The Edge Of Reason: Wim Hoff - When Woo Becomes Science

Scientist often come under fire for shunning unconventional wisdom. They're accused of not taking certain fantastical claims seriously, for fear of upsetting the status quo.

These accusations are spread across all scientific disciplines, whether it is medical science being accused of suppressing natural, hard-to-control cures, or physics denying phenomenon such as Extra Sensory Perception, or mind reading, they are all meant to be evidence that scientists do not appreciate unconventional wisdom.

However the scientific community has always insisted that it welcomes new ways of thinking, it simply requires that it comes with some kind of repeatable process so that any new ideas can be studied and tested.

Where's The Woo?

Essentially the difference between woo woo science and real science all boils down to the issue of testable results.

If one person makes a claim such as, I can move things with my mind*, or this sugar pill can sure cancer, then another person with a scientific background has the right to say; prove it.

The eminent physicist Carl Sagan once said; extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence. This simply means, if somebody tells you that they can levitate, seeing them actually leave the ground under controlled conditions, is the only evidence you can accept.

An outlandish claim without the accompanying piece of extraordinary evidence is simply classed as woo woo science. It is this type of dismissing that leads people to believe that science can be arrogant or dogmatic, when in fact it is the very opposite.

Wim Hoff When Woo Becomes Science

You may have heard of Wim Hoff, the iceman, he holds dozens of cold water records and regularly pulls off seemingly impossible feats, like running a marathon in sub-zero temperatures in nothing more than a pair of shorts.

Hoff's extraordinary claims were that he could control his core body temperature and also trigger his own immune system at will. Not only did he claim to be able to do these things, but that he could also teach anyone to do them.

Of course science said what it usually says in this situation; prove it. Which Hoff set about doing.

Hoff first showed that he can control his core body temperature by stripping down to just a pair of shorts and sitting in an industrial freezer at minus forty degrees centigrade. The scientists placed thermal imaging cameras to record Hoff's body temperature.

Much to their surprise they saw that instead of going into hypothermic shock after ten minutes, Hoff's thermal image resembled somebody sitting at home in a warm room.

Hoff also allowed scientists to inject him with a toxin that caused nausea and vomiting in the previous twelve thousand people whom had ingested the poison.

Again scientists were amazed to find that Hoff's immune system fought the toxin and allowed him to continue as normal.

Next the scientists wanted to see if Hoff was an anomaly, perhaps he had something special in his DNA that allowed him to do what no other observed human could do?

Ice Study

This is where extraordinary claims often break down, because often these claims are made by people who genuinely believe them, however have not performed their own studies in a scientific manner. Therefore when it comes to recreating their results, things don't go as they did before.

This leads to some claimants saying that conditions weren't right, or the experimental processes used to assess their claims are flawed.

Not so with the Wim Hoff Method, Hoff was able to write down in detail exactly what his method entails. This allowed scientists to test it out on a bunch of people that Hoff had never met, while the man himself was many miles away.

Lo and behold, the results showed some amazing things. Before the study being able to control core body temperature, and your immune system, were two things that were thought to be completely impossible.

However the Wim Hoff Method has turned those assumptions on their heads. It turns out that not only can Hoff control these two physiological elements, anyone who is taught the method can do it too!

Extraordinary Evidence

So this is it, science has accepted it was wrong about previous assertions that the immune system and core body temp could not be consciously controlled.

This conclusion has been reached because of the extraordinary body of evidence that Wim Hoff has been able to provide.

There was no conspiracy by the medical scientific community to squash this amazing discovery because it proved them wrong. In fact the Method is already leading to new noninvasive medical treatments, because ultimately science is simply a search for the truth.

Science is made up of many millions of individuals, institutions and corporations all taking part in scientific discourse. Not all of them agree, and not all of them have pure altruistic goals to fulfil, however they are not all in cahoots with each other to suppress ways of thinking that do not align with their own.

Instead science says; bring me extraordinary evidence with that claim, and we shall see if we can turn it from woo woo science, to simply, science.

Further Reading

Voluntary activation of the sympathetic nervous system and attenuation of the innate immune response in humans - NCIB/PMAS

Wim Hoff Method Explained - Free ebook link

HAVE YOU TRIED THE WIM HOFF METHOD, OR ANY OTHER PROCEDURE THAT WAS THOUGHT TO BE WOO WOO, AND IS NOW ACCEPTED SCIENCE? WHAT'S YOUR PERCEPTION OF THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY AT LARGE? WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY WIM HOFF'S METHOD? AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!

Cryptogee