Following on from yesterdays diatribe about the insanely poor level of science knowledge amongst teachers (apparently) I revisited the site today to see what new comments had arrived. Fortunately most were sensible then I stumbled upon this one: (as always, emphasis mine)

I enjoy reading your column and I agree with this one when you criticise the puesdoscience.

Is it just me, or do start phrases like this ring alarm bells for everyone… you just know there is a “but…” coming.

But Brain Gym is a ‘technology’ not a science: it does not ‘prove’ it ‘enables’.

Wow. First off, the criticisms were never leveled at the process of “brain gym” but entirely at the science supporting it. Sadly this fact appears to have escaped this commenter.

What on Earth, in this context, does enables mean? Why is it used? Has double-speak become so embedded in our society?

Of course you are right to be sceptical about the simplistic explanations and the single source endorsement … but you have a fully formed frontal lobe and are expert in making complex decisions, concentration etc. When you have lost these things through an accident or they have not fully formed because of age, then these sorts of exercises are useful…. and I know you are not against the exercises …

But since your radar is focussed on Brain Gym permit me a few words in it’s defence outside of ’school’:

No, Ben Goldacre’s radar was fixed on the bad science behind Brain Gym. The commenter even acknowledges that in the previous sentence.

I had a major Road Traffic Accident caused by a drunk driver and I had suffered with brain injury problems for 12 years before Brain Gym helped me eradicate some really ingrained inconvenient behaviours. I had been an in-patient on a Pain Management course for 4 weeks at St Thomas’s Hospital London which included a cognitive component which helped with the effects of trauma but Brain Gym has helped ( and helps) in every day living.

Anecdotal evidence is not data to support a scientific theory. Without appearing unduly harsh over this persons suffering, there is nothing to support the fact Brain Gym helped them get better. More importantly, there is even LESS to support the fact that the science behind Brain Gym helped.

Suggesting people do exercises and drink more water is fine. Saying it should be done because of pseudo-science presented by highly paid charlatans is not. Nothing can justify that. The money spent getting the con-men into to give the Brain Gym lessons to the hospital therapists would be better spent actually getting drugs and treatments that work.

If you need the fake science to bother with the advice from health care professionals that is a bad day for all.

Every year approximately two-hundred thousand people sustain a brain injury of some sort in the UK alone. The effects of the injuries are usually for life, therefore the number of people living with brain injury will rise year on year.

This is sad, but none will be cured by Brain Gym.

Headway – the UK’s leading brain injury charity – provides support, services and information to brain injury survivors, their families and carers as well as professionals (health, legal etc).

Good for them. Spend the money actually helping not waving snake oil in their faces.

The problem is that Brain Gym has not been fully researched and is not on the syllabus for Physiotherapists so these 200,000 brain injured people get no ‘day to day’ benefit from these simple exercise!!

It is not fully researched because it is as scientific as flying spaghetti monsters creating the universe. The claims it makes have been researched independently of “Brain Gym” ideas and do not add up to the brain gym. You can not massage your carotic artery through your rib cage. No matter how much people try to research it…