Omar Naji
Extra Credit
Mr. Krucli
16 January 2013
Science Will Pickpocket You
Science always has its way into the consumers pocket. Snatching every last dime, because it claims to be truth rather then bad science. Ben Goldacre does an excellent job criticizing all the horrible, yet brilliant science out there in his book, Bad Science. “These corporations run our culture, and they riddle it with bullshit” (Goldacre). Business leaders make their money everyday in the hopes that their buyer won’t notice the illusions in their misleading products. The author makes interesting claims and arguments of certain physical and natural sciences that appeal to the user because of the way they are presented with false facts, and truths.
Goldacre opens the book with Matter, a chapter that describes detoxification methods. What seems to be the medical removal of toxic substances from the body of a living organism, which can return a human to a level of homeostasis, is just a bogus, psychological removal of toxic. An example of this detoxification is the “Aqua Detox Method” this is supposed to remove the toxins from the small pores in your feet with the help of gravity. Though when tested by Ben Goldacre, he states the results, “When you switch the Barbie Detox machine on, you will see the water goes brown, due to electrolysis: the iron electrodes rust, and the brown forms in the water” (Goldacre). The brown “toxins” are really not coming from your feet. Though there are people who pay specialists extraordinary amounts of money for this big magic show. A friend of mine did something fairly similar, it did not involve a toxin removing foot bath, but it did involve a false illusion that she thought worked. They went to a small unrecognized dentist who claimed, “Best teeth whitening in town” on his ad. When the “dentist” performed the teeth whitening process, my friend could see everything he did, and recognized certain tools and methods used. Once finished the dentist...