@ztatic ... Did I touch a nerve?
Doing a semester or two of physics does not guarantee any understanding of the engineering as implemented in real world technology. The fact that this molecular biologist even contemplates there might be some benefit is, to me at least, an exceptionally strong indicator of precisely that. Referring to High School physics is an even less compelling argument - unless you have a student who really grabs the subject by the throat - and they will be the ones that are not likely to fall for the BS.
If anything, High School and physics courses that are not majors, simply provide the opportunity to present terminology - or should I say more specifically, words and phrases - that allow the BS spruikers to present a lexicon that sounds impressive. If you have someone with little interest in physics and has not bothered to follow that through to engineering and product design, then their "understanding" of physics is unlikely to help them with audiophoolery.
Please understand, I am not saying that this is the situation for all such technical specialists - or even a majority of them. Far from it. I fully expect the majority to be well grounded enough to detect the BS a mile away. What I
am saying, is that this is no guarantee.
...but argue for abandoning the hapless victims to the siren song of fraudsters' bullshit. You appear to wish that the tug from this revolting industry is left without a challenge that might reinforce the tug from the potential victim's better judgement.
Your view on this is simplistic and naive.
The whole spiel that the fraudsters put together is based on two fundamentals - provide enough technobabble to make it sound convincing to the victims and wrap it up in enough camouflage so that it's immune to debunking. The fraudsters are simply following a basic marketing ploy, with an added layer of self-preservation.
I think you should pay more attention to the bullshit that is being rolled out - and come up with a definitive, categoric and authoritative test that can unequivocally debunk the claims from some of these products. You do that and I can guarantee that someone will take it up and do the test - but I put your chances of success so close to zero that it doesn't matter (Please ... prove me wrong!!)
For whatever reason, the victim
wants to believe. Whether it is through something lacking in their life or they have just been convinced by a con artist or any one of a dozen reasons, they
want to believe. To make any progress with a victim's perception, you are going to have to introduce some doubt. Since, really deep down in their heart, they want to believe - and they have a "guide" who is ready and willing to cultivate that belief - you have an uphill battle to even gain credibility, let alone be able to present concrete evidence.
Any attempt to challenge BS claims that does not clearly succeed - and this includes the BS suppliers conceding - does
nothing to defeat them. What it
does do is raise the visibility of the so-called "product". This falls under the heading of "there's no such thing as bad press". More people are going to know about it and that just increases the size of the pool from which victims can be drawn. If anything, challenges which fail to defeat the claims - as measured by the people who are selling them - will just result in them holding up such "failed" efforts as
endorsements of the validity of their BS claims.
And the rest of you having fun imagining new forms of bullshit are no better. Anyone can do that. That's not what this thread is about.
I thought this thread was about putting BS "products" in their place.
Since direct confrontation has been explicitly planned for, ridicule is one avenue that is still available.
What the F. Is any of you over the [mental] age of 14? I am out of here.
I am sorry you feel that way, but this whole arena has been explored, discussed and analysed many times - and the only real progress has been made by the fraudsters as they have found ways to better "pad up" (a cricketing term) to face their enemies.