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PrincessIneffabelle · 5th October 2007, 12:07 PM

Okay, so my mom (a retired nurse) and I went out to The Olive Garden for lunch yesterday. My mother has diabetes and needs to be very careful when we eat restaurant food. She asked our waitress about substituting steamed veggies for the pasta and explained that she had diabetes. Our waitress immediately started talking about "quantum treatment" and "metaphysical therapy".

Does anyone have the faintest notion of what she was talking about?

Now, this woman appeared to be a normal non-descript middle-aged mom ... and she was otherwise a great waitress ... but I was stunned speechless when she started spouting total woo. She suggested that my mom start dancing because it stimulates the pancreas when you move your abdomen (it's actually the exercise itself that's helping, not "area stimulation"). She also stated that when she visits her doctor with any ailment, his first question is, "Who's your problem?". This woman then went on to say that allergies are caused by "toxic people" and all ailments are caused by negative energy in your life, childhood vaccinations, or food additives.

This was my first non-religious woo encounter since becoming a skeptic. It was all I could do to stop from laughing out loud. I told my mom later that we call that kind of stuff "woo". She responded, "Oh, that's a good word for bull (rule 10)!"

GooooOOOO, Mom!

DRBUZZ0 · 5th October 2007, 12:40 PM

"Quantum" seems to be the new mechanism by which every woo claim operates. Sad really, but they need an explaination as to how water can remember things and how energy can be transmitted by an undetectable means and how your health can be effected by power lines etc etc...

So it's "quantum" afterall, we all know that in the world of quantum physics, weird and screwy counter-intuitive things can happen. And most of us don't know more about it then that. Then again, there's a few things in quantum theory which aren't entirely understood by anyone or have yet to be proven.

I guess it comes full circle. In the 1800's they had this new thing called "electricity" that nobody really knew much about other than it was some kind of energy that could cause problems or could be used for good things. Later they had electro-magnetic-waves. Then they had "radiation"... All of these things were exploited as the explaination for whatever quackery was around at the time.

Your health has nothing to do with quantum theory... at least not directly. And the particles in your body are not any different than anywhere else. The subatomic particles that make up the hydrogen in your body behave just about the same as those which make up water in a toilet bowl, or natural gas in an underground deposit or plastic in a car door.

It's just stupid... Unless your problem has to do with something like infering the probable state of a neutrino, you don't need to go past the newtonian stuff.

Gregory · 5th October 2007, 12:53 PM

Originally Posted by DRBUZZ0

subatomic particles that make up the hydrogen in your body behave just about the same as those which make up water in a toilet bowl, or natural gas in an underground deposit or plastic in a car door.

"We are all made of toilet-bowl stuff." Hm ... lacking something.

Fnord · 5th October 2007, 01:02 PM

Ms. Krispin,

A waitress gave your mom medical advice. Did you complain to the management?

I have, and in a similar situation (Olive Garden about a month after having a small "cardiac event").

The waitress that came back whispered quietly that I had made the staff -- especially the people who would prepare my food -- angry by getting one of their favorite people fired. I thanked her for the warning, spotted her a fiver, and went to a sushi bar instead.

What is it about Olive Garden that seems to attract wooists?

-Fnord-

DRBUZZ0 · 5th October 2007, 03:34 PM

Originally Posted by Fnord

Ms. Krispin,

A waitress gave your mom medical advice. Did you complain to the management?

I have, and in a similar situation (Olive Garden about a month after having a small "cardiac event").

The waitress that came back whispered quietly that I had made the staff -- especially the people who would prepare my food -- angry by getting one of their favorite people fired. I thanked her for the warning, spotted her a fiver, and went to a sushi bar instead.

What is it about Olive Garden that seems to attract wooists?

-Fnord-

Well I think it would depend on what the medical advice is. I mean, I would not have a problem with a waitress saying something like "I'm sorry if I'm being nosy but did you just mention chest pressure, extreme shortness of breath and a shooting pain which started in your chest and is now moving down your left arm? I'm not an expert, but I think you should consider forgetting about dinner for now and letting me call an ambulance for you"

Or if the wait staff were to say something like "I'm not a doctor but I really don't think you should be pouring the red wine vinegar into your eye" or "Given that you just stated you're diabetic and have high blood sugar, do you really think that you should be tearing open and eating every sugar packet on every table in the resteraunt" or "I'd advise against pouring that boiling hot coffee onto your groin area"

I mean... I realize that it's not the place of wait staff to be dispensing medical advice, but that seems like some things would be common sense.

