Spoon-bending workshop, widely ridiculed online, pulled by university

[friendly_iconoclast]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/spoon-bending-workshop-widely-ridiculed-online-pulled-by-university-1.3615916

'There is absolutely no physical way you can bend a spoon with your mind'

After a healthy dose of online ridicule, the University of Alberta has cancelled a workshop at which doctors were supposed to learn to bend spoons.

With their minds.

When Tim Caulfield first spotted a poster for the event, he didn't understand what he was seeing.

"When I first saw the post I thought it might be a magic show," said the professor of health law and science policy at U of A. "But this wasn't being presented as that, or as satire, it was being presented as a real event where you're supposed to use the power of your mind to bend spoons."

The seminar, titled simply "Spoon Bending and the Power of the Mind," was arranged by the university's Complementary and Alternative Research and Education program or CARE, as part of the Pediatric Integrative Medicine Rounds, a series of monthly seminars presenting a specialist in the field of integrative medicine to a clinical audience.

Imagine my lack of surprise when I read that this was to have been
"taught" by a Reiki practitioner...

[Archae]

1. Any connection to Uri "Fraud" Geller?

And people, this is woo.

Just as credible as anti-vaxx and anti-GMO hysterics.

[yellowcanine]

6. Uri Geller

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller

[skepticscott]

2. Any time you see the word "Integrative"

as part of the name of a medical program, you know that's a sure sign of woo. It's a code word that's been adopted by those people because it sounds so reasonable on the surface, but it's really just empty bullshit.

[flying rabbit]

3. There is no spoon. nt

[DetlefK]

4. Mind-bending, isn't it?

[yellowcanine]

7. Start out with 10 spoons and remove them one at a time until no spoons are left....

Then they bend that spoon.

[progressoid]

5. speechless.

[SheilaT]

8. Oh, I think it would have been giant fun to attend.

I'd be more disappointed that it was cancelled if I lived near enough to have considered going.