The Law of Attraction - Debunked (The Secret - Refuted)

1. Pseudoscience: So the first thing to be said, in my opinion, is that the Law of Attraction, and, to be blunt, New Age Thought altogether, is entirely predicated on dispensing meaningless drivel masqueraded as profound truth and wisdom… it is, to paraphrase Michael Shermer, the combination of scientific sounding words with New Age words to create the illusion that they’re somehow related… For example, the term ‘Law of Attraction’ deliberately implies that it is a scientific law, just like the ‘Law of Conservation of Energy’ etc., and yet, science regards the Law of Attraction as pure nonsense and pseudoscience, and puts it in the same bin as creationism, homeopathy, climate change denial and tin foil hats!



2. Argument from Ignorance: Anyhow, with that said, the first question to be asked is if the first premise is true - is everything really comprised of energy vibrating at different frequencies? Is the Law of Vibration true? Well, while it is true that everything so far appears to be an expression of matter and energy, and while matter and energy are indeed different states of the same thing (energy)... the only way someone can say that everything “vibrates” is by defining ‘vibration’ to be “energy in motion” – which only serves to confuse people. What’s more is that if the proponents of this argument go a step further and assert that we know for sure that everything is vibrating energy, they’re actually committing an Argument from Ignorance, because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

3. Equivocation Fallacy: Of all the arguments I've taken on (so far), the proponents of the Law of Attraction perhaps commit more equivocation fallacies than them all. From defining energy as “energy in motion”, to defining it as “the universal life force that exists in all living matter”, to defining it as "a personal mental state or an emotional atmosphere that can be sensed", they are the kings of equivocation. Watch out for it!

4. Unfalsifiable Fallacy: A third flaw with many, but not all concepts of ‘energy’ and ‘vibration’, is that they are untestable and irrefutable, and that because of this they commit an Unfalsifiable Fallacy. An Unfalsifiable Fallacy occurs when an asserted proposition cannot be disproven by any amount of evidence, and yet the proponent insists that the proposition is true. For example, if a proponent defines vibrational energy to mean “an intangible and undetectable life force that exists in all living matter”, then due to it being intangible and undetectable, it can never by proven false…

5. Anecdotal Fallacy: And finally, as the last major flaw that I’ll raise in this video, most proponents of the Law of Attraction commit a devastating Anecdotal Fallacy. They do this because their concepts, definitions, ideology and assertions are largely, and sometimes entirely, predicated on their own personal experiences, interpretations, and testimony.