Learning objectives

• MUST know that businessmen sell worthless products for good money

• SHOULD be able to detect bogus science• COULD be able to explain why bogus science

is false

1) What kind of person do you think this product is aimed at?

2) How do you think the product is used?

3) Look at the features of the packaging design. How does each feature make it a more desirable product?

4) Would you buy this product or recommend it to someone else? Why / why not?

Now look at the back….

5) How does this information affect your attitude towards the product?

6) What do you think the sticky brown stuff is? Where does it come from?

Read the following excerpt from “Bad Science” by Dr Ben Goldacre:

“The first thing on the list is ‘pyroligneous acid’, or wood vinegar. This is a brown powder which is highly ‘hygroscopic’, a word which simply means that it attracts and absorbs water, like those little silicon bags that come in electronic equipment packaging. If there is any moisture around, wood vinegar will absorb it, and make a brown mush which feels warm against your skin.”

7) Does the information in the excerpt affect your attitude towards the product? How?8) Look again at your answer for question 6. Do you still feel the same, why?9) Do you think it would be reasonable for a customer to believe that the brown stuff came out of the wearer’s body?10) Look on the box and see if you can find a claim that the product leeches toxins out of the body.11) Design an experiment to test whether the patches leech toxins out of the body.

Choose a task:

• Create an advertisement designed to make people want to buy detox patches.

OR• Write to your local newspaper complaining

about the patches.OR• Write to your local politician and urge him to

try to make detox patches illegal