This is a list of topics that have been characterized aspseudoscience by academics or researchers. Detailed discussion of these topics may be found on their main pages. These characterizations were made in the context of educating the public about questionable or potentially fraudulent or dangerous claims and practices, efforts to define the nature ofscience, or humorous parodies of poor scientific reasoning.
Criticism of pseudoscience, generally by thescientific community orskeptical organizations, involves critiques of thelogical,methodological, orrhetorical bases of the topic in question.[1] Though some of the listed topics continue to be investigated scientifically, others were only subject to scientific research in the past and today are considered refuted, but resurrected in a pseudoscientific fashion. Other ideas presented here are entirely non-scientific, but have in one way or another impinged on scientific domains or practices.
Many adherents or practitioners of the topics listed here dispute their characterization as pseudoscience. Each section here summarizes the alleged pseudoscientific aspects of that topic.
Physical sciences
Astronomy and space sciences
2012 phenomenon – a range ofeschatologicalbeliefs that cataclysmic or otherwise transformative events would occur on or around 21 December 2012. This date was regarded as the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in theMesoamerican Long Count calendar and as such, festivities to commemorate the date took place on 21 December 2012 in countries where theMaya civilization had formerly flourished (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador), with main events atChichén Itzá in Mexico andTikal in Guatemala. ProfessionalMayanist scholars stated that no extantclassic Maya accounts forecast impending doom and that the idea that the Long Count calendar ends in 2012 misrepresentedMaya history and culture,[2] while astronomers rejected the various proposed doomsday scenarios easily refuted by elementary astronomical observations.[3]
Ancient astronauts – a concept based on the belief that intelligentextraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans inantiquity andprehistoric times. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of modern cultures, technologies and religions. A common claim is thatdeities from most, if not all, religions are actually extraterrestrial in origin and that advanced technologies brought to Earth by ancient astronauts were interpreted as evidence of divine status by early humans. The idea that ancient astronauts existed is not taken seriously by academics and has received no credible attention inpeer-reviewed studies.[4]
Anunnaki from Nibiru (Sitchin) (variant) – proposed byZecharia Sitchin in his seriesThe Earth Chronicles, beginning withThe 12th Planet (1976), it revolves around Sitchin's unique interpretation of ancientSumerian andMiddle Eastern texts, megalithic sites, and artifacts from around the world. He hypothesizes that the gods of oldMesopotamia were actually astronauts from the planet "Nibiru", which Sitchin claims the Sumerians believed was a remote "12th planet" (counting the Sun, Moon and Pluto as planets) associated with the godMarduk. According to Sitchin, Nibiru continues to orbit the Sun on a 3,600-year elongated orbit.[5]
Astrology (see alsoAstrology and science) – consists of a number of belief systems that hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events or descriptions of personality in the human world. Several systems of divination are based on therelative positions and movement of various real and construed celestial bodies.Scientific testing of astrology has been conducted and no evidence has been found to support the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological traditions.[7] Where astrology has madefalsifiable predictions, it has been falsified.[7]: 424
Creationist cosmologies are explanations of the origins and form of theuniverse in terms of theGenesis creation narrative (Genesis 1), according to which theGod of the Bible created the cosmos in eight creative acts over the six days of the "creation week".[8]
The Face on Mars is a rock formation inCydonia Mensae on Mars asserted to be evidence of intelligent, native life on the planet. High-resolution images taken recently show it to appear less face-like.[9] It features prominently in the works ofRichard C. Hoagland andTom Van Flandern.[10][11] This effect can also be explained by the psychological phenomenonpareidolia, whereby one assigns meaning (such as facial perception) to an otherwise ambiguous or meaningless stimulus.
Lunar effect – the belief that the full Moon influences human and animal behavior.[12]
Modern flat Earth beliefs propose that Earth is a flat, disc-shaped planet that accelerates upward, producing the illusion ofgravity. Proposers of a flat Earth, such as theFlat Earth Research Society, do not accept compelling evidence, such as photos of Earth from space.[13]
Modern geocentrism – In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism or the Ptolemaic system) is asuperseded description of the universe with Earth at the center. Under the geocentric model, the Sun, Moon, stars and planets all circled Earth. The geocentric model served as the predominant description of the cosmos in many ancient civilizations, such as those of Aristotle and Ptolemy.[14]
Moon landing conspiracy theories – claim that some or all elements of theApollo program and the associated Moon landings were hoaxes staged by NASA with the aid of other organizations. The most notable claim is that the six crewed landings (1969–72) were faked and that 12 Apollo astronauts did not actually walk on the Moon. Various groups and individuals have made claims since the mid-1970s that NASA and others knowingly misled the public into believing the landings happened by manufacturing, tampering with or destroying evidence, including photos, telemetry tapes, radio and TV transmissions and Moon rock samples, and even killing some key witnesses.[15]
Nibiru cataclysm – a prediction first made bycontactee Nancy Lieder that a mythological planetNibiru would collide with Earth. After having adjusted her prediction many times, she later claimed the year of the occurrence to be 2012.[16] In 2017, aconspiracy theorist known asDavid Meade claimed 2017 was the year Nibiru would hit.
Vaimānika Shāstra – claim that airplanes were invented inancient India during theVedic period. A 1974 study by researchers at theIndian Institute of Science, Bangalore found that the heavier-than-air aircraft that theVaimānika Shāstra described were aerodynamically unfeasible. The authors remarked that the discussion of the principles of flight in the text were largely perfunctory and incorrect, in some cases violatingNewton's laws of motion.[17]
Worlds in Collision – writerImmanuel Velikovsky proposed in his bookWorlds in Collision that ancient texts and geographic evidence show mankind was witness to catastrophic interactions of other planets in our Solar System.[18]
Megalithic geometry or366 geometry – posits the existence of anEarth-basedgeometry dating back to at least 3500 BCE and the possibility that such a system is still in use in modernFreemasonry. According to proponents,megalithic civilizations in Britain and Brittany had advanced knowledge of geometry and the size of Earth. Themegalithic yard is correlated to the polar circumference of Earth using a circle divided into 366 degrees.[19][20]
TheBermuda Triangle – a region of the Atlantic Ocean that lies between Bermuda, Puerto Rico and (in its most popular version) Florida. Ship and aircraft disasters and disappearances perceived as frequent in this area have led to the circulation of stories of unusual natural phenomena, paranormal encounters and interactions withextraterrestrials.[21]
Climate change denial – involves denial, dismissal, unwarranted doubt or contrarian views which depart from the scientific consensus onclimate change, including the extent to which it is caused by humans, its impacts on nature and human society, or the potential of adaptation to global warming by human actions.[22][23][24]
Flood geology – creationist form of geology that advocates most of the geologic features on Earth are explainable by aglobal flood.[25]
TheHollow Earth – a proposal that Earth is either entirely hollow or consists of hollow sections beneath the crust. Certain folklore and conspiracy theories hold this idea and suggest the existence of subterranean life.[26]
Welteislehre, a.k.a. theWorld Ice Theory orGlacial Cosmogony – ice is proposed to be the basic substance of all cosmic processes and ice moons, ice planets and the "global ether" (also made of ice) had determined the entire development of the universe.
TheExpanding Earth orgrowing Earth was ahypothesis attempting to explain the position and relative movement ofcontinents by increase in the volume ofEarth. With the recognition ofplate tectonics in 20th century, the idea has been abandoned[27][28] and considered a pseudoscience.[29]
Physics
Autodynamics – a physics theory proposed in the 1940s that claims the equations of the Lorentz transformation are incorrectly formulated to describe relativistic effects, which would invalidate Einstein's theories of special relativity and general relativity, and Maxwell's equations. The theory is discounted by the mainstream physics community.[30]
Einstein–Cartan–Evans theory – a unified theory of physics proposed by Myron Wyn Evans which claims to unify general relativity, quantum mechanics and electromagnetism.[33] The hypothesis was largely published in the journalFoundations of Physics Letters between 2003 and 2005; in 2008, the editor published an editorial note effectively retracting the journal's support for the hypothesis due to incorrect mathematical claims.[34]
Electrogravitics – claimed to be an unconventional type of effect or anti-gravity propulsion created by an electric field's effect on a mass. The name was coined in the 1920s by Thomas Townsend Brown, who first described the effect and spent most of his life trying to develop it and sell it as a propulsion system. Follow-ups on the claims (R. L. Talley in a 1990 U.S. Air Force study, NASA scientist Jonathan Campbell in a 2003 experiment[35] and Martin Tajmar in a 2004 paper[36]) have found that no thrust could be observed in a vacuum, consistent with the phenomenon of ion wind.
