Tetherd Cow Ahead

I know, Faithful Acowlytes, that when I don’t post much for a while, you’re all out there thinking ‘Oh he’s off gallivanting around again, pretending he’s got a life or something’ but no, it’s just not true! As usual, this last week or so I have been spending every moment of my spare time in the Tetherd Cow Ahead laboratories helping the boffins with our never-ending quest to invent new ways to make the world a better place. And these last few days we have made progress that I think you will agree is thoroughly mind-boggling.

My friends, let me introduce to you our brand new product: TC Energy Water:

As you are no doubt aware, water is very important to our well being, and we should all make sure we get enough of it to keep ourselves properly hydrated. Something which you might not know, though, is that the water that comes from your tap is lacking in vital energy! Yes, Cowpokes, all that bouncing around in pipes and plumbing has robbed our water of its magical life-giving properties until it is a mere trickle of its former self. To that end, the boffins and I have begun the manufacture of special glassware that, using designs that are based on music converted into spatial dimensions, will revitalize your water back to its mountain spring origins!

Just let your water sit for three minutes in the TC Energy Carafe, pictured above, and in…

Hang on a second Acowlytes – someone is waving their hand around like a mad thing in the back there. What, dinahmow? What is it? What’s that you say? NO! Someone has already done it? Tarnation! Cowmrades! The woo-meisters have pipped us at the post again!

Yes folks, let me direct your attention today to TC Energy Designs’ ‘structured water’ products, a range of glassware that will take common old water and turn it into a magic elixir that will banish all your earthly woes.

There is so much brainless nit-wittery on this site that it’s hard to pick a place to start, so let’s just commence with the home page:

The uniqueness of TC Energy Design glassware lies in its revitalising effect on water. The shape and form of the glassware generates an energising resonance pattern that restores the water within – and improves the surrounding environment – with subtle waves of harmonic resonance.

Yes, you read it right: not only do the TC Energy Design products ‘improve’ things you put in them, they ‘improve’ everything else in the room too! (They don’t appear to ‘improve’ anyone’s ability to think sensibly, unfortunately.)

This first page also features an inevitable and completely unsurprising reference to Dr Masaru Emoto and his notions of ‘unhappy water’ (which we’ve covered previously on the Cow), but we’ll come back to them in a bit. For now, let’s move onward to the TC Energy Design About Water page:

Water revitalisation is the act of shifting the energetic memory of water (whether it is purified or not) back to it’s state as found in nature. Revitalised water has been shown to have different effects on living systems than water that is not revitalised.

It hasn’t ‘been shown’ in any scientific studies that I’ve ever seen. Just like it’s ((That’s the correct way to use the apostrophe in the word, by the way.)) never been shown that water has ANY kind of ‘memory’ either. The makers of TC Energy Design glassware claim that wine tastes better out of their products as well, so the ‘energetic memory shift’ apparently restores alcoholic beverages to the way they’re found in nature too. Or something.

But, my dear Acowlytes, why are we wasting time on the introductory pages of the TC Energy Design site when there’s a link to a Science page? That’s just gotta be the goldmine, right? Let’s take a squiz:

The cascading design of 6 sequential sections, with the volume of each section corresponding to one of the first 6 numbers of the universal Fibonacci sequence, aligns with the geometry found everywhere in nature. Revitalised water shows a 6-sided crystalline structure which corresponds to its increased level of energy and life force.

That’s very technical, so I’ll just simplify it a bit:

‘Our hard working unicorns spend every day gamboling in the candy floss meadows until the pixies bring them home to the gingerbread stables…’

Once again, we see a witless attempt to forge stupid, brainless links between nonsense and science. So the Fibonacci sequence occurs in nature – I bet you thought you were sitting on the same bench as Einstein when you read that somewhere, didn’t you Ms TC ED? So what? There are a shitload of number sequences that ‘are found everywhere in nature’: how on Earth does the Fibonacci sequence bestow any particular special powers? That’s right, it doesn’t. Because you’ve found some mathematics in nature, you think there must be something magical about that, but you know what? Mathematics occurs EVERYWHERE in nature. Making an arbitrary link between the Fibonacci sequence and water is completely nonsensical. Why not link the Lorenz equations to water? Or numbers like phi or tau? Why doesn’t a spherical bottle bestow its restorative powers on water, via the magical influence of pi?

