riverman wrote:
Number 6 on this list.
http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm

Sound like someone we know?

"I went to Denver and bought beakers, retorts, a Bunsen burner, test
tubes, you name it. I bought sample chemicals and I got myself a fresh
library card. I converted the narrow, long room that went across the
back of the Mansion into a Chemical Laboratory and went to work. I did
not come out of it for three years. I worked seven days a week
averaging 14 hour days, month after month, year after year. I was
obsessed. I was determined to find a dry fly dressing that was better
then anything else in the world."

--riverman


Interesting here,although the "scientific" mumbo-jumbo is exactly that,
some "snake-oil" actually works for its intended purpose. Gink is quite
effective for a number of flies, and the other prducts also work,
although not as described by their "inventor", and not based on "his"
"scientific principles" which are pure bull****.

Misrepresentation and general hype are extremely widespread, and I
suppose they are only really bad when the product concerned simply
doesn´t work as promised.

For really nasty bamboozlers, one only has to look at many of the patent
medicines, and people still make fortunes with the rubbish.

Until such time as the general level of education is much higher, there
will always be people who fall for this stuff.


Advertising obviously works well enough on the vast majority of people,
even when completely misleading, or directly mendacious. Best of all are
vague claims which nobody can either prove or disprove.

Here is a really good way to classify fly-rods, in the same vein;

http://www.common-cents.info/rodexpertise.pdf

TL
MC