Water-fueled cars – an instance of perpetual motion machines. Such devices are claimed to use water as fuel or produce fuel from water on board with no other energy input. Many such claims are part ofinvestment frauds.[39][40][41]
Gasoline pill orgasoline powder, which was claimed to turn water into gasoline.[42]
Hongcheng Magic Liquid – a scam in China in which Wang Hongcheng (Chinese: 王洪成; pinyin: Wáng Hóngchéng), a bus driver from Harbin with no scientific education, claimed in 1983 that he could turn regular water into a fuel as flammable as petrol by simply dissolving a few drops of his liquid in it.[43]
Orgone – a pseudoscientific concept described as anesoteric energy or hypothetical universal life force, originally proposed in the 1930s.[46][47]
Applied sciences
Agriculture
Lysenkoism, orLysenko-Michurinism – was a political campaign against genetics and science-based agriculture conducted byTrofim Lysenko, his followers and Soviet authorities. Lysenko served as the director of the Soviet Union's Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Lysenkoism began in the late 1920s and formally ended in 1964. The pseudoscientific ideas of Lysenkoism built onJean-Baptiste Lamarck's concepts of the heritability of acquired characteristics.[48] Lysenko's theory rejectedGregor Mendel's theory of inheritance and the concept of the "gene"; it departed from Darwinian evolutionary theory by rejecting natural selection, viewing that concept as being incompatible with Marxist ideology.[49]
Biodynamic agriculture – method oforganic farming that treats farms as unified and individual organisms. Biodynamics uses a calendar which has been characterized asastrological. The substances and composts used by biodynamicists have been described as unconventional andhomeopathic. For example, field mice are countered by deploying ashes prepared from field mice skin when Venus is in the Scorpius constellation. No difference in beneficial outcomes has been scientifically established between certified biodynamic agricultural techniques and similar organic andintegrated farming practices. Biodynamic agriculture lacks strong scientific evidence for its efficacy and has been labeled a pseudoscience because of its overreliance upon esoteric knowledge and mystical beliefs.[50]
Feng shui – ancient Chinese system of mysticism andaesthetics based onastronomy,geography and the putative flow ofqi. Evidence for its effectiveness is based on anecdote and there is a lack of a plausible method of action; this leads to conflicting advice from different practitioners of feng shui. Feng shui practitioners use this as evidence of variations or different schools; critical analysts have described it thus: "Feng shui has always been based upon mere guesswork."[55][56] Modern criticism differentiates between feng shui as a traditional proto-religion and the modern practice: "A naturalistic belief, it was originally used to find an auspicious dwelling place for a shrine or a tomb. However, over the centuries it...has become distorted and degraded into a gross superstition."[55]
Ley lines – proposed intentional alignment of ancient monuments and landscape features was later explained by a statistical analysis of lines that concluded: "the density of archaeological sites in the British landscape is so great that a line drawn through virtually anywhere will 'clip' a number of sites."[57] AdditionalNew Age and feng shui concepts have been proposed building on the original concept and pseudoscientific claims about energy flowing through the lines have been made.
Minimum parking requirements – system for assigning an optimal number of parking spaces to a given land use. It is characterized as a pseudoscience by UCLA planning professorDonald Shoup, especially as practiced by theInstitute of Transportation Engineers. He argues that the ITE's calculations are arcane, overly specific, and typically based on minimal data and approximations that cannot be widely applied to other businesses, even of the same type, and yet are presented as science-backed.[58][59]
Access Consciousness is an alternative medicine technique similar to a combination ofphrenology,reiki, energy therapies and therapeutic touch, where health and wellness can be improved by touching the 32 "Energy Bars" on a person's head.[74]
Acupuncture – use of fine needles to stimulateacupuncture points and balance the flow ofqi. There is no knownanatomical orhistological basis for the existence ofacupuncture points ormeridians and acupuncture is regarded as an alternative medical procedure.[75] Some acupuncturists regard them as functional rather than structural entities, useful in guiding evaluation and care of patients. Acupuncture has been the subject of activescientific research since the late 20th century and its effects and application remain controversial among medical researchers and clinicians. Some scholarly reviews conclude that acupuncture's effects are mainly attributable to theplacebo effect and others find likelihood of efficacy for particular conditions.
Acupressure is an alternative medicine technique similar in principle toacupuncture. It is based on the concept of life energy, which flows through "meridians" in the body. In treatment, physical pressure is applied toacupuncture points with the aim of clearing blockages in these meridians. Pressure may be applied by hand, by elbow, or with various devices. Some studies have suggested it may be effective at helping manage nausea and vomiting, lower back pain, tension headaches and stomach ache, although such studies have been found to have a high likelihood of bias.[78] Like many alternative medicines, it may benefit from aplacebo effect.Quackwatch says acupressure is a dubious practice and its practitioners use irrational methods.[79]
Adrenal fatigue orhypoadrenia is a pseudoscientific diagnosis described as a state in which theadrenal glands are exhausted and unable to produce adequate quantities of hormones, primarily theglucocorticoidcortisol, due to chronic stress or infections.[80] Adrenal fatigue should not be confused with a number of actual forms of adrenal dysfunction such asadrenal insufficiency orAddison's disease.[81] The term "adrenal fatigue", which was invented in 1998 by James Wilson, achiropractor,[82] may be applied to a collection of mostlynonspecific symptoms.[80] There is no scientific evidence supporting the concept of adrenal fatigue and it is not recognized as a diagnosis by any scientific or medical community.[80][81] A systematic review found no evidence for the existence of adrenal fatigue, confirming the consensus among endocrinological societies that it is a myth.[83]
TheAlexander Technique, named after its creatorFrederick Matthias Alexander, is an educational process that was created to retrain habitual patterns of movement and posture. Alexander believed thatpoor habits in posture and movement damaged spatialself-awareness as well as health and that movement efficiency could support overall physical well-being. He saw the technique as a mental training technique as well.[84]: 221 Alexander began developing his technique's principles in the 1890s[85] in an attempt to addressvoice loss during public speaking.[84]: 34–35 He credited his method with allowing him to pursue his passion for reciting inShakespearean theater.[86] Some proponents of the Alexander Technique say that it addresses a variety of health conditions related to cumulative physical behaviors, but there is little evidence to support many of the claims made about the technique.[87][88] As of 2015, there was evidence suggesting the Alexander Technique may be helpful for both long-termback pain and long-termneck pain and may help people cope withParkinson's disease.[88] However, bothAetna and the Australian Department of Health have conducted reviews and concluded that the technique has insufficient evidence to warrant insurance coverage.[87]
Alternative cancer treatments arealternative or complementary treatments forcancer that have not been approved by the government agencies responsible for theregulation of therapeutic goods and have not undergone properly conducted, well-designed clinical trials. Among those that have been published, the methodology is often poor. A 2006 systematic review of 214 articles covering 198 clinical trials of alternative cancer treatments concluded that almost none conducteddose-ranging studies, which are necessary to ensure that the patients are being given a useful amount of the treatment.[89] These kinds of treatments appear and vanish frequently and have done so throughout history.[90]
Alternative or fringe medicine – The termsalternative medicine,complementary medicine,integrative medicine,holistic medicine,natural medicine,unorthodox medicine,fringe medicine,unconventional medicine andNew Age medicine are used interchangeably and are almost synonymous.[91] Terminology shifts over time to reflect the branding of practitioners.[92] Therapies are oftenframed as "natural" or "holistic", implicitly and intentionally suggesting that conventional medicine is "artificial" and "narrow in scope".[93][94]
Animal magnetism – also known asmesmerism; was the name given by German doctorFranz Mesmer in the 18th century to what he believed to be an invisible natural force (Lebensmagnetismus) possessed by all living things, including humans, animals and vegetables. He believed that the force could have physical effects, including healing, and he tried persistently but without success to achieve scientific recognition of his ideas.[95]
Anthroposophic medicine, oranthroposophical medicine, is a form of alternative medicine.[96] Devised in the 1920s byRudolf Steiner andIta Wegman, it was based onoccult notions and drew on Steiner'sspiritual philosophy, which he calledanthroposophy. Practitioners employ a variety of treatment techniques based upon anthroposophic precepts.[97] Many drug preparations used in anthroposophic medicine are ultra-diluted substances, similar to those used in homeopathy. Some anthroposophic doctors oppose childhood vaccination and this has led to preventable outbreaks of disease. Professor of complementary medicineEdzard Ernst and other critics have characterized anthroposophic medicine as having no basis in science,[98] pseudoscientific[99] andquackery.[100]
Applied kinesiology (AK) is a technique in alternative medicine claimed to be able to diagnose illness or choose treatment by testing muscles for strength and weakness.[103] According to their guidelines on allergy diagnostic testing, the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology stated there is "no evidence of diagnostic validity" of applied kinesiology.[104] Another study has shown that as an evaluative method, AK "is no more useful than random guessing"[105] and the American Cancer Society has said that "scientific evidence does not support the claim that applied kinesiology can diagnose or treat cancer or other illness".[106]
Aromatherapy uses aromatic materials, includingessential oils, and otheraroma compounds, with claims for improving psychological or physical well-being.[107] It is offered as acomplementary therapy or as a form of alternative medicine, the first meaning alongside standard treatments,[108] the second instead of conventional, evidence-based treatments.[109] Aromatherapists, people who specialize in the practice of aromatherapy, utilize blends of supposedly therapeutic essential oils that can be used as topical application, massage, inhalation or water immersion. There is no good medical evidence that aromatherapy can either prevent, treat, or cure any disease.[110] Placebo-controlled trials are difficult to design, as the point of aromatherapy is the smell of the products. There is disputed evidence that it may be effective in combating postoperative nausea and vomiting.[111]
Auriculotherapy (alsoauricular therapy,ear acupuncture, andauriculoacupuncture) is a form ofalternative medicine based on the idea that theear is a micro-system which reflects the entire body, represented on theauricle, the outer portion of the ear. Conditions affecting the physical, mental or emotional health of the patient are assumed to be treatable by stimulation of the surface of the ear exclusively. Similar mappings are used in many areas of the body, including the practices ofreflexology andiridology. These mappings are not based on or supported by any medical orscientific evidence and are therefore considered to be pseudoscience.[112][113]
Autistic enterocolitis – is the name of a nonexistent medical condition proposed by discreditedBritishgastroenterologistAndrew Wakefield when he suggested a link between a number of common clinical symptoms and signs which he contended were distinctive toautism.[114] The existence of such anenterocolitis has been dismissed by experts as having "not been established".[115] Wakefield's now-retracted and fraudulent[116][117] report used inadequate controls and suppressed negative findings and multiple attempts to replicate his results have been unsuccessful.[118] Reviews in the medical literature have found no link between autism and bowel disease.[119][120][121][needs update]
Ayurveda – traditional Ayurveda is a 5,000-year-old alternative medical practice with roots in ancient India based on a mind-body set of beliefs.[122][123] Imbalance or stress in an individual's consciousness is believed to be the cause of diseases.[122] Patients are classified by body types (threedoshas, which are considered to control mind-body harmony, determine an individual's "body type") and treatment is aimed at restoring balance to the mind-body system.[122][123] It has long been the main traditional system of health care in India[123] and it has become institutionalized in India's colleges and schools, although unlicensed practitioners are common.[124] As with other traditional knowledge, much of it was lost; in the West, current practice is in part based on the teachings of theMaharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1980s,[125] who mixed it withTranscendental Meditation; other forms ofAyurveda exist as well. The most notable advocate of Ayurveda in America isDeepak Chopra, who claims that the Maharishi's Ayurveda is based onquantum mysticism.[125]
