I wonder if gullibility is affected by phases of the moon?
There’s something almost comical about this; but at the same time it makes me want to scream and stab people. This appeared in today’s What’s the Alternative? column in The Sunday Times, the place to go for all your woo-woo advice.
Q. A friend of mine has just returned from a year in Germany. She has told me all about moon cycles and how farmers pick their crops at specific times of the month to maximise the nutritional elements. She also said that beauty treatments work better if they are based on the moon’s cycles. Is this true?
Now, if I was shown a letter such as this I would assume it was a joke and laugh loud and long. Instead the answer is just the kind of credulous nonsense I’ve come to expect from this particular column. Indeed, the question is so unlikely that it reads like a hoax. h2_the_foodie suggested there should be a whole website devoted to sending in the most outrageous and absurd questions to columns like this to find out where the boundary of skepticism lies. Like mini Alan Sokals, striking a blow for reasoning against ridiculous nonsense.
Let me just quote a few things that popped up in the reply to this question:
These are practices that have been observed for centuries and are part of daily life in some areas.
The column editor doesn’t explain how the fact that idiots have been carrying on like this for centuries makes it any more useful. Running through the streets with raised AK47s is part of daily life in some areas but that won’t recommend the practice to me.
The time of the waning of the moon leading up to a new moon is considered to be the optimum for detoxifying and letting go of what the body no longer needs. People report that they sweat much more in a sauna during this cycle, as the body seems to want to purify itself.
It has often been said that it’s actually just easier to read aloud what stupid people say than attempting to actively mock them. They are their own worst enemies. I mean just look at this crud. The body wants to detoxify during the waning moon?!?
This is the ideal time to have deep facials, exfoliate and remove hair (waxing is less painful).
Bwahahaha! Waxing is less painful before a new moon! I’m sure the double-blind trials to support that little ‘fact’ will be available in the Journal of Lunar Beauty Techniques any week now.