Ugh, Quantum Physics crap spouted by Astrologist

[cyborg]

http://www.metro.co.uk/metro/interviews/interview.html?in_page_id=8&in_interview_id=1244

I would write to point out how much crap this but it would seem pointless given it's the paper's astrologist.

[l0rca]

How does astrology work?

The short answer is it's a mystery but it does work. I see it work all the time. Without wanting to sound too much like a hippy, we're part of the universe and it's all connected. If the moon can influence the tides then, seeing as we're about 70 per cent water, maybe it can affect us too. There's a cutting edge movement in astrology now that looks at quantum physics. It seems to fit better with astrology than anything else we've had in science so far.


In what way?


Quantum physics is all about things making patterns - fractals that you can draw. You can see the same patterns in a snail's shell as you see in the stars in the universe. It's as if they're the same. Astrology is about patterns in time.

I swear to ghawd if one more person comes along and recants a stupid false description of Quantum Physics and relates it to their loo-loo ideas, I'm going to headbutt my dog.

[Tanja]

I was reading that article today while on the tube and thinking Arghhghgh...

[LordoftheLeftHand]

I swear to ghawd if one more person comes along and recants a stupid false description of Quantum Physics and relates it to their loo-loo ideas, I'm going to headbutt my dog.

I have a woo friend who is always talking about chakras and energy in some mystical sense. The instant he mentions energy I always interrupt and ask, "How many electron volts (or joules)"?

LLH

[Psiload]

I swear to ghawd if one more person comes along and recants a stupid false description of Quantum Physics and relates it to their loo-loo ideas, I'm going to headbutt my dog.

For the sake of your poor dog's skull, DO NOT, watch the following affront to mankind:

http://www.whatthebleep.com/synopsis/

A two-hour (but you'll swear it's more like four) gang-raping of QM theory. And when they're not busy doing QM theory like a passed out slut at a frat party, then they try and use QM to support an array of claims so foolish that even a concussed and brain-damaged dog would laugh out loud at them.

[sat556]

Is there anything good to say about that film? Is there anything in there at all that is factual and worth taking note of? To be honest, all this talk of how appaling it is makes me want to go see it purely so I can tear it apart.

[c4ts]

For the sake of your poor dog's skull, DO NOT, watch the following affront to mankind:

http://www.whatthebleep.com/synopsis/

A two-hour (but you'll swear it's more like four) gang-raping of QM theory. And when they're not busy doing QM theory like a passed out slut at a frat party, then they try and use QM to support an array of claims so foolish that even a concussed and brain-damaged dog would laugh out loud at them.

No, no, watch it. It involves a crazy lady with a horrible fake accent.

[logical muse]

And when they're not busy doing QM theory like a passed out slut at a frat party...
What's a frat party and can I please get an invite to the next one?

What I meant was, how can she do QM theory if she's passed out?

[Psiload]

Is there anything good to say about that film? Is there anything in there at all that is factual and worth taking note of? To be honest, all this talk of how appaling it is makes me want to go see it purely so I can tear it apart.

Nothing.

Seriously... there's nothing to tear apart. It's so foolish, it's basically self-debunking. I'm afflicted with a severe case of skeptomasochism. As an intellectual exercise, I love torturing myself by subjecting myself to woo claims, and then I try to spot the holes in their logic and reasoning.

But this movie was no fun at all. There are no logical gaps to be found where there is no logic.

edited to add...

For example, this "scientist":

http://www.whatthebleep.com/images/PERT___D.jpg

Dr. Candace Pert aka The Woo Woo in the Tie Dyed Mumu

She recounted some ridiculous fable about Native Americans not being able to see Columbus's ships when they were offshore because, "We only see what we believe is possible."

As if telling this tall tale wasn't bad enough, she actually prefaced it with, "A story that's told, and I'd like to believe it's true..."

:eek:

Say what!

What kind of "scientist" is this? Jiminy Cricket, PhD? What's this, the "Wish upon a star" postulate?

edited to add yet again...

I was just thinking... regarding the whole 'Native Americans not being able to see Columbus's ships' yarn. This is obvious B.S. from my point of view.

I've seen some things on the internet, some things that I ABSOLUTLEY would not have believed were possible... let's just say one of them involved a young Japanese girl and a live eel... and that's as far as I'm going down that road. Well.... I wish to Ed that I was not able to see THAT particular horror, but no such luck. I'm sure we've all stumbled across the patently "not possible" during our internet travels at one time or another.

[VoloVersio]

Gee, I want a job where I sit there and act silly.

[sat556]

As if telling this tall tale wasn't bad enough, she actually prefaced it with, "A story that's told, and I'd like to believe it's true..."

:eek:

Say what!



Sold! That's it, I'm definitely going now.

[logical muse]

I couldn't watch the whole movie. The little of it I did get through was torture enough.

