The Ranger's Blog

Post details: This cannot be natural

This cannot be natural

The Ranger's fond of reading Ben Goldacre's Guardian column 'Bad Science'. It features regular and entertaining debunking of scientific inaccuracy, health scares, pseudoscience and quackery.

Ben normally aims his precision-targeted criticism at the biggest targets, so he probably won't draw your attention to the following example of one poor deluded woman fighting for her rights:

[More:]

She narrates the video:

I'm just wondering what the heck is in our water supply, what the heck is in our oxygen supply.... of metallic oxide salts that create a rainbow effect in a sprinkler. This cannot be natural... we all know it wasn't something that happened twenty years ago...

It's a salutary lesson to us all - just listen to the poor old dear rambling on, and you can hear phrases of fear and incomprehension that can typically be expressed in what passes for popular scientific debate across a range of topics. Issues such as the MMR vaccine, telecommunications masts, WiFi fear, and many more are often rounded up under the same paranoic tin-foil-lined umbrella, and debated with as much integrity. If ever there is any merit in these concerns, it is often lost in the cacophony of unfounded and ill-informed claims. It's a shame that in such a technologically advanced society we seem to have created a situation where it's acceptable or even attractive to remain ignorant of such basic, wholesome and interesting science as how a rainbow is made.

3 comments so far, see them and add yours here!

Posted on 13th August 2008 at 11 35 am
by The Virtual Ranger
394 views

Categories: Musings

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Comments:

Comment from: ghostmoth

You mean I won't find a pot of gold at the rainbow's end?!? Next you'll be telling me that Father Christmas doesn't exist!

The Ranger responds: no, not gold, those evil metallic oxide salts... or something.

Permalink 13/08/08 @ 13:57

Comment from: Kate · http://myportfolio.exofire.net/itisiagain

Prodominatly? Is that a scientific term?

Permalink 14/08/08 @ 11:57

Comment from: Richard · http://honesthypocrite.blogspot.com/

I think that our government's thrist for resources is prodominatly the reason why rainbows are huddled fearfully on the ground instead of flying free around the sun and the moon. (spelling suggestions above from the captions in the film)

I remember getting yelled at (gently) for wasting water and spraying everything and everyone in sight when I was a kid (more than twenty years ago) for spraying the hose just so that I could see the rainbow I made.

I am laughing instead of crying at this video because I am shocked that someone is so misinformed. Are you sure it isn't a hoax? Still, I enjoyed it immensely. And now I am going to donate to some educational charity. As quickly as possible.

Permalink 14/08/08 @ 19:04

The thoughts and writings of The Virtual Ranger, since 1995 the host and mascot of Naturenet, the UK's most popular independent environmental website; along with interjections from his real-life alter ego, Matthew Chatfield, and others. Featuring not only Naturenet and countryside related stuff, but, as on Naturenet, plenty of other material - more or less at random - that takes The Ranger's fancy. But you can be confident that soon enough he'll be rather sarcastic.

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Post details: This cannot be natural

This cannot be natural

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