Tai-chi vs Rea-li-ty

In the twilight zone between science and religion, there sits a rainbow band of pseudo-scientific disciplines that I, personally, categorize under the general heading of "woo".

Mind-reading and mediums, tarot cards and voodoo, ghosthunting and demonology, homeopathy and phrenology, astrology and numerology, reiki and fengshui. Woo goes by many names. People spend tons of time and money on these things with very little returns beyond the placebo effect. And this is OK; I am a free-marketeer by principle and people are perfectly at discretion to spend their hard-earned money as they see fit.

Even though the word "science" appears in the description, there is of course nothing remotely scientific about these things and not one has a snowball's chance in hell of surviving scientific scrutiny.  (Unfortunately for them, they actually make testable claims.)

There might very well be mysterious beings and forces outside our current understanding. We cannot be sure that there are not. But what you can be damn sure of is that the folks on TV running shows with names like "Ghosthunters" and making googly-eyes at the ceiling under a night-vision camera are transparent con-men who realize they would get paid far less if they got a real job.

Unless you start depending on this sort of thing exclusively, most of this stuff is harmless most of the time apart from making you a little poorer. But the problems start cropping up when the bullshitters actually start believing in their own bullshit. This happens on rare occasions because most successful peddlers of pseudo-science are smart savvy marketing types; they very well understand that a brush against cold hard reality will turn off the money-tap very quickly and therefore try to avoid this at all costs. People like Uri Geller found this out the hard way. But on the rare occasions when this happens, it is priceless to watch. Here is a little example of that in this video below. I am embarrassed to admit that I have never laughed so hard at an old man getting beaten up. But the unfortunate fact is that this is pretty much what happens when mystical shamanic bullshit meets the cold hard reality of a fist to the face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gEDaCIDvj6I