[Mojo]

http://www.metro.co.uk/metro/interviews/interview.html?in_page_id=8&in_interview_id=1244

I would write to point out how much crap this but it would seem pointless given it's the paper's astrologist.They printed a letter from a Dr. Paul Lee today: Wendy Bristow is deluded if she thinks that quantum physics is about looking for patterns.

...snip...

Incorrectly using scientific jargon in a bid to legitimise new-age claptrap betrays astrology for the bunkum that it is. And to think that I toned down mine in the hope of getting it published (it was considerably more sarcastic than this though...). :D

[Bone_Vulture]

No, no, watch it. It involves a crazy lady with a horrible fake accent.

At first I was offended, thinking you meant Marlee Matlin. But I assume it's her instead?

http://bonevulture.homestead.com/files/pooh.png

I remember having difficulties adjusting to the phony accent at the beginning of the movie. What's it supposed to be? Russian? Fyne British?

I've made a policy of adding MST3K to each pic to insure that this movie's abysmal quality is made clear.

[Mojo]

They printed a letter from a Dr. Paul Lee today... I thought the name was familiar. I think he's the guy who gave a talk at Skeptics in the Pub (http://www.skeptic.org.uk/pub/archive/index.htm) back in April.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I hereby give us all permission to laugh uproariously at such silly nonsense. Just laugh and guffaw. Mock scornfully. Really, there is nothing else to do.

~~ Paul

[Nucular]

For example, this "scientist":

http://www.whatthebleep.com/images/PERT___D.jpg

Dr. Candace Pert aka The Woo Woo in the Tie Dyed Mumu

She recounted some ridiculous fable about Native Americans not being able to see Columbus's ships when they were offshore because, "We only see what we believe is possible."

As if telling this tall tale wasn't bad enough, she actually prefaced it with, "A story that's told, and I'd like to believe it's true..."

:eek:

Say what!

What kind of "scientist" is this? Jiminy Cricket, PhD? What's this, the "Wish upon a star" postulate?
I've certainly seen some things I wouldn't have thought possible - some of it turned out not to be.

Haven't seen the film, but I decided to find out who the 'scientist' was you mentioned.

Basically, she sounds like a conventional scientist - a neuroscientist who has worked for the NIH and various institutions, and contributed to some groundbreaking research - whose ideas became odder and odder until she fell out with her peers, blamed it on their inherently closed minds, and took a fork in the road off down one made of yellow bricks.

Now she sits on the wooer side of CAM, and writes books that sound like nonsense hidden by technical language.

Here's (http://www.candacepert.com) her website, advertising various things like her new CD Psychosomatic Wellness: Healing Your BodyMind :rolleyes:

Another of her books, Your Body Is Your Unconscious Mind, looks at how chakras and the subconscious mind interact to produce emotion :boggled: (here (http://www.suchnessspa.com/Articles/candace_pert.htm))

The Molecules of Emotion (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684846349/002-5749903-8426456?v=glance&n=283155) sounds from the title like it might be more okay, but is more of an account of her bickering and falling out with the 'establishment', apparently. Some of the Amazon reviews (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0684846349/ref=cm_rev_sort/002-5749903-8426456?customer-reviews.sort_by=%2BOverallRating&s=books&x=12&y=11) seem to have clocked this for drivel, though it is the kind of thing I like to waste my time reading.

In this excerpt from an interview (http://www.ikosmos.com/wisdomeditions/essays/mw/goldman01.htm), she gives a flavour of the kind of stuff she's on about. "... when I was a believer in the brain as the most important organ in the body, this assumption..." and so forth.

[Luke T.]

I didn't think someone like Candace Pert was possible.

But there she is.

I wish she was right. I wish I couldn't see her.

But there she is.

[Bone_Vulture]

Seldom do movies inspire me to perform amateur photoshopping.. to this degree at least.

http://bonevulture.homestead.com/files/whatmorpheus.jpg

[Mongrel]

I thought the name was familiar. I think he's the guy who gave a talk at Skeptics in the Pub (http://www.skeptic.org.uk/pub/archive/index.htm) back in April.


Ooohh - never heard of this and since London bridge is half hour by train, Hmmmm :).

On a side note I checked the Ultimate Pub Guide (http://ultimatepubguide.com/pubs/info.phtml?pub_id=66), as I like to know the beer they serve, and they had this in their review of the pub The Old Kings Head is worth a visit if you're in the area and looking for a simple old-fashioned English pub. If that isn't enough to interest you, there is a regular event that might just be enough entice you in. On the third Wednesday evening of each month, in the upstairs room the "Skeptics in the Pub" meet. This is hailed as Britain's only regular sceptics event. For each meeting a guest speaker is invited to speak on a topic of interest, ranging from UFO's and alien abductions to creationism and lost civilisations. Let's be honest, if there is one place sceptics should meet it's in the pub. I am yet to attend a sceptics in the pub meeting, I would like to imagine that the evening consist of the speaker standing up and saying "So tarot card reading then, load of b******s isn't it?" to which there would be an affirmative response from the attendant sceptics and then much drinking would commence. But by all accounts a much more scientific approach is taken, the speakers are very well respected in their field and it's a very well organised and well-attended event. Got to be worth a look.

