Quack Quack

Joe Schwarcz

Description

'Let the one and only Dr. Joe battle pseudoscience and cast a life preserver out to all those drowning in a sea of misinformation Ultimately, the author successfully demonstrates how claims should be queried and analyzed before they are accepted. Library Journal We are in a crisis. A tsunami of misinformation and disinformation is threatening to engulf evidence-based science. While quackery loosely defined as the spread of false knowledge, often accompanied by various versions of snake oil is not a novel phenomenon, it has never posed as great a threat to public health as today. COVID-19 has unleashed an unprecedented flurry of destructive information that has fueled vaccine hesitancy and has steered people toward unproven therapies. Conspiracy theorists have served up a distasteful menu of twisted facts that create distrust in science. In Quack Quack, Dr. Joe Schwarcz, who has been battling flimflam for decades, focu

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 27 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781778520235
• Langue: English

Extrait

Quack Quack The Threat of Pseudoscience
Dr. Joe Schwarcz



Contents Praise for Dr. Joe Schwarcz Also by Dr. Joe Schwarcz Introduction Quack Quack Pseudoscience Snake Oil Spirits of Salt Medicine Shows Modernizing Mountebanks Poking into the Puke Weed Doctor The Chew-Chew and Do-Do Man Insert Yogurt Where? Dinshah and the Spectro-Chrome Electroquackery The Prince of Humbug McFadden and Physical Culture Getting Steinached The Dean of Quacks Cold Showers and Warm Baths A Rabbit out of a Hat Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy Perkins Tractors Iridology and Craniosacral Therapy Alkaline Nonsense Spoon-Bending Fiasco Quack Products Believing the Unbelievable Encountering a “Healer” Forceful Sole Searching Ear Candles Alpha Spin Can Make Your Head Spin Email Warnings Health Food Store Follies Jilly Juice Cancer and Carny Tricks Trepanation Borba’s Nonsense The Gerson Folly Miracle Mineral Solution Is a Nightmare Brace Yourself No Magic in Quack Cancer Treatments The Detox Scam Yikes! I’m Infested! Graviola Poppycock The Healing Code Getting Down to Earth Cure Your Arthritis . . . Really? The Saga of Uri Geller I’ll Pass on Autourine Therapy Moonbeams Natural Fallacies The Curious “Science” of Oscillococcinum Popeye’s Folly Breatharians and Nutritarians Bitterness about Sugar A Look at Braco the Gazer Celebrities and Cerebral Claptrap The Myth of “Detox” Double Helix Water Dunning–Kruger Medical Medium Fitting Square Pegs into Round Holes Bee Pollen and the Office of Alternative Medicine Spoonk Sylvia Browne The Water Revitalizer Where’s the Aura, Asks Young Emily Rosa Infomercials Provide Slanted Science Diagnosing Pathological Science Putting Pimat’s Health Claims to bed Chemical-Free Is Not a Good Deal Jamie Oliver Cooks Up Some Nonsense A Treatment for Chemophobia Raw Water “The People’s Chemist” Alternative Medicine Some Views on Dealing with Information and Misinformation Index About the Author Copyright


Praise for Dr. Joe Schwarcz
Praise for Science Goes Viral
“Joe Schwarcz does it again with this fun, fast-paced, and evidence-informed exploration of the hot topics in science we’ve been bombarded with over the past few years! From the biology of vaccines (including the new mRNA variety) and immune boosting (spoiler: you can’t) to the history of epidemiology and toilet paper, Schwarcz gives us the fact-filled low-down. In a world filled with misinformation and twisted science, this is a must-read!”
— Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, bestselling author of Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?
Praise for A Grain of Salt
“Schwarcz’s light touches of humor make the scientific information feel accessible and ensure that it’s entertaining. With enough facts to soothe anxious, health-conscious individuals as well as some good tidbits to share, this enlightening collection offers every reader something new to learn and marvel over.”
— Booklist
Praise for A Feast of Science
“Huzzah! Dr. Joe does it again! Another masterwork of demarcating non-science from science and more generally nonsense from sense. The world needs his discernment.”
— Dr. Brian Alters, Professor, Chapman University
Praise for The Fly in the Ointment
“Joe Schwarcz has done it again. In fact, he has outdone it. This book is every bit as entertaining, informative, and authoritative as his previous celebrated collections, but contains enriched social fiber and 10 percent more attitude per chapter. Whether he’s assessing the legacy of Rachel Carson, coping with penile underachievement in alligators, or revealing the curdling secrets of cheese, Schwarcz never fails to fascinate.”
— Curt Supplee, former science editor, Washington Post
Praise for Dr. Joe and What You Didn’t Know
“Any science writer can come up with the answers. But only Dr. Joe can turn the world’s most fascinating questions into a compelling journey through the great scientific mysteries of everyday life. Dr. Joe and What You Didn’t Know proves yet again that all great science springs from the curiosity of asking the simple question . . . and that Dr. Joe is one of the great science storytellers with both all the questions and answers.”
— Paul Lewis, president and general manager, Discovery Channel
Praise for That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles
“Schwarcz explains science in such a calm, compelling manner, you can’t help but heed his words. How else to explain why I’m now stir-frying cabbage for dinner and seeing its cruciferous cousins — broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts — in a delicious new light?”
— Cynthia David, Toronto Star
Praise for Radar, Hula Hoops, and Playful Pigs
“It is hard to believe that anyone could be drawn to such a dull and smelly subject as chemistry — until, that is, one picks up Joe Schwarcz’s book and is reminded that with every breath and feeling one is experiencing chemistry. Falling in love, we all know, is a matter of the right chemistry. Schwarcz gets his chemistry right, and hooks his readers.”
— John C. Polanyi, Nobel Laureate


