a bill of goods proposing magic as the answer to a small problem, and they're all the more likely to consider magic as a reasonable option when faced with a serious issue - like cancer. This is no joke. Thousands of people a year opt for con-remedies for serious illnesses, frequently condemning themselves unnecessarily to death.
I recently read an article by a doctor about a breast-cancer sufferer who had appeared on Oprah to tell the world that she was using The Secrettm to treat her cancer. The Secret proposes that our attitude can actually affect the physical world - even the parts that don't give a fig for how positive we feel today. Seems she's, guess what, dieing of cancer. Trusting magic is very dangerous for serious situations in which only hard-won real-world knowledge can help.
People are quite aware of the need for evidence in criminal law - and are disinclined to allow magic (like the ducking of witches in the old days, or evidence based on dreams, or trial by combat which were all taken seriously before the American Constitution was put together). But much of the public still has a long way to go before they realise that the same thing applies in science. Believing in magic is potentially extremely dangerous and should be left to small children who also believe that storks bring babies and that their are fairies dancing at the bottom of the garden. It's cute. But believe it at your peril.
