The Quest For The Perfect Quack!
Well, I’ve had a bit of time to put some effort into the Quackometer, and now it has a few new features and improvements.
1. First – ‘Am I a Quack or Not?’ will allow you to type in a name and see how Quacky that person is. More on this later…
2. Secondly, we have some tables ranking web sites and suspect quacks to give some highlights for the day. This should change on a day-by-day basis.
3. I have also added the first of some analysis features to let you see why the quackometer has given the rating it has. I want to make this a useful tool for quackbusting, so if you have any ideas, let me know.
So the challenge is this…
It looks fairly easy to find very quacky web sites and to score a perfect 10 in quackiness, but can we find the Perfect Quack?
The Perfect Quack will score 10 on the quackometer. This is indeed possible but we haven’t found a Perfect Quack yet. In order to score a perfect 10, the quackometer has to rate the top three sites returned by Google as 10 Canard sites. Who has this dubious distinction?
Just as Dudley Moore gave Bo Derek a perfect 10, I would like to award a perfect 10 to a suitable Quack. So far, ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith ‘PhD’ tops the polls with a very commendable 8 Canards. Not quite good enough though. (Never did I think I would write a paragraph containing both Bo Derek and Gillian McKeith!)
If you find a Perfect Quack, let me know and I will keep an Honour Roll of Perfect Quacks. I may even think of a small prize for the first one!
Happy Quack Hunting!
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Easy enough to find word searches with perfect 10: But I’m still looking for a name
http://www.quackometer.net/?suspectquack=detox+patch
That’s just plain cheating! I’ll have to work on way of stopping this sort of trickery.
Sorry Andy, I like a challenge. A perfect 10 found for you: one Cathie Welchman.
Got one, with a great name: Jonathan McGookin
So how come the McKeith woman has gained 2 canards in the last few days? Change of algorithm Andy?
A leading candidate for the perfect quack has to be Lynne Boutross. An examination of her website includes just about every quack word and trite spiritual motivational tidbit you can imagine. A wannabe Tony Robbins, Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, Deepak, Eckhart all rolled into one big whack hitting you up at $200 for stuff that you could read in basic self-help books. Plys her trade on the strength of credentials obtained from diploma mills. Investigated and displaced by the State of Washington and now coming back at you from the original land of fruits and nuts–the great state of California. Avoid this one at all costs…trolling for the dollars of unsuspecting and unwary consumers
I checked out the website for Lynne Boutross and the quacking noise is deafening. When you examine where she got her degrees (a school with post secondary accreditation in the State of Alabama) and the time it took to earn her “Masters” and “Ph.D” (one year), I am amazed that anyone would pay the fee that she commands ($200/hr). What is most disturbing is her claims of expertise in health, communication, intuition, and relationships coupled with rather liberal doses of “sought after by the media” and “internationally acclaimed speaker”. According to whom? For me, this demonstrates a need to rein in these marketing tactics coupled with the use of questionable credentials so as to protect the public from these types of practices. I was especially leary of the disclaimer that appears on the contact portion of her website telling you not to rely on anything contained in her website and urging the reader to see a doctor if they think there is a medical issue. It begs the question “then, why pay you $200/hr for any reason?”
What these quacks get away with simply amazes me! In examining the site of Lynne Boutross, one discovers that she obtained a Ph.D. in the course of one year from some holistic mumbo jumbo school in Alabama(a State not known for the production of many Rhodes Scholars); she was investigated by the State of Washington for practicing psychotherapy and other disciplines which, under Washington law, required a license; she had a YouTube video professing to provide clarity to callers calling in during a radio show which she later pulled off the Internet due to negative commentary; and now, she is participating in retreat program called the “Enneagram and the Soul” which is another holistic attempt to pigeonhole people based on personality traits. This woman charges $200/hr to tell you how f’d up you are with the hope of sucking you in and keeping you on a weekly basis by appointments in one of her many “offices” (usually shared spaces with other therapists) or by telephone because, according to her, she is clairvoyant and can provide these services without actually being present with you. Seriously, folks, is this how you want to spend your hard earned dollars? Are we, as consumers, that gullable so as to allow ourselves to be manipulated by this master of doublespeak. I think not. At the very least, it is time to rein in these so called spiritual coaches by requiring licenses and proof of credible academic credentials.