So long as I'm being cranky about pop culture, The Secret sucks too. Probably even more than the Lavigne song. As Emily Yoffe says, "The Secret is not only drivel—it's pernicious drivel. Theobvious question that arises from its claim that it's easy to get whatyou want, is: Why do so many people get what they don't want? As Byrnewrites, 'Imperfect thoughts are the cause of all humanity's ills,including disease, poverty, and unhappiness.' Yes, according to The Secret,people don't just randomly end up being massacred, for example. Theyare in the wrong place because of their own lousy thinking."
Jerry Adler --father of Ben Adler -- recently took to Anderson Cooper to talk through the book's awfulness. [O]neof the women in the [Secret] cures herself of cancer by visualizing herselfhealthy and not taking medical treatment. I don't think that's --that's good medical advice, and I don't think it's good psychologicaladvice for all the people who don't get cured of cancer." The hack on the other end replies that"the thing that's new about this secretis that there's a lot of new evidence that's coming up in quantumphysics and neuroscience that's really showing that our thoughts docontrol the vibration of our body in every cell in our body...And so we'redealing with science now, which is a lot better than what we had in thepast, which was through the sages or the mystics of the time. And sowe're dealing with a much better prepared information-gathering that'shappening through science." Adler replied: "Well,look, you know, the science gives us the scientific method. And if you-- if you want to prove that this is -- that this scientific, there'san easy way to do it. It's called a controlled experiment. Take100 women with cancer and tell them to visualize themselves gettinghealthy and not to see a doctor. And then take another 100 women andgive them medical treatment. And at the end of three years let's seewho does -- who does better. That's an experiment. And that will tellyou whether it's scientific or not."
Which leads me to my actual question: Take someone gullible, in need of hope, and scared of surgery, and you may have a preventable death on your hands. So what are the liability issues here? Does the book have a disclaimer? Can the author be held responsible for those tricked by her quackery?
