Skeptico

Law of Attraction not working for Joe Vitale

Yesterday I posted The “Law” of Attraction (Not) – a response to Joe Vitale’s blog post, Is Attraction a Law?  Short version – The Law of Attraction (LOA) is not a law like the Law of Gravitation that has predictable, repeatable (no exceptions) results. I posted a brief comment on Joe’s blog, linking back to my post.

Now, Joe is one of the luminaries who appears in “The Secret”, and he has clearly stated the “LOA does work every time - no exceptions”. If this is true, Joe must have attracted my attentions, and my skeptical responses and questions. Strangely though, Joe doesn’t practice what he preaches with regard to the LOA. Specifically, he resorts to the decidedly non-LOA method of holding all comments on his blog until he can read them and decide which ones he will allow to be published. Why does he need to do this? Surely if you can use the LOA to make checks appear in your mailbox instead of bills (one of the specific claims made for the LOA), you can use the LOA to make only complimentary comments appear in your blog? Or doesn’t Joe really believe in the LOA?

Check out the actual exchange of comments (reproduced below), and remember that Joe is not just some random LOA believer – he is one of the main proponents of The Secret and the LOA, and he actually appears in the film:

Skeptico: Joe, I don’t think you understand what a Law is and what it isn’t. I just posted a reply: The “Law” of Attraction (Not).

Joe Vitale: Ah, you might want to re-read my post. :)

While people are arguing if LOA is a law or not, others are using the principle/law/insight/method (choose what makes you feel ok) to create lives of happiness and abundance.

The choice is yours.

Note the avoidance of the issue. I point out the LOA is not a Law. Joe ignores this, and equivocates by saying many people are benefiting from it. Remember, his claim was that the LOA is a Law like gravity. I try to pull him back to what was, remember, the subject of this post on his blog:

Skeptico: Maybe they are. And I re-read your post. The Law of Attraction is still not a law, for the reasons I gave in my post.

Joe Vitale: The next time a cop pulls you over for speeding, be sure to tell him you don't have to obey that "law," either.

Joe avoids the issue again – this time equivocating to a different (lesser) kind of law – speeding. But a speeding law (made up by man) is not the same as a scientific Law: you can break a speeding law; you can’t break the laws of the universe. Remember, Joe is the one who, in his own post, compares the LOA to gravity. He can’t justify that and so he has to try to pretend this is now the same as a traffic law.

Skeptico:  A Scientific Law is a precise description of how the universe works. A speeding law is a rule written by lawyers – it says if you break the law you get a fine. The universe can’t “break” the law of gravitation – that’s the difference.

The math for Newton’s laws works every time. That’s why it’s a law. The Law of attraction does not work every time, if at all – that’s why it is not a law.

Joe Vitale: Again, LOA does work every time - no exceptions.

Again, re-read my post.

Note – Joe again ignores my arguments for why the LOA is not a law like the Law of Gravitation that he compared it to. He just asserts he is right, with no evidence, and not one word to refute what I had written. Clearly the LOA is not working to Joe’s benefit, as I am still responding to his original post, making points that refute his claims - points he can’t refute. Here’s where Joe gives up on the LOA that he has just said, “does work every time - no exceptions”, because clearly it’s not working for him now. What is this non-LOA method for getting rid of me? Easy - he doesn’t allow my next comment to be published. This is the comment Joe didn’t want anyone to see:

Skeptico: No it doesn't. It's not a Law. And read my post.

That’s it. Those were the eleven words Joe was frightened you would read. The eleven measly words that the oh-so-powerful LOA couldn’t make disappear. This is the best that one of the main proponents of The Secret can come up with. Remember that when anyone tells you how profound The Secret and the LOA are.

I’m not going to comment any more on Joe’s blog – I’m not going to waste time on someone who holds comments for review and then won't publish those he doesn’t like. (You can see some other critical comments now after mine.  Did Joe attract those, I wonder?  Remember, some of those people might have replied to Joe with comments he didn’t allow.) But I’m going to ask him two open questions about this LOA that “does work every time - no exceptions”:

1. Suppose there is a traffic jam. Some of the people caught in that jam had been worried about being late, and so possibly attracted the jam. What about the other people caught in the jam who had been positive, and had been thinking about being on time? How is the LOA working for them?
2. Imagine two people with identical bicycles. One locks up his bike because he is worried about theft. The other one is not worried about theft, and leaves his bike at the same place, unlocked. If the bike thief steals the unlocked bike, how is the LOA working for these two people? Or are you saying the bike thief will only steal the locked bike and ignore the unlocked one? If you are saying this, what studies have been done to show that this actually happens?

