Yada will kill you with his detox


Right now, a lot of people are sitting around, jaws agape, at this fervent crackpot, YADA. I figure everyone’s mandibular condyle needs a good workout, so I’m sharing.

Beware of the BLACK devils!!!!!! Having a menstrual cycle is unhealthy and the only reason a woman has one is because her body is sick. The same people that told you about your menstrual cycle are the same ones that gave you your diet… Yada

Posted by YADA on Monday, March 7, 2016

Obviously, this is bad science and non-factual, despite the vehemence of his assertions.

Basically, he’s a huckster, peddling what he calls a “detox” with a mixture of religion, charisma, and bad racial history. He says it is not a diet, although he also does a lot of fat-shaming and promoting his “detox” as a weight loss scheme. Despite being not-a-diet, he also makes strong claims about what you should eat: no meat, but also no wheat, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, bananas, celery, or starches because they are “all man made” and “acidic”.

This is actually a very common quack nutrition claim, that the pH of a food is somehow deleterious or beneficial, and that the wrong foods can “acidify” your body. Of course, your body is actually pretty good at stabilizing at a narrow, constant pH, and eating a banana isn’t going to send you spiraling into acidosis. It’s also the case that everything you eat is going to have a mix of acidic and basic components. I don’t think his grasp of biochemistry is very strong.

If it’s acid-based it’s not natural. Only carbon-based diets are natural.

I agree that only carbon-based diets are good for you — that rock salt diet will kill you — but will his brain explode if he learns that most of the acids in your diet are also carbon-based?

But a lot of his advice is just plain dangerous. He claims that African women have a different biochemistry than white women, and further, that menstruation is unnatural and bad for you. So he’s advocating a diet (excuse me, detox) that he claims will gradually make your periods disappear.

That’s easy. Low fat, starvation diets will shut down the cycle, and you’ll also lose weight. That’s not a good thing. Fasting until your periods stop is probably not a wise nutritional choice.

Furthermore, if you suffered any pain during childbirth it’s your own fault — with the proper diet detox, labor is painless, because, as he claims,

Nothing that is natural is painful.

Apparently, Neil deGrasse Tyson has been learning his biology from Yada lately.

Oh, and he does have a lot of praise for mathematics, as I’m sure you mathematicians will be pleased to hear. It’s fundamental to science, don’t you know, so he has equations.

blood + waste = death
blood – waste = life

That’s not math, I want to scream. Those are non sequiturs inappropriately linked by simple arithmetic operators.

He has a youtube channel that is full of entertaining lunacy. I’ve learned that white people come from Mars. Literally. Do you know why white people can’t dance? Because Mars vibrates at a different frequency than the Earth.

It’s good to have an explanation for that. I’ll tell my wife.

Comments

  1. says

    As I said on a facebook discussion about this clown, it amuses me that in Japanese, Yada (short for ‘iya da’) is essentially ‘do not want’.

  2. wzrd1 says

    Well, he blundered into one thing nearly true, white people and women are people, do have slight differences than black and Mediterranean peoples, as the latter two groups retain sodium. It’s an adaption to hot climates. That sodium-potassium pump thing being slightly important.
    Of course, even money, he’d love to suggest beans. That’s wonderful for things like Fava beans and G6PD deficiency, ya can’t beat getting dead from diet!

    I’d be tempted to ask him about DNA, of course, spelling it out, as in, is it bad for you? Then, follow and ask if HCl is a bad thing in the body. Are oxides harmful? How about hydrogen monoxide? Hydroxic acid?
    Well, excuse me, I have to get some hydrol and carbon based food.

  3. grumpyoldfart says

    I give up on these videos when the commentator says, “Yo unstan wom sayin’.” This guy took 13 seconds.

  4. magistramarla says

    My, but this guy is afraid of women. I’m wondering whether this is another example of the failure to properly teach sex education in this country. When I was in school many eons ago, we learned all about how our bodies worked in both health class and biology class. I don’t think that many of us would have believed any of this. We would be too busy laughing.
    This kind of ignorance is what one expects in third world countries, not in this one. How far down the combination of religion and the poor science education that those religious wingnuts have advocated have brought this country!

