Monday 22 November 2010

A menace to science

If there's one thing I hate it's charlatans. And just now there's one on our TV screens every evening, thankfully destroying her credibility while she appears on 'I'm a celebrity get me outta here'. Her name is 'Dr' Gillian McKeith.

Ben Goldacre (a real Doctor) has written an excellent article 'What's wrong with Gillian McKeith '.

Here's a hilarious excerpt :

'She talks endlessly about chlorophyll, for example: how it's "high in oxygen" and will "oxygenate your blood" - but chlorophyll will only make oxygen in the presence of light. It's dark in your intestines, and even if you stuck a searchlight up your bum to prove a point, you probably wouldn't absorb much oxygen in there, because you don't have gills in your gut. In fact, neither do fish. In fact, forgive me, but I don't think you really want oxygen up there, because methane fart gas mixed with oxygen is a potentially explosive combination.'

You can read the full article here.

If you are prone to believing in Homeopathy, Crystal Healing and other bullshit then go get a copy of Ben's book called Bad Science and learn how not to be a dumb ass.


2 comments:

  1. Hmm. A pedant might disagree with Ben because chlorophyll does not really 'make oxygen'. Oxygen is an element.. Chlorophyll causes the release of oxgen molecules through the oxidation of water during a chemical process that it instigates.

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  2. poor woman looks ill - must be something she ate

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