My Ulcer Thinks You've All Been Behaving Wonderfully

Good ol' Edzard Ernst has posted something I knew already:

Aromatherapy is not demonstrably effective for any condition. It also is not entirely free of risks. Its risk/benefit profile is thus not positive which can only mean that it is not a useful or recommendable treatment for anybody who is ill.

 

 I wish the professor would include "belief" as one of the "risks" - especially for others - because, without the belief, there ain't no risk. There's also (never mentioned in these reviews) no family arguments, no divorces, no cult influences - none of it. It all disappears when the belief does. As Panda Bear, MD said (on my sister blog):

"Uh, the point being that you’re studying it. If it doesn’t pan out you will shrug your shoulders and say, 'Oh well, guess we were wrong about that one,' not form the Cult of Cinnamon Therapy and defend it from all infidels"

 

 Or let's turn to another friend, Dr. Ben Goldacre:

"When you point out a problem with the evidence, people don’t engage with you about it, or read and reference your work. They get into a huff. They refuse to answer calls or email queries. They wave their hands and mutter sciencey words such as “quantum” and “nano”. They accuse you of being a paid plant from some big pharma conspiracy,...they cry, they call you names, they hold lectures at their trade fairs about how you are a dangerous doctor, they contact and harass your employer, they try to dig up dirt from your personal life, or they actually threaten you with violence (this has all happened to me, and I’m compiling a great collection of stories for a nice documentary, so do keep it coming)."

 

So am I - because I, too, am going to prove that's what these morons do and have done. They don't care about facts or reality - or anyone else - they're zombies attacking anyone who pushes back.

   

 Remember the last election? When all the Righties started defending Mitt Romney's NewAge nonsense, no matter how much I pointed out he was hopeless? How they came up with excuses, got angry, and then either attacked or abandoned me altogether as a fake conservative? What's the difference between that and my experience with NewAge "spirituality"?

 

Belief in nonsense is the problem, because the behavior people exhibit once they give in to believing easily-disputable bullshit is cultish, deplorable, and harmful. 

   

 Or does anyone think I've become a nicer blogger since discovering NewAge or, say, the Instapundit/Althouse crew showed their totally insane election-losing asses?