Some feng shui practitioners searching for a new scam embrace the self-deception of the pseudoscience known as building biology (bau-biologie, bau-biology).
Bau-biology is marketed primarily to people who don't know or are scared of science, yet it is advertised as an advancement in science and technology! What this means is that the people targeted by marketers of bau-biology are typically not competent to evaluate the scientific claims for bau-biology.
Manipulative merchandising
Building biology (bau-biology) is primarily an updated set of bizarre ideas from 19th-century cranks, heavily laced with Spiritualism and its New Age descendants. It also creates a need or worry where one did not previously exist.
During the early days of American advertising an innovative fellow invented the concept of body odor; now everyone buys deodorants. An advertising agency developed the idea that cars express virility. Today, people selling cars in the US subtly question the masculinity of men shopping for new cars. The men's self-doubts compel them to buy larger, more expensive vehicles to "prove" their manliness. (In 2005 it was widely reported in US news sources that this technique significantly boosted sales of Hummers.)
In the 19th century a medical doctor named Ernst Hartmann concocted the crank notion of Earth-induced grids criss-crossing the planet and causing a bewildering variety of vague symptoms. Someone updated the crank's ideas (and others), injected enough worry to sway the credulous, and invented bau-biology.
With bau-biology you can:
- impress your victims (er, "clients") by using "machines that go ping" (to paraphrase Monty Python's Meaning of Life).
- sell devices reputed to cure what cannot be cured by the method being sold.
- promote books by Paul Brodeur, a writer of "horror fiction disguised as fact," to generate enough fear in the credulous so that they book your services.
Thankfully, it is easy to identify baubiology as pseudoscience simply because so many baubiologists rely on dowsing to analyze a nonexistent problem called "geopathic stress."
Never mind that dowsing has been thoroughly debunked. Like a belief in Santa Claus, it keeps on finding gullible new audiences. But what reasonable adult would trust another adult who still firmly believes in Santa Claus?
The seven warning signs of bogus science, applied to bau-biology
Warning signs developed by Robert L. Park
1 — The claim for the validity of baubiology is argued in the media, not in scientific or academic journals.
That's because there isn't any science to back up the claims. Bau-biologists operate largely in the realm of make-believe.
Scientists precisely define their terms; you'll find plenty of them in a good dictionary, and you probably hear many of them daily. Bau-biologists wrote their own dictionary to avoid the dictionary definitions, and they have borrowed ideas and jargon from 19th-century Spiritualism, occult lore, and New Age.
They are smart enough to know that their clients passively accept how things are explained to them, and wouldn't think of consulting a dictionary to see whether what's being marketed has a basis in fact.
Scientific proof for baubiology?
Certain personality types are prone to believing in "geopathic stress," "electro-pollution," and the other buzzwords. Bau-biology promotes this pathological mindset (see the last question in this online version of the study test for "Introduction to Electromagnetic Fields," from the International Institute for Bau-Biologie).
A Swedish study of 59 people who claim a high sensitivity to "electro-pollution" and amalgam dental fillings were what researchers called "vulnerable personalities" who exhibit "various mental and somatic symptoms," and that these people interpret their symptoms as "environmental illness."
One study researching sufferers of "sick building syndrome" wondered whether there weren't dysfunctional people rather than dysfunctional buildings. Or perhaps that should be "dysfunctional women," as research shows women are more predisposed to the ailment than men. Why do women suffer from sick building syndrome more often than men?—subjective higher sensitivity versus objective causes. S Brasche, M Bullinger, M Morfeld, HJ Gebhardt, and W Bischof. Indoor Air, Dec 2001; 11(4): 217-22.
Psychological issues may take a prominent role in workplaces where people claim to be suffering from such ailments. For each disorder, there are building- (or exposure-) related variables and psychological variables believed to trigger or maintain the symptoms. Dysfunctional buildings or dysfunctional people: an examination of the sick building syndrome and allied disorders. CM Ryan and LA Morrow. J Consult Clin Psychol, April 1, 1992; 60(2): 220-4.
Researchers into psychosomatic illnesses studied 31 experiments in which scientists tested 725 allegedly "electromagnetically hypersensitive" individuals. Twenty-four of 31 experiments found no evidence to support the existence of any hypersensitivity; 7 studies reported some supporting evidence.
However, in 2 out of the 7 studies with supporting evidence, the same research groups who performed the original studies subsequently failed to replicate their findings. In 3 out of the 7 studies with evidence, the positive results turned out to be errors in the data. The final 2 studies with some supporting evidence gave results the researchers called "mutually incompatible."