John Bentley · 5th October 2007, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by Fnord

Ms. Krispin,

A waitress gave your mom medical advice. Did you complain to the management?

I have, and in a similar situation (Olive Garden about a month after having a small "cardiac event").

The waitress that came back whispered quietly that I had made the staff -- especially the people who would prepare my food -- angry by getting one of their favorite people fired. I thanked her for the warning, spotted her a fiver, and went to a sushi bar instead.

What is it about Olive Garden that seems to attract wooists?

-Fnord-

You got someone fired because they gave you medical advice? Seems a bit petty. Surely there is more to it than that.

Fnord · 5th October 2007, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by John Bentley

You got someone fired because they gave you medical advice? Seems a bit petty. Surely there is more to it than that.

The advice was pure homeopathic/crystal-controlled/healie-feelie woo - similar to what Ms. Krispin reported.

I spoke to a guy with the title "Manager" on his name badge about what she'd said. I did not ask that the waitress be fired, I did not know that she had been fired until the second waitress told me, and I did not stick around to verify that the first one had been fired.

So the second waitress could have told me what she did just to scare me into leaving ... I dunno, I never went back.

Tsukasa Buddha · 5th October 2007, 05:24 PM

And you didn't get her fired?

Well, did you at least be stingy in tipping?

"Here's a metaphysical dollar."

No wait, a quantum dollar. It exists in a state of both existence and non-existence, and as soon as she looks it will pick one!

Fnord · 5th October 2007, 05:30 PM

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

And you didn't get her fired?

Well, did you at least be stingy in tipping?

"Here's a metaphysical dollar."

No wait, a quantum dollar. It exists in a state of both existence and non-existence, and as soon as she looks it will pick one!

I was told that she had been fired. I never verified.

The point is moot, as the only person who can get someone fired is the person getting fired.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos · 5th October 2007, 05:48 PM

It is a rare foray into gobbledygook that does not begin with a tribute to quantum mechanics.

---Jamie Whyte

PrincessIneffabelle · 6th October 2007, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha

And you didn't get her fired?

Well, did you at least be stingy in tipping?

She was otherwise a great waitress ... so it didn't occur to me to complain to the manager. All I could really think about was not laughing out loud!

I left a tip based on her actual service, which was excellent. An "insult tip" or an absent tip is not really a good way to "punish" your server. I found out years ago the when a customer leaves a stingy tip or doesn't tip at all, servers hardly ever think that it's because of themselves. They just figure that the customer is a jerk.

Has anyone heard of "quantum" and "metaphysical" treatment concerning diabetes before? This one was totally out of left field to me.

DRBUZZ0 · 6th October 2007, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by DmKrispin

Has anyone heard of "quantum" and "metaphysical" treatment concerning diabetes before? This one was totally out of left field to me.

Well, I heard of a guy who went for a quantum diagnosis of diabetes. They told him he had it and it was affecting his kidneys and his joints. He asked if it were getting any better or worse. Unfortionately, after determining where the problems were, it became impossible to know that.

Fnord · 6th October 2007, 06:54 PM

Originally Posted by DRBUZZ0

Well, I heard of a guy who went for a quantum diagnosis of diabetes. They told him he had it and it was affecting his kidneys and his joints. He asked if it were getting any better or worse. Unfortionately, after determining where the problems were, it became impossible to know that.

Which is worse:

1) Knowing which part of the body is affected by a disease, and not knowing how bad your condition really is?

OR

2) Knowing that you've caught a really bad disease, and not knowing which part of your body is affected?

Gall-dang that Heisenberg!

Fnord · 6th October 2007, 07:01 PM

Originally Posted by DmKrispin

Has anyone heard of "quantum" and "metaphysical" treatment concerning diabetes before? This one was totally out of left field to me.

Yes'm.

