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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Life Man in Coma Still in Coma

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 1:34 PM

...and, sadly, not writing a book while he's in it. Those who thought the facilitated communication thing was too good/Ouija to be true were right.

Comments (7) RSS

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No surprise here. Facilitated Communication has never been shown to work. It belongs in the same rubbish bin as acupuncture, homeopathy, and other magical nonsense.

Posted by giffy on February 17, 2010 at 1:57 PM

And in other late-breaking news: The sun still rises in the east.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on February 17, 2010 at 2:23 PM

Duh.

The only shock in this story is how grotesquely much press the whole sordid thing got before anyone got around to realizing it was facilitated communication nonsense. Once again this is a story that turns out to be about bad journalism, not any kind of real event.

Posted by balderdash

on February 17, 2010 at 2:45 PM

And of course the "revelation" that this was nonsense will likely see nowhere near the media exposure the original claim did, so that a majority of the people that heard about the story will likely still believe it was true. Retractions should have to go on the front page, above the fold.

Posted by OuterCow on February 17, 2010 at 4:01 PM

@4 You are absolutely correct. And it was done for that exact reason. The "facilitator" was no doubt working for some Catholic organisation.

Posted by World of Non-Sense on February 17, 2010 at 4:29 PM

@5, whether there was direct involvement remains to be seen, but Belgium is definitely a Catholic nation.

I can't help but think about Dalton Trumbo's _Johnny Got His Gun_. Even if the claims were true, why would the consciousness want to continue in a useless shell?

Posted by Some Old Nobodaddy on February 17, 2010 at 4:40 PM