You can reply in the comments, Joe. I don’t hold replies for moderation.

They never heard of Stargate?

Readers Kim, Jeremy and Tyler each emailed me a story of how the UK Ministry of Defence has spent £18,000 ($35,000) on experiments to discover if psychic powers exist and if they could put to military use:

Subjects were blindfolded and asked if they could "see" the contents of sealed brown envelopes containing pictures of random objects and public figures.

[…]

More than a quarter – 28 per cent – of those tested managed a close guess at the contents of the envelopes, which included pictures of a knife, Mother Teresa and an "Asian individual". But most subjects were hopelessly off the mark.

[…]

The MoD last night refused to discuss the possible applications of such a technique, but said that the study had concluded there was "little value" in using "remote viewing" in the defence of the nation.

Have they never heard of Project Stargate – the US government’s failed attempt from the 1970s through 1995 to look for exactly the same thing? They spent $20 million before they realized it doesn’t work and gave up. (At least the UK government only wasted $35K.) The PsiTech organization supposedly purchased the “technology” from the US government, and are having a similar consistent lack of success in being able to remote-view anything correctly.

One thing in the article caught my eye:

Defence experts tried to recruit 12 psychics who advertised their abilities on the internet, but when they refused they were forced to use "novice" volunteers.

Typical. As Randi knows, as soon as you want to test any “psychic” to see if they really can do what they say, they run for the hills. They must hate freedom.

Of course, if remote viewing really worked, we’d have captured bin Laden years ago.

The “Law” of Attraction (Not)

Cosmic Connie alerted me to a blog posting by Joe Vitale, apparently one of the stars of “The Secret”. Joe asks rhetorically, “Is Attraction a Law?”, and answers in the affirmative using this example, comparing the Law of Attraction to gravity:

The people who say attraction is not a law cite examples such as, "I know gravity works. When I drop a book off a skyscraper, it will hit the ground. That's proof of the law of gravity."

Agreed.

They then go on to say, "When I try to attract something, sometimes I get it and sometimes I don't. So it isn't a law."

Not agreed.

Here's why.

Saying you tried to attract something and failed is like saying you tried to drop a book from a skyscraper to hit a particular spot and you missed. Because you missed the spot, you say gravity doesn't exist.

Oh boy. Not agreed Joe – not even close. Your argument is a false analogy. Newton’s Laws of Gravitation do not say that when you drop something (like a book, for example), it will land on a particular spot. What the Universal Law of Gravitation actually says is:

Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

This force of gravitational attraction between the two bodies acts along the line joining their centres. This force is hence mutual.

And there are precise specific mathematical formulae that describe these relationships, for example:

Consider two bodies of masses m 1 & m 2 with their centers separated by r. let F be the force of gravitational attraction between two bodies. According to newton's law of gravitation,

[snip]

F = G Mm/R²

These formulae (and others I have omitted), describe gravitation, and they always work every time – that’s why they are Laws. As I wrote before, if you replicate Newton’s experiments, you will find that gravity accelerates objects at exactly the rate predicted by the Law. The so-called “Law of Attraction” simply does not work like this. Actually, it doesn’t work at all – simply wishing for something will not make it appear, and pretending that it does and that this is a Law like gravity, is naive childish gibberish.

SETI finds something

Here’s a reason to run SETI@Home on your laptop. Via JREF I learn that someone was able to retrieve a stolen laptop using the SETI software running on it. When the stolen laptop called into SETI, the IP address of the thief was recorded on SETI’s servers:

Melin monitored the SETI(at)home database to see if the stolen laptop would "talk" to the Berkeley servers. Indeed, the laptop checked in three times within a week, and Melin sent the IP addresses to the Minneapolis Police Department.

After a subpoena to a local Internet provider, police determined the real-world address where the stolen laptop was logging on. Within days, officers seized the computer and returned it.