Balneotherapy (Latin:balneum "bath") is the presumed benefit fromdisease by bathing, atraditional medicine technique usually practiced atspas.[126] Balneotherapy may involve hot or coldwater,massage through moving water, relaxation, or stimulation. Many mineral waters at spas are rich in particularminerals such assilica,sulfur,selenium andradium. Scientific studies into the effectiveness of balneotherapy do not show that balneotherapy is effective for treatingrheumatoid arthritis.[127] There is also no evidence indicating a more effective type of bath,[127] or to indicate that bathing is more effective than physical exercise,relaxation therapy, ormudpacks.[127] Most of the studies on balneotherapy have methodological flaws and are not reliable.[127][128] A 2009 review of all published clinical evidence concluded that existing research is not sufficiently strong to draw firm conclusions about the efficacy of balneotherapy.[129]
Bates method – an alternative therapy aimed at improvingeyesight. Eye-care physicianWilliam Horatio Bates (1860–1931) attributed nearly all sight problems tohabitual "strain" of the eyes and thus felt that relieving such "strain" would cure the problems. In 1952, optometry professorElwin Marg wrote of Bates, "Most of his claims and almost all of his theories have been considered false by practically all visual scientists."[130]
Biological terrain assessment – a set of computerized tests used to measure the pH, resistivity and redox potentials of a person's urine, blood and saliva, with the intention of recommending a customized program of health supplements and remedies (such as vitamins, homeopathic supplements, or herbal medicines) based on the results. Proponents suggest that BTA allows for a correction of biological imbalances before they become pathological, while opponents claim that the tests are imprecise and result in incorrect diagnoses.[131]
Biorhythm theory – an attempt to predict various aspects of a person's life through simple mathematical cycles. The theory was developed byWilhelm Fliess in the late 19th century and was popularized in the United States in the late 1970s. It was described as pseudoscience.[132]
Body memory (BM) is ahypothesis that the body itself is capable of storing memories, as opposed to only the brain. While experiments have demonstrated the possibility of cellular memory[133] there are currently no known means by which tissues other than the brain would be capable of storing memories.[134][135] Modern usage of BM tends to frame it exclusively in the context of traumatic memory and ways in which the body responds to recall of a memory. In this regard, it has become relevant in treatment forPTSD.[136]
Brain Gym – is an organization promoting a series of exercises claimed to improve academic performance. Twenty-six Brain Gym activities are claimed to improve eye teaming (binocular vision), spatial and listening skills, hand–eye coordination and whole-body flexibility and by doing this manipulate the brain, improving learning and recall of information. The Brain Gym program calls for children to repeat certain simple movements such as crawling, yawning, making symbols in the air and drinking water; these are intended to "integrate", "repattern", and increase blood flow to the brain.[137][138] Though the organization claims the methods are grounded in good neuroscience, the underlying ideas are pseudoscience.[139][140]
Carnivore diet – a fad diet in which nothing is eaten but meat. As well as being unhealthy the diet has a damaging environmental impact.[144]
Chelation therapy is claimed by some practitioners ofalternative medicine to treat a variety of ailments, includingheart disease andautism.[145][146] Whilechelation is a valid form of medical treatment, used as a means to treat conditions such as acute heavy metal toxicity,[147] the use of chelation therapy by alternative medicine practitioners for behavioral and other disorders is considered pseudoscientific; there is no proof that it is effective.[148] In addition to being ineffective, chelation therapy prior to heavy metal testing can artificially raise urinary heavy metal concentrations ("provoked" urine testing) and lead to inappropriate and unnecessary treatment.[149] TheAmerican College of Medical Toxicology and theAmerican Academy of Clinical Toxicology warn the public that chelating agents used in chelation therapy may have serious side effects, including liver and kidney damage, blood pressure changes, allergies and, in some cases, even death of the patient.[149]
Chromotherapy, sometimes calledcolor therapy,colorology orcromatherapy, is an alternative medicine method which is considered pseudoscience.[157] Chromotherapists claim to be able to use light in the form of color to balance "energy" lacking from a person's body, whether it be on physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental levels. Color therapy is distinct from other types oflight therapy, such asneonatal jaundice treatment[158] andblood irradiation therapy, which is a scientifically accepted medical treatment for a number of conditions,[159] and fromphotobiology, the scientific study of the effects of light on living organisms. French skeptic and lighting physicist Sébastien Point considers LED lamps at domestic radiance to be safe in normal use for the general population;[160][161] he also pointed out the risk of overexposure to light from LEDs for practices like chromotherapy, when duration and time exposure are not under control.[162][163]
Chronic Lyme disease (not to be confused withLyme disease) is a generally rejected diagnosis that encompasses "a broad array of illnesses or symptom complexes for which there is no reproducible or convincing scientific evidence of any relationship toBorrelia burgdorferi infection."[164] Despite numerous studies, there is no clinical evidence that "chronic" Lyme disease is caused by a persistent infection.[165] It is distinct from post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, a set of lingering symptoms which may persist after successful treatment of infection with Lyme spirochetes. The symptoms of "chronic Lyme" are generic and non-specific "symptoms of life".[166]
Colon cleansing (a.k.a.colon therapy) encompasses a number ofalternative medical therapies claimed to remove nonspecifictoxins from thecolon and intestinal tract by removing any accumulations offeces. Colon cleansing may be brandedcolon hydrotherapy, acolonic orcolonic irrigation. During the 2000s, internet marketing andinfomercials of oral supplements supposedly for colon cleansing increased.[167] Some forms ofcolon Hydrotherapy use tubes to injectwater, sometimes mixed with herbs or with other liquids, into the colon via the rectum using special equipment. Oral cleaning regimens usedietary fiber, herbs,dietary supplements, orlaxatives. People who practice colon cleansing believe that accumulations of putrefied feces line the walls of thelarge intestine and that these accumulations harborparasites or pathogenicgut flora, causingnonspecific symptoms and general ill-health. This "auto-intoxication" hypothesis is based on medical beliefs of theAncient Egyptians andGreeks and was discredited in the early 20th century.[168]
Colloidal silver (acolloid consisting of silver particles suspended in liquid) and formulations containing silver salts were used by physicians in the early 20th century, but their use was largely discontinued in the 1940s following the development of safer and effective modern antibiotics.[169][170] Since about 1990, there has been a resurgence of the promotion of colloidal silver as a dietary supplement,[171] marketed with claims of it being an essential mineral supplement, or that it can prevent or treat numerous diseases, such ascancer,diabetes,arthritis,HIV/AIDS,herpes[169] andtuberculosis.[171][172][173] No medical evidence supports the effectiveness of colloidal silver for any of these claimed indications.[171][174][175] Silver is not anessential mineral in humans; there is no dietary requirement for silver and hence, no such thing as a silver "deficiency".[171] There is no evidence that colloidal silver treats or prevents any medical condition and it can cause serious and potentially irreversible side effects, such asargyria.[171]
Craniosacral therapy – is a form of bodywork or alternative therapy using gentle touch to manipulate the synarthrodial joints of the cranium. A practitioner of craniosacral therapy may also apply light touches to a patient's spine and pelvis. Practitioners believe that this manipulation regulates the flow of cerebrospinal fluid and aids in "primary respiration." Craniosacral therapy was developed by John Upledger, D.O. in the 1970s as an offshoot of osteopathy in the cranial field, or cranial osteopathy, which was developed in the 1930s by William Garner Sutherland. According to the American Cancer Society, although CST may relieve the symptoms of stress or tension, "available scientific evidence does not support claims that craniosacral therapy helps in treating cancer or any other disease." CST has been characterized as pseudoscience and its practice has been called quackery.[178][179] Cranial osteopathy has received a similar assessment, with one 1990 paper finding there was no scientific basis for any of the practitioners' claims the paper examined.[180]
Cryonics – a field of products, techniques, and beliefs supporting the idea that freezing the clinically dead at very low temperatures (typically below −196 degrees Celsius) will enable future revival or re-substantiation. These beliefs often hinge on the existence of advanced human societies in the distant future that will possess as-of-yet unknown technology for the stabilization of dying cells. There is no evidence a human being can be revived after such freezing and no solid scientific evidence suggests that reanimation will be possible in the future.[181][182][183][184]
Crystal healing – belief thatcrystals have healing properties. Once common among pre-scientific and indigenous peoples, it enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in the 1970s with theNew Age movement. There is no scientific evidence that crystal healing has any effect.[185]
Cupping therapy is an ancient form ofalternative medicine. Cupping is used in more than 60 countries.[186] Its usage dates back to as far as 1550 B.C.[187] There are different forms of cupping; the most common are dry, wet and fire cupping. Cups are applied onto the skin and a suction is created, pulling the skin up. It is meant to increase blood flow to certain areas of the body.[188] Not a part of medical practice in the modern era, cupping has been characterized as a pseudoscience.[189] There is no good evidence it has any health benefits and there are some risks of harm, especially in case of wet and fire cupping.[190]
Detoxification – Detoxification in the context ofalternative medicine consists of an approach that claims to rid the body of "toxins" – accumulated substances that allegedly exert undesirable effects on individual health in the short or long term. The concept has received criticism from scientists and health organizations for its unsound scientific basis and lack of evidence for the claims made.[191] The "toxins" usually remain undefined, with little to no evidence of toxic accumulation in the patient. The British organisationSense about Science has described some detox diets and commercial products as "a waste of time and money",[192] while the British Dietetic Association called the idea "nonsense" and a "marketing myth".[193] In the human body, the processing of chemicals, including those considered 'toxins', is handled by a number of organs, most prominently the liver and kidneys, thus making detoxes unnecessary.[194]
Digit ratio – calculated by dividing the length of an index finger by the ring finger of the same hand, has been proposed to correlate with various personality, sexuality, biological, psychological and physical traits/outcomes. The field has been compared to pseudoscience due to irreproducible or contradictory findings, exaggerated claims of usefulness and lack of high quality research protocols.[195][196]
Ear candling, also calledear coning orthermal-auricular therapy, is a pseudoscientific[197] alternative medicine practice claimed to improve general health and well-being by lighting one end of a hollowcandle and placing the other end in theear canal. Medical research has shown that the practice is both dangerous and ineffective[198] and does not functionally removeearwax ortoxicants, despite product design contributing to that impression.[199]
Earthing therapy orgrounding is a therapy that is claimed to ease pain, provide a better night's sleep, and assist with symptoms ofinflammation by being in direct physical contact with the ground or a device connected toelectrical ground.[200] Practitioners claim that Earth has an excess of electrons which people are missing due to insulating shoes and ground cover.[201] Being in electrical contact with Earth is claimed to provide the body with those excess electrons, which then act asantioxidants. A 2012 systematic review study showed inconclusive results related to methodological issues across the literature.[202] Subsequently, a 2017 systematic review of the benefits of spending time in forests demonstrated positive health effects, but not enough to generate clinical practice guidelines or demonstratecausality.[203]
Electrohomeopathy (orMattei cancer cure) is a derivative ofhomeopathy invented in the 19th century by Count Cesare Mattei. The name is derived from a combination ofelectro (referring to an electricbio-energy content supposedly extracted from plants and of therapeutic value, rather thanelectricity in its conventional sense) andhomeopathy (referring to an alternative medicinal philosophy developed bySamuel Hahnemann in the 18th century). Electrohomeopathy has been defined as the combination of electrical devices and homeopathy.[204]
