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About the power of the pseudoscience song or the tale of Power Balance!

About the power of the pseudoscience song or the tale of Power Balance!

There was a real hype around these Power Balance wrist bands last year. A lot of celebrities from Beckham to de Niro bought into this stuff, and a lot of athletes did.

I thought I give this wrist band some attention today, because it astonishes me that so many athletes buy/bought into this stuff, athletes that use to question biestmilch in a very radical way, athletes who are so hooked on numbers and science, who use powermeters and tracking devices, and love to argue that their decisions are driven by scientific evidence. Power Balance, this expensive rubber bracelet, tells a completely different story.

The article I read today about it is worth a comment for several reasons.

  1. It shows how easy we fall into traps that promise us energy and balance (obviously most of us feel unbalanced, and energy, of course, you can never have enough of it nowadays).
  2. It underscores our irrational way of being, even though most of us love to claim again and again the rational basis for decision-making (if you question the rationality of ones decision, you can be sure that floods of arguments pour down on you).
  3. Power Balance goes in line with our longing for a holistic approach to life
  4. And last but not least, the story stands for one of the rare proofs that you may not get far by lying.

I quote from the Neuronarrative Blog: “About 2.5 million people have spent $25 or more on a little rubber bracelet called Power Balance. Its makers claim that it “resonates” with the body’s “energy flow” producing extraordinary balance, flexibility and strength in its users.
Well, at least that’s what they used to claim. Now, in a show of candor rare among hucksters, they’re admitting that the product isn’t backed by an iota of credible scientific evidence. They’ll even send you a refund if you feel you were duped by their advertising.”

But what is scientific evidence? Scientific evidence needs experimentation that is counteracting or backing speculations. The scientific working method is the experiment. Experiments can prove or disapprove our propositions. Of course, science has got its tales too, that may prove wrong one day. But I think it is still more than pure belief and esotericism.
While experiments may support theories (paradigms), they may also question them and trigger changes, in an ideal world a permanent cross-fertilizing process. That means, experiments can be awkward, they may resist our hypothesis, theories, paradigms or beliefs and ultimately force us to change them. The power of science is its potential for initiating changes of interpretations and conclusions, and finally paradigms and hypotheses. This strength may be its weakness in the same time. In the Real World you cannot avoid to hit corners that may induce pain, while moving in the virtual world of thoughts, beliefs and speculations the edges are softer and can be ignored much easier.

May this be the reason for the fact that we carry this passion for the vague in us? Energy, frequencies, rays, beams … one name it are terms that are rooted in science, but rooted in a micro-universe that is invisible for our senses, and give us a lot of free space for speculations and beliefs.

The rubber bracelet promises to reinstate balance, improve performance or increase endurance of various kind. The owners of the company stress: “The body has a frequency and things which cause negativity to the human body – like mobile phones and radio waves – break down its natural healing frequency. We worked out a way of putting good frequencies into our holograms so they balance out the body, making it stronger and more flexible. It works in different ways for different people.”
The holograms he’s talking about are identical to those on your credit cards! You draw any conclusions yourself.

Rays, frequencies and energy are very vague terms, not for physicists but for us normal human creatures. Easily we drift off into esotericism. Mobile phones, computers, and the many electronic devices that surround us have been accused of emitting bad rays, energy and frequencies. Since hundreds of years we divide the world into the good and into the bad demons. The rubber bracelet supports this very old metaphor that is still imprinted on our minds and bodies. Today these demons only changed their shapes, they are not humans, animals or hybrids of both anymore, they took the shape of beams, energy or frequencies. But still we divide our world into the bad and the good.
May this be the reason why we humans have become infatuated with all kinds of devices that neutralize or turn the bad into good. We buy stones, crystals or magnetic resonance stuff, and we bought the Power Balance, all for the same reason.

Isn’t it amazing, how we love the very precise, and on the other hand how much we fall in love with the very vague and mysterious? It is up to you to judge!

Now it is up to me to remind you of the Biestmilch “balance in training” package. You may not be familiar with Biestmilch, but biestmilch is a biological substance that withstands scientific evidence. it is a complex substance that is most challenging for any scientist.

Susann

Susann

Susann is the biest prototype and head of the team. She is Austrian, has studied medicine, meaning she is a medical doctor and the Biesters' alpha wolf. Susann continuously produces new ideas, is strong in making concepts and is practically always ON FIRE. Without her BIESTMILCH wouldn't be where and what it is today, and anyway - not possible.

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