Article on Woo -

flyingtanuki wrote: »

barbecuesauce wrote: »

besaro wrote: »

too many words!

DOWN WITH BOOKS

3k word dissertation? I didn't think you could get away with that as an undergrad! Too many words, indeed.

Would that be a "dessertation"?

Only if it's free from sugar, wheat, dairy, and joy.

percolater wrote: »

What is woo?

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo

Woo is a term used among skeptical writers to describe pseudoscientific explanations that have certain common characteristics.

The term comes from woo-woo, an epithet used in the 1990s by science and skeptical writers to ridicule people who believe or promote such things. This is in turn believed to have come from the onomatopoeia "woooooo!" as a reaction to dimmed lights or magic tricks. The term implies a lack of either intelligence or sincerity on the part of the person or concepts so described.

yarwell wrote: »

Kalikel wrote: »

I was just explaining how the word is used. People tend to use it to mean "things I don't like/believe/agree with."

It's certainly a subjective term.

Yes, but it has a meaning beyond "things I don't agree with" (the one you quoted, for example) and can be used correctly and incorrectly.

IMO, "the AHA says sodium should be below 1500 mg" is not woo. It still could be overly aggressive for many people or based on questionable science or overly generalized, but that doesn't make it the same thing as woo.

Another good example, from the same source, is the suggestion that sat fat be kept at 6% of overall calories or below. (For a 2000 calorie diet that's 13 g or less; for a 1500 calorie diet that's 10 g or less.) Again, one can question the benefits of those numbers (and certainly question them as to certain individuals) without asserting that the issue is "woo." It's not. It's a discussion as to what the underlying science supports.

Woo would be something like "a properly functioning body will tell you what it needs, because that's how it was designed." Or "natural foods are best because they were designed for us to eat; manmade foods are Frankenstein monsters." Or "if you juice and eat huge amounts of "natural" sugars and micronutrients that are in fruits and veggies and avoid solid foods, that will do something special for your body including detoxing you." But there are of course millions of these, including your "old wives tales" like "don't eat after 6 pm" or "breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and if you don't eat breakfast food at breakfast your metabolism won't run." Or "never exercise more vigorously than fat burning zone, or you won't lose fat."

I find some ideas I think are woo to be attractive (well, depending on how it's stated), and that something is woo doesn't make it wrong--things can be right or helpful without being scientifically supported. But what's bothersome is people taking woo and then trying to sell it as science or as a rule that all should follow.

Brown sugar as a complex carb????? Oh, that just made my day.

PeachyCarol wrote: »

Brown sugar as a complex carb????? Oh, that just made my day.

Hey, it's brown! LOL. Yeah, I rolled my eyes and deleted the book. I really should do an amazon review of it it was such horse poo.

earlnabby wrote: »

PeachyCarol wrote: »

Brown sugar as a complex carb????? Oh, that just made my day.

Well, making it is a complex process. These days they refine the sugar into white sugar, then add back a little of the molasses to make brown sugar. That makes it complex, right?

Good point! lol. Maybe that's what the author meant. heh.