Finally, proof there is intelligent life in Minnesota.

The Secret

I wasn’t going to bother with this, but numerous people have emailed me to ask when I’m going to review The Secret, and as it seems to be everywhere I decided I should give it a look.

I’m not going to watch the entire movie, though. As I wrote here, I’ve seen enough to get an idea if something is worth bothering with before I even start. And I don’t have to read every book or watch every film someone tells me about if I don’t think the book or film’s premise makes sense. However, I found the first 20 minutes online for free (I’m definitely not paying to see this film), and I’m basing this review on that initial 20 minute segment. If you think I’ve missed some crucial part of the film by only seeing 20 minutes, you can tell me what I missed, in the comments.

So, what is the big Secret?

The Secret is what they call the Law Of Attraction – the idea that you become or attract what you think about the most. Or as one person expressed it:

“Thoughts become things.”

This is presented as a literal truth – a law just like the laws of gravitation. And it is stated that this:

“Always works every time”

Note: always. And every time. No exceptions. It’s a Law, you see.

Examples are given. A man is shown worrying about being late, and so he gets stuck in a traffic jam. Another man is shown locking up his bicycle, presumably because he is worried about it being stolen; he returns later to find it has been stolen. The absurdity of these examples should be obvious. Are we supposed to believe the traffic jam wouldn’t have happened if it were not for this one guy worrying about being late? And what about the other people in the traffic jam? Were they all thinking negative thoughts about being late? Were there no positive-minded people in the area, thinking about being on time? And if there were, doesn’t that debunk the “always works every time” mantra? And what about the guy getting his bike stolen? Are we to assume that if another guy had left an identical unlocked bike at the same location, the bike thief would still have stolen the locked bike of the person worried about theft? Has anyone done a controlled study on this? (Hey, these were the examples used in the film – don’t blame me if they make no sense.)

As with What The Bleep, it is implied that there is science behind these revelations. For example, there was this from the self-proclaimed "visionary" Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith:

"It has been proven scientifically now that an affirmative thought is hundreds of times more powerful than a negative thought."

Really? Proven by which scientists? And written up where? Because I couldn’t find it.

Not a Law

Of course, the basic flaw in all this is that the Law Of Attraction is not a Law like the Law Of Gravitation that they compare it to. Newton’s Law’s can be demonstrated by anyone – drop an object and its acceleration will be exactly as the Law predicts. And this really does “always work every time” – that’s why it’s a Law. The “Law Of Attraction” as they call it just doesn’t work that way. Although having a positive attitude, being confident, believing in your own success etc is a definite advantage, and should be encouraged, having positive thoughts will not send out magic brainwave frequencies that change reality around you. This brainwave “magnetic signature” as one person called it, never goes out, any time. Not in the real world.

Equivocation

As with What the Bleep, you should watch out for equivocation. Expect believers to point out that being positive, confident etc will make people react more positively towards you, will tend to make you more successful etc. And it will. But they are equivocating about a lesser version of The Secret – a lesser version that does not support the “thoughts become things” and “it always works every time” woo version.

The film featured some of the same luminaries as in What the Bleep. I noticed John Hagelin and Fred Alan Wolf. And the “you literally create your day with your thoughts” nonsense is pretty much the same as What The Bleep was trying to sell. It wasn’t in the first 20 minutes, but I’m sure that before the end, quantum mechanics would have been evoked to justify all the mystical conclusions.  Unfortunately, Quantum Mechanics, and even the Copenhagen Interpretation, does not say this is the way the universe works.

And that’s no secret.

Other articles

Mike’s Weekly Skeptic Rant has an amusing review.

Karin Klein in the LA Times - another amusing review.

The Skeptic’s Dictionary on the law of attraction.

The Secret of Delusion from The Second Sight.

Newsweek article Decoding “The Secret”.

Skeptico's follow-up post Feb 23, 2007 - The “Law” of Attraction (Not).

Skeptico's follow-up post Feb 24, 2007 - Law of Attraction not working for Joe Vitale.

Salon on Oprah's ugly secret .

The Secret of The Secret - A cult self-help DVD fleeces the credulous from ReasonOnline.