In other words, the researchers who conducted the original studies may have fallen under the spell of self-deception. They may have been looking for these ailments, rather than letting the data speak for themselves.
The researchers concluded that "it has proved difficult to show under blind [neutral] conditions" that exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) can induce symptoms of "electromagnetic hypersensitivity." Any alleged hypersensitivity can be proved to be unrelated to the presence of EMFs. Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity: A Systematic Review of Provocation Studies. G. James Rubin, Jayati Das Munshi, and Simon Wessely. Psychosom Med, Mar 2005; 67: 224 - 232.
In fact, the researchers believe a more fruitful field of study would be to learn why some people insist on blaming their personal ills on electromagnetic fields.
Worse, the antagonism a lot of bau-biology people feel towards science makes them unable to know when their odd ideas might cause more harm than good. Look at this MIT study that suggests aluminum foil, one cure-all suggested by bau-biologists, might concentrate radio waves and magnetic fields!
2 — Marketers of bau-biology assert that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress their information.
If baubiology was a technological breakthrough, businesses would have capitalized on the idea long ago. If baubiology had all the correct answers, those answers would already be incorporated in international standards.
The website for the International Institute for Bau-Biologie repeats this classic in several places:
Research into the long-term effects of an exposure to EMRs is in the beginning stage and hampered and stopped by vested interests. (Emphasis added.)
Research has been going on for years, but the results don't support the beliefs of bau-biologists — therefore no research exists.
Such self-aggrandizing paranoia somewhat explains the interest in the writings of Paul Brodeur, who believes (in the words of Access to Energy) "to maximize their profits, the big bad corporations spread cancer, war and pestilence — as if they were anything but a spineless bunch of wimps trying to buy off their detractors with lavish contributions."
For bau-biologists there is no need to include concrete examples of repression or to name agents of repression ("vested interests") because the statement from the Institute is one of belief, not evidence.
Governments, scientists, and international standards societies think so little of baubiology that they refuse to acknowledge its existence. This makes it convenient for fraudsters to fabricate the notion of an Evil Conspiracy: governmental bodies, entire economic systems of nations, a wide array of scientists, and a variety of international agencies all seeking to deny, overlook, and suppress information on dangers to the public from appliances, electronics, medical equipment, and anything else that uses or supplies electrical power.
The possibility of tens of thousands or even millions of people from many nations, professions, and viewpoints all conspiring in this way is totally irrational—and nearly impossible.
That is precisely its attraction.
3 — The scientific effect involved in bau-biology is always at the very limit of detection.
That's why dowsing is so popular in bau-biology! Lack of scientific evidence for things like "geopathic stress" means there is room for fraud to flourish.
The Institute says
These manmade energies have become part of our lives and as such are superimposed to our subtle body energies.
Ignore the poor grammar for a moment: the term "subtle body energies" is actually a code phrase for "aura" among people with leanings toward New Age thinking.
A so-called subtle body consists of the seven major chakras, minor chakras at each joint, and alleged fields of electromagnetic energy surrounding our bodies.
Auras are a hangover from the medieval concept of the four humours (no laughing matter) and 19th century Vitalism. Auras began as "charisma" in some circles. Oddly enough, they are currently championed by intelligent design (creationism). Intelligent design and New Age thinking seem to be conjoined twins — an embarrassing fact that both ideologies desperately try to hide.
"Subtle body energies" is not scientific language and these are not scientific principles. This is a statement of belief, not evidence.
Extremely sensitive devices exist to measure the electrical and magnetic fields of the human body, yet no researcher has discovered the aura.
Biological magnetic fields (biomagnetic fields) in humans result from bioelectric phenomena (such as neural conduction) and from magnetic material (such as magnetite in the lungs of asbestos miners and iron in the lungs of welders).
The human body contains electrical activity such as the heart (studied with ECGs), brain (studied with EEGs), nerve fibers and muscles. Electrical activities combine with biomagnetic fields which are read with magnetocardiograms (MCGs) and magnetoencephalograms (MEGs). Weak fields can be measured with SQUID biomagnetometers. It is possible to detect electrical properties of single neurons in your brain.
The magnetic field of the heart operates in the range of 10 to 20 picoteslas and the magnetic field of the brain operates in the range of 50 to 100 femtoteslas. Your bladder has a detectable electromagnetic field; so does your throat, and your gastrointestinal system.
However, all of these fields cancel each other out. If they didn't, your body could not hold together.
If each of us did have a "subtle energy" field around ourselves, we would behave like magnets. When we walked by one another, we'd be helplessly drawn into the field of one person and stuck to them, or just as helplessly (and violently) repelled by the field of another. No one could be crammed into a Tokyo subway car, or walk the streets of any city!
