Pseudoscience sneering from Charlie Brooker

"processed foods do not contain water"

I weep internally.

Constantly.

I ❤️ Charlie Brooker. I used to read PC Zone purely for him - when he left it got all staid and serious.

More here from Newsnight.

http://www.badscience.net/?p=652#more-652

He's great isn't he? Him and Ben Goldacre are The Voice of Reason (c)

You may well sneer but did you have to attend a 3 day Brain Gym training seminar? I did ?

The only good thing that came out of it was more water dispensers


3 days ??

Over a weekend ???

Is anyone else reminded of patrick swayzes character in Donnie Darko? ?

Oh god, this stuff was being peddled years ago when I first trained. It looked almost sensible then - basically doing simple exercises (which didn't have stupid names) to get children focussed, help concentration etc. Not a problem. Ditto letting children drink water during the day, splendid idea.

All this sounds as if it's really gone off into weird world now. Processed foods don't contain water - wtf?

Brain gym have just booked a year's advertising in Generation One, before this report ?

From what I could glean, my opinion is that any positive benefits shown are as a result of one to one attention with a child who may be struggling in school because of self esteem issues. Positive attention, however it is demonstrated, is pretty much guaranteed to have a positive impact on performance. That, it itself, is a good thing, but it's certainly not magic.

Great stuff ?

That's ace ?

Lets just teach them "number five was born in Greece and invented biscuits"

?

Sense about science involved too now.

http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/pdf/braingym.pdf

For Charlie Brooker lovers