The Onion gets it right as usual.

The Village Voice on Shopping with The Secret.

Oprah's 'Secret' Could Be Your Downfall from AlterNet.

The Wrath of the Secretrons from the Skeptical Inquirer.

The Secret of The Secret's Success, by Steve Salerno in The American Spectator.

Think Negative! Oprah, it's time to come clean about The Secret.

RFK a true believer?

Longer term readers will remember Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s rather absurd articles in Salon about how autism is caused by mercury in vaccines and the CDC etc is covering it all up. In June 2005 I covered RFK’s manipulation of the facts and quote mining, as well as a more detailed review of his quote-mining of the Institute of Medicine report. Many others blogged about it too. I wondered aloud if Kennedy really believed the nonsense he was spouting, or if he just hadn’t read the reports he was writing about.

Reader Kim just sent me this link to the Going All the Way blog where blog owner Gabolicious described how she was present recently at a talk given by RFK. And it seems RFK is still spouting the same old nonsense, judging by this response to a question from the mother of an autistic child:

[RFK’s] response was a good ten-minute rant about how our vaccines are making kids autistic because of the mercury in them, how American pharmaceutical companies introduced autism to China because of the vaccines they sent over, how more and more kids are being diagnosed with autism every year because there is so much mercury everywhere, that the Amish don’t have autistic kids because they don’t vaccinate their babies, the Christian Scientists and Scientologists don’t have autistic kids, either, for the same reasons…

Same old nonsense. (Incidentally, I also wrote in August 2005 how Kennedy was wrong about the Amish claim and his conclusions. Nothing has changed and Kennedy is still just as wrong about this as he was then.)

Later at the same meeting, Gabolicious got to meet RFK as he worked the room, and she asked him what he would say to a family who has just learned their child was autistic:

He said yes, chelation is a tough issue, you know, our bodies don’t produce as much of this hormone/ chemical anymore, and it is one of the big things we need to process and extract mercury…

As Gabolicious points out, this doesn’t even make sense.  If autism has increased because of increased mercury in vaccines, then why is our supposed recent inability to produce as much of a hormone as before, even an issue?

Obviously I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the above report, but Gabolicious, as an apparent admirer of RFK in other areas, seems genuine in how she reports these events. So it seems that RFK probably really does believe the nonsense he spouts about autism. Although autism numbers are not falling, despite the removal of mercury from childhood vaccines, RFK is apparently still a true autism conspiracy believer. Ho hum.

54th Skeptics’ Circle

The 54^th Skeptics' Circle has just been posted at Action Skeptics – a day in the life of "Jack Bixby, Skeptical Investigator". It’s a good read - click the link for the best skeptical blogging from the last two weeks.
For additional interesting reading, the 48^th History Carnival has just been posted at Aardvarchaeology.

The Atheist Delusion

And yes – this is a parody.

Equivocation on acupuncture

Do you ever notice how alternative medicine proponents like to quote science when it supports of their brand of woo, but hope you won’t notice the science doesn’t support the woo explanation? I wrote about equivocation before – how woos get you to accept a reasonable story or explanation for something, as a Trojan horse to bring in the woo explanation. I was reminded of this today when a friend sent me this link to Oprah’s introduction to acupuncture:

Dr. Oz explains the science behind acupuncture. Everyone knows that acupuncture involves sticking needles into your skin, but how might that cure what ails you? Dr. Oz says the needles stimulate endorphins and serotonin in your brain—natural chemicals that regulate pleasure and mood.

I’ll ignore the fact that this is really speculation – I don’t think stimulation of endorphins has actually been shown conclusively, but I accept it might be true. It’s not that extraordinary a claim to say that that sticking needles in someone might stimulate the body’s own pain moderation system. But the obvious fact is that stimulating endorphins is not what acupuncture claims to do. Acupuncture is supposed to stimulate the flow of “qi”:

When Chi flows freely through the meridians, the body is balanced and healthy, but if the energy becomes blocked, stagnated or weakened, it can result in physical, mental or emotional ill health. [Snip]

To restore the balance, the acupuncturist stimulates the acupuncture points that will counteract that imbalance. So, if you have stagnant Chi, he will choose specific points to stimulate it. If the Chi is too cold, he will choose points to warm it. If it is too weak, he will strengthen it. If it is blocked, he will unblock it, and so on. In this way, acupuncture can effectively rebalance the energy system and restore health or prevent the development of disease.