Vectors are used extensively in descriptions of electric and magnetic fields; you are not likely to encounter information about vectors on a bau-biology site. You will not find accurate information about the characteristics of fields, or how absorption works.
You won't find mentions of dosimetry, one of the most critical components of any scientific study that assesses the effects of electromagnetic fields on living creatures. (The fundamental, widely-accepted guidelines for understanding the effects of exposure are induced electric fields or current densities and specific absorption rate, better known as SAR). The establishment of guidelines for safe exposure limits takes these facts into consideration.
Bau-biologists must define glossaries that deviate wildly from the work of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety (ICES), and other experts. They are in their own little world.
4 — The evidence for bau-biology is largely anecdotal.
Basing bau-biology on anecdotal evidence is faith-based reasoning ("because I said so"). Faith-based reasoning implies that you prefer to have some authority tell you what to think — just as our parents sometimes ordered us to comply simply because they said so.
Faith-based reasoning is very comforting because it does not require a great deal of thought. Everything has been thought out for you; you need only keep to the path.
If you base your online purchasing decisions on testimonials (Amazon reviews come to mind), that means you accept the word of complete strangers without any evidence that they are telling the truth. They said it and that's good enough for you; you roll over and offer your wallet.
You are a very trusting soul, who cannot possibly consider that someone would want to deceive you for their own ends by making statements that are not true.
Bau-biologists don't conduct scientific research (and very few read it).
Bau-biologists typically aren't members of IEEE, ICES, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), or the World Health Organization (WHO). These groups convene panels that review all the scientific literature in peer-reviewed publications (more than 2500 papers) regarding extremely low frequency (ELF) and radio frequency (RF).
These panels establish standards for levels of human exposure that avoid the adverse health effects documented in scientific studies. Panels typically include a variety of experts such as epidemiologists, neurologists, biologists, toxicologists, oncologists, physicists, engineers, and statisticians.
The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) is an independent organization that answers to no government. It encompasses all of the basic scientific disciplines. ICNIRP and the World Health Organization (WHO) alone are qualified to assess the health effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields.
The development of exposure guidelines requires a critical, in-depth evaluation of the established scientific literature. ICNIRP and WHO use the results of their assessments to develop exposure guidelines that emphasize the health of individuals. ICNIRP Initiatives. J.H. Bernhardt. Radiat Prot Dosimetry, Jun 1999; 83: 5.
I've seen how some of these bau-biologists work and it is not impressive. Most bau-biologists wouldn't know dosimetry if it walked up and kicked them. They don't know a near field from a far field. Many times a baubiologist uses the wrong instrument because they don't know any better. They are fortunate most of their clients are just as clueless.
5 — You are assured that a belief in baubiology is credible because baubiology has been around for a long time.
There's that word "belief" again. Just because people have believed something (or believed in something) for a long time doesn't mean it's credible. People have believed in Santa Claus for a long time — does that make Santa Claus credible?
Honest people have had to endure scam artists for thousands of years. There is no end to the clever ideas our fellow humans can devise for separating us from our hard-earned money. Does that fact make scams credible?
6 — The discoverer is a "lone genius" with a revolutionary idea.
You may recognize this as a common theme in Hollywood movies — because that is where the idea of the "lone genius" originated (the leading man gets the part of the genius). Rarely in real life are truly "revolutionary" ideas the product of one person. Scientific breakthroughs are typically the result of widespread collaboration.
Dr Ed Friedlander, a pathologist, says it best:
Sometimes the independent thinkers prove to be correct, and paradigms shift as a result. You also know that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. When a discovery proves to square with the observable world, scientists make reputations by confirming it, and corporations are soon making profits from it. When a decades-old claim by a "persecuted genius" finds no acceptance from mainstream science, it probably failed some basic experimental tests designed to eliminate self-deception....
Our world is full of people who have found peace, fulfillment, and friendship by suspending their own reasoning and simply accepting a single authority which seems wise and good. I've learned that they leave the movements when, and only when, they discover they have been maliciously deceived. In the meantime, nothing that I can say or do will convince such people that I am a decent human being.
7 — Baubiology requires new laws of nature to explain its workings.
Baubiology rewrote the dictionary, so why not overthrow physical laws? Yet real science typically does not conflict with what is already known about how the world works (if it does, there is substantial evidence behind the reasoning).
When baubiology (or any other pseudoscience) wants to alter the laws of physics, or to propose new laws to account for an observation, beware! As Robert Park says, "it is almost certainly wrong."