Ken Wilber and the Q-Link pendant

This target was too easy to ignore! Having criticized aspects of Ken Wilber's 'philosophy' in a previous post about CAM I thought I should tackle some of the practical manifestations of his belief system.

He has been actively endorsing the Q-Link, the sole product of the manufacturer Clarus, Inc. They describe it as

a sleek pendant that tunes your being for optimal living: More energy, less stress, greater focus, and enhanced well being. No matter what you do, the Q-Link simply helps you feel better and gives you a creative edge by helping to harmonize your mind and body.

Small wonder that Wilber is so enthusiastic in his endorsements of Q-Link; he is closely involved with the company, and believes that its 'innovations' are a direct consequence of his 'Theory of Everything.'

The Clarus website features a motion-graphic introduction with the following narrative:

Clarus Transphase Scientific discovers frequencies found in nature, applies them through technology to enhance and clarify the linkage between physical and non-physical domains.
Greater human potential is realized. Sympathetic Resonance Technology (TM). Born from nature, harnessed by science, ready for us.

Sympathetic Resonance Technology (TM) is described as a discovery which

clarifies the fundamental information pathways between physical matter, linking it to its conjunct non-hertzian field.

What, you may well ask, is a non-hertzian field? The web site goes on to explain:

Everything physical has a fundamental field of non-hertzian energy made up of energetic vortices. In living systems this field is called the Biofield, a term coined by the US National Institute of Health (NIH) in 1995. This "non-physical" field that surrounds and permeates every cell represents a new frontier for science and humanity.

Now, that is very re-assuring, the National Institute of Health is a reputable governmental agency. If they refer to biofields then it must be true! Or? When you check the NIH website page on Energy Medicine they describe biofields as putative (as opposed to veritable) and are undetectable. Further, they state that the health claims made regarding biofields

are the most controversial of CAM practices because neither the external energy fields nor their therapeutic effects have been demonstrated convincingly by any biophysical means.

If that isn't enough to convince you that the Q-Link is nothing but a marketing scam lurking behind a thinly veiled facade of pseudo-science then review how a group of electronic geeks examined the Q-Link. Ben Goodacre of the Guardian writes:

We chucked probes at it, and tried to detect any “frequencies” emitted, with no joy. And then we did what any proper dork does when presented with an interesting device: we broke it open. Drilling down, the first thing we came to was the circuit board. This, we noted with some amusement, was not in any sense connected to the copper coil, and therefore is not powered by it.

The eight copper pads do have some intriguing looking circuit board tracks coming out of them, but they too, on close inspection, are connected to absolutely nothing. A gracious term to describe their purpose might be “decorative”. I’m also not clear if I can call something a “circuit board” when there is no “circuit”.

Finally, there is a modern surface mount electronic component soldered to the centre of the device. It looks impressive, but whatever it is, it is connected to absolutely nothing. Close examination with a magnifying glass, and experiments with a multimeter and oscilloscope, revealed that this component on the “circuit board” is a zero-ohm resistor.

This is simply a resistor that has pretty much no resistance: in effect a bit of wire in a tiny box. It might sound like an absurd component, but they’re quite common in modern circuits, because they can be used to bridge the gap between adjacent tracks on a circuit board with a standard-size component.

And that’s it. No microchip. A coil connected to nothing. And a zero-ohm resistor, which costs half a penny, and is connected to nothing.

Which for me kind of describes Ken Wilber - connected to nothing, except perhaps his enormous ego and bank account.

Links
Energy medicine: An Overview
NIH NCCAM website
The Amazing QLink Science Pendant
The Guardian May 19, 2007
Clarus Transphase Scientific
Q-Link manufacturer

'Integral' Medicine or Quackery?

In January of 2006, I made the acquaintance of a Dr. Adriane-Bettina Kobusch, a quiet-spoken and genuinely intelligent high school teacher at the Oberstufenkolleg in Bielefeld, Germany where she teaches Gesundheitwissenschaft - health sciences to 11th-12th grade/sixth form students. Originally qualified in the science of pharmacology and in public health, she developed an interest in Buddhism, contemplative psychology and traditional chinese medicine (TCM). In addition to teaching, she was, at the time of our meeting, in the process of obtaining a license to practise 'complementary' or 'alternative' medicine.