In the same way, why do you think the number 6 is particularly ‘special’? Just because a nutty old geezer like Dr Emoto says it is (he himself admits he doesn’t have any science underlying his beliefs)? If you’re going to put stuff like that on a ‘science’ page you’d better be very careful because sooner or later someone who knows this stuff is going to run you through with the sharpened end of a harmonic series.

But wait, I’ve just noticed: there are some diagrams here as well! That’s impressive, right? There are some graphs that show that red squiggly lines and blue squiggly lines can exist at different places on the same page! And there’s another graph that shows that one column is above a red line and the other is below! Neither of these are actually linked to anything and both are unreadable.

What. Is. That. Supposed. To. Prove?

Boringly, there is also MORE lame unhappy water crystal bollocks. Hey, look, I’ve got science too! It’s based on daisy petal science – did you know that the number that determines how many petals on a daisy always falls on the Fibonacci sequence?!!! ((It doesn’t really – I lied. But you see how EASY that was! And the only people who picked it up are the ones reading this footnote!))

If that doesn’t convince you to read Tetherd Cow every day, I give up!

There are also a bunch of quotes from various supposed science authorities. The first one is from ‘a Japanese laboratory’, which is an impressive endorsement I think you will agree. I wonder if it’s the laboratory at the Japanese Ministry of Health, who were so persuasive with their test results for Shoo!TAG?

The second quote from a Paul Sommer of Schleusingen ((I don’t know what that’s supposed to herald – Schleusingen is just a tiny town in Germany. The attribution is like saying ‘John Doe of West Wyalong’)) and the third from the Laboratory of E. F. Braun at Burgistein. ((Burgistein, likewise, is a tiny municipality in Bern, Switzerland. Neither Burgistein or Schleusingen have universities or similar properly accredited scientific institutions, to my knowledge.)) Let’s see what those names throw up in a search, shall we? Oh what a surprise – mostly links back to TC Energy Design sites throughout the world, or to TC Energy Design promotional literature like this [image-heavy pdf]. Not even the smallest whiff of any science, even though there is no doubt that the intention of those quotes is unmistakeably to give you the impression that science has been done. ((Of course the real indicator here is that the quotes are not actually linked to anything. REAL science gets hot-linked quick smart – I don’t think I have to tell you the reason for that…))

There is much else on the TC Energy Designs site that I could hang out to dry, but I’m sure you get the drift by now. The Science page contains one more thing on which I’ll comment, though. It’s something that seems a little bit out of place among supposed corroborative science, but is, I think, the most enlightening thing on the whole site, and is also, quite self-evidently, at the very heart of the TC ED philosophy. It is this aspiration, proclaimed in the biggest font on the page:

“A TC carafe on every table on the planet!”

Oh yes, I really bet they’d like that. At friggin’ $770.00 a pop, that would do very nicely indeed, sir. ((Do people REALLY spend that kind of money on this rubbish. I observe again that I am really in the wrong business. If only I could get rid of this damn conscience of mine.))

Anyway, I won’t go on any more. Do visit the TC Energy Design site if you have time. It will give you a really good feel for the incredible level of fruitloopery out there. For now, I’ll just leave you with the TC Energy Design disclaimer:

TC products are not connected with any kind of statements about healing nor do they confirm the exertion of influence on the course of an illness. The use of TC products are free of promises for increased well-being and requires the self-responsible action of the person applying the products.

Let me make that a little clearer for you, dear friends:

‘We’re selling you products for which we make grandiose claims for amazing effects on your well-being, but actually we don’t stand behind any of them. And anyway, if our products don’t do any of the things WE claim, it’s YOUR fault.’