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) – reported sensitivity toelectric andmagnetic fields orelectromagnetic radiation of various frequencies at exposure levels well below established safety standards. Symptoms are inconsistent, but can include headache, fatigue, difficulty sleeping and similar non-specific indications.[205] Provocation studies find that the discomfort of sufferers is unrelated to hidden sources of radiation[206] and "no scientific basis currently exists for a connection between EHS and exposure to [electromagnetic fields]."[207][208]
Energy medicine,energy therapy,energy healing,vibrational medicine, psychic healing,spiritual medicine, orspiritual healing are branches of alternative medicine based on a pseudoscientific belief that healers can channel healingenergy into a patient and effect positive results. This idea itself contains several methods: hands-on, hands-off and distant (or absent) where the patient and healer are in different locations.[209] While early reviews of the scientific literature on energy healing were equivocal and recommended further research,[210][211] more recent reviews have concluded that there is no evidence supporting clinical efficiency.[212]
Facilitated communication is a scientifically discredited technique[213] that attempts to aid communication by people with autism or other communication disabilities. The facilitator holds the disabled person's arm or hand during this process and attempts to help them move to type on a keyboard or other device.[214] Research indicates that the facilitator is the source of the messages obtained through FC (involvingideomotor effect guidance of the arm of the patient by the facilitator).[215][216] Studies have consistently found that FC is unable to provide the correct response to even simple questions when the facilitator does not know the answers to the questions (e.g., showing the patient but not the facilitator an object).[217]
Fad diet - adiet that becomes popular for a short time, similar tofads infashion, without being a standard dietary recommendation, and often making pseudoscientific or unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements.[219][220][221][222][223] Fad diets are generally restrictive (such as low-calorie diets e.g.fasting, or high protein-low carbohydrate diets e.g.Atkins diet), and are characterized by promises of fast weight loss[222][224] or great physical health (such as "detoxification" or diets purporting to bealternative cancer treatments).[220][222][225][226] Fad diets are not supported byclinical research and their health recommendations are notpeer-reviewed, thus they often make unsubstantiated statements about health and disease.[221]
TheFeldenkrais Method is a type ofexercise therapy devised by IsraeliMoshé Feldenkrais (1904–1984) during the mid-20th century. The method is claimed to reorganize connections between the brain and body and so improve body movement and psychological state.[229] There is no goodmedical evidence that the Feldenkrais method confers any health benefits. It is not known if it is safe or cost-effective,[87] but researchers do not believe it poses serious risks.[230]
Functional medicine is a form of alternative medicine that encompasses a number of unproven and disproven methods and treatments.[231][232][233] Its proponents claim that it focuses on the "root causes" of diseases based on interactions between the environment and the gastrointestinal, endocrine and immune systems to develop "individualized treatment plans".[234] Opponents have described it as pseudoscience,[235]quackery[236] and, at its essence, a re-branding ofcomplementary and alternative medicine.[236]
Germanic New Medicine – Sometime after his son's death in 1978Ryke Geerd Hamer developed testicular cancer; believing there was a link between the two events Hamer developed "Germanic New Medicine" (GNM). According to GNM no real diseases exist; rather, what established medicine calls a "disease" is actually a "special meaningful program of nature" (sinnvolles biologisches Sonderprogramm) to which bacteria, viruses and fungi belong. Hamer's GNM claims to explain every disease and treatment according to those premises and to thereby obviate traditional medicine. The cure is always the resolving of the conflict. Some treatments likechemotherapy or pain relieving drugs likemorphine are deadly, according to Hamer.[237][238] These "laws" are dogmas of GNM, not laws of nature or medicine, and are at odds with scientific understanding of human physiology.[239]
Hair analysis is, in mainstream scientific usage, the chemical analysis of ahair sample. The use ofhair analysis inalternative medicine as a method of investigation to assistalternative diagnosis is controversial[240][241] and its use in this manner has been opposed repeatedly by theAMA because of its unproven status and its potential for health care fraud.[242]
Health bracelets and various healing jewelry such asionized bracelets,hologram bracelets andmagnetic jewelry, are purported to improve the health, heal, or improve thechi of the wearer. No claims of effectiveness made by manufacturers have ever been substantiated by independent sources.[243][244]
Hexagonal water – A term used in amarketing scam[245][246] that claims the ability to create a certain configuration of water that is better for the body.[247] The term "hexagonal water" refers to acluster of water molecules forming a hexagonal shape that supposedly enhances nutrient absorption, removes metabolic wastes and enhancescellular communication, among other things.[248] Similar to thedihydrogen monoxide hoax, the scam takes advantage of the consumer's limited knowledge of chemistry, physics and physiology.
Homeopathy – the belief that a patient with symptoms of an illness can be treated with extremely dilute remedies that are thought to produce those same symptoms in healthy people. Thesepreparations are often diluted beyond the point where any treatment molecule is likely to remain. Studies of homeopathic practice have been largely negative or inconclusive.[249][250][251] No scientific basis for homeopathic principles has been substantiated.[252][253][254][255][256][257][258]
Iridology – means of medical diagnosis which proponents believe can identify and diagnose health problems through close examination of the markings and patterns of theiris. Practitioners divide the iris into 80–90 zones, each of which is connected to a particular body region or organ. This connection has not been scientifically validated and disorder detection is neither selective nor specific.[262][263][264] Because iris texture is a phenotypical feature which develops during gestation and remains unchanged after birth (which makes the iris useful forBiometrics), iridology is all but impossible.
Jilly Juice – a potentially dangerous fermented drink that has been claimed to treat a variety of medical conditions.[265]
Leaky gut syndrome – in alternative medicine, a proposed condition caused by the passage of harmful substances outward through the gut wall. It has been proposed as the cause of many conditions, includingmultiple sclerosis and autism, a claim which has been called pseudoscientific.[266] According to theUK National Health Service, the theory is vague and unproven.[267] Some skeptics and scientists say that the marketing of treatments for leaky gut syndrome is either misguided or an instance of deliberatehealth fraud.[267]
Lightning Process – a system claimed to be derived from osteopathy,neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and life coaching.[268] Proponents claim that the Process can have a positive effect on a long list of diseases and conditions, includingmyalgic encephalomyelitis, despite no scientific evidence of efficacy. The designer of the Lightning Process, Phil Parker, suggests certain illnesses such asME/CFS arise from a dysregulation of thecentral nervous system andautonomic nervous system, which the Lightning Process aims to address, helping to break the "adrenaline loop" that keeps the systems' stress responses high.[269][270]
Macrobiotic diets (ormacrobiotics) are fixed on ideas about types of food drawn fromZen Buddhism.[271][272] The diet attempts to balance the supposedyin and yang elements of food and cookware.[273][274] Major principles of macrobiotic diets are to reduce animal products, eat locally grown foods that are in season and consume meals in moderation.[271] Macrobiotics writers often claim that a macrobiotic diet is helpful for people with cancer and other chronic diseases, although there is no good evidence to support such recommendations and the diet can be harmful.[271][275][276] Studies that indicate positive results are of poor methodological quality.[271] Neither theAmerican Cancer Society norCancer Research UK recommend adopting the diet.[276][277]
Magnet therapy – practice of using magnetic fields to positively influence health. While there are legitimate medical uses for magnets and magnetic fields, the field strength used in magnetic therapy is too low to effect any biological change and the methods used have no scientific validity.[278][279][280]
Amedical intuitive is analternative medicine practitioner who claims to use their self-described intuitive abilities to find the cause of a physical or emotional condition through the use of insight rather thanmodern medicine.[281] Other terms for such a person includemedical clairvoyant,medical psychic, orintuitive counselor.[282] In 2009,Steven Novella, writing onScience Based Medicine, calls medical intuitive diagnosis as "purely magical thinking" and refers to aHuffington Post article about it as "a promotion of a dubious pseudoscientific medical claim".[283]
Morgellons – is the informal name of a self-diagnosed, unexplainedskin condition in which individuals have sores that they believe contain some kind of fibers.[284][285][286] Morgellons is poorly characterized, but the general medical consensus is that it is a form ofdelusional parasitosis.[287] An attempt to link Morgellons to the cause ofLyme disease has been attacked bySteven Salzberg as "dangerous pseudoscience".[288]
Naturopathy, ornaturopathic medicine, is a type of alternative medicine based on a belief invitalism, which posits that a special energy called vital energy or vital force guides bodily processes such as metabolism, reproduction, growth and adaptation.[301] Naturopathy has been characterized as pseudoscience.[302][303] It has particularly been criticized for its unproven, disproven, or dangerous treatments.[304][305][306][307]Natural methods and chemicals are not necessarily safer or more effective thanartificial orsynthetic ones; any treatment capable of eliciting an effect may also have deleterious side effects.[303][308][309][310]
Oil pulling – is a folk remedy where oil is "swished" or "held" in the mouth for up to 20 minutes with the goal of improving oral as well as systemic health. It is said that this technique "pulls out" toxins from the body and is claimed to be able to treat a plethora of conditions frommigraines todiabetes.[313]
Orthomolecular medicine,[314][315] sometimes referred to asmegavitamin therapy, is a form ofalternative medicine that aims to maintainhuman health through nutritionalsupplementation. The concept builds on the idea of an optimum nutritional environment in the body and suggests that diseases reflect deficiencies in this environment. Treatment for disease, according to this view, involves attempts to correct "imbalances or deficiencies based on individual biochemistry" by use of substances such as vitamins, minerals,amino acids, trace elements and fatty acids.[316][317][318] The notions behind orthomolecular medicine are not supported by soundmedical evidence and the therapy is not effective;[319][320] even the validity of calling the orthomolecular approach a form of medicine has been questioned since the 1970s.[321]
Osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) orosteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) – the core technique of osteopathic medicine. OMM is based on a philosophy devised byAndrew Taylor Still (1828–1917), who held that the body had self-regulating mechanisms that could be harnessed through manipulating the bones, tendons and muscles. It has been proposed as a treatment for a number of human ailments, includingParkinson's disease,pancreatitis andpneumonia, but has only been found to be effective for lower back pain by virtue of thespinal manipulation used.[322][323][324] It has long been regarded as rooted in "pseudoscientific dogma".[325] In 2010,Steven Salzberg referred to the OMT-specific training given by colleges of osteopathic medicine as "training in pseudoscientific practices".[326]
Radionics – means of medical diagnosis and therapy which proponents believe can diagnose and remedy health problems using various frequencies in aputative energy field coupled to the practitioner's electronic device. The first such "black box" devices were designed and promoted byAlbert Abrams and were definitively proven useless by an independent investigation commissioned byScientific American in 1924.[330] The internal circuitry of radionics devices is often obfuscated and irrelevant, leading proponents to conjecturedowsing andESP as operating principles.[331][332][333] Similar devices continue to be marketed under various names, though none is approved by the U.S.Food and Drug Administration; there is no scientific evidence for the efficacy or underlying premise of radionics devices.[334][335] The radionics of Albert Abrams and his intellectual descendants should not be confused with similarly named reputable and legitimate companies, products, or medical treatments such asradiotherapy orradiofrequency ablation.
