Reply With QuoteEasy enough to test. If you're willing to watch someone die of dehydration/starvation.
I got interested if this has been discussed here: people not eating and feeding on solar energy? "Living on sunlight" did not return much. it's hard to think of suitable search phrases.
So, they claim they don't eat (or it is conveyed this way by media in the headings). If you read the bs story further, you find out they do drink juices, milk, tea with honey, suck (NOT EAT! :D) chocolate or candies. But that all is irrelevant, it turns out. The point is they feed from solar energy! They stare at the sun and take in energy...
Apart from the fact that they are outright bouncers, they still do eat even if they were not lying. "Not chewing" are the right words here.
Nikolay Dorlgorukiy is one of them; he is from the Ukraine. Am I surprised to learn that he does healing and exorcism, and "corrections of fortune"? No. He used to burn the bad spirits in the astral realm... but not anymore. Now he just asks an angel to open the door for them to another world.
Another one is Hira Ratan Manek, engineer (this makes it more credible, does'nt it), from India. Drinking water only for more than a year. And eating sun. And it was confirmed by a number of Indian doctors...
But wait... Zinaida Baranova from Russia can beat that. She does not eat (nor chew) nor drink anything, not even water. She says she uptakes water through her lungs from the air. And again, doctors have had a good look at her and established that her blood pressure and teeth are ideal. Her breathing is two times slower, and the body temperature does not exceed 36 degrees Celsius. And here comes the punchline:
The doctors were shocked when they used VOLL's DIAGNOSTICS on her and the device showed that the elderly lady is healthier than an 18 years old girl.
This was a very short outcry on an article I just read in a magazine that is cleverly mixing woo and innocent and credible information - like interviews with real people etc. In this way, they try to cheat (and they do have succeeded) around falling under the "odd magazine for odd people" category.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...
Easy enough to test. If you're willing to watch someone die of dehydration/starvation.
No doubt about that.Originally Posted by asthmatic camel
I was more aiming at the fact that mass media have the guts to spread this utter nonsense, which is not even based on ghosts at least.
*SHRUG*
Bullshit stories sell bullshit papers, which idiots like to read. You can't help fools.
Sad. But yes - SHRUG.
Surely, they don't need to die - just let them get to the point where it's obvious to everyone else whether they were telling the truth or not (whether they're sane enough to admit it or not).
How about a new TV show "Celebrity Idiocy"
People who make outrageous claims like this have their assertions tested under controlled circumstances and the highlights shown on TV. A couple of weeks living on sunlight, should prove quite entertaining.
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. Voltaire
Week 1: Those who Live on Light vs. 'Dr' Gillian McKeith, the Poo Lady
Purveyor of ADE 651 or other similar equipment in a room with hidden explosives and 15 minutes on the timer.
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. Voltaire
What a great show that would be
I think it was on the JREF forum, where somebody wrote that skeptic tests of wooers could be made TV shows. Many others said that they would not be too entertaining for the average (and not only them) TV audience: even edited, they'd be long, tedious and , most importantly, the constant failures (of wooers) would be boring.
But "a purveyor of ADE 651 or other similar equipment in a room with hidden explosives and 15 minutes on the timer" - wouldn't that skyrocket TV ratings?
Another episode could be "Homeopaths breaking their/their relative's limbs and then healing the fractures in an hour". (well, homeopathy is not relevant here. It's just that recently I came across two interviews with homeopaths [who are MDs, and must be MD to practice homeopathy here]. One claimed that she healed (with good thoughts) her daughter's fractured palm before they reached the hospital; the other claimed she healed (with her good thoughts again) her arm fraction, and again - while being taken to hospital). Obviously, they are either making it up or there never was a fraction in the first place. And the former was in an interview in a national-scale magazine about health, called Health.
Obviously they should be banned from practicing medicine, but I don't see how it could be achieved unless they try to heal with good thoughts a fractured limb of a person who is their official patient...
The term you were looking for is Breatharian.
http://www.ukskeptics.com/forum/show...ht=breatharian
http://www.ukskeptics.com/forum/show...ht=breatharian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inedia
Sarah Jacob
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_girlsA tragic case was that of Sarah Jacob (May 12, 1857-December 17, 1869), the "Welsh fasting girl," who claimed not to be eating any food at all after the age of twelve. A local vicar, initially skeptical, became convinced that the case was authentic. She enjoyed a long period of publicity, during which she received numerous gifts and donations from people who believed she was miraculous; but doctors were becoming increasingly skeptical about her claims.
Doctors eventually proposed that she be monitored in a hospital environment to see whether her claims about fasting were true. In 1869, her parents agreed for a test to be conducted under strict supervision by nurses from Guy's Hospital. The nurses were instructed not to deny Sarah Jacob food if she asked for it, but to see that any she got was observed and recorded. After two weeks, she was showing clear signs of starvation.
The vicar told the parents that she was failing and that the nurses ought to be sent away so that she could get food. The parents refused. They continued to refuse even when informed that the girl was dying, insisting that they had frequently seen her like this before and that lack of food had nothing to do with her symptoms. Sarah Jacob died of starvation a few days later because she had actually been consuming very little amounts of food secretly, which she could no longer do under medical supervision. Her parents were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to hard labour.
skb
"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer" - Zaphod Beeblebrox
"This post may be edited to make it more wrong" - skb
"Ignorance is no basis for rewriting the laws of physics" - Pebble
"I am a scientist, with a beard to prove it. This makes me an authority on nothing other than the growing and maintenance of facial hair" - skb
Thanks skbuncks!
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