Snake Oil

In Silicon Snake Oil, Clifford Stoll, the best-selling author of The Cuckoo's Egg and one of the pioneers of the Internet, turns his attention to the much-heralded information highway, revealing that it is not all it's cracked up to be. Yes, the Internet provides access to plenty of services, but useful information is virtually impossible to find and difficult to access. Is being on-line truly useful? "Few aspects of daily life require computers...They're irrelevant to cooking, driving, visiting, negotiating, eating, hiking, dancing, speaking, and gossiping. You don't need a computer to...recite a poem or say a prayer." Computers can't, Stoll claims, provide a richer or better life. A cautionary tale about today's media darling, Silicon Snake Oil has sparked intense debate across the country about the merits--and foibles--of what's been touted as the entranceway to our future.

Through propaganda, corruption, and fraud, the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping transformed the snake oil of COVID-19 lockdowns into "science." This is how he did it, and why.

"In the world of snake oils, you have to see the world a little differently. Where others see poverty, you see riches; where others see weeds, you see flowers; where others see sickness, you see openness." Becca Stevens calls herself a "snake oil seller": She takes natural oils, mixes them with a good story, sells them in an open market and believes they help to heal the world. Becca is the founder of Thistle Farms, one of the most successful examples in the US of a social enterprise whose mission is the work force. She is also the founder of its residential program, Magdalene. The women of Magdalene/Thistle Farms have survived prostitution, trafficking and addiction, and the natural body care products they manufacture-balms, soaps, and lotions-aid in their own healing as well as that of the people who buy them. The book weaves together the beginnings of the enterprise with individual stories from Becca's own journey as well as 20 women in the community. In Snake Oil, Becca tells how the women she began helping fifteen years ago have been the biggest source of her own healing from sexual abuse and her father's death as a child. Wise and reflective, Snake Oil offers an empowering narrative as well as a selection of recipes for healing remedies that readers can make themselves.

Millions of people worldwide swear by such therapies as acupuncture, herbal cures, and homeopathic remedies. Indeed, complementary and alternative medicine is embraced by a broad spectrum of society, from ordinary people, to scientists and physicians, to celebrities such as Prince Charles and Oprah Winfrey. In the tradition of Michael Shermers Why People Believe Weird Things and Robert Parks's Voodoo Science, Barker Bausell provides an engaging look at the scientific evidence for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and at the logical, psychological, and physiological pitfalls that lead otherwise intelligent people--including researchers, physicians, and therapists--to endorse these cures. The books ultimate goal is to reveal not whether these therapies work--as Bausell explains, most do work, although weakly and temporarily--but whether they work for the reasons their proponents believe. Indeed, as Bausell reveals, it is the placebo effect that accounts for most of the positive results. He explores this remarkable phenomenon--the biological and chemical evidence for the placebo effect, how it works in the body, and why research on any therapy that does not factor in the placebo effect will inevitably produce false results. By contrast, as Bausell shows in an impressive survey of research from high-quality scientific journals and systematic reviews, studies employing credible placebo controls do not indicate positive effects for CAM therapies over and above those attributable to random chance. Here is not only an entertaining critique of the strangely zealous world of CAM belief and practice, but it also a first-rate introduction to how to correctly interpret scientific research of any sort. Readers will come away with a solid understanding of good vs. bad research practice and a healthy skepticism of claims about the latest miracle cure, be it St. John's Wort for depression or acupuncture for chronic pain.

At the time of his death from cancer on 1 March 2001, journalist and broadcaster John Diamond had completed six chapters of what was to be "an uncomplimentary look at the world of complementary medicine". These chapters, based on his own experience and on researched fact, which were emailed each week to his editors at Random House, are both personal and poignant, hard hitting and controversial, tackling the issues raised by alternative medicine with total candour and his usual wit. The second half of this book features some of the best of Diamond's writing, including a selection of emails to colleagues and friends, articles from "The Times" and the "Jewish Chronicle" and other publications, together with excerpts from his final notebook. For seven years he wrote an immensely popular weekly column in "The Times" which, following his diagnosis with cancer, was given over to following the progress of the disease. As well as gaining him a Columnist of the Year award, it resulted in an avalanche of mail from thousands of his readers.

"Spiritual Snake Oil" shows that the same fallacies that plague religious apologetics also infect virtually all "new age" and "spiritual" writing. Author Chris Edwards does this by dissecting the arguments and assertions of the most prominent "new age" icons and "spiritual" writers. They include Robert Pirsig ("Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"), James Redfield ("The Celestine Prophecy"), Deepak Chopra ("Life After Death"), Dinesh D'Souza ("Life After Death"), Francis Collins's ("The Language of God"), Rhonda Byrne ("The Secret"), and even Michael Crichton (a surprising defender of New Age thinking). As Edwards shows, the same fallacies, the same errors in argument, show up time after time in the writings of these--and virtually all other--"new age" and "spiritual" writers. In addition to explaining these fallacies in the chapters devoted to the individual authors, Edwards devotes a final chapter, "A Compendium of Fallacies," to outlining the tricks and deceptive practices common to illogical arguments.

Long before television and radio commercials beckoned to potential buyers, the medicine show provided free entertainment and promised cures for everything from corns to cancer. Combining elements of the circus, theater, vaudeville, and good old-fashioned entrepreneurship, the showmen of the American medicine show sold tonics, ointments, pills, extracts and a host of other "wonder-cures," guaranteed to "cure what ails you." While the cures were seldom miraculous, the medicine show was an important part of American culture and of performance history. Harry Houdini, Buster Keaton, and P.T. Barnum all took a turn upon the medicine show stage. This study of the medicine show phenomenon surveys nineteenth century popular entertainment and provides insight into the ways in which show business, advertising, and medicine manufacture developed in concert. The colorful world of the medicine show, with its Wild West shows, pie-eating contests, clowns, and menageries, is fully explored. Photographs of performers and of the fascinating handbills and posters used to promote the medicine show are included.

The gyp, hoodwink, shuck, sandbag: An art form that has been passed down through generations of hustlers, con men, and freaks. Selling snake oil is the ultimate con, and readers will find within these pages everything from classic deceptions to the most recent of ruses. From fooling your friends to dangerous stage stunts, Jim Rose, snake oil salesman extraordinaire, provides new angles to old tricks. Those who dare to explore these pages will find themselves enticed by this special brand of snake oil. Step right up: it's all here. There's nothing it won't cure!