8

Disclove.tv writes in "THE TRUTH ABOUT LONG HAIR"

When questioned about their failure to perform as expected, the older recruits replied consistently that when they received their required military haircuts, they could no longer ‘sense’ the enemy, they could no longer access a ‘sixth sense,’ their ‘intuition’ no longer was reliable, they couldn’t ‘read’ subtle signs as well or access subtle extrasensory information. [...]

So the testing institute recruited more Indian trackers, let them keep their long hair, and tested them in multiple areas. Then they would pair two men together who had received the same scores on all the tests. They would let one man in the pair keep his hair long, and gave the other man a military haircut. Then the two men retook the tests.

Time after time the man with long hair kept making high scores. Time after time, the man with the short hair failed the tests in which he had previously scored high scores.

Did the US military really conduct tests that produced those results? Given that the a lot of time passed, are those tests now in the public record?

Community
  • 1
Christian
  • 33,271
  • 15
  • 112
  • 266
  • 21
    sounds to me like the Indians decided to pretend they couldn't track without there hair to keep from getting regulation military hair cuts. – Himarm Aug 18 '15 at 19:51
  • 1
    These tests have been [asked about before](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/18559/do-long-haired-men-have-better-intuition/22011#22011), but the question was about the conclusions, not the experiment. (I prefer questions about conclusions - i.e. science, rather than questions about particular experiments - i.e. history) – Oddthinking Aug 19 '15 at 01:40
  • 1
    @Oddthinking : Scientific questions do have an advantage over questions of history. However specific questions are better than vague one's. The other question produced an general answer about intuition that's besides the point but there seem to be no willingness to delete it as offtopic. – Christian Aug 19 '15 at 11:23
  • @Christian: I see no flags or serious objections in comments to the other question, so a lack of willingness may be simply that the case has never been presented. We should probably move this to chat. – Oddthinking Aug 19 '15 at 14:19
  • 2
    @Himarm - people can self-convince themselves very successfully. There's an avalanche of studies proving that. If someone is convinced they need long hair for a specific task at faith level, it's not implausible that they would indeed unconcsiously sabotage their ability when losing the hair, especially if the ability is something as intangible as advanced pattern recognition and detail noticing required for tracking. – user5341 Sep 01 '15 at 15:58

1 Answers1

5

Referring to analysis by skeptics such as Brian Dunning, Noah Nez and Gordon Bonnet on the claim of Native Americans with long hair having tracking abilities, there are no well known tracking Native American elite units who fought in Vietnam when one searches through the US defense archives. Trackers were known to employed by the Union Army and the Confedercy in the Civil war.

  1. Brian Dunning found no record of any special “tracker” units although many native Americans served in Vietnam.

Since 1972 the Immigrations and Customs services have maintained a tiny unit of 15 native American trackers called the Shadow Wolves who follow drug smugglers across the border in a law enforcement capacity, but this was not formed until after Vietnam, and I’ve seen no reference to hair length being a tool they employ.

  1. The entire account of Native American “trackers” being used in any research resembling the sort mentioned is more than likely completely fabricated due to absence of authentic sources to confirm the event.

“SOTT can’t confirm this story or the research it suggests took place, however, we have wondered on many occasions, what is the use of hair and why so many legends refer to hair as being a source of strength, from Samson, to Nazarenes, to the long haired Franks”

  1. There are no known researched physiological mechanisms by which hair makes a human stronger. Also when one searches in the Cochrane library on long hair and human strength, there are only 2 hits not related to this topic.

  2. There are no known researched mechanisms for hair acting as antennae or conductors for psychic energy.

Because highly complex cells, with nuclei and other organelles, and an intricate set of transport proteins, that are capable of sending and receiving electrical signals, are exactly the same thing as a bunch of dead strands of keratin. Hairs on the skin do increase its sensitivity, and some animals (cats are an excellent example) use whiskers as tactile sensors.

pericles316
  • 22,676
  • 2
  • 84
  • 161