[troutman]

The Decline of Pseudoscience Now that "natural" living has gone mainstream, its days are numbered

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1...-pseudoscience

The pseudoscience that persists more generally in America is losing its cultural cachet.

“Healthy” living became associated with being upper class, and therefore glamorous. The pseudoscience embraced by the rich—a group who also have superior access to actual healthy living, as in proper medical care, safe places to exercise, and so forth—is now, in turn, marketed to the rest of the population.

But the backlash has begun. As Freeman noted, “a new genre of journalism has risen up in response to a growing trend,” consisting of articles “debunking quacky pseudoscience bloggers.”

Why the shift toward reason? The scientific evidence against quack theories is hardly new, after all. I suspect there are two related reasons for the decline of pseudoscience: an increase in awareness, and a decrease in trendiness.

Once “wellness” becomes a thing in suburban Middle America, it stops being so in, say, the L.A. yoga mom subculture. Once clean eating goes from Gwyneth to Pepsi, it’s lost its air of exclusivity. The committed quacks won't budge, but once pseudoscience isn't a way of signaling that one is on the cutting edge, it loses its allure among the elites—the ones whose cultural and financial clout led to its popularity in the first place.