"Dr." Robert Barner: Analyze This

Quantum physics is not magic. It allows many things that seem weird and counterintuitive, but those effects are very sharply limited in scope, in ways that are well understood. There is nothing quantum underlying New Age mysticism, and anybody who claims there is is either horribly misinformed or a scam artist. If they ask you to pay money to learn about how quantum physics justifies their New Age nonsense, they're most likely scam artists, and should be avoided, unless you're working on either a documentary about flim-flam or a fraud investigation, in which case, go nuts. --Chad Orzel

Thanks, Chad! Already there!

As my regular readers know, I met with "Dr." Robert Barner, who, in the entire time I sat with him, about 40 minutes, failed to even hint at the barest suggestion of anything that might actually be true. Barner is a chiropractor, and as such he now makes concrete to me what was until the other day only an abstract idea.

Let me explain what happened.

He was sitting under a handwritten sign advertising "Homeopathic Biofeedback." I had no idea what it was, so I wanted it. (All capitalism works on this principle.) Resigned to the idea that I was going to have to waste $25 on this quack, I was determined that I would get at least $25 worth of pleasure out of a subsequent blog post.

Now, as you heard in the podcast (you did listen to the podcast didn't you?), Barner sat me down, told me that I would not feel a thing and strapped me into this:

I did not get the arm strap for some reason. After a long conversation and stunning series of absolutely nothing, he wrote down 5 numbers on a sheet of paper that was to be my course of treatment. Let's go through the Xeroxed handout that he gave me at the end of the session. (I tried taping it to my monitor, but that wasn't working, so I scanned the results of the homeopathic biofeedbackery):

It's so easy, you don't even have to think! When I think back on all things that Einstein published in the field of supplementation...oh, wait.

I on't oh uht is is all out. You keep jumping from topic to topic like...an especially jumpy topic-jumping thing. When you write, I don't see any evidence that you have internalized knowledge, that is, that you understand it in such a way that you can take it apart and reassemble it in ways that are useful for the occasion. You don't possess coherent thoughts. I mean we went from "health" to "aging with dignity" as if they were equivalents. If a student turned this in to me, I would ask them to consider whether or not they had a learning disability.

GOATS ON FIRE!!

OK, everybody has heard of Einstein, relativity and quantum theory. A sliver of that population knows what it means. Hearing about something does not mean "understanding" it, and right off the bat you show that you have no idea what you are talking about. "Everything on the face of this earth has an energy or frequency however large or small and that includes us"? "Energy" does not equal "frequency". It sounds (maybe) like you are doing a sort of string-theory two-step, actually, and all you come out with is science-word salad. But I'm not going to assume that you are in any way aware of string theory, only because for that to be true you would have to have read something about it, and your language skills are clearly not there. What you are saying is baby babble. I wish you did resonate at a specific frequency, because then I'd interfere with it and cancel you out.

Oh, sweet tap-dancing fuck on toast. This is like a waking death. When did Oprah start publishing physics textbooks?

I hate you for what you do to commas.

Wow. Every sentence (or at least every "string of words hemmed in by punctuation") fails to have anything to do with the preceding sentence. (I think I figured out what physics textbooks are missing. Exclamation points!!) I believe the sheer redundancy of your first sentence totally undoes your law of similars going together with similars.

Also, are you suggesting that I eat flowers?

A lot of those "dissimilar" things that you mention display exactly the traits that you suggest make lettuce and carrots "similar" to us. Fungi, parasites and bacteria, for instance, all reproduce naturally. They depend on sources of energy (and not magic wave-quantum fairy energy, either, asshat). And I'm willing to bet that if you were to look at a human blood cell in a microscope and the cell of a common parasite, you would not be able to tell the difference. (In fact, I'm willing to bet that you are likely to swallow the microscope while trying to use it.) The two share a number of similar structures, including cell walls, nuclei, etc.

Also, if like likes like (heheh), wouldn't eating human flesh the best thing that you could do for yourself? Screw prion diseases. People are good--and good for you! Nom nom nom.

Clearly, your definition of "understood" is different than...everyone else's ever. Yes, we have a way of measuring our body's mass. A breakthrough technology called a scale. It's the next great Big Medicine scam. (OK, a scale measures weight, but you can infer the mass from that. You fucking pedants.)

You are saying, "This is really medicine." This is where you go from "idiot mouth-breather" to "dangerous and possibly criminal idiot." I could not find a list of 32 countries that would allow this, but I'm willing to bet that if they do exist, they are all "ixnay on the egulationray."

Any reasonably well-educated ferret (god, I hate Blogger's formatting so) could tell you that these numbers are meaningless, if for no other reason than they don't have units. I looked up my numbers in the units of my first three numbers. My voltage is about the same as a neon sign (80 volts or so). And what fucking battery charge. My seratonin is rated the same as the alternator on a Chevy Avero (85 amps). My resistance (screw you, Blogger!) is the same as that of a Hammond Choke 156M. So you can probably build a guitar amp out of me, is what I am saying.

FUCK! And I just blew a thou on a Vox AC30. Could have just jacked .25inch cable into my ear!

As best I can tell, useful measures of hydration and oxygenation are ratios.

The metaphors that you choose suggest not only do you know nothing at all about medicine but also that you don't know how electricity works.

I think he is having a stroke. No, don't call an ambulance. Stick his tongue into a USB drive and perform an exorcism. He'd want it that way.

So, you are saying a lot of the people you treat die young? And you can't possibly know what caused their cancer. We are increasingly sure that it is not cell phone usage. Don't take my word for it.

Really, don't call for an appointment. Don't. Spend your money on something more useful. Like flicking quarters at squirrels.

Here is the write up that he gave me of my stressed organs.
The last page of the little packet is written in crazy person fonts. All it needs to be is centered and in all caps, and you have Denny Markuze.

Now everyone who goes to see Barner gets this utterly meaningless work of dadaist prose. But you also get...wait for it...graphs! Let's look at my risk chart:

Now, I went to the psychic fair with someone who works at the CDC and describes his job as "analyzing data". And the first thing he did was die a little inside when he saw this chart. Again, we have no units for the measurements on the left. He has taken the discreet, meaningless values assigned (probably at random) to the systems/risks at the bottom, has lined them up from smallest number to largest number, and connected them so they look like a graph of the stock market, suggesting that there is a relationship between the measurements.

I also went to the psychic fair with me, and I have taught business communication. This violates all rules of presentation. There are WAY too many colors, data values and obscures other values, the nifty 3d graphics make it hard to see the actual positions of the data points--indeed, most of the stuff that appears on that graph has nothing to do with illuminating the data in any useful way. This is total crap, in every conceivable way.

Oh, did I mention that he found an "entity" attached to me. An energetic spirit. You should really listen to the podcast. I can't do it justice here. Don't worry. He cast it out with a few taps of his keyboard.

So, this is exactly what you get from Bob Barner when you go to see him. Nothing. Do not see him. Don't give him your money. He hasn't earned it. I refer to the quote at the beginning from Chad Orzell. I can't decide if Bob Barner is a charlatan or misinformed. Can't he be both?

HJ