Reiki is a form ofalternative medicine calledenergy healing. Reiki practitioners use a technique calledpalm healing orhands-on healing through which a "universal energy" is said to be transferred through the palms of the practitioner to the patient in order to encourage emotional or physical healing. Reiki is a pseudoscience,[336] and is used as an illustrative example of pseudoscience in scholarly texts and academic journal articles. It is based onqi ("chi"), which practitioners say is a universallife force, although there is noempirical evidence that such a life force exists.[337][338] Clinical research has not shown reiki to be effective as a treatment for any medical condition.[337] There has been no proof of the effectiveness of reiki therapy compared to theplacebo effect. An overview of reiki investigations found that studies reporting positive effects had methodological flaws. TheAmerican Cancer Society stated that reiki should not replace conventional cancer treatment,[339] a sentiment echoed byCancer Research UK[340] and theNational Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.[341] Developed in Japan in 1922 byMikao Usui,[336] it has been adapted into varying cultural traditions across the world.
Reflexology, orzone therapy, is analternative medicine involving the physical act of applying pressure to the feet, hands, or ears with specific thumb, finger and hand techniques without the use of oil or lotion. It is based on what reflexologists claim to be a system of zones and reflex areas that they say reflect an image of the body on the feet and hands, with the premise that such work effects a physical change to the body.[342] A 2009systematic review of randomized controlled trials concluded that the best evidence available to date does not demonstrate convincingly that reflexology is an effective treatment for any medical condition.[343] There is no consensus among reflexologists on how reflexology is supposed to work; a unifying theme is the idea that areas on the foot correspond to areas of the body and that, by manipulating these, one can improve health through one'sqi.[344] Reflexologists divide the body into 10 equal vertical zones, five on the right and five on the left.[345] Concerns have been raised by medical professionals that treating potentially serious illnesses with reflexology, which has no proven efficacy, could delay the seeking of appropriate medical treatment.[346]
Rolfing (also calledStructural Integration) – body manipulation devised byIda Rolf (1896–1979) claimed by practitioners to be capable of ridding the body of traumatic memories stored in the muscles.[347] There is no evidence that rolfing is effective as a treatment for any condition.[87]
Therapeutic touch – a form ofvitalism where a practitioner, who may be also a nurse,[348][349] passes their hands over and around a patient to "realign" or "rebalance" a putative energy field.[350] A recentCochrane Review concluded that "[t]here is no evidence that [Therapeutic Touch] promotes healing of acute wounds."[351] No biophysical basis for such an energy field has been found.[352][353]
Tin foil hat – A tin foil hat is a hat made from one or more sheets of aluminium foil, or a piece of conventional headgear lined with foil, worn in the belief it shields the brain from threats such as electromagnetic fields,mind control and mind reading. The usage of a metal foil hat for protection against interference of the mind was mentioned in a science fiction short story byJulian Huxley, "The Tissue-Culture King", first published in 1926,[354] in which the protagonist discovers that "caps of metal foil" can block the effects of telepathy.[355] At this time, no link has been established between the radio-frequency EMR that tin foil hats are meant to protect against and subsequent ill health.
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) – atraditional medical system originating in China and practiced as analternative medicine throughout much of the world. It contains elements based in the cosmology ofTaoism[356] and considers the human body more in functional andvitalistic than anatomical terms.[357][358] Health and illness in TCM follow the principle ofyin and yang and are ascribed to balance or imbalance in the flow of avital force,qi.[359][75] Diagnostic methods are solely external, includingpulse examination at six points, examination of a patient's tongue and a patient interview; interpractitioner diagnostic agreement is poor.[357][360][361][362] The TCM description of the function and structure of the human body is fundamentally different from modern medicine.
TCMmateria medica – a collection ofcrude medicines used in traditional Chinese medicine. These include many plants in part or whole, such asginseng andwolfberry, as well as more exotic ingredients, such asseahorses. Preparations generally include several ingredients in combination, with selection based on physical characteristics such as taste or shape, or relationship to the organs of TCM.[363] Most preparations have not been rigorously evaluated or give no indication of efficacy.[364][365][366]Pharmacognosy research for potential active ingredients present in these preparations is active, though the applications do not always correspond to those of TCM.[367]
Gua sha (Chinese:刮痧),kerokan orcoining, is part oftraditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Its practitioners use a tool to scrape people's skin to causetissue damage in the belief this has medicinal benefit.[368][369] Gua sha is sometimes referred to as "scraping", "spooning" or "coining" by English speakers.Edzard Ernst has written that any apparent benefit from gua sha is due to theplacebo effect.[370]
Qi –vital energy whose flow must be balanced for health.Qi has never been directly observed and is unrelated to the concept ofenergy used in science.[375][376][377]
Urine therapy – drinking either one's own undiluted urine or homeopathic potions of urine for treatment of a wide variety of diseases is based on pseudoscience.[383]
Promotion of a link betweenautism and vaccines, in which the vaccines are accused of causing autism-spectrum conditions, triggering them, or aggravating them, has been characterized as pseudoscience.[384] Many epidemiological studies have reported no association between either theMMR vaccine and autism, orthimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.[385][386] Consequently, theInstitute of Medicine has concluded that there is no causal link between either of these varieties of vaccines and autism.[387] Similarly,"vaccine overload", a non-medical term describing the notion that giving many vaccines at once may overwhelm or weaken a child's immature immune system and lead to adverse effects[388][389] is strongly contradicted by scientific evidence.[120]
Vitalism – doctrine that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is, in some part, self-determining. The bookEncyclopedia of Pseudoscience stated "today, vitalism is one of the ideas that form the basis for many pseudoscientific health systems that claim that illnesses are caused by a disturbance or imbalance of the body's vital force." "Vitalists claim to be scientific, but in fact they reject the scientific method with its basic postulates of cause and effect and of provability. They often regard subjective experience to be more valid than objective material reality."[390]
Water memory – a homeopathic theory based on the purported ability of water to retain a memory of substances previously dissolved in it.[391]
Wind turbine syndrome andwind farm syndrome are terms for adverse health effects that have been ascribed to the proximity ofwind turbines.[394] Proponents have claimed that these effects include death, cancer andcongenital abnormality. The distribution of recorded events, however, correlates with media coverage of wind farm syndrome itself and not with the presence or absence of wind farms.[395][396] Reviews of the scientific literature have consistently found no reason to believe that wind turbines are harmful to health.[397]
Christ myth theory – Afringe theory that proposes that thehistorical Jesus did not exist in any capacity whatsoever. While the divinity of Jesus is a matter of religious and philosophical rather than historical debate, Christian and non-Christian scholars of antiquity universally agree thatJesus of Nazareth was aGalilean Jew who lived in the first century,was baptized, and latercrucified by Roman authorities. This is based onsources written by historians, scholars, and politicians who lived during the time of Christ.[398][399][400][401][402]
Attachment therapy – common name for a set of potentially fatal[424] clinical interventions and parenting techniques aimed at controlling aggressive, disobedient, or unaffectionate children using "restraint and physical and psychological abuse to seek their desired results."[425] (The term "attachment therapy" may sometimes be used loosely to refer to mainstream approaches based on attachment theory, usually outside the US where the pseudoscientific form of attachment therapy is less known.) Probably the most common form is holding therapy, in which the child is restrained by adults for the purpose of supposed cathartic release ofsuppressed rage andregression. Perhaps the most extreme, but much less common, is "rebirthing", in which the child is wrapped tightly in a blanket and then made to simulate emergence from a birth canal. This is done by encouraging the child to struggle and pushing and squeezing him/her to mimic contractions.[278] Despite the practice's name, it is not based on traditionalattachment theory and shares no principles of mainstream developmental psychology research.[426] In 2006, it was the subject of an almost entirely critical Taskforce Report commissioned by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC).[427]
Conversion therapy – sometimes calledreparative therapy, seeks to change a non-heterosexual person'ssexual orientation so they will no longer have same-sex attraction.[428] TheAmerican Psychiatric Association defines reparative therapy as "psychiatric treatment ... which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon thea priori assumption that a patient should change their sexual homosexual orientation."[429][430][431]
Coding is a catch-all term for variousRussianalternative therapeutic methods used to treataddictions, in which the therapist attempts to scare patients into abstinence from a substance they are addicted to by convincing them that they will be harmed or killed if they use it again. Each method involves the therapist pretending to insert a "code" into patients' brains that will ostensibly provoke a strongadverse reaction should it come into contact with the addictive substance. The methods use a combination of theatrics,hypnosis,placebos, anddrugs with temporary adverse effects to instill the erroneous beliefs. Therapists may pretend to "code" patients for a fixed length of time, such as five years.[432]
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a form ofpsychotherapy in which the person being treated is asked to recall distressing images; the therapist then directs the person in one type ofbilateral sensory input, such as side-to-sideeye movements or hand tapping.[433] It is included in several guidelines for the treatment ofpost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).[434][435] Some clinical psychologists have argued that the eye movements do not add anything above imagery exposure and characterize its promotion and use as pseudoscience.[436]
Facilitated communication (FC), orsupported typing, is a scientifically discredited technique[213] that attempts to facilitate communication by people with severe educational and communication disabilities. The facilitator holds or gently touches the disabled person's arm or hand during this process and attempts to help them move to type on a special keyboard. In addition to providing physical support needed for typing or pointing, the facilitator provides verbal prompts and moral support.[214] There is widespread agreement within the scientific community and multiple disability advocacy organizations that FC is not a valid technique for authentically augmenting the communication skills of those with autism spectrum disorder.[437] Instead, research indicates that the facilitator is the source of most or all messages obtained through FC (involvingideomotor effect guidance of the arm of the patient by the facilitator);[215][216] thus, studies have consistently found that patients are unable to provide the correct response to even simple questions when the facilitator does not know the answers to the questions (e.g., showing the patient but not the facilitator an object) .[217] In addition, numerous cases have been reported by investigators in which disabled persons were assumed by facilitators to be typing a coherent message while the patient's eyes were closed or while they were looking away from or showing no particular interest in the letter board.[438]
Graphology – psychological test based on a belief that personality traits or gender unconsciously and consistently influence handwriting morphology—that certain types of people exhibit certain quirks of the pen. Analysis of handwriting attributes provides no better than chance correspondence with personality, and neuroscientistBarry Beyerstein likened the assigned correlations to sympathetic magic.[278][348][439][440][441][442] Graphology is only superficially related toforensic document examination, which also examines handwriting.
