It must have been a slow news day. Last night, the 7 o’clock news on SABC 3 featured a story about how pets are victims of violent crime at home as much as the home owners are. Throughout the story there were unnamed references to “experts” who say this or that about the effects of crime on pets but no proper references. I have been keeping my eye on the SABC TV News archive to see when they would release the recording from last night but it has not been done yet, if the site is updated at any point I will add the video link to the thread (and a timecode, so that you don’t have to watch the entire bulletin to find the story).
At one point we were introduced to someone identified as an animal behavioural expert (perhaps she was the unnamed source?). She was shown sitting in her office talking about how more and more clients come in with stressed pets who need treatment. Which treatment is that? AnimalTalk, the four-legged variety of BodyTalk. The familiar BodyTalk branding was all over her office including a new logo for the AnimalTalk variety. At no point was the validity of the “de-stressing” treatment explored, at no point was anything about the way it works offered to the audience, just that this person who offered AnimalTalk was an animal stress expert.
Sounds more like it should have been an advertisement rather than a news story.
From the BodyTalk website we learn that the treatment is more effective in animals than in human patients (I wonder if the trials which determined that fact involved reading cortisol levels in the blood stream and comparing them? Do they have an explanation for why it should be more effective in animals?).
But wait, there’s more subtle versions of BodyTalk in the pipeline…
Sounds like a great candidate for the JREF Million Dollar Challenge, at least they say they have quantifiable results. I’d like to see those numbers.
But it looks like they are selling BodyTalk as the new magic bullet which will save the earth too!
I like it when people take it to heart to change the world they live in, don’t get me wrong, I think that there is a lot about the way humans treat the environment that could change for the better (but let me clarify, I’m not buying the environmental panic without evidence often sold by organisations like Greenpeace). I thought that it would be natural that people would seek-out practical solutions. I have seen so many “positive thought” movements try to heal the world but they never seem to want to do anything even remotely effective.
People shouldn’t be deceived into handing-over their cash just because they are told by a self identified expert with a grin that their pets, plants or environment will improve after six easy payments.
Okay, can I pin down one topic here? How about this; SABC News promotes woo without evidence, when will this change?
James