Ewan's Corner

Archive for the ‘haha’ Category

Following on from my previous rant informative post on the subject, numerous people (including my lovely wife) let me know about some great Power Balance related news:

• Power wristbands a dud, says ACCC (news.smh.com.au)
• Sports band slammed in Australia (www.news24.com)

as well as much happiness in the skeptic world (scepticsbook.com, Vic Skeptics, Skeptic Money).

In summery Power Balance Australia, when approached by the OZ Competition and Consumer Commission, couldn’t provide *any* credible evidence of their claims that the hologram-powered rubber bands helped the wearer in any way. What a shocker.

The best part is that they are now forced to refund anyone who asks, as well as modify their advertising / packaging to remove false claims – and their website now includes the following statement:

We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

If you feel you have been misled by our promotions, we wish to unreservedly apologise and offer a full refund.

That should hopefully hammer their Christmas sales.

Feeling a little silly now are we Mick Fanning, Benji Marshall, Brendan Fevola, Damien Oliver, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Leonardo diCaprio, Shaquille O’Neal, Kevin Pietersen, Rubens Barrichello, Kate Middleton, P Diddy etc?

For all you South Africans (thanks James) a link to a petition (update: OK Caroline, it’s not a petition, it’s a formal complaint by the FSI) preparing for a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASASA). Go sign up.

I’m tired of seeing Power Balance bracelets being worn around the office⁽¹⁾, I’m tired of being spammed via email and twitter and web adverts and magazines, I’m tired of seeing so called sporting celebrities endorsing them, and most importantly I’m tired of people being ripped off financially and mentally by a blatant lie.

Last night’s official South African Power Balance launch in Cape Town was the final straw, so I’m joining the growing online education effort and trying to help expose Power Balance for what it really is – a hoax and a scam, preying on innocent people and (perhaps worst of all) promoting bad science.

To be clear, wearing a bracelet _may_ help with your strength / balance / whatever, but it is *NOT* the bracelet (and in particular not the utterly fake and useless hologram) which helps. That’s all – literally – in your mind, and any perceived or measurable benefit is NOT due to a Power Balance product. What I really object to is people making money by duping people into buying their fake product, people who convince innocents that some outside woo woo technology is helping them, rather than the readily available (and free) power of their own minds.

Ash Donaldson’s interesting TEDx Canberra talk on “Cognitive Dissonance” specifically mentions how whole industries and hoaxes (like Power Balance, which he directly references as an example) grow up around innate flaws in our ability to think and reason logically. Skip to 11 minutes into the talk if you’re impatient.

“Multiple-TED attendee and human factors expert, Ash Donaldson, wants us to better understand why we believe what we do. In this talk, Ash explains how our minds build belief and then breaks it down, showing us how and why humans are fooled into believing that things like Power Bands, anti-aging treatments and supplements actually work. Along the way, he tells us how as a trainee pilot he managed to nearly get himself killed by allowing his beliefs to rule logic and provable fact.”

Some great references:

• Power Bollocks: holograms, unicorns, and Shaquille O’Neal’s magic underpants
• How do those Power Balance bracelets work? I think it’s because of the 20-Hz difference between a genius and an ascending colon.
• The entertaining and opinionated @kevipedia’s post: Powerbalance bracelets are complete and utter bullshit
• various posts and discussions on granitestateskeptics.org

If you want to see how the demonstrations given by the salespeople work (and are in fact old stage magician tricks), have a look at the following two YouTube videos:

• Power Balance Tests
• Applied Kinesiology – How it’s Done

And this Surfing Magazine article / interview “Do You Believe in Holograms” (which made me alternately want to cry and laugh) highlights the ridiculous lengths to which the Power Balance sales people are willing to go to promote their scam:

“if you put a Power Balance hologram under a glass of beer for five minutes, it will energize the beer and you can do the balance test before and after drinking the beer, and it should work because liquid, as a medium, absorbs the frequency. We were doing it the another night with martinis and everyone was flipping out.”

If that doesn’t ring alarm bells, all hope is lost.

Finally, go support SkepticBros and buy yourself a few Placebo Bands to further the movement :-)

Notes:

1. although that has largely stopped due to a tough-love grass-roots education process :-)