[SpaceFluffer]

I remember having difficulties adjusting to the phony accent at the beginning of the movie. What's it supposed to be? Russian? Fyne British?Well, obviously that's Ramtha. Perhaps they should have explained this in the movie, but J.Z. Knight (whom you pictured above) is actually able to channel Ramtha, a 30,000 year old warrior from Atlantis. Hence the weird accent. Makes sense now, doesn't it? No? Good.

[Bone_Vulture]

Oh man... some of the IMDB user comments (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399877/usercomments?start=330) concerning this movie are comedy gold. :D

This movie spelled out, for me, the bridge between science and my spiritual beliefs. I am thrilled that it got made in the first place, let alone that was held over in so many cities, and picked up for repeated showings by multiple theaters in some cities--which almost never happens. It shows that it elicits a powerful response in so many, many of us. I've read fundamentalist viewers talking about "New Age propaganda" which is just nonsense. The message of the film, repeated and repeated, and announced in the very title, is that we all need to think for ourselves, and that, compared to what there is to know--we're all in kindergarten.

:wink8:

[RichardR]

I've certainly seen some things I wouldn't have thought possible - some of it turned out not to be.

Haven't seen the film, but I decided to find out who the 'scientist' was you mentioned.

Basically, she sounds like a conventional scientist - a neuroscientist who has worked for the NIH and various institutions, and contributed to some groundbreaking research - whose ideas became odder and odder until she fell out with her peers, blamed it on their inherently closed minds, and took a fork in the road off down one made of yellow bricks.

Now she sits on the wooer side of CAM, and writes books that sound like nonsense hidden by technical language.

Here's (http://www.candacepert.com) her website, advertising various things like her new CD Psychosomatic Wellness: Healing Your BodyMind :rolleyes:

Another of her books, Your Body Is Your Unconscious Mind, looks at how chakras and the subconscious mind interact to produce emotion :boggled: (here (http://www.suchnessspa.com/Articles/candace_pert.htm))

The Molecules of Emotion (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684846349/002-5749903-8426456?v=glance&n=283155) sounds from the title like it might be more okay, but is more of an account of her bickering and falling out with the 'establishment', apparently. Some of the Amazon reviews (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0684846349/ref=cm_rev_sort/002-5749903-8426456?customer-reviews.sort_by=%2BOverallRating&s=books&x=12&y=11) seem to have clocked this for drivel, though it is the kind of thing I like to waste my time reading.

In this excerpt from an interview (http://www.ikosmos.com/wisdomeditions/essays/mw/goldman01.htm), she gives a flavour of the kind of stuff she's on about. "... when I was a believer in the brain as the most important organ in the body, this assumption..." and so forth.
Pert is a rather sad example of an apparently smart scientist gone bad. I wrote about Molecules of Emotion here (http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/05/candace_perts_m.html).

[Almo]

I was deeply offended by this film's misuse of Quantum. Hence my letter to McGill about one of their programs showing it. Bastards.

Edit for:

I think there is ONE good thing about the film. Its message is that people have more control over their lives than they think, which is true. But that's like saying "But Hitler DID revive the German Economy." It's just not worth all the crap.

[thesyntaxera]

At first I was offended, thinking you meant Marlee Matlin. But I assume it's her instead?

http://bonevulture.homestead.com/files/pooh.png

I remember having difficulties adjusting to the phony accent at the beginning of the movie. What's it supposed to be? Russian? Fyne British?

I've made a policy of adding MST3K to each pic to insure that this movie's abysmal quality is made clear.


Well, I have looked into this movie extensively, and as far as I can tell it's a sham. The blonde lady in this picture is RAMTHA or jz knight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JZ_Knight

She is a hoax artist, cult leader. This film was design to attract followers, and was paid for by her, and directed by followers of her religion... several of the scientists interviewed are followers as well.

They subscribe to the Bohm model of Quantum Mechanics that suggests that the universe is a sort of pantheistic entity, or hologram, as well as the many worlds interpretation. Granted these two ways of viewing QM are experimental and unproven, there is some evidence to suggest some credence...just not much yet...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm

To be honest though, they never really say what they are saying, they just present a bunch of info without a thesis and word it to be a answer to all of your lifes problems.

They edited all of the interviews, of course...and then went on the defense when one of the scientists they interviewed was angered by his mis-representation in the film. He did not agree with the theistic context they put his words in.