In 2005 Mike Holderness, a freelance contributor to New Scientist, wrote of "professional dissidents" who are given the oxygen of publicity by those journalists who "divide all stories into precisely two sides that get equal space: too often the reality-based community Versus fruitloops and/or special interests." Language needed a term like that, and Holderness’s choice was inspired. "Fruitloopery" became the New Scientist’s generic word for advertisers' use of science either unverifiably or wildly out of context. Fruitloopery indicators in ads include the words quanta, tachyons, vibrational energies, or restructured water, especially in combination.

If you get yourself poked with needles, and the next day you feel better, there are two possible reasons. One is that you are experiencing a placebo effect. The other is the "get better anyway" effect or, in scientific parlance, "regression to the mean". Acupuncture might sit at the respectable end of the fruitloopery spectrum, but I believe it has no place in a university, other than as a good example of how easy it is to fool yourself.

Here is a very different sort of medicine man. Meet Dr Fruitloop well, you can call him Dr Peter Spitzer if you prefer, but fruitloopery has been his game, for he is one of three inspired Australian doctors who decided to work posing as clowns among children in East Timor and even if it was for only a fortnight bring a little bit of light and laughter into the shattered lives of the young patients they would treat.