It’s not woo. If you’re a bad golfer, you’re a bad golfer. You can play some clubs you got at Wal-Mart and hit Top-Flights and your game won’t get any worse. If you’re a good golfer, good equipment makes a difference, just like cycling. If you’re a sub-10 handicap, play a round with cavity back clubs and another with tour blades and you’ll see the difference.
Psychology. There’s a bit of a cultural rift in the field at the moment between the old-school psychodynamic crowd and those favoring evidence-based interventions. A lot of psychodynamic theory, which got its start in Freudian psychology, has little evidence to support it.
Now, that isn’t to say psychodynamic therapists can’t be effective or good at their jobs, just that there isn’t much evidence that the theoretical framework is what’s causing the positive change.
I’m not singling out psychodynamic therapy. There are plenty of so-called evidence-based frameworks that overreach in their supposed applications. Martin Seligman comes to mind. He did some wonderful work in positive psychology, which is the study of why mentally healthy people are mentally healthy. This was solid research, but he then decided to use that research in a military setting, to increase psychological resilience among soldiers. He did so with no real evidence that it would work, and as I understand it, it doesn’t work, but he won’t admit it doesn’t work. He has since turned into what looks more like a self-help guru than a serious scientist, as his claims of the wonders of positive psychology become more and more inflated. I was actually a huge fan of Martin Seligman until I got wind of this admittedly biased view from Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided, in which Seligman became combative and rude when she asked him specific questions about his evaluation methodology.
The idea of subjecting psychological treatment intervention frameworks to any kind of rigorous scientific analysis is relatively new.
I do not know how to play a violin. I would not know a good violin from a box-top banjo. Regardless, I have always thought the mystery around a Stradivarius was a bit more woo than reality. Please disavow me from that notion.
It seems to me that the more mature a field of science or technology is, the more susceptible it is to woo - the fewer actually advances are made, the more fake ones pop up.
The electromagnetic field, the gravitational field, the Higgs field, and in fact all quantum fields are susceptible to woo.
I guess this one is visible to me living on a lake, but…
Fishing Tackle.
Personally, I just use a worm on a hook, but dayemn! The gear some of these folk bring out…
Examples?
It strikes me that the newest fields are most woo-prone. For instance, there’s epigenetics, hailed as justification for various lamebrained theories about how you can alter your genetic heritage (creationists and wooists like Deepak Chopra have latched onto it).
Well, I think there’s a difference between laypeople using scientific concepts to justify woo, and scientists embracing that woo themselves. Both are woo, but I’d call the latter far more problematic.
heh. when I moved to an apartment which had its own marina, I bought a basic rod/reel combo and a handful of cheap lures. walked down to the pier, attached one of those rubber minnow lures with the wagging tailfin, and first cast out I reeled in a bass.
Cosmetics. All the “Tears of a Tibetan Yak” ingredients that are only present in gestural quantities. And places like the Ponds Institute.
The twin vices are coming up with ideas that should work in theory, without any legitimate testing that they do, and coming up with effects that are always at the limit of detectability and generally indistinguishable from noise, so wishful thinking sees results.
Heady Topper?
HAH! Never had the luck necessary to taste that particular brew. It really exists?
No, this is a small, local brewery offering that has a local mystique. Pittsburgher’s may recognize Dancing Gnome, but I don’t think they have a national rep.
I drive hours for a bottle of Russian River’s Pliny the Elder.
What woo? They are excellent instruments (and thoroughly analysed for that reason). That does not mean one cannot obtain a modern instrument of comparable quality; it’s just that the Stradivari are antiques.
Not so. I’ve been single digit the last 40+ years (0.9 to my current 8.2 USGA index - I’m old now). I’ve played both. Currently I use cavity back for the extra forgiveness on mishits. An increasing number of tour pros use cavity back for the longer irons with blades for the shorter irons (ex. 8 iron though the wedges) for the same reason. With courses tricked up and pins tucked ever closer to waters edge and traps; a couple of yards difference may mean missing or making the cut and losing you livelihood. All the pros make use of irons/putters/woods/metals (for you new folks) with increased perimeter weighting. It’s like when Davis Love and Lee Janzen were the last to use persimmon drivers. Time and technology march on. Oh yeah, forged vs. cast; no quantifiable difference. And another - ability to “feel” the difference between a premium ball and a Top Flite rock. Once you eliminate the sound (headphones) and trajectory (screen), tour pros were unable to identify urethane vs. surlyn covered balls. So, no there is no difference in feel, though trajectory and spin rate favors the urethane so better golfers will/should use them. For general hackers, use a very low compression ball.
As you suspect, mostly BS. Strads are like you grandfather’s axe that has been rebuilt a few times. One time the head was replaced, another time the handle was replaced but it’s still your grandfather’s axe, right? Most Strads have been rebuilt/restored multiple times in their lifetime.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/million-dollar-strads-fall-modern-violins-blind-sound-check
a/k/a Ship of Theseus
Me? I use the same green magic marker for my CDs, golf clubs, coffee burr grinder, acupuncture, and anything else I can think of. Not sure if it helps, but I bought a few cases of green magic markers in the early 90s and they have to be good for something.
(joke)
Darn it, you beat me to the Ship of Theseus! It was Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast on golf that got me thinking about that philosophy. (Please do not pelt me with rocks and garbage for bringing up Malcolm Gladwell.)
These are all awesome comments! I now realize that the scope of ‘woo’ is almost unlimited.
Diamonds. Gotta have “real” diamonds. Synthetic diamonds or diamond substitutes are Just Not Done. And they have to be high priced just because, actual lack of rarity is irrelevant.
The fake diamond people keep making better and better ones. So the DeBeers folks keep having to come up with better devices to detect them. A jeweler looking through a loupe isn’t always going to be sure.
Let me get this: If a pro eye can’t tell the difference, why does anyone else care???
Diamond sales pretty much started as woo. They were marketed brilliantly to take the place of Rubies & Emeralds are the premier gems long before any of use were born. There is nothing especially special about crystallized carbon with some impurities but only the right impurities.
Food, nutrition, dieting…
Tons of well meaning BS and “bro science” out there.
A FB friend just posted a long article on the evils of microwave cooked food. It referenced a “study,” that I kid you not, had 8 subjects. Also a quote from the guy who ran the study claiming that microwaves alter the atoms and molecules of food. You can split atoms at home in your microwave…who knew?