Both are homeopathic buzzwords, which are used only to impress patients with important-sounding terms in order to convince them to spend money on worthless, and even harmful treatments.

A couple of decades ago, the buzzword of the day was "laser" (... Dr Evil ... paging Dr. Evil ...). For $50 per treatment, my cousin the witch would use her laser crystals to do a laser re-alignment of your chakrae, while simultaneously casting a laser astrology chart and offering a laser tarot reading.

Prediction: The next wooist buzzword will be "Memetic," as in "... memetic crystals to do a memetic re-alignment of your chakrae, while simultaneously casting a memetic astrology chart and offering a memetic tarot reading."

You read it here first!

PrincessIneffabelle · 7th October 2007, 01:57 PM

Ok, I get it now. Sorta like "RADAR!"* or "electro_____" used to be, right?

*for the other MST3K fans out there!

5th October 2007, 12:07 PM	#1
PrincessIneffabelle I'm not godless, I'm god-free Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 1,421	Quantum? Metaphysical? What?? Okay, so my mom (a retired nurse) and I went out to The Olive Garden for lunch yesterday. My mother has diabetes and needs to be very careful when we eat restaurant food. She asked our waitress about substituting steamed veggies for the pasta and explained that she had diabetes. Our waitress immediately started talking about "quantum treatment" and "metaphysical therapy". Does anyone have the faintest notion of what she was talking about? Now, this woman appeared to be a normal non-descript middle-aged mom ... and she was otherwise a great waitress ... but I was stunned speechless when she started spouting total woo. She suggested that my mom start dancing because it stimulates the pancreas when you move your abdomen (it's actually the exercise itself that's helping, not "area stimulation"). She also stated that when she visits her doctor with any ailment, his first question is, "Who's your problem?". This woman then went on to say that allergies are caused by "toxic people" and all ailments are caused by negative energy in your life, childhood vaccinations, or food additives. This was my first non-religious woo encounter since becoming a skeptic. It was all I could do to stop from laughing out loud. I told my mom later that we call that kind of stuff "woo". She responded, "Oh, that's a good word for bull (rule 10)!" GooooOOOO, Mom!

5th October 2007, 12:53 PM	#3
Gregory Muse Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 687	Originally Posted by DRBUZZ0 subatomic particles that make up the hydrogen in your body behave just about the same as those which make up water in a toilet bowl, or natural gas in an underground deposit or plastic in a car door. "We are all made of toilet-bowl stuff." Hm ... lacking something.
Gregory Muse Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 687

5th October 2007, 01:02 PM	#4
Fnord Metasyntactic Variable Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 6,633	Ms. Krispin, A waitress gave your mom medical advice. Did you complain to the management? I have, and in a similar situation (Olive Garden about a month after having a small "cardiac event"). The waitress that came back whispered quietly that I had made the staff -- especially the people who would prepare my food -- angry by getting one of their favorite people fired. I thanked her for the warning, spotted her a fiver, and went to a sushi bar instead. What is it about Olive Garden that seems to attract wooists? -Fnord-
	__________________ Belief is the subjective acceptance of a (valid or invalid) concept, opinion, or theory; Faith is the unreasoned belief in improvable things; *and Knowledge* is the reasoned belief in provable things. Belief itself proves nothing.**

5th October 2007, 04:19 PM	#6
John Bentley Critical Thinker Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 454	Originally Posted by Fnord Ms. Krispin, A waitress gave your mom medical advice. Did you complain to the management? I have, and in a similar situation (Olive Garden about a month after having a small "cardiac event"). The waitress that came back whispered quietly that I had made the staff -- especially the people who would prepare my food -- angry by getting one of their favorite people fired. I thanked her for the warning, spotted her a fiver, and went to a sushi bar instead. What is it about Olive Garden that seems to attract wooists? -Fnord- You got someone fired because they gave you medical advice? Seems a bit petty. Surely there is more to it than that.
	__________________ My ancestors didn't claw their way to the top of the food chain so that I could eat vegetables! -- Bumper sticker The trouble with parenting is that the years are short, but the days are long -- Baby Blues

