# Has any technique or treatment formerly labeled as "woo" been later determined to be valid?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-technique-or-treatment-formerly-labeled-as-woo-been-later-determined-to-be-valid/643638>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 10, 2012, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-technique-or-treatment-formerly-labeled-as-woo-been-later-determined-to-be-valid/643638 "2012-12-10T21:07:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 7

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-technique-or-treatment-formerly-labeled-as-woo-been-later-determined-to-be-valid/643638/121 "2015-08-31T21:26:18Z")

</div>

Not medicine, and so not strictly relevant to this thread, but still:

“Continental Drift” (Wegener, 1912, and earlier theorists) sounded pretty crazy until scientists came up with a few more observations and theoretical underpinnings. It’s now “Plate Tectonics” and is now standard Geology.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DtypeJag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@DtypeJag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DtypeJag)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-technique-or-treatment-formerly-labeled-as-woo-been-later-determined-to-be-valid/643638/122 "2015-08-31T23:54:51Z")

</div>

> [@dropzone](#):
>
> I’ve always hated that song.
> 
> 1. Everybody knew the world was round. They all laughed at Christopher Columbus because he claimed it was smaller than what everybody else knew it was. And he was wrong.
> 
> 2. They all laughed with delight when Edison recorded sound, then showered him with accolades and called him The Wizard of Menlo Park. They didn’t laugh when he claimed to have perfected the light bulb and gas company stocks fell. Sure, he hadn’t quite done it yet, but everybody knew he would soon because he had already invented so much.
> 
> 3. The only reason anybody (Langley) laughed at the Wright brothers is because they were so secretive to protect their patents that they would not demo it in public. Then there was the matter of the catapult and the suspicion (probably justified) that the Flyer could not take off under its own power and that the airplane had merely been thrown a few yards.
> 
> 4. I have no recollection of anybody laughing at Marconi. The late 19th and early 20th centuries was the Golden Age of Woo, when any crackpot notion was carried in the newspapers and believed the world over. Believing in radio was easier than believing in canals on Mars, and everybody believed in them.

Check out the documentary “Gizmo”. A tribute to the kitchen table inventor and the backyard mechanic. People who realized their dream - not always successfully.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-technique-or-treatment-formerly-labeled-as-woo-been-later-determined-to-be-valid/643638/123 "2015-09-01T00:09:23Z")

</div>

I was just discussing cupping with one of my son-of-son-of-Jews from the old country, whose father, like mine, received hot cups sucked on to their skin, when removed leaving a nice circle but taking away bad stuff.

“Bahnkes” I think it is called, in Yiddish.

Anyone use that?

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-technique-or-treatment-formerly-labeled-as-woo-been-later-determined-to-be-valid/643638.md?page=6)