Congratulations Gwyneth Paltrow, you are now the proud owner of a Rusty Razor award. If it doesn’t sound too prestigious, well, you’d be right.
Paltrow’s website Goop, a frequent spouter of bunk science, is the first to win this award, presented by The Skeptic Magazine. The goal is to highlight the worst pseudoscience of the year, as part of the magazine’s annual Ockham Awards, voted for by the public.
Goop reached new levels of infamy this year with its numerous stories of bogus science. First they sold jade eggs to insert into your "yoni" ( that's Goop-talk for vagina, which is unquestionably a bad idea). Then they claimed to have NASA’s endorsement for some bogus “healing stickers” (which NASA, understandably, officially refuted). And, more recently, they were selling “psychic vampire repellent”.
It’s not clear which of these claims earned Goop the Rusty Razor. Any of them would be worthy, truth be told.
The website was invited to collect its award at the QED Conference in Manchester in the UK over the weekend (October 14 and 15). Perhaps unsurprisingly, no one showed up.
"We were surprised at quite how many public vote nominations GOOP received for the 'Rusty Razor' award for pseudoscience – it's certainly a popular win,” said Skeptic Magazine Editor Deborah Hyde in a statement.
“When there are so many issues affecting public health today – the rise of measles and whooping cough due to reduced rates of vaccination, for instance – it's a shame that many people prefer to contemplate their yonis than engage with evidence-based reality".
What piece of pseudoscience nonsense will win the award next year? We can only imagine.
(h/t Gizmodo)