WOMBAT

From RationalWiki
Jump to: navigation, search
WOMBAT is an acronym meaning "waste of money, brains and time". Examples include spending three years and thousands of dollars studying homeopathy, reiki, acupuncture or any other form of bullshit tooth fairy science; also any efforts spent investigating the purported therapeutic effects of any form of "healing" that has no plausible mechanism or is promoted by Dr. Oz.
A different kind of wombat

Contents

[edit] Examples

[edit] Alternative medicine

Great Britain spends more than 500 million pounds each year on disproven or unfounded therapies.[1]

[edit] Gravity Foundation

The Gravity Research Foundation was founded and funded by a successful businessman in the hopes of finding means of either harnessing or defeating gravity (yes, defeating — the founder, Roger Babson, wrote an essay title Gravity — Our Enemy Number One). Since 1948 the organization has been doling out thousands of dollars for essay contests about gravity and funding research on materials that might dampen the effects of gravity (which isn't possible under general relativity).[2] It should be noted that the Gravity Research Foundation has, since the late 1960's, shed its crackpot atmosphere, and has attracted reputed contributors such as Stephen Hawking, who won their essay contest in 1971.[3]

[edit] Morgellons

See the main article on this topic: Morgellons

After a focused letter-writing campaign to the CDC, Congress, and other authorities, the CDC decided to do a study on the purported disease Morgellons. After two years and many many lab tests, the CDC concluded that Morgellons was just delusional parasitosis.[wp][4] The response by Morgellons-related associations was that it must surely be a conspiracy.[5]

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Last Rites for Alternative Medicine? Thompson, Damian
  2. Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, second paperback edition, 1957 pages 92-100.
  3. Black Holes, by Stephen Hawking
  4. Clinical, Epidemiologic, Histopathologic and Molecular Features of an Unexplained Dermopathy
  5. Mystery skin disease Morgellons has no clear cause, CDC study says, by JoNel Aleccia, NBC
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support