8 Ways Companies Use Pseudoscience To Sell You Stuff
6. Natural
One of the biggest appeals of pseudoscience to some people, is the fact that it's not science. That cold, clinical, faceless Science Monster that wants to put chlorine in your water and chemicals in your children's school dinners.
And so, to counter the scariness, companies fall back on the appeal to nature technique in order to make themselves appear more wholesome. They promote the idea that if something is natural, then it is automatically harmless and essentially "good", but it's all a trick of language.
If, for example, I told you that my product contained a blend of linalool and linalyl acetate, α-pinene, limonene, 1,8-cineole, cis- and trans-ocimene, 3-octanone, caryophyllene, terpinen-4-ol and lavendulyl acetate, and that it had estrogenic properties that could bring about prepubescent gynecomastia and impair the working memory, you'd probably back away waving a crucifix and clutching your children to your breast.
It is, however, just lavender oil.
However, if I told you that my product contained an ingredient derived from the natural plant oils of the castorbean plant, you might think that sounds lovely. In fact, you should be running in the opposite direction, because I'm about to feed you Ricin, one of the deadliest toxins known to man.
In fact, what they tend to mean by "natural" is "mostly harmless, but largely ineffective".