Hypnosis – state of extreme relaxation and inner focus in which a person is unusually responsive to suggestions made by the hypnotist. The modern practice has its roots in the idea ofanimal magnetism, or mesmerism, originated byFranz Mesmer.[443] Mesmer's explanations were thoroughly discredited, and to this day there is no agreement amongst researchers whether hypnosis is a real phenomenon, or merely a form of participatory role-enactment.[278][444][445] Some aspects of suggestion have been clinically useful.[446][447] Other claimed uses of hypnosis more clearly fall within the area of pseudoscience. Such areas include the use of hypnotic regression, includingpast life regression.[448]
Hypnotherapy – therapy that is undertaken with a subject in hypnosis.[449] Usinghypnosis for relaxation,mood control, and other related benefits (often related tomeditation) is regarded as part of standard medical treatment rather than alternative medicine, particularly for patients subjected to difficult physical emotional stress inchemotherapy.[450]
Memetics – approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer based on the concept that units of information, or "memes", have an independent existence, are self-replicating, and are subject to selective evolution through environmental forces. Starting from a proposition put forward in the writings ofRichard Dawkins, it has since turned into a new area of study, one that looks at the self-replicating units of culture. It has been proposed that just as memes are analogous to genes, memetics is analogous to genetics. Memetics has been deemed a pseudoscience on several fronts.[454] Its proponents' assertions have been labeled "untested, unsupported or incorrect".[454] Supporters of memetics includeEO Wilson,Douglas Hofstadter and many others.
Myers–Briggs Type Indicator – apersonality test composed of four categories of two types. The test hasconsistent problems withrepeatability, in addition to problems of whether or not it has exhaustive and mutually exclusive classifications.[455][456][457][458][459][460][461][462][463] The four categories are Introversion/Extroversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perception. Each person is said to have one quality from each category, producing 16 unique types. The Center for Applications of Psychological Type claims that the MBTI is scientifically supported, but most of the research on it is done through its own journal,Journal of Psychological Type, raising questions of bias.[464] Results are said to follow theBarnum effect.
Neuro-linguistic programming – an approach tocommunication,personal development, andpsychotherapy created in the 1970s. The title refers to a stated connection between the neurological processes ("neuro"), language ("linguistic") and behavioral patterns that have been learned through experience ("programming") and can be organized to achieve specific goals in life.[465][466] According to certain neuroscientists[467] psychologists[468][469] and linguists,[470][471] NLP is unsupported by current scientific evidence, and uses incorrect and misleading terms and concepts. Reviews of empirical research on NLP indicate that NLP contains numerous factual errors,[472][473] and has failed to produce reliable results for the claims for effectiveness made by NLP's originators and proponents.[469][474] According to Devilly,[475] NLP is no longer as prevalent as it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Criticisms go beyond the lack of empirical evidence for effectiveness; critics say that NLP exhibits pseudoscientific characteristics,[475] title,[467] concepts and terminology.[470] NLP is used as an example of pseudoscience for facilitating the teaching of scientific literacy at the professional and university level.[471][476][477] NLP also appears on peer-reviewed expert-consensus based lists of discredited interventions.[469] In research designed to identify the "quack factor" in modern mental health practice, Norcrosset al. (2006)[478] list NLP as possibly or probably discredited, and in papers reviewing discredited interventions for substance and alcohol abuse, Norcrosset al. (2008)[479] list NLP in the "top ten" most discredited, and Glasner-Edwards and Rawson (2010) list NLP as "certainly discredited".[480]
Odic force – hypothetical life force used to explain hypnosis.
Phrenology – now defunct system for determining personality traits by feeling bumps on the skull proposed by 18th-century physiologistFranz Joseph Gall.[278] In an early recorded use of the term "pseudo-science",François Magendie referred to phrenology as "a pseudo-science of the present day".[485] The assumption that personality can be read from bumps in the skull has since been thoroughly discredited. However, Gall's assumption that character, thoughts, and emotions are located in the brain is considered an important historical advance toward neuropsychology (see alsoLocalization of brain function,Brodmann's areas,Neuro-imaging,Modularity of mind orFaculty psychology).[486]
Polygraph ("lie detection")[487] – an interrogation method which measures and records several physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while the subject is asked and answers a series of questions. The belief is that deceptive answers will produce physiological responses that can be differentiated from those associated with non-deceptive answers. Many members of the scientific community consider polygraphy to be pseudoscience.[488][489] Polygraphy has little credibility among scientists.[490][491] Despite claims of 90–95% validity by polygraph advocates, and 95–100% by businesses providing polygraph services,[492] critics maintain that rather than a "test", the method amounts to an inherently unstandardizableinterrogation technique whose accuracy cannot be established. A 1997 survey of 421 psychologists estimated the test's average accuracy at about 61%, a little better than chance.[493]
Primal therapy – sometimes presented as a science.[494]The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology (2001) states that: "The theoretical basis for the therapy is the supposition that prenatal experiences and birth trauma form people's primary impressions of life and that they subsequently influence the direction our lives take ... Truth be known, primal therapy cannot be defended on scientifically established principles. This is not surprising considering its questionable theoretical rationale."[495] Other sources have also questioned the scientific validity of primal therapy, some using the term "pseudoscience" (seePrimal therapy § Criticism).
Psychoanalysis – body of ideas developed by Austrian physicianSigmund Freud and his followers, which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior. Although psychoanalysis is a strong influence withinpsychiatry,[a][b] it has been controversial ever since its inception. It is considered pseudoscience by some.[498]Karl Popper characterized it as pseudoscience based on psychoanalysis failing the requirement forfalsifiability.[499][500]Frank Cioffi argued that "though Popper is correct to say that psychoanalysis is pseudoscientific and correct to say that it is unfalsifiable, he is mistaken to suggest that it is pseudoscientificbecause it is unfalsifiable. [...] It is when [Freud] insists that he has confirmed (not just instantiated) [his empirical theses] that he is being pseudoscientific."[501]
Sluggish schizophrenia – a diagnosis used in some Communist nations to justify the involuntary commitment of political dissidents to mental institutions.[502]
Subliminal advertising – visual or auditory information discerned below the threshold of conscious awareness, which is claimed to have a powerful enduring effect on consuming habits. It went into disrepute in the late 1970s,[503] but there has been renewed research interest recently.[when?][278][444] The mainstream of accepted scientific opinion does not hold thatsubliminal perception has a powerful, enduring effect on human behaviour.[504]
Scientific racism – claim that scientific evidence shows the inferiority or superiority of certain races.[507][508]
Aryanism – the claim that there is a distinct "Aryan race" that is superior to other putative races[509] was an important tenet ofNazism and "the basis of the German government policy of exterminating Jews, Gypsies, and other 'non-Aryans.'"[510]
Melanin theory – belief founded in the distortion of known physical properties of melanin, a natural polymer, that posits the inherent superiority of dark-skinned people and the essential inhumanity and inferiority of light-skinned people.[514][515]
Turkish History Thesis – the belief that Turks from Central Asia migrated and brought civilization to China, India, the Middle East, and Europe.[516][517]
Eugenics – As a movement, eugenics was associated with pseudoscience including pseudoscientific journals and professional societies.[518][519][520][521][522] This is to be contrasted with the common and scientifically accepted practice ofselective breeding.