Also by Dr. Joe Schwarcz
Science Goes Viral: Captivating Accounts of Science in Everyday Life
A Grain of Salt: The Science and Pseudoscience of What We Eat
A Feast of Science: Intriguing Morsels from the Science of Everyday Life
Monkeys, Myths, and Molecules: Separating Fact from Fiction,and the Science of Everyday Life
Is That a Fact?: Frauds, Quacks, and the Real Science of Everyday Life
The Right Chemistry: 108 Enlightening, Nutritious, Health-Conscious and Occasionally Bizarre Inquiries into the Science of Everyday Life
Dr. Joe’s Health Lab: 164 Amazing Insights into theScience of Medicine, Nutrition and Well-Being
Dr. Joe’s Brain Sparks: 179 Inspiring and Enlightening Inquiries into the Science of Everyday Life
Dr. Joe’s Science, Sense and Nonsense: 61 Nourishing, Healthy, Bunk-Free Commentaries on the Chemistry That Affects Us All
Brain Fuel: 199 Mind-Expanding Inquiries into theScience of Everyday Life
An Apple a Day: The Myths, Misconceptions andTruths About the Foods We Eat
Let Them Eat Flax: 70 All-New Commentaries on theScience of Everyday Food & Life
The Fly in the Ointment: 70 Fascinating Commentaries on theScience of Everyday Life
Dr. Joe and What You Didn’t Know: 177 Fascinating Questionsand Answers About the Chemistry of Everyday Life
That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles: 62 All-New Commentarieson the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life
The Genie in the Bottle: 64 All-New Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life
Radar, Hula Hoops, and Playful Pigs: 67 Digestible Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life


Introduction
I’ve often been asked about who sparked my enthusiasm, some would say obsession, for separating sense from nonsense. That credit goes to three individuals, two real and one fictional: Harry Houdini with his exposés of the antics of mediums, James Randi with his tireless efforts to unmask charlatans and promote critical thinking, and Sherlock Holmes with his emphasis on coming to conclusions only if they are supported by facts.
I was introduced to magic at a young age by a performer at a birthday party and was intrigued enough to start reading about the subject. You do not have to delve deeply into the field before encountering Houdini, a man whose name to this day is virtually synonymous with magic. While I was taken with his exploits on the stage, my attention was also drawn to Houdini’s crusade against charlatans who were using conjuring tricks to convince the gullible that they were communicating with the spirit world. The extent to which some people would go to fool others was an eye-opener for me. And very disturbing.
I became annoyed with claims of bending spoons with the power of the mind, “psychic surgeons” removing tissues without an incision, and psychics moving objects through “psychokinesis” when it was clear that all these were performed by standard magic effects. Then when I began to pursue science I encountered a different kind of huckster. One who would use sketchy or outright false concepts to promote products or treatments either out of ignorance or for financial gain. These are the homeopaths, the “alkaline water” advocates, and the most reprehensible, the quack cancer-cure claimants. There is yet another class of mountebank: highly educated people who have managed to garner publicity for having latched on to some eccentric idea and keep coming up with more and more outrageous arguments in an attempt to prove their point and stay in the limelight. Often they are delusional, but there are also cases of researchers who are so wedded to their ideas that they will not change their mind even in the face of contrary evidence.
Reading Houdini’s life story introduced me to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. The magician met Conan Doyle in 1920 when he was touring Britain and the two struck up one of the strangest friendships ever. Houdini was the scourge of the spiritualists and Conan Doyle was an ardent believer in the possibility of contact with the departed. That was a real enigma for Houdini, since Sherlock Holmes was totally scientifically minded, yet his creator believed in spirits! Curiously, in “The