Newsgroups: ba.general
From: rchilder@us.oracle.com (Richard Childers)
Subject: Re: EAST BAY SKEPTICS SOCIETY's lecture on Vision Myths ...
Keywords: Vision training, Bates exercise
Organization: Memes-R-Us
Distribution: ba
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 19:32:09 GMT
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root@mendel.berkeley.edu (Operator) writes:

> Many bogus methods that promise to improve poor eyesight without lenses or
>surgery are promoted with conviction.  Most of these methods have been around
>in one form or another for many decades and are still popular today.  One of
>the most popular, the Bates System, was introduced by William H. Bates, M.D.
>at the turn of the century.  This method is not only useless, it strongly
>recommends staring at the sun for extended periods of time.  Other popular
>vision therapies promise to cure everything from dyslexia to low IQ.

This is patently untrue. I have read Dr Bates' book and this is not what he
says. Anyone who questions this should also consult _The Art Of Seeing_, by
Aldous Huxley ... who attributes the correction of his eyesight to Bates'
exercises.

I have met someone who has been written about in the San Francisco Examiner,
who had cataracts when they were younger, in Israel, but whom now has good
enough eyesight to be licensed to drive in the state of California without
corrective lenses.

And I myself saw my eyesight go from 20/280 to 20/160 in one eye when I
stopped wearing glasses for a few years as an adolescent. The other eye
also improved, not so dramatically. This evidence points directly to my
patterns of use as a source of problems, and optometry makes no effort to
recognize this or proscribe anything that would relieve visual strain ...
instead, they proscribe stronger glasses. Bates' exercises, which correspond
to exercises found in manuals on yoga, incidentally, attend to precisely
this area of concern - patterns of usage, and excessive tension.

Clearly, living in a culture predominated by buildings and interiors, we as
a culture have few chances to focus on anything more than twenty to forty
feet away ... and the corresponding increase in myopia is predictable as a
natural consequence. Stronger glasses won't solve this.

Hopw many children have you seen recently wearing glasses ? They aren't even
in class yet, they are barely reading large print, they don't need to see a
chalkboard, they're still learning crayons ... and they have glasses.

Apply a little skepticism yourself and ask ... does a professor of optometry
have a vested interest ?

If you go to this meeting, please go well informed, and give him hell.

>TIME and PLACE
>--------------
>Friday, AUGUST 28, in 159 Mulford Hall, UC Berkeley, 
>from 8:00 to 10:00 pm.  All are invited, there is no charge.
>    
>  Dr. Russell Worrall has published and lectured widely on the subject of
>quackery in vision healthcare.  
>He is a board member of the National Council Against Health Fraud.
> 
> Bring your questions !
>  
>THE TALK is part of a continuing monthly series sponsored by the EAST BAY
>SKEPTICS SOCIETY, a non-profit public interest group dedicated to advancing
>community appreciation of the cultural benefits of rational thinking.  For
>more information on our lecture, membership or education program, call (510)
>420-0702 or message EBSS@AOL.COM


-- richard

-- 
-- richard childers		rchilder@us.oracle.com		1 415 506 2411
         oracle data center  --  unix systems & network administration

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