Snake oil ...

IceCreamMan · 2011-01-05T09:14:16+00:00

Okes here by the work paid hundreds of rands an swear by it ...even getting vocal about it too....claim they used to fall about all over othe place until the...

Snake oil ...

Renesongs

When you believe in things you don't understand, you will suffer. Superstition aint the way. 8)

Bob-Dubery

Renesongs wrote: When you believe in things you don't understand, you will suffer. Superstition aint the way. 8)

Whoah! I don't understand exactly how a piezo UST works, but I am fairly sure that it will respond to vibrations from the strings and generate an electric saddle. I have no idea at all about the nature of light. I take medication every day. Warfarin. I don't understand that.

However I don't believe that, for example, the British royal family are lizards from out of space who run a global drug cartel with the Bush family (one of David Icke's theories) or that these power bracelet thingies will improve my balance.

Where do we draw the line? Perhaps it is enough to know that if I speak nicely to the guys at Baggs they can tell me how a piezo UST works, or that if I learn enough about blood chemistry then my doctor can explain warfarin to me?

Sometimes empirical proof is enough. Doctors appointed by the British Admiratly were eventually able to show that lemons could reverse scurvy and that limes could prevent it, but they didn't actually understand the mechanism by which this happened. However this still implies a trial.

RobK

Ray wrote: thank goodness our lot keep themselves busy with more important business.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article833407.ece/MEC-calls-for-lightning-probe

I don't know what to say, I'm completely gobsmacked. ??? This is the kind of story one would expect to read in The Onion. Are you guys sure it isn't April 1st yet?

[deleted]

X-rated Bob wrote:
Ray wrote: thank goodness our lot keep themselves busy with more important business.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article833407.ece/MEC-calls-for-lightning-probe
Ja. That's a shocking story.

Yissus. Bob, please put that pun in a Faraday cage.

IceCreamMan

beggars belief eh

Bob-Dubery

Stratisfear wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
Ray wrote: thank goodness our lot keep themselves busy with more important business.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article833407.ece/MEC-calls-for-lightning-probe
Ja. That's a shocking story.
Yissus. Bob, please put that pun in a Faraday cage.

? ? ?

singemonkey

I don't see too much problem here. Some of this is just poor English from second language speakers. They may well know what lightning rods are but also know that villagers can't afford them. And they may thus be asking for cheaper alternatives.

What's positive is that they want to ask scientists, who proved in the 1700s that lightning rods were more effective than any traditional means of taming the lightning. I think this is just politico babble from a government agency trying to make people feel that something is being done after an unfortunate natural disaster. There's no appeal to supernatural understanding of lightning as I expected when I opened the article. So what gives?

Renesongs

Whoah! I don't understand exactly how a piezo UST works, but I am fairly sure that it will respond to vibrations from the strings and generate an electric saddle. I have no idea at all about the nature of light. I take medication every day. Warfarin. I don't understand that.

However I don't believe that, for example, the British royal family are lizards from out of space who run a global drug cartel with the Bush family (one of David Icke's theories) or that these power bracelet thingies will improve my balance.

Where do we draw the line? Perhaps it is enough to know that if I speak nicely to the guys at Baggs they can tell me how a piezo UST works, or that if I learn enough about blood chemistry then my doctor can explain warfarin to me?

Sometimes empirical proof is enough. Doctors appointed by the British Admiratly were eventually able to show that lemons could reverse scurvy and that limes could prevent it, but they didn't actually understand the mechanism by which this happened. However this still implies a trial.

Bob, Bob , Bob... I think Mr Wonder was alluding to the fact that if you live you life according to nonsensical maxims and values that can not be proven or explained by empirical evidence or hypothetical extrapolation i.e. superstition, your experience of life will seem unpredictable and chaotic and you may feel that you have no influence in directing your life towards an interactive and possibly enjoyable outcome. Stevie was writing a song so he had to say it a little simpler. 8)

singemonkey

Of course a core reason for superstition is feeling in control of things that are not controllable at all. A big reason why sports people tend to be so superstitious. They practise as hard as they can, then it comes down to the day. It becomes easy for them to imagine that the undies they were wearing was the reason for the double century.

Bob-Dubery

Renesongs wrote: Bob, Bob , Bob... I think Mr Wonder was alluding to the fact that if you live you life according to nonsensical maxims and values that can not be proven or explained by empirical evidence or hypothetical extrapolation i.e. superstition, your experience of life will seem unpredictable and chaotic and you may feel that you have no influence in directing your life towards an interactive and possibly enjoyable outcome. Stevie was writing a song so he had to say it a little simpler. 8)

I had know idea those was lyrics. Honest, Guv'nor.

I would think that nearly everybody lives at least some aspect of their life "according to nonsensical maxims and values that can not be proven or explained by empirical evidence or hypothetical extrapolation".

Plus there's always the hard to trump "well I wear one of those bracelets and I know that my balance is improved so you're just a nay-saying naysayer and you don't know and can't know and even if you've tried one and it didn't work that was because you had kryptonite stuck to the underneath of your crocs and we all know that crocs aren't good for your balance anyway and besides it works for me and I know it works for me and you can't say that it doesn't work for me because it does."

Bob-Dubery

PS: I still wish my musings about standards of proof to be considered. I have only a half-baked ideas myself about how vitamin C addresses scurvy or the causes of lightning (something to do with Thor brassoing his hammer)

Renesongs

I don't understand quantum physics or the big bang really so I'm only here because Rene Descartes thinks I am. It had been proven beyond all doubt that Crocks are the most heinous fashion crime of the century yet it is the only thing I wear around the house (and sometimes as far as the supermarket). And yes I try not to think of or mention broken strings before I get on a stage, other than that I'm the least superstitious I know (touch wood).

[deleted]

BTW, it wasn't the undies that inspired Kallis to the double-hundred; it was the hair apparent. Also, he certainly could not have achieved the feat in Crocs. I'm just saying.

singemonkey

X-rated Bob wrote: PS: I still wish my musings about standards of proof to be considered. I have only a half-baked ideas myself about how vitamin C addresses scurvy or the causes of lightning (something to do with Thor brassoing his hammer)

One factor is effectiveness. The mechanism of vitamin C remained a mystery for many years after it's effect (or, more correctly, the effect of citrus fruits since they didn't know about vitamins) on scurvy was shown to have worked. Lime-eaters (hence, "Limies," for the English) - no scurvey. Non-lime-eaters - scurvey often. There were enough trials to show beyond reasonable doubt that there was a strong effect long before the mechanism was known.

Likewise with lightning, Franklin hypothesised certain things about lightning, conducted an experiment that bore it out (and famously nearly killed him). A few years after his discovery, his lightning rods were everywhere and it was clear to people that they worked as advertised. Strikes on other objects near lightning rods ceased. He imagined it had certain characteristics in common with electricity and designed experiments to test these ideas. The exact mechanism has still not been conclusively shown. But in the meantime, it is clear that his notions - and subsequent assumptions based on a theory of lightning as a natural, electrical phenomenon - work, while all previous ideas about lightning could not affect lightning strikes - which confusingly had a predilection for church steeples despite the popular idea that lightning strikes were punishment from God.

racman

I even know some guys who say it helps them maintain their balance on a bicycle ...

(I also know some Taxi drivers who disagree !!!!! ??)