Dr. Oz seemingly admits that the “science” shows acupuncture merely stimulates endorphins. But note that, now he has mentioned science, and used scientific terms (endorphins, etc), he morphs seamlessly to include the woo explanation with the scientific one, hoping you won’t notice the next bit has nothing to do with science:

Alternative medicines, Dr. Oz says, deal with the body's energy—something that traditional Western medicine generally does not. "We're beginning now to understand things that we know in our hearts are true but we could never measure," he says. "As we get better at understanding how little we know about the body, we begin to realize that the next big frontier … in medicine is energy medicine. It's not the mechanistic part of the joints moving. It's not the chemistry of our body. It's understanding for the first time how energy influences how we feel."

If we “could never measure” this, how did the ancient Chinese ever figure it out? And how do we know it is true now? Of course, he can’t explain that, because we have now moved away from science. And remember how endorphins “regulate pleasure and mood” (and pain)? Look at the range of things acupuncture can supposedly treat:

"Acupuncture treats any condition from allergies to, obviously, pain to gastrointestinal issues—a wide range of chronic diseases," Daniel says.

(My bold.)

Acupuncture treats any condition. Any condition! Apart from the mind-blowingly bold claim, isn’t it funny how virtually all the “evidence” that acupuncture works seems to refer only to pain reduction. If it cures any condition, why are we always shown only pain reduction successes (including in this Oprah segment)?

But here’s the bit that really caught my eye:

Oprah doesn't suffer from those particular ailments, so Daniel recommends a wellness acupuncture treatment, which will help boost Oprah's immune system.

First, where’s the evidence acupuncture will boost the immune system? Secondly, surely, the immune system is part of “the chemistry of our body” – ie the mechanistic parts that “energy medicine” is supposedly above? Does acupuncture “boost the [chemical] immune system”, or does it release “energy” or “qi”? And how do we know?

But the thing that really struck me about the above is that these people are apparently recommending acupuncture treatment for people who have nothing at all wrong with them. Considering acupuncture probably doesn’t do very much, perhaps that’s not too bad a thing. But isn’t it a little unethical to treat people (and presumably charge them) unnecessarily? They’re giving acupuncture to someone who has none of “those particular ailments” that acupuncture is supposed to cure. And they claim that modern medicine is all about making money (as if that were a bad thing, or as if it showed the therapies were no good), but what is the purpose of a therapy for someone who is not sick? Aren’t they just making money?

You had me at endorphins

The trouble with the woo “energy” explanations, is that this covers any alternative therapy you like the sound of, including Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, Chakra Tuning and the like.  Once you accept the truth of something without evidence, then you are in freefall – you have no basis to reject anything so you will accept anything. You might as well send off for your copy of What The Bleep and The Secret. And I know a gentleman in Nigeria who wants to send you millions of dollars – you just need to front him a few thousand for costs. If you’re interested, I have his email address.

God a little slow – helped by science

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at this story (with my bold):

Daniel Walker was on his final lap jogging in his high school gym class when he collapsed, his flawed heart giving out on him.

More than four days later, his heart at a standstill, kept alive by a bypass machine, it began beating again. The 17-year-old's parents called it divine intervention. His physicians were no less amazed.

[…]

Walker's father described his son's recovery in spiritual terms. "God turned around, put His hand on my son, and recharged him," said William Walker, 58, a retired sanitation worker.

[…]

Two days after it began to beat on its own, surgeons were able to fix the flaw in Walker's heart, increasing its capacity to 60 percent.

Let’s review. God allows this kid to have a faulty heart, and the kid collapses. And the kid would have died but for the bypass machine. After four days of indifference, God decides to step in and start the kid’s heart. Lucky about the bypass machine, or God would have been too late – kid would have died. Even then, God can’t be bothered to actually fix the heart, he leaves that to the surgeons. And the parents credit God, not modern medicine, for the recovery.

Seems it would have been easier all round if God had just fixed the kid’s heart at the outset. Ah - he was probably too busy fixing a football match, or something.