I remember seeing this EXACT same claim back on a similar TV current affairs show in the 1980s… except they claimed that rock music made your arms weak. Sheesh…
Thankfully, the Channel 7’s Today Tonight allowed Richard ‘Skeptic Zone‘ Saunders to have a say on the matter!
The show itself is usually ‘tabloid fare’ and will tend towards the pro-pseudoscience. As he tests the effectiveness of a product called the Power Balance bracelet (“embedded with frequencies that react positively with your body’s natural energy field to improve balance, strength, and flexibility” – huh?), Richard and Tom O’Dowd (the Power Balance distributor in Australia) do two tests. A very basic run, but at least will have some viewers questioning.
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Incidentally, when I was a university student I got lectured to by David Powers, who also makes an appearance in the video.
Of course Today Tonight gave it some of the heaviest non-sceptical promotion just last week in this piece. It reads like an infomercial (and where TT is concerned, I tend to feel it probably was). The next night they gave it a follow-up push when they announced TT viewers managed to crash the bracelet’s website the previous night.
Even this report made sure to get some credulous promotion in (from a chiropractor???!!!) before they put it to the test.
Yep, they were even more uncritical before. The adverts even said ‘the skeptics don’t have an answer for it!!’ – still a bunch of garbage. :/ Welcome to slow-news week?
Yep. Hard to answer question you’re not asked.
Oh goodness me. Someone should make a complaint to consumer affairs
Did ya like the bit where a chiropractor staked his reputation on it?
They could not have phrased that ringing endorsement any better.
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