By William M. London
Part 3 of the review of “The Quest for Cures…Continues” highlights the promoters of “alternative medicine” who present themselves with eyebrow-raising credentials. Please link to these JREF pieces anywhere you see this documentary series being promoted. It is extremely important to promote evidence-based and science-based critique to counteract the alternative and questionable information. “The Quest for Cures…Continues” is an eleven-episode video documentary series made available intermittently online at thetruthaboutcancer.com to promote dubious cancer treatments euphemistically labeled “alternative medicine.” A “replay marathon” is began November 27th and run for five days. In Part 1, I discussed the marketing of the documentary and the background of its host, Ty Bollinger. In Part 2, I began my discussion of the 68-minute Episode 1. I introduced the commentators interviewed in the video, provided a list of ten types of deceptive ploys that commentators make to shift viewers’ trust away from standard treatment methods and toward so-called “alternative” methods, discussed the activities of some of the commentators, and described details about the first three types of deceptive ploys: #1 The Passionate Personal Ploy, #2 The Doctors-Don’t-Know-About-Nutrition Ploy, and #3 The Oncologists-Wouldn’t-Give-Themselves-Chemotherapy Ploy. My critique continues by discussing two more ploys in Episode 1 and much more than I expected on two commentators pitching one of the ploys. The unusual qualifications of the commentators pitching Ploy #5 turned out to be more interesting than I had realized. |
SWIFT is named after Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels. In the book, Gulliver encounters among other things a floating island inhabited by spaced-out scientists and philosophers who hardly deal with reality. Swift was among the first to launch well-designed critiques against the flummery - political, philosophical, and scientific - of his time, a tradition that we hope to maintain at The James Randi Foundation.
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