Biodynamic Pseudo-science

Oh, please!

As Steiner himself put it, “Spiritual scientific truths are true in and of themselves and do not need to be confirmed by experiments.”

Find me a vomit bin where I can expell the pseudo-scientific quackery that was regurgitated in this article. A great article, by the way, but the subject was rather disturbing to my skeptical and scientific sensibilities. (WARNING: It does contain severed cow heads and astrology masquerading as astronomy!)

“We do astronomy,” says Philippe Armenier, a French-born Biodynamic consultant now living in Santa Rosa. “It is quite complicated. We work with the planets and constellations. Astronomy is for plants. Astrology is for human beings.”

And my favorite quote:

“If you seed three days before a full moon, it’ll germinate faster and stronger and your plants will be more fruitful,” says Sue Porter of Porter-Bass Vineyards. “In the olden days, people used to shut down barber shops before the full moon. No one in his right mind would get a haircut; it’d grow back so fast. People used to know a little bit more.”

All I can say, is don’t buy the biodynamic BS. It will be a waste of your money.

(Thanks for sending me the link, Maura!)

The Science Word 08_11_11

The Curse of the Unhappy

I absolutely love Mark Morford’s writing, and here yet again he drives the point home regarding the recent reports of television and depression coming from the General Social Survey. I hardly think unhappiness is the result of television, although it is still obviously in question, but as Mark so eloquently puts it:

“They don’t say, in this new study from the General Social Survey that found that unhappy people tend to watch lots more TV than “happy” people, even though it’s only about 30 percent more, and by the way who the hell knows how they calculated such a percentage, maybe something to do with retinal tracking and blink rates and blood viscosity, or perhaps just how many times the ghostly image of Tyra Banks or Keifer Sutherland or some hellspawn teen from “My Super Sweet 16” slithered into a study subject’s nightmares later on, after the TV flickered off and the Cuervo ran its course and the Ambien kicked in. Just a guess.

Anyway, they don’t say, in this cute and obvious new study, what everyone already knows: that there’s an entire universe of unhappy things that unhappy people also indulge in besides watching way too much TV, and perhaps those things are all interrelated, and it might be worth exploring those things too, because oh my God don’t you know this here life is a veritable liquid madhouse of unhappiness? A giant smoldering smoothie of misery and angst and vague feelings of inadequacy and spiritual barrenness? It’s the American way.”

Totally Shameless

Shameless Self-promotion

I’m going to be on TV national today!!! At least, I think so. A few weeks ago I was flown down to LA by the producers of a show called The Doctors to be their food science expert for an episode of the show.

I had almost given up hope that it would ever air when, yesterday, I happened to check the episode schedule for this week. At the bottom of the list was the episode of which I was a part, and it was scheduled for today.

Yikes! So, barring being completely edited out of the episode, I’m going to be on TVs across the nation for a whole 5 minutes. That’s right. A whole five minutes.

During the recording session, I talked with one of the docs about acidity of sodas, sugar versus saccarine, taste buds, Miracle Fruit, and iron in cereals. The shortness of the segment forced me to talk in soundbites, but sometimes that’s what it takes to get a message across.

I am most excited to be making the jump from podcasting into network television. There is a certain amount of validation for the work I am doing in new media with this invitation to be a part of the larger media realm. We’ll see where it goes from here.

I would love a full half-hour of TV time to talk about science. Anyone want to hire me as the face of science? Science’s spokemodel? I’m throwing my hat into the ring. A half hour a week is all I ask.

In the meantime, check me out if you have the time today — The Doctor’s Local Listings.

Update: I have already been seen in the NYC area. That’s awesome. 🙂

The Science Word 08_10_04