The Anti-Aging Cargo Cult
As you're reading this Guardian piece, remember that for every huckster so obvious that you'd never fall for their nonsense, there are a dozen who are much better at their nefarious trade - it pays to take a closer look at everyone who is trying to sell you something. "She says DNA is an anti-ageing constituent: if you 'do not have enough RNA/DNA', in fact, you 'may ultimately age prematurely'. Stress can deplete your DNA, but algae will increase it: and she reckons it's only present in growing cells ... the scholarliness of her work is a thing to behold: she produces lengthy documents that have an air of 'referenciness', with nice little superscript numbers, which talk about trials, and studies, and research, and papers ... but when you follow the numbers, and check the references, it's shocking how often they aren't what she claimed them to be in the main body of the text. McKeith's pseudo-academic work is like the rituals of the cargo cult: the form is superficially right, the superscript numbers are there, the technical words are scattered about, she talks about research and trials and findings, but the substance is lacking. I actually don't find this bit very funny. It makes me quite depressed to think about her, sitting up, perhaps alone, studiously and earnestly typing this stuff out."
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,2011095,00.html