  5. blf says

    blood + waste = death
    blood – waste = life

    Assuming the operators are the usual ones, solving those equations we get:

      blood = death – waste = life + waste

    so

      death – life = 2 waste

    “Death minus life is to waste” — sounds pseudo-zen to me, or something that Deepak Chopra would burble, so it must be true (for hard-to-determine values of “true” not known to reality).

    (This snark is not to ignore the dangers of this loon’s “advice”!)

  6. leerudolph says

    Oh, and he does have a lot of praise for mathematics, as I’m sure you mathematicians will be pleased to hear. It’s fundamental to science, don’t you know, so he has equations.

    blood + waste = death
    blood – waste = life

    So, 2*blood=death+life, whence (assuming 2 is invertible in this system) blood is the average of death and life. It’s amazing what you can learn on the Internet!

    [ETA: blf derives a different, but equally amazing, result!! Mathematics is GREAT!!!]

  7. wzrd1 says

    One thing I neglected to mention earlier.
    When I was younger, I used to actually chew rock salt. As I’m not mid-50’s, I figured that adding salt to current hypertension was a lousy idea and discontinued that practice in my 40’s.
    After all, the dose makes the poison. Something yutz doesn’t realize. Well, that and junior high school level chemistry.

  8. peptron says

    So I now know that I must stay away from acids because they are unnatural, like ascorbic acid and those pesky amino acids. But then, is carbonic acid natural or not? I rememer falling during a walk in the forest and it hurt quite a bit. So I take it the forest wasn’t natural. Does that mean that Dark City was a documentary? It’s all so confusing.

  9. says

    …and apparently cauliflower doesn’t contain carbon.

    Dear Lord, if you truly exist, save us from these Ashy Ankh Hoteps and their fucked up scientificals.

  10. wzrd1 says

    Crap! My soup was contaminated with μ-Oxido dihydrogen, unnatural plants and wheat (I’m guessing in his world, wheat is a mineral or something).
    But then, I’m accustomed to eating the most unnatural food ever created, military MRE’s (Meal, Ready to eat), such false advertising. With the early models, if you failed to eat each component, it was like swallowing cement mix. Flavor was not part of the consideration.

  11. wzrd1 says

    However, carbonless μ-Oxido dihydrogen may be a permissible substitute. Perhaps we need to have that clarified?

  12. says

    Sadly, he’s not the first guy who convince himself that menstruation is unnatural. I guess it’s just one of those things that are easy to hit on if you’re a bit of a crank and have problems relating to women.

  13. prae says

    As a physicist (even as a failed one) I want to scream every time one of those quacks says “vibration” or “frequency”. Even “quantum” isn’t as bad. Reminds me of some similar stuff about “acid = evil”, where they recommented lemon water for it’s alkalinity. I don’t even about this.

  14. =8)-DX says

    “Water lacks carbon”
    Sparkling water is the most natural kind! That and coal-mine drainage.

  15. peptron says

    @17 =8)-DX:
    But when it comes down to it, coal ash is just dead plants! And everybody knows that anything from plants is good. Oxygen, fruits, vegetables, cars, coal power, nuclear power, all things coming from plants. I’d pass a law promoting the shift from humus to coal ash to fertilize fields, since the first is just dead plants, while the latter is dead plants from plants, making it twice as good. In America, anything is possible!

  16. blf says

    [E]verybody knows that anything from plants is good.

    Hemlock every day for better health!

    Contains carbon!!

    Coniine, the active poison, is an alkaloid, so is probably not an acid!!!

    You too can be Socrates!!!!

  17. iankoro says

    #3:

    I give up on these videos when the commentator says, “Yo unstan wom sayin’.” This guy took 13 seconds.

    Uh… there are plenty of valid reasons to criticize this guy. The fact that he’s speaking using African American vernacular is not one of them.

  18. newfie says

    I’m having trouble deciding whether he plays right field for the Pittsburgh Ankhs in the 70s, or is Sousaphone player in an Egyptian marching band.

  19. says

    Strychnine is alcalic. As well as many other, ahem, alkaloids. And they all contain carbon. I guess those are good for your health then?

  20. tkreacher says

    grumpyoldfart #3

    I give up on commentators when they say “flied lice”, or when they say they “pahkd their cah in the yahd”, or “ya’ll fixin'”, or well, whenever they don’t speak Standard Oxford King’s White King’s English, because anyone with an accent, regional, or cultural dialect can’t possibly have anything intelligent to say.

  21. thirdmill says

    #21:

    I respectfully disagree. I’m fine with vernacular being used in informal settings. But this guy is pretending to make a formal science presentation, and the only way to be taken seriously is to use language that at least sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. (That he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about is a separate issue.) It would be like a trial lawyer showing up for court wearing a ratty t-shirt and torn jeans: The arguments would be just as good as if they were being made by somebody wearing a suit, but nobody’s going to take them seriously.

    The only way to get ahead in any field is to command respect, and “Yo unstan wom sayin” doesn’t do it.

  22. says

    Nomadiq @ 16:

    2) Is anyone outside an extreme fringe taking this seriously?

    I’m afraid so. Check the comments on the video PZ linked. (There aren’t many, won’t take long.)

  23. says

    thirdmill:

    The only way to get ahead in any field is to command respect, and “Yo unstan wom sayin” doesn’t do it.

    Oh FFS. It doesn’t “do it” for you. It seems to “do it” just fine for a lot of people, many of them non-white. I expect that’s key.
    All of you privileged people who have the luxury to moan and whine over accents or speak you don’t like, how about you all shut the fuck up? The important bit worth discussing is some rather scary pseudoscience, and there will be people out there who thinks this shit makes sense, and that’s a serious problem, on with roots in both our lousy educational system, and the ever ongoing institutional racism on display.

  24. says

    #25

    I respectfully ask you to go fuck yourself.

    You could have just not watched and spared us the racist “I can’t understand his accent” whining.

  25. says

    <sarcasm>Yeah, and those lady scientists need to sit down and shut up so I don’t have to listen to upspeak and vocal fry.

    And when guys do those things, like they do all the time, it makes them sound womanly and weak.</sarcasm>

  26. Vivec says

    @25
    I’m seconding Feminace. Take your racist shit and fuck off. Using AAVE isn’t somehow unbefitting talking about science. Thinking that English is some neutral no-accent dialect that is clearer or “more professional” than other dialects is part of the problem.

  27. Sili says

    “pahkd their cah in the yahd”

    is

    Standard Oxford King’s White King’s English

  28. Ice Swimmer says

    That guy speaks clear enough English that even a non-native speaker such as myself doesn’t have a hard time understanding what he says. He can easily be judged by the content of his speech and the judgment is: Bullshit.

  29. Ice Swimmer says

    And if the dialect would’ve been unintelligible, it would be hard to pass any judgment…

  30. robro says

    I listened to exactly 16 seconds. I’ve spent enough of my life doing that.

    As a person with an often derided accent, I would like to ask a group some time for a show of hands of anyone who doesn’t have an accent. It might be amusing. In the coarse of my life, I’ve had several people actually tell me they don’t have an accent. Of course, if you speak like John Carson you don’t have an accent.

    While the ankh on the hat is interesting, does anyone recognize the big “U” link symbol on his shirt?

  31. thirdmill says

    27, 28 and 30, if it makes you feel better to call me a racist, knock yourselves out, but which of us is doing him the bigger favor: The one who comisserates with him about how the world should be different than it is, or the one who tells him that if he wants to succeed in the world as it actually is, he needs to make a good impression? Reality, by the way, does not give a shit about what you think is or is not fair.

    If I found myself living somewhere where I was not the dominant culture, I would accept as a given that I needed to conform to them rather than expect them to conform to me. It’s not about one culture being superior to another; it’s about recognizing that whomever is in the majority will organize things to suit themselves, and then playing the game to get ahead in that culture. And whether you like it or not, using vernacular in a business or academic setting virtually guarantees that he will go nowhere in a hurry.

    And by the way, if you’re going to call me a bigot, you should refrain from using sexist and homophobic expressions such as “fuck yourself,” which imply that being the bottom in a sexual experience is degrading. As such, it is insulting to both women and gay men. Pot, kettle.

  32. Vivec says

    Reality, by the way, does not give a shit about what you think is or is not fair.

    And reinforcing said racism does nothing to make it less unfair. So, you know, fuck yourself.

    And whether you like it or not, using vernacular in a business or academic setting virtually guarantees that he will go nowhere in a hurry.

    Because said business and academic settings exist in a racist culture that stigmatizes perfectly valid dialects for being associated with people of color. There’s nothing inherently unprofessional about AAVE.

    And by the way, if you’re going to call me a bigot, you should refrain from using sexist and homophobic expressions such as “fuck yourself,” which imply that being the bottom in a sexual experience is degrading. As such, it is insulting to both women and gay men. Pot, kettle.

    wat.jpg

    Ignoring the blatant tu quoque fallacy, even if telling someone to “go fuck themselves” was some kind of oblique reference to being a bottom in sex, there’s nothing about that which is unique to women or gay men. Sexually submissive straight men exist, and are almost certainly more frequent than gay men of the same persuasion, given simple population size.

  33. says

    Hey thirdmill, this black queer women is continuing to tell you to go fuck yourself. And no matter how much you try to twist that into some sort of homophobic and sexist insult, we’re not buying it.

    Go peddle your racist bullshit elsewhere. Dude wasn’t in a business or academic setting in the first damn place.

    Again, you could have say fucking nothing.

  34. says

    Of course, Thirdmill is happy to enforce racial and class barriers in business and academic settings.

    But that’s not racist at all.

  35. wzrd1 says

    Really now, isn’t telling someone to fuck oneself actually making the individual both top and bottom?

    As for use of vernacular and mangling the language, I’m notorious for intentionally torturing English nearly neigh unto death. It was a useful thing to capture the attention of soldiers, when I was training them in combat medicine and field sanitation.
    Things like using “more gooder”, when questioned as to what is more gooder than gooder, I’d correct with “what’s more gooderer than gooder is butter”.
    The more important the point being taught, the greater the atrocity I committed upon the language.
    The students quickly picked up a sudden shift from proper English into oddly constructed idioms to define an important point.
    Other points used, such as when examining visually a water sample, one examines for clarity and turbidity initially. So, “Is it clear? Are there sea monkeys swimming in it?”.
    I had a field sanitation NCO come to me a decade later and recall the turbidity examination and the sea monkeys line. He also recalled precisely every important point involved.
    Some, don’t conduct that trick intentionally, but that’s simply the local accent and use of language. That doesn’t detract from intellect or a point being made, if it’s a valid point.
    Rather like in the film, “My cousin Vinnie”, with the word “youse” and other Philadelphia slang terms.
    Or, in North Philly, the “chumpie”, which I occasionally use today. It’s a wildcard, either used to refer to one’s male member or for a forgotten word, such as a Badgley retractor, whose name briefly escaped one during surgery. The team know the tools that doctor wants, “Give me the, uh, chumpie”.
    Yes, that’s actually happened. No ire from the surgeon, I was handed the tool that he needed, when he needed it.

  36. says

    OK, thirdmill, let’s see you apply that to yourself.

    The one who comisserates with him about how the world should be different than it is, or the one who tells him that if he wants to succeed in the world as it actually is, he needs to make a good impression?

    You are currently making a very bad impression here with your habit of policing accents, of all things. If you want to succeed in this world right here, maybe you should stop? Or are you going to continue to insist that we change to look the other way, away from your racist assumption?

  37. says

    Feminace @ 37:

    Dude wasn’t in a business or academic setting in the first damn place.

    What? Youtube is not a world renowned academy of science? I am just fucking shocked to my core, I am. Oh my yes.

  38. says

    thirdmill:

    It’s not about one culture being superior to another

    Yes, it is about that, you racist, bigoted dipshit. You are a big ol’ part of the problem, too. Sometimes I wish privilege was like a rug, so I could yank it out from under asses like yourself, in the rudest way possible.

  39. throwaway, butcher of tongues, mauler of metaphor says

    I think diddums is most upset that people won’t tolerate the intolerance toward the absence of properly code-switched language. After all, we invented it and we get to set the rules for how you use it and if you do not, well then, you’re not like us. And given that we are superior, I’ll leave you one guess as to what that makes the rest of you.

    And they think it’s about coddling the black man. Nope. It’s about our reluctance to coddle the fragile white ego.

  40. says

    It’s respectability politics, just focused on speech rather than clothing. Bullshit is bullshit, and bigotry is bigotry.

  41. wzrd1 says

    I don’t know about inventing the language, none of my family line came from England and hence, have had no input on the language.

    That said, it isn’t about coddling a fragile white ego, it’s more about not coddling a willful asshole.
    While an insensitive comment may be made in error, not acknowledging and apologizing for a gaffe proves the individual an asshole. Willful in the refusal to recognize offense or even a point of view to the point of which, he might as well dropped the N bomb and called it a day.

  42. thirdmill says

    PZ, my intention was not to police anyone’s accent, nor was it to say that one culture or language is better than another. It was no more and no less than to point out that Behavior X produces Result Y, and the consequence of using vernacular when you’re trying to make yourself out to be someone knowledgeable about science is that a lot of people won’t take you seriously. Kind of like showing up for a job interview in your underwear. Vernacular is just not the language spoken by academics. Respectfully, if you spoke like that when you were talking about biology, don’t you think you’d lose people? Regardless of whether that’s how it ought to be, that’s how it is.

    That said, if it’s impossible to even discuss that point without being accused of racism, then maybe this isn’t the open-and-frank-exchange-of-ideas-place I thought it was when I came. So, I’ll lurk for a while.

  43. says

    The problem is, thirdmill, that everyone here knows that professional and academic environments enforce race and class barriers by multiple means, including policing language. You’ve lectured everyone on something they already know. We’re trying to talk about how to dismantle that. Your obtuse reluctance to move beyond 101 level shit is reasonably being interpreted as support for the status quo.

  44. Vivec says

    If you don’t want to be accused of racism, don’t say racist shit. Not that hard.

    Citing a racist standard – that AAVE is seen as unintelligent or unprofessional – and then supporting it and trying to justify it is a racist act. Sorry you don’t think that way, but them’s the breaks.

    We’re an evil SJW mudhole that calls out racism. If that’s not your sort of thing, deal with it or leave.

  45. Artor says

    Thirdmill, let me carefully mansplain to you the First Law of Holes, since you don’t seem familiar with the concept. If you find yourself in a hole, STOP DIGGING! You opened up with some casually racist language, and were politely called on it. Then you doubled-down on the racism, and were forcefully called on it. At this point, you have painted yourself as an un-self-aware nob with deeply-seated racist attitudes. That’s not us being intolerant SJW’s, that’s all on you. Figure it out and change your step, or we will remain comfortable in our impressions of you so far.

  46. Vivec says

    Ugh, I can’t believe I’m getting called out for saying things that even I admit are racist. I thought this was Freethought Blogs, not Angry Regressive Left Blogs.

  47. says

    It was no more and no less than to point out that Behavior X produces Result Y

    Let X=speaking AAVE. Let Y=failure to acquire employment.

    This is something you consider a predictable, logical outcome. X must change! Y is not unjust!

    Now let X=dismissing AAVE as bad. Let Y=be accused of racism.

    This is something that should not happen. X can’t change, it is correct. Therefore Y is unjust!

    Please, think it through.

  48. consciousness razor says

    It was no more and no less than to point out that Behavior X produces Result Y, and the consequence of using vernacular when you’re trying to make yourself out to be someone knowledgeable about science is that a lot of people won’t take you seriously.

    You’re saying this shit would be more respectable or demand more serious consideration, if that same shit were spoken with your fucking accent? That’s fucking ludicrous. It’s also racist.

    If it should make no fucking difference at all to how his “work” is received, then you haven’t made a coherent fucking point at all. And that’s despite the fact that your comments were generally written in properly formed English sentences.

    Or were you really trying to give the dude advice, here at pharyngula, about more effective ways of peddling his dangerous crap to the gullible masses so that they’ll eat that shit up? “Please, make your pernicious quackery presentable to polite company like ours, sir, or we shan’t listen.” If so, why the fuck would you think that’s the kind of advice anybody needs?

    That said, if it’s impossible to even discuss that point without being accused of racism, then maybe this isn’t the open-and-frank-exchange-of-ideas-place I thought it was when I came. So, I’ll lurk for a while.

    Is it impossible to discuss? Maybe we’re openly and frankly telling you that your idea is shit and needs to be tossed aside, and maybe that happened after you had the possibility of discussing it. Which do you think is really true? I know which one I believe. Let’s exchange some ideas, eh?

  49. methuseus says

    I may have missed it, but it seems nobody has mentioned that, contrary to thirdmill’s beliefs, speaking in vernacular like this individual can actually be quite successful monetarily in many ways. They are correct that in many business settings this vernacular will not be successful in an interview. however, there are plenty of informal pseudo interviews (word of mouth jobs, etc.) where this type of speaking can be sought out or beneficial. So, even if thirdmill was correct about this not being a good way to speak for a particular business purpose, there are plenty of other business purposes where this type of speaking is desirable.

    With all that said, I had a hard time understanding him between some of the vernacular, the mind-numbingly awful non-science, and his manner of speaking. I am extremely hard of hearing which can make plenty of different accents problematic, though.

  50. chigau (違う) says

    grumpyoldfart #3
    Thank you for the transcript.
    I didn’t actually hear his
    “You understand what I’m saying.”
    until I read your
    “Yo unstan wom sayin’.”
    I just heard introductory mumble and didn’t pay attention.
    I paid attention to the rest of his lecture.

    You missed alot of good stuff by not listening further, as you may understand if you read all the comments in this thread.

  51. chigau (違う) says

    and thirdmill
    I find “Southern” United States accents to be quaint and amusing.
    Hearing Matters of Science™ in a Texas accent makes me smile.
    If it’s a discussion on mathematics between a Louisianan and a New Yorker, I’ll crack up.
    add a Geordie and I’d fall out of my chair.

  52. Holms says

    Oh and the mathematics! Amazing. Let’s see what I can wring out of that mess…

    blood + waste = death
    blood – waste = life

    Which as blf notes, gives us
    blood = death – waste = life + waste

    removing blood from that statement gives
    death – waste = life + waste

    or
    death = life + waste – waste
    death = life

    given that death and life are equal, the terms are interchangeable…
    death + waste = death – waste
    therefore waste = 0

    returning to the blf formulation blood = death – waste = life + waste,
    blood = death – 0 = death + 0
    therefore blood = death = life.

  53. unconscious says

    The net force is not strong with this one.

    I thought you were talking about Yoda and how Yoda was going to kill me. Yoda would not kill me, Yoda is more likely to love me.

    As far as this nut job, Yada, I am shocked and appalled. There is no way he actually believes what he is saying. Although, he does look pretty serious, but he really cannot believe all this stuff.

    This has to be an audition or something. That would make more sense.

    Okay, nope, there is no way this guy actually believes this stuff, no possible way.

  54. unclefrogy says

    That was an interesting side trip about accents especially if you take the recent post that got in to the difficulty of understanding some movie dialog because of the accent.
    that leads me to the thought that language is very fluid and the accent that is regarded as “proper” is not fixed but changes over time and varies as to place though mass media has had a very strong influence recently.
    Who can say that that accent represented by the quack huckster will not have any effect on how english is spoken. I would also note that he is perfectly clear to his target audience. Besides one of the things that help “sell” his ideas is that they are outside the established order and he has ancient secret knowledge from out side the halls of the establishment he is bringing them to “the people”. Knowledge that he may have taken from the learned
    his accent would not be a problem for him in fact he might even exaggerate it, sometimes hucksters do so as not to scare away the rubes.
    uncle frogy

  55. Vivec says

    While I don’t want to be insensitive or overreach – I’m not black – I wouldn’t be too quick to call this a poe. There is a certain subculture of people that believe this funky mixture of bad history, bad science, and egyptian mysticism.

  56. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    And by the way, if you’re going to call me a bigot, you should refrain from using sexist and homophobic expressions such as “fuck yourself,” which imply that being the bottom in a sexual experience is degrading. As such, it is insulting to both women and gay men. Pot, kettle.

    “Pot, Kettle” is a reference to the expression, “the pot calling the kettle black,” which is “obviously” racist by this “logic.” You’re shooting yourself in the foot here.

  57. says

    removing blood from that statement gives
    death – waste = life + waste
    or
    death = life + waste – waste
    death = life

    You made an error, I’m afraid. It should be:
    death = life + 2*waste

  58. says

    An anecdote to the accent issue discussed:

    It is not that easy to have “proper” accent. My accent in German is recognized as Czech to any native speaker after me uttering half a sentence. With my best effort I cannot change this, because the tone, tempo and accent of my native language are thoroughly part of me. I think it requires a special talent to be able to switch accent at will and even then to only limited degree with regard to what one has been exposed to as a child – search on the internet on what Hugh Laurie (who succesfully pretended to be American) thinks about Americans trying to don Brittish English.
    And that is the problem with this particular obstacle – by reinforcing status quo in which some accents are seen as “academical proper” and some are not there is set an arbitrary bar which is for many people impossible to pass no matter how actually competent they are. And given the distribution of those accents it is racist in its effect.

    But on the other hand accents do pose a real problem to understanding sometimes. I am gratefull for standardised “Hochdeutsch” because I have to request it from my colleagues at times when they lapse into their local german dialects – and some of them are unable to oblige (despite them thinking they do), which makes communication sometimes very difficult. It is actually easier at times to talk German with other non-native speakers or those from bilingual families, than to native Germans. I can imagine someone having a real trouble understanding Vernacular if it were used by f.e. a lecturer, because they were not exposed to it enough tot get the ear for its peculiarities.
    And thus the status quo runs in self-reinforcing circles.

  59. says

    #61
    Thank you. Just because something seems weird to you, doesn’t automatically make it a Poe. Holy crap, people.

    #46
    “That said, if it’s impossible to even discuss that point without being accused of racism, then maybe this isn’t the open-and-frank-exchange-of-ideas-place I thought it was when I came.”

    *says something froggy*
    *gets called on said frogginess*
    *doubles down on the froggy*
    *gets ass roasted*
    *whines about this not being an open forum*

    *yawn* I swear, dipshits really need to get a new script. Why don’t you go lurk from the bottom of the hole you dug yourself into.

  60. Saad says

    thirdmill, #35

    27, 28 and 30, if it makes you feel better to call me a racist, knock yourselves out, but which of us is doing him the bigger favor: The one who comisserates with him about how the world should be different than it is, or the one who tells him that if he wants to succeed in the world as it actually is, he needs to make a good impression? Reality, by the way, does not give a shit about what you think is or is not fair.

    If I found myself living somewhere where I was not the dominant culture, I would accept as a given that I needed to conform to them rather than expect them to conform to me. It’s not about one culture being superior to another; it’s about recognizing that whomever is in the majority will organize things to suit themselves, and then playing the game to get ahead in that culture. And whether you like it or not, using vernacular in a business or academic setting virtually guarantees that he will go nowhere in a hurry.

    And by the way, if you’re going to call me a bigot, you should refrain from using sexist and homophobic expressions such as “fuck yourself,” which imply that being the bottom in a sexual experience is degrading. As such, it is insulting to both women and gay men. Pot, kettle.

    Oh okay. So women should be extra polite and not express their opinions strongly in meetings.

    Got it.

    Way to have a spine and stand up for what’s right there, asshole.

    I’m dying to know what your advice would have been to Rosa Parks.

  61. mickll says

    “love and hate can’t live inside the same vessel”.

    Clearly this man has never seen a family get together during a holiday season.

  62. wzrd1 says

    @66, I’m one of the rare individuals who can pick up the prevailing local accent in a language I’ve learned. I’ve also gotten to the point, when in the UK, where a trace of accent is present, but the listener is unable to establish what the trace is.
    Switching dialects/accents in different regions, that takes a day or so, such as changing from a Saudi dialect to Qatari or Kuwaiti dialects. But, I’ve managed to fit in with the locals. Picking up the local vernacular, that takes more exposure, a lot more exposure. Rather than try to fit in with the traveling Bedouin, it was simpler to just use on of the previous locals dialect. It establishes one standard, rather than trying to figure out an entire subculture based vernacular.

    @69, it’s simple, it’s a profound incomprehension of basic organic chemistry, biology and human reproduction.

  63. says

    Seriously thirdmill?

    Since others have the bigotry angle covered, emphasizing style over substance in a world so piss-poor at reading for comprehension in issues like health or politics is enabling toxic elements of culture. Why would you want to coddle such weak bullshit? The content is what determines if they know what they are talking about.

    Do you want a weak culture? Do you actually want irrational and illogical thinking on health matters fixed? Can you even see that you are undermining the solutions for the very problems this post is pointing out? Commanding respect indeed…

  64. wzrd1 says

    @72, isn’t that where the US is today?
    Style over substance, alternative views of facts, “balanced” (read crackpot) reporting, Trump’s campaign, the prior GOP campaign of style over substance.
    The entire nation is a reality TV show that lacks a director or producer.

  65. garnetstar says

    As a chemist, I always cringe violently when I hear about people eating “alkaline” food to “alkanlize” their blood. WTF do they think is going to happen when that alkalinity enters their stomach (pH 3)? You’ d almost have to be drinking drain cleaner to have any alkalinity get past that.

    I also must note, for Yada’s information, that your stomach is full of natually-produced hydrochloric acid. That’s how it breaks down food to digest it. Not a carbon in sight.

  66. says

    @wzrd1
    Yeah, that is the case. It’s a reason why I tend to hammer the characterizations that I see people make in just about any place I post. It’s reflective of how we “flock” politically speaking, reducing things down to a level that allows efficient political movement and strategy. But if it does not lead to substance these are people who are simply taking marching orders.

    Feeling positively or negatively is fine, but it’s not a reason. Drumph supporters are an extreme example. They are terrified of things they can’t clearly articulate and when I look at how they respond to Drumph I see people acting like they are on the same “emotional vibe” about how they feel about generalities, but have no idea how to reason to the specifics beyond intentions.

  67. wzrd1 says

    @74, while the stated theory is absurd, some foods do metabolize into biologically active PH altering chemicals, such as citrate to bicarbonate. http://www.uptodate.com/contents/pathogenesis-consequences-and-treatment-of-metabolic-acidosis-in-chronic-kidney-disease
    While if a healthy person, homeostatis would still cause the bicarb levels to fall via binding or excretion, those with various diseases, such as renal disease are unable to effectively return to normal blood chemistry.

    For the rest, I’d happily wait – even until proton decay, for anyone to show me non-carbon based food of any sort. Life on this planet is carbon based.
    And frankly, if someone gave me silicon based life to eat, that individual may end up wearing it.

    @75, well, I tend to gravitate toward teachable moments and handle any rejection of teaching after rejection. That said, those with marching orders vary from adherents to a cause and paid assets – which some are foreign, such as Russia information warfare organizations. While working on something else, we traced a significant amount of disruption and agitation directly to St Petersburg IP space associated with Russian information warfare groups. Indeed, I recall a lengthy article in a popular publication that described the issue nearly as well as classified US government threat analysis works did.

    tRump supporters are an extreme symptom of the polarization that has been increasing since Obama took office. Only some of that opposition driven to extremism is racial, others are tea party rejection of the will of the majority and some even want to punish the nation for not caving to their demands.
    The latter doing so in office is an abuse of office and grounds for removal, alas, regulatory mechanisms in Congress are badly broken via hijacking.
    Frankly, with tRump driving things ever onward, it’s only a matter of time until his supporters start shooting people.
    But there, we come upon where free speech is not without limits, for inciting a riot is not protected free speech, nor is conspiracy or sedition, to name three felonies involving speech.
    Let’s just say, I’m utterly underwhelmed by the party trumpeting personal responsibility to the rafters ignoring the results of their loose speech (such as an openly “wondering why” the military didn’t mutiny and perform a coup against Obama) and actions.

  68. rq says

    I am 100% for having more vernacular (of all kinds) in science. It just might (might!) make it that much more accessible to the masses without trying to sound like some snobbish pastime that only a certain properly-speaking elite engages in. Plus, knowing more languages is always a good thing, and knowing the various vernaculars of a particular language can only have a similar benefit.

    That being said, Yada’s science is a bit off. To put it way mildly. :/ Actually, I couldn’t find it at all.

  69. wzrd1 says

    Heh, as for the ‘science’, I’m still waiting for carbonless foods that real chemistry shows have no carbon in them.
    That’s especially true, considering he recommended carbon based plant parts as food.