5th October 2007, 05:04 PM	#7
Fnord Metasyntactic Variable Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 6,633	Originally Posted by John Bentley You got someone fired because they gave you medical advice? Seems a bit petty. Surely there is more to it than that. The advice was pure homeopathic/crystal-controlled/healie-feelie woo - similar to what Ms. Krispin reported. I spoke to a guy with the title "Manager" on his name badge about what she'd said. I did not ask that the waitress be fired, I did not know that she had been fired until the second waitress told me, and I did not stick around to verify that the first one had been fired. So the second waitress could have told me what she did just to scare me into leaving ... I dunno, I never went back.
	__________________ Belief is the subjective acceptance of a (valid or invalid) concept, opinion, or theory; Faith is the unreasoned belief in improvable things; *and Knowledge* is the reasoned belief in provable things. Belief itself proves nothing.**

5th October 2007, 12:40 PM	#2
DRBUZZ0 Banned Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: The Command Bunker Posts: 3,320	"Quantum" seems to be the new mechanism by which every woo claim operates. Sad really, but they need an explaination as to how water can remember things and how energy can be transmitted by an undetectable means and how your health can be effected by power lines etc etc... So it's "quantum" afterall, we all know that in the world of quantum physics, weird and screwy counter-intuitive things can happen. And most of us don't know more about it then that. Then again, there's a few things in quantum theory which aren't entirely understood by anyone or have yet to be proven. I guess it comes full circle. In the 1800's they had this new thing called "electricity" that nobody really knew much about other than it was some kind of energy that could cause problems or could be used for good things. Later they had electro-magnetic-waves. Then they had "radiation"... All of these things were exploited as the explaination for whatever quackery was around at the time. Your health has nothing to do with quantum theory... at least not directly. And the particles in your body are not any different than anywhere else. The subatomic particles that make up the hydrogen in your body behave just about the same as those which make up water in a toilet bowl, or natural gas in an underground deposit or plastic in a car door. It's just stupid... Unless your problem has to do with something like infering the probable state of a neutrino, you don't need to go past the newtonian stuff.

5th October 2007, 03:34 PM	#5
DRBUZZ0 Banned Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: The Command Bunker Posts: 3,320	Originally Posted by Fnord Ms. Krispin, A waitress gave your mom medical advice. Did you complain to the management? I have, and in a similar situation (Olive Garden about a month after having a small "cardiac event"). The waitress that came back whispered quietly that I had made the staff -- especially the people who would prepare my food -- angry by getting one of their favorite people fired. I thanked her for the warning, spotted her a fiver, and went to a sushi bar instead. What is it about Olive Garden that seems to attract wooists? -Fnord- Well I think it would depend on what the medical advice is. I mean, I would not have a problem with a waitress saying something like "I'm sorry if I'm being nosy but did you just mention chest pressure, extreme shortness of breath and a shooting pain which started in your chest and is now moving down your left arm? I'm not an expert, but I think you should consider forgetting about dinner for now and letting me call an ambulance for you" Or if the wait staff were to say something like "I'm not a doctor but I really don't think you should be pouring the red wine vinegar into your eye" or "Given that you just stated you're diabetic and have high blood sugar, do you really think that you should be tearing open and eating every sugar packet on every table in the resteraunt" or "I'd advise against pouring that boiling hot coffee onto your groin area" I mean... I realize that it's not the place of wait staff to be dispensing medical advice, but that seems like some things would be common sense.

5th October 2007, 05:24 PM	#8
Tsukasa Buddha Other (please write in) Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: NeverLand Posts: 10,035	And you didn't get her fired? Well, did you at least be stingy in tipping? "Here's a metaphysical dollar." No wait, a quantum dollar. It exists in a state of both existence and non-existence, and as soon as she looks it will pick one!
	__________________ As cultural anthropologists have always said "human culture" = "human nature". You might as well put a fish on the moon to test how it "swims naturally" without the "influence of water". -Earthborn

