snake oil
737330028486049792
“Commentators have criticized Emoto for insufficient experimental controls and for not sharing enough details of his experiments with the scientific community. He has also been criticized for designing his experiments in ways that permit manipulation or human error. Biochemist and Director of Microscopy at University College Cork William Reville wrote, “It is very unlikely that there is any reality behind Emoto’s claims.” Reville noted the lack of scientific publication and pointed out that anyone who could demonstrate such phenomena would become immediately famous and probably wealthy.
Writing about Emoto’s ideas in the Skeptical Inquirer, physician Harriet A. Hall concluded that it was “hard to see how anyone could mistake it for science”. In 2003, James Randi published an invitation on his website, offering Emoto to take the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, in which Emoto could have received US$1,000,000 if he had been able to reproduce the experiment under test conditions agreed to by both parties. Randi did not receive a response.”
677639525247451136
Snake oil
Snake oil is a term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud,
or a scam. Similarly, “snake oil salesman” is a common expression used
to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a general proponent of
some valueless or fraudulent cure, remedy, or solution. The term comes from the “snake oil” that used to be sold as a cure-all
elixir for many kinds of physiological problems. Many 19th-century
United States and 18th-century European entrepreneurs advertised and
sold mineral oil (often mixed with various active and inactive household herbs, spices, drugs, and compounds, but containing no snake-derived substances whatsoever) as “snake oil liniment”, making claims about its efficacy as a panacea. Patent medicines
that claimed to be a panacea were extremely common from the 18th
century until the 20th, particularly among vendors masking addictive
drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine, alcohol and opium-based concoctions or elixirs, to be sold at medicine shows as medication or products promoting health.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil
148753913057
Snake oil, originally a fraudulent liniment without snake extract, has come to refer to any product with questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit. By extension, a snake oil salesman is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is themselves a fraud, quack, or charlatan.