Wishing to share her enthusiasm for this subject she presented me with a book of essays entitled Consciousness and Healing - Integral approaches to Mind-Body Medicine, Ed. M. Schlitz, T. Amorok and M. S. Micozzi, 2005, Elsevier.

She requested that I read the foreword to the book so that I could at least understand the basics of her interests. It was my first encounter with New Age pseudo-philosopher and founder of the Integral Institute, Ken Wilber, and it was also the beginning of my realization that the Age of Reason had been displaced by the bankruptcy of postmodern relativism. I was shocked at what I read:

...when it comes to deciding which approaches, methodologies, epistemologies, or ways of knowing are "correct," the answer can only be, "All of them." That is, all of the numerous practices or paradigms of human inquiry--including...hermeneutics, meditation, vision quest, phenomenology, structuralism, subtle energy research, shamanic voyaging, chaos theory...All of these modes of inquiry have an important piece of the overall puzzle of a total existence that includes, among other things, health and illness, doctors and patients, and sickness and healing.

Basically, Wilber claims indiscriminately that everything is true - as long as it fits his particular view of reality; for example, Intelligent Design and Michael Behe are in; Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution are definitely out!

He goes on to say that

Nobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time... hundreds of thousands of decent men and women around the world are already practicing [some form of alternative medicine.] For the most part they are responsible, sincere, and concerned men and women of integrity, and they honestly believe that the practice of their chosen field is making a positive and helpful contribution to humanity. I believe them. And I hope you do too.

With an unbelievable dose of hubris Wilber then states that he has formulated the mother of all ontologies. Arthur Koestler's concept of holons are diagrammed by Wilber into a four quadrant map that supposedly includes and interconnects everything hierarchically into his infallible understanding of the Kosmos.

He claims that modern medicine is lacking because it fails to embrace the potential to be found in all four of his quadrants, and by not doing so

some sort of rupture has occurred somewhere. Both practitioners and their patients can feel it, can feel this fracture in the Kosmos called "going to the doctor."

I don't mean to sound trite, but really, whenever I go to the doctor I feel relief and gratitude for their help! Wilber claims his ontological system to be the essential integral framework for uniting and justifying the grab-bag of complementary and alternative medical (CAM) treatments described in the collection of essays that comprise the rest of the book. I will be turning a skeptical eye on some of these claims in future posts.

Amusingly, Wilber describes himself as being particularly in favor of subtle energy medicine; the National Institute of Health describes it as

the most controversial of CAM practices because neither the external energy fields nor their therapeutic effects have been demonstrated convincingly by any biophysical means.

His enthusiasm is no doubt financially related to his marketing of a pseudo-scientific device known as the Q-link pendant that claims to recharge your 'biofield' ... and I'll be covering that absurdity in a future posting also.

My aversion to Ken Wilber is probably by now quite clear! But what disturbed me the most when reading this book was the dissonance it created when I realized that intelligent people were embracing pseudo-science, against all the evidence, because of their religious beliefs, no matter how well-meaning their intentions.

I find it astonishing that an intellectually advanced nation such as Germany actually acknowledges and thereby legitimizes the various forms of medical quackery known as CAM. However, I hope that by their official licensure of these practitioners some measure of control can be exercised over the potential excesses and dangers that CAM poses to the general public.

In the name of real science, practice real medicine so you can really help people.

Links:
Jeff Meyerhoff, Bald Ambition - a rigorous critique of Wilber's Theory of Everything
Gregory Falk, Norman Einstein: The Dis-Integration of Ken Wilber - an evaluation of Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute as a cult phenomena.
Quack Watch - a guide to Quackery, Health Fraud, and Intelligent Decisions
The Scientific Review of Alternate Medicine
The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice