The Enemies of Reason

After doing something incredibly irrational (watching the NZ Cricket team flail about in Chittagong) I watched The Enemies of Reason, Richard Dawkins' follow up to his fantastic documentary on organised religion - The Root of All Evil, to balance me out. The new doco examines how superstition and new age treatments and alternative therapies are being presented as cool, regularly filling column inches in magazines and newspapers, despite having no scientific evidence to prove that they work or that they are anything more than a sham.

As you might have guessed, I'm no fan of alternative medicine or therapies. In fact I think the term 'alternative' is a little kind and somewhat misleading - it basically means untested, unproven and unlikely to work. If it works - get it tested and proven. But they know its a sham and they know proper testing will likely prove that.

In New Zealand this whole hokum industry is a particular concern as people seem willing to give this crap a go and more so since the government failed to pass the Joint Trans-Tasman Therapeutic Products Authority legislation. So given there is no regulation you can basically bottle any old rubbish and chuck a label on it claiming it can cure cancer - and that would be legal. Worse still, utter rubbish like Sensing Murder seems to have a huge audience - despite the fact that its psychics have been exposed as sham with an Australian Current Affairs show finding that psychic Deb Webber can talk to dead people - even if they never existed.

I agree with Dawkins - like religion, these conjurers are actually dangerous and shouldnt be hailed by the media or idiotic celebrities (including Prince Charles and Hillary - Chopra). Rational people need to actually call this crap for what it is - false hope for those desperately seeking a cure or closure after the loss of a loved one.

Anyway below is a clip with Dawkins challenging an astrologist to test his readings and a psychic doing a reading.