One of the main responsibilities of my job is to help my students think critically and help them think through problems in the world logically. A common topic that often comes up in class is when a student talks about an object that has, for a lack of a better word, bullshit properties. I then work with the student and we talk about all of the science that is in the object and how it doesn’t have any of those properties, etc.
Now, as a teacher, I don’t curse in class. I also get frustrated in a very loud manner when my children curse in class, so it is weird for me to type the word “bullshit” but when I saw what the Dodgers were giving away this month, I actually yelled “That’s BULLSHIT” at my laptop.
Let’s backtrack this story. On Sunday, 4/29 (actually when I wrote this article) I was working on all of the Team Promotion articles for May. At the end of each month, I open up Google Chrome and go through every major league team to see if any of them are giving away anything interesting that would be worth writing about. When I got to the Giants page, I saw that they were giving away those “Power” Necklaces that do nothing, however they called it a rope necklace. Nothing wrong with that.
Then I got to the Dodgers page, and they are giving away “Power Necklaces” and calling them “Power Necklaces”. That’s when I lost it.
Power Necklaces and all of their other forms are basically pieces of metal and cloth that con-men try to sell to saps. Period. They don’t work. They don’t do anything. Before you write me an angry letter saying “but I FEEL BETTER when I wear it”, you are just experiencing the placebo effect. For those of you who have a demonstration done at shopping mall, where the agents show you these necklaces give you balance, well I have bad news for you:
We clear now? All of the bracelets are frauds. There is no magical energy/resonance in your body / quantum whatever. It all sound scientific, but none of it is real. Try to trust me, I teach physics and I have degree in astrophysics. But if you don’t want to trust me, there are a lot of people a lot more qualified than me that support this claim that these are bullshit.
The reason they have a money back guarantee is that they need it. If they didn’t, you could sue them for false advertising and bring the entire operation down! They are selling you a necklace or bracelet for 20-50 bucks that does NOTHING.
Honestly, I believe a lot of you know that these are bull, and they don’t do anything. However we never speak up about it.
Obviously, children look up to athletes and a good amount of athletes wear these accessories (ie. Pedro Feliciano). We are doing a disservice to the science literacy of this country by calling these necklaces power necklaces, and then giving them to our children. Of course a good amount of our children will believe they restore balance to their bodies if we tell them they do because children trust us! This isn’t like telling a child about Santa Claus or that the necklace will make them shoot lasers out of their eyes. In a child’s mind, and too many adults, when we say these help with balance, that claim is completely plausible. As people responsible for the collective critical thinking ability as a species on Earth, we need to help children and adults think through these claims and see them for the scam that it is.
So shame on the Dodgers for perpetuating this. Thank you to the Giants for calling the giveaway what it is, just a rope necklace.
