It's been said that 'faith is believing what you know ain't true.' Faithful believers typically deny that faith is anything like that, arguing that 'faith' can somehow be reasonable. Occasionally, though, we witness breathtaking examples of faith being held in direct contradiction to evidence.

The November/December 2005 Skeptical Inquirer reports on a TV news investigation of GMX, a firm that sells magnets which are supposed to reduce calcium in home water supplies. Tests showed that the magnets did nothing:

Larry Brown [a distributors of GMX] agreed to be interviewed, and he tried his best to answer Barker’s difficult questions. Barker asked him if seeing evidence that his systems didn’t work would ever change his mind about them, and Brown answered that it would not — that he’d heard from too many satisfied customers to ever doubt the magnets’ utility.

So, Larry Brown will put anecdotal evidence over scientific testing. Why? Well, you don’t suppose that he makes a living selling these magnets has anything to do with it, do you? You don’t suppose that he’ll tell people that while he has had lots of satisfied customers, scientific tests show that the magnets are worthless, do you?

No, I don’t think so either.

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Larry Brown that customers might be satisfied even without the magnets accomplishing anything. People don’t want to think that they have spend money foolishly, and these magnet systems aren’t cheap, so people are likely to latch on to whatever positive signs they can find in order to feel better about the purchase. Brown also doesn’t mention whether he’s received complaints — surely he doesn’t have a perfect track record?

 

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