5th October 2007, 05:30 PM	#9
Fnord Metasyntactic Variable Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 6,633	Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha And you didn't get her fired? Well, did you at least be stingy in tipping? "Here's a metaphysical dollar." No wait, a quantum dollar. It exists in a state of both existence and non-existence, and as soon as she looks it will pick one! I was told that she had been fired. I never verified. The point is moot, as the only person who can get someone fired is the person getting fired.
	__________________ Belief is the subjective acceptance of a (valid or invalid) concept, opinion, or theory; Faith is the unreasoned belief in improvable things; *and Knowledge* is the reasoned belief in provable things. Belief itself proves nothing.**

5th October 2007, 05:48 PM	#10
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Nap, interrupted. Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: a little toolshed Posts: 18,631	It is a rare foray into gobbledygook that does not begin with a tribute to quantum mechanics. ---Jamie Whyte
	__________________ Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. ---Susan Ertz RIP Mr. Skinny

6th October 2007, 11:07 AM	#11
PrincessIneffabelle I'm not godless, I'm god-free Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 1,421	Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha And you didn't get her fired? Well, did you at least be stingy in tipping? She was otherwise a great waitress ... so it didn't occur to me to complain to the manager. All I could really think about was not laughing out loud! I left a tip based on her actual service, which was excellent. An "insult tip" or an absent tip is not really a good way to "punish" your server. I found out years ago the when a customer leaves a stingy tip or doesn't tip at all, servers hardly ever think that it's because of themselves. They just figure that the customer is a jerk. Has anyone heard of "quantum" and "metaphysical" treatment concerning diabetes before? This one was totally out of left field to me.
	Last edited by PrincessIneffabelle; 6th October 2007 at 11:09 AM.

6th October 2007, 11:28 AM	#12
DRBUZZ0 Banned Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: The Command Bunker Posts: 3,320	Originally Posted by DmKrispin Has anyone heard of "quantum" and "metaphysical" treatment concerning diabetes before? This one was totally out of left field to me. Well, I heard of a guy who went for a quantum diagnosis of diabetes. They told him he had it and it was affecting his kidneys and his joints. He asked if it were getting any better or worse. Unfortionately, after determining where the problems were, it became impossible to know that.

6th October 2007, 06:54 PM	#13
Fnord Metasyntactic Variable Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 6,633	Originally Posted by DRBUZZ0 Well, I heard of a guy who went for a quantum diagnosis of diabetes. They told him he had it and it was affecting his kidneys and his joints. He asked if it were getting any better or worse. Unfortionately, after determining where the problems were, it became impossible to know that. Which is worse: 1) Knowing which part of the body is affected by a disease, and not knowing how bad your condition really is? OR 2) Knowing that you've caught a really bad disease, and not knowing which part of your body is affected? Gall-dang that Heisenberg!
	__________________ Belief is the subjective acceptance of a (valid or invalid) concept, opinion, or theory; Faith is the unreasoned belief in improvable things; *and Knowledge* is the reasoned belief in provable things. Belief itself proves nothing.** Last edited by Fnord; 6th October 2007 at 07:02 PM.

6th October 2007, 07:01 PM	#14
Fnord Metasyntactic Variable Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 6,633	Originally Posted by DmKrispin Has anyone heard of "quantum" and "metaphysical" treatment concerning diabetes before? This one was totally out of left field to me. Yes'm. Both are homeopathic buzzwords, which are used only to impress patients with important-sounding terms in order to convince them to spend money on worthless, and even harmful treatments. A couple of decades ago, the buzzword of the day was "laser" (... Dr Evil ... paging Dr. Evil ...). For $50 per treatment, my cousin the witch would use her laser crystals to do a laser re-alignment of your chakrae, while simultaneously casting a laser astrology chart and offering a laser tarot reading. Prediction: The next wooist buzzword will be "Memetic," as in "... memetic crystals to do a memetic re-alignment of your chakrae, while simultaneously casting a memetic astrology chart and offering a memetic tarot reading." You read it here first!
	__________________ Belief is the subjective acceptance of a (valid or invalid) concept, opinion, or theory; Faith is the unreasoned belief in improvable things; *and Knowledge* is the reasoned belief in provable things. Belief itself proves nothing.**

7th October 2007, 01:57 PM	#15
PrincessIneffabelle I'm not godless, I'm god-free Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 1,421	Ok, I get it now. Sorta like "RADAR!"* or "electro_____" used to be, right? *for the other MST3K fans out there!