Unilineal evolution – Before Darwin's workOn the Origin of Species, some models incorporatedEnlightenment ideas ofsocial progress, and thus, according tophilosopher of scienceMichael Ruse, were pseudoscientific by current standards, and may have been viewed as such during the 18th century, as well as into the start of the 19th century (though the word pseudoscience may not have been used in reference to these early proposals). This pseudoscientific, and often political, incorporation of social progress with evolutionary thought continued for some 100 years following the publication ofOrigin of Species.[529][530]
Paranormal and ufology
Paranormal subjects[1][252][531][532] have been critiqued from a wide range of sources including the following claims of paranormal significance:
Animal mutilations – cases of animals, primarily domestic livestock, with seemingly inexplicable wounds. These wounds have been said to be caused by extraterrestrials, cults, covert government organizations, orcryptids such asel chupacabra, when in fact most such cases were found to be caused by natural predation.[278]
Anaura orhuman energy field is, according toNew Age beliefs, a colored emanation said to enclose a human body or any animal or object.[533] In some esoteric positions, the aura is described as asubtle body.[534]Psychics and holistic medicine practitioners often claim to have the ability to see the size, color and type of vibration of an aura.[535] In New Age alternative medicine, the human aura is seen as a hidden anatomy that affects the health of a client, and is often understood to be composed of centers of vital force calledchakra.[533] Such claims are not supported byscientific evidence and are pseudoscience.[535] When tested undercontrolled experiments, the ability to see auras has not been shown to exist.[536]
Channeling – communication of information to or through a person allegedly from a spirit or other paranormal entity.[1]
Crop circles – geometric designs of crushed or knocked-over crops created in a field. Aside from skilled farmers or pranksters working through the night, explanations for their formation include UFOs and anomalous, tornado-like air currents.[532] The study of crop circles has become known as "cerealogy".[537]
Cryptozoology – search for creatures that are considered not to exist by most biologists.[538] Well-known examples of creatures of interest to cryptozoologists includeBigfoot, theYeren, theYeti, and theLoch Ness Monster. According to leadingskeptical authorsMichael Shermer andPat Linse, "Cryptozoology ranges from pseudoscientific to useful and interesting, depending on how it is practiced."[278]
Dowsing refers to practices said to enable one to detect hidden water, metals, gemstones or other objects.[348][350]
Ghost hunting is the process of investigatinglocations that are reported to be haunted byghosts. Typically, a ghost-hunting team will attempt to collect evidence supporting the existence ofparanormal activity. Ghost hunters use a variety of electronic devices, includingEMF meters, digitalthermometers, both handheld and staticdigitalvideo cameras, includingthermographic andnight vision cameras, as well as digitalaudio recorders. Other more traditional techniques are also used, such as conductinginterviews andresearching thehistory of allegedly haunted sites. Ghost hunters may also refer to themselves as "paranormal investigators."[546] Ghost hunting has been heavily criticized for its dismissal of thescientific method. No scientific study has ever been able to confirm the existence of ghosts.[547][548] The practice is considered a pseudoscience by the vast majority of educators, academics, science writers, and skeptics.[549][305][550][551][552][553][554][555]Science historianBrian Regal described ghost hunting as "an unorganized exercise in futility".[549]
Lizard people – The idea of a reptilian reconquest was popularized byDavid Icke, a conspiracy theorist who claims shape-shifting reptilian aliens control Earth by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate human societies. Icke has stated on multiple occasions that many world leaders are, or are possessed by, so-called reptilians.
Levitation – act of rising up from the ground without any physical aids, usually by the power of thought.[556]
Palmistry – the belief that the future can be foretold through palm reading. Predictions are based on the shape, line, and mounts of the hands. Palmists usecold reading in order to appear psychic.[557]
Pseudoarchaeology – investigation of the ancient past using alleged paranormal or other means which have not been validated by mainstream science.[278]
Psychic surgery – a type of medical fraud, popular inBrazil and thePhilippines. Practitioners use sleight of hand to make it appear as though they are reaching into a patient's body and extracting "tumors". Psychic surgery is usually explicit deception; i.e., the "practitioners" areaware that they are practicing fraud or "quackery".[558][559][560][561][562]
Psychokinesis – paranormal ability of the mind to influence matter or energy at a distance.[563][564]
Séances – ritualized attempts to communicate with the dead.[278]
TheTunguska event was an actual large explosion, possibly caused by ameteoroid orcomet, in what is nowKrasnoyarsk Krai, Russia in June 1908. Night skies as far away as London were markedly brighter for several evenings. Unsupported theories regarding the event include the impact of a miniature black hole or large body ofantimatter,ball lightning, a test byNikola Tesla of the apparatus atWardenclyffe Tower, and aUFO crash.[278][565][566] Another theory, not in itself pseudoscientific, is that the explosion was caused by a piece ofBiela's Comet from 1883.[567]
Scriptural codes – the belief that a book or fragment ofholy scripture contains encoded messages that impart esoteric knowledge. One such decoding method involves identifying "equidistant letter sequences" that spell out such messages.[574]
Religious and spiritual beliefs
Spiritual and religious practices and beliefs, according to astronomerCarl Sagan, are normally not classified as pseudoscience.[575] However, religion can sometimes nurture pseudoscience, and "at the extremes it is difficult to distinguish pseudoscience from rigid, doctrinaire religion", and some religions might be confused with pseudoscience, such as traditional meditation.[575] The following religious/spiritual items have been related to or classified as pseudoscience in some way:
Affirmative prayer is a form ofprayer or ametaphysical technique that is focused on a positive outcome, rather than a negative situation. For instance, a person who is experiencing some form of illness would focus the prayer on the desired state of perfect health and affirm this desired intention "as if already happened" rather than identifying the illness and then asking God for help to eliminate it.William James described affirmative prayer as an element of the American metaphysical healing movement that he called the "mind-cure"; he described it as the United States' "only decidedly original contribution to the systemic philosophy of life."[576] What sets affirmative prayer apart from secularaffirmations of theautosuggestion type taught by the 19th centuryself-help authorÉmile Coué (whose most famous affirmation was "Every day in every way, I am getting better and better") is that affirmative prayer addresses the practitioner to God, the Divine, the Creative Mind, emphasizing the seemingly practical aspects of religious belief.[577]
Christian Science is generally considered aChristiannew religious movement; however, some have called it "pseudoscience" because its founder,Mary Baker Eddy, used "science" in its name, and because of its former stance against medical science. Also, "Eddy used the term Metaphysical science to distinguish her system both from materialistic science and from occult science."[578] The church now accepts the use of medical science. Vaccinations were banned, but in 1901, Eddy, at the age of 80, advised her followers to submit to them.[579]
Exorcism (fromGreek ἐξορκισμός,exorkismós "binding by oath") is the religious or spiritual practice of evictingdemons or other spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to bepossessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of theexorcist, this may be done by causing the entity to swear an oath, performing an elaborateritual, or simply by commanding it to depart in the name of a higher power. The practice is ancient and part of the belief system of many cultures and religions. Requested and performed exorcism began to decline in the United States by the 18th century and occurred rarely until the latter half of the 20th century, when the public saw a sharp rise due to the media attention exorcisms were getting. There was "a 50% increase in the number of exorcisms performed between the early 1960s and the mid-1970s".
Koranic scientific foreknowledge (orQur'anic science orHadeeth science) asserts that foundational Islamic religious texts made accurate statements about the world that science verified hundreds of years later.[585] This belief is a common theme inBucailleism.[586][587] According to Turkish American physicistTaner Edis, many Muslims appreciate technology and respect the role that science plays in its creation. As a result, he says there is a great deal of Islamic pseudoscience attempting to reconcile science with their religious beliefs.[588][589] Edis maintains that the motivation to read modern scientific truths into holy books is also stronger for Muslims than Christians.[590] This is because, according to Edis, true criticism of the Quran is almost non-existent in the Muslim world, causing Muslims to believe that scientific truths simply must appear in the Quran.[590]
Creation science
Creation science orscientific creationism is a branch of creationism that claims to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove or reexplain the scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about geology, cosmology, biological evolution, archaeology, history and linguistics.[591][failed verification]
Baraminology – taxonomic system that classifies animals into groups called "created kinds" or "baramins" according to the account of creation in the book of Genesis and other parts of the Bible.[592]
Intelligent design – maintains that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[601] These features include:[488][602]
Irreducible complexity – claim that some biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler systems. It is used by proponents of intelligent design to argue that evolution bynatural selection alone is incomplete or flawed, and that some additional mechanism (an "Intelligent Designer") is required to explain the origins of life.[603][604][605][606][607]
Specified complexity – claim that when something is simultaneously complex and specified, one can infer that it was produced by an intelligent cause (i.e., that it was designed) rather than being the result of natural processes.[488][602]
Narconon andPurification Rundown are Scientology programs that purport to clean the human body of toxins and drugs respectively. Their method consists of very long saunas over many days, extremely large (possibly toxic) doses of vitamins includingniacin, and Scientology 'training routines', sometimes including attempts attelekinesis. The programs have been described as "medically unsafe",[609] "quackery"[610][611][612] and "medicalfraud",[613] while academic and medical experts have dismissed Narconon's educational programme as containing "factual errors in basic concepts such as physical and mental effects, addiction and even spelling".[614] In turn, Narconon has claimed that mainstream medicine is "biased" against it, and that "people who endorse so-called controlled drug use cannot be trusted to review a program advocating totally drug-free living."[615] Narconon has said that criticism of its programmes is "bigoted",[616] and that its critics are "in favor of drug abuse [...] they are either using drugs or selling drugs".[617]
Transcendental Meditation (TM) refers to a specific form of silentmantrameditation and less commonly to the organizations that constitute theTranscendental Meditation movement.[623][624] TheMaharishi Mahesh Yogi created and introduced the TM technique and TM movement inIndia in the mid-1950s. It is not possible to say whether meditation has any effect on health, as the research is of poor quality,[625][626] and is marred by a high risk forbias due to the connection of researchers to the TM organization and by the selection of subjects with a favorable opinion of TM.[627][628][629]
Idiosyncratic ideas
The following concepts have only a very small number of proponents, yet have become notable:
Aquatic ape hypothesis – the idea that certain ancestors of modern humans were more aquatic than other great apes and even many modern humans and, as such, were habitual waders, swimmers and divers.[630]
Lawsonomy – proposed philosophy and system of claims about physics made by baseball player and aviator Alfred William Lawson.[631]
Morphic resonance – The idea put forth byRupert Sheldrake that "natural systems, such as termite colonies, or pigeons, or orchid plants, or insulin molecules, inherit acollective memory from all previous things of their kind". It is also claimed to be responsible for "mysterious telepathy-type interconnections between organisms".[632]
N rays – A hypothesized form of radiation described byProsper-René Blondlot in 1903 that briefly inspired significant scientific interest, but were subsequently found to have been a result ofconfirmation bias.[633]
Penta Water – the claimed acoustically-induced structural reorganization of liquid water into long-lived small clusters of five molecules each. Neither these clusters nor their asserted benefits to humans have been shown to exist.[634][635]
Polywater – hypotheticalpolymerized form of water proposed in the 1960s with a higher boiling point, lower freezing point, and much higher viscosity than ordinary water. It was later found not to exist, with the anomalous measurements being explained by biological contamination.[636] Chains of molecules of varying length (depending on the temperature) tend to form in normal liquid water without changing the freezing or boiling point.[637]
Time Cube[638] – a website created by Gene Ray, in 1997, where he sets out his personal model of reality, which he callsTime Cube. He suggests that all of modern physics is wrong,[639] and his Time Cube model proposes that each day is really four separate days occurring simultaneously.[640]
Torsion field – hypothetical physical field responsible forextra-sensory perception,homeopathic cures,levitation,telepathy,clairvoyance,telekinesis, and otherparanormal phenomena. Despite the several obvious contradictions with established physics along with associated statements by believers criticized as being "nonsensical" by reputable scientists,[643] torsion fields have been embraced as an explanation for claims of such paranormal phenomena.[644] The harnessing of torsion fields has been claimed to make everything possible from miracle cure devices (including devices that curealcohol addiction[645]) to workingperpetual motion machines, stargates,[646]UFO propulsion analogs, andweapons of mass destruction (WMDs).[647] Some such devices, in particular the miracle cure boxes, have been patented,[648] manufactured and sold.
^Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry, 2007: "Psychoanalysis has existed before the turn of the 20th century and, in that span of years, has established itself as one of the fundamental disciplines within psychiatry. The science of psychoanalysis is the bedrock of psychodynamic understanding and forms the fundamental theoretical frame of reference for a variety of forms of therapeutic intervention, embracing not only psychoanalysis itself but also various forms of psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy and related forms of therapy using psychodynamic concepts."[496]
^Robert Michels, 2009: "Psychoanalysis continues to be an importantparadigm organizing the way many psychiatrists think about patients and treatment. However, its limitations are more widely recognized and it is assumed that many important advances in the future will come from other areas, particularly biologic psychiatry. As yet unresolved is the appropriate role of psychoanalytic thinking in organizing the treatment of patients and the training of psychiatrists after that biologic revolution has born fruit. Will treatments aimed at biologic defects or abnormalities become technical steps in a program organized in a psychoanalytic framework? Will psychoanalysis serve to explain and guide supportive intervention for individuals whose lives are deformed by biologic defect and therapeutic interventions, much as it now does for patients with chronic physical illness, with the psychoanalyst on the psychiatric dialysis program? Or will we look back on the role of psychoanalysis in the treatment of the seriously mentally ill as the last and most scientifically enlightened phase of the humanistic tradition in psychiatry, a tradition that became extinct when advances in biology allowed us to cure those we had so long only comforted?"[497]
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^Hoagland, Richard (2001).The monuments of Mars: a city on the edge of forever. Berkeley, Calif: Frog Distributed by North Atlantic Books.ISBN978-1-58394-054-9.OCLC48613681.
^Flandern, Tom (1998). "24".Dark matter, missing planets, and new comets: paradoxes resolved, origins illuminated. Berkeley, Calif: North Atlantic Books.ISBN978-1-55643-268-2.OCLC37992969.
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^"Climate change is good science". National Center for Science Education. 4 June 2010.Archived from the original on 24 April 2016. Retrieved21 June 2015. "The first pillar of climate change denial—that climate change is bad science—attacks various aspects of the scientific consensus about climate change ... there are climate change deniers:
who deny that significant climate change is occurring
who...deny that human activity is significantly responsible
who...deny the scientific evidence about its significant effects on the world and our society...
who...deny that humans can take significant actions to reduce or mitigate its impact.
Of these varieties of climate change denial, the most visible are the first and the second."
^Powell, James Lawrence (2012).The Inquisition of Climate Science. Columbia University Press. pp. 170–173.ISBN978-0-231-15719-3.Archived from the original on 7 November 2023. Retrieved12 July 2015: 'Anatomy of Denial—Global warming deniers...throw up a succession of claims, and fall back from one line of defense to the next as scientists refute each one in turn. Then they start over: 'The earth is not warming.' 'All right, it is warming but the Sun is the cause.' 'Well then, humans are the cause, but it doesn't matter, because it warming will do no harm. More carbon dioxide will actually be beneficial. More crops will grow.' 'Admittedly, global warming could turn out to be harmful, but we can do nothing about it.' 'Sure, we could do something about global warming, but the cost would be too great. We have more pressing problems here and now, like AIDS and poverty.' 'We might be able to afford to do something to address global warming some-day, but we need to wait for sound science, new technologies, and geoengineering.' 'The earth is not warming. Global warming ended in 1998; it was never a crisis.'
^Patent applicationWO 2009125444, Andrea Rossi, "Method and Apparatus for carrying out nickel and hydrogen exothermal reactions", published 15 October 2009
^Milbank, Dana (18 September 2007)."There's the Red Vote, the Blue Vote…and the Little Green Vote".The Washington Post.Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved22 May 2019.…the aliens' advanced technology, which uses nonpolluting fuel, could revolutionize the transport of goods and people on this planet and rejuvenate the biosphere.
^Kenneth S. Isaacs (psychoanalyst), 1999: "Orgone—a useless fiction with faulty basic premises, thin partial theory, and unsubstantiated application results. It was quickly discredited and cast away."Isaacs 1999, p. 240.
^Nicolia, Alessandro; Manzo, Alberto; Veronesi, Fabio; Rosellini, Daniele (2013)."An overview of the last 10 years of genetically engineered crop safety research"(PDF).Critical Reviews in Biotechnology.34 (1):77–88.doi:10.3109/07388551.2013.823595.PMID24041244.S2CID9836802.Archived(PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved19 April 2023.We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety for the last 10 years that catches the scientific consensus matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide, and we can conclude that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops.
The literature about Biodiversity and the GE food/feed consumption has sometimes resulted in animated debate regarding the suitability of the experimental designs, the choice of the statistical methods or the public accessibility of data. Such debate, even if positive and part of the natural process of review by the scientific community, has frequently been distorted by the media and often used politically and inappropriately in anti-GE crops campaigns.
^"State of Food and Agriculture 2003–2004. Agricultural Biotechnology: Meeting the Needs of the Poor. Health and environmental impacts of transgenic crops". Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.Archived from the original on 9 January 2019. Retrieved30 August 2019.Currently available transgenic crops and foods derived from them have been judged safe to eat and the methods used to test their safety have been deemed appropriate. These conclusions represent the consensus of the scientific evidence surveyed by the ICSU (2003) and they are consistent with the views of the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002). These foods have been assessed for increased risks to human health by several national regulatory authorities (inter alia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, the United Kingdom and the United States) using their national food safety procedures (ICSU). To date no verifiable untoward toxic or nutritionally deleterious effects resulting from the consumption of foods derived from genetically modified crops have been discovered anywhere in the world (GM Science Review Panel). Many millions of people have consumed foods derived from GM plants - mainly maize, soybean and oilseed rape - without any observed adverse effects (ICSU).
^Ronald, Pamela (1 May 2011)."Plant Genetics, Sustainable Agriculture and Global Food Security".Genetics.188 (1):11–20.doi:10.1534/genetics.111.128553.PMC3120150.PMID21546547.There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops (Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Committee on Environmental Impacts Associated with Commercialization of Transgenic Plants, National Research Council and Division on Earth and Life Studies 2002). Both the U.S. National Research Council and the Joint Research Centre (the European Union's scientific and technical research laboratory and an integral part of the European Commission) have concluded that there is a comprehensive body of knowledge that adequately addresses the food safety issue of genetically engineered crops (Committee on Identifying and Assessing Unintended Effects of Genetically Engineered Foods on Human Health and National Research Council 2004; European Commission Joint Research Centre 2008). These and other recent reports conclude that the processes of genetic engineering and conventional breeding are no different in terms of unintended consequences to human health and the environment (European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2010).
Domingo, José L.; Bordonaba, Jordi Giné (2011)."A literature review on the safety assessment of genetically modified plants"(PDF).Environment International.37 (4):734–742.Bibcode:2011EnInt..37..734D.doi:10.1016/j.envint.2011.01.003.PMID21296423.Archived(PDF) from the original on 22 February 2016. Retrieved19 April 2023.In spite of this, the number of studies specifically focused on safety assessment of GM plants is still limited. However, it is important to remark that for the first time, a certain equilibrium in the number of research groups suggesting, on the basis of their studies, that a number of varieties of GM products (mainly maize and soybeans) are as safe and nutritious as the respective conventional non-GM plant, and those raising still serious concerns, was observed. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that most of the studies demonstrating that GM foods are as nutritional and safe as those obtained by conventional breeding, have been performed by biotechnology companies or associates, which are also responsible of commercializing these GM plants. Anyhow, this represents a notable advance in comparison with the lack of studies published in recent years in scientific journals by those companies.
Krimsky, Sheldon (2015). "An Illusory Consensus behind GMO Health Assessment".Science, Technology, & Human Values.40 (6):883–914.doi:10.1177/0162243915598381.S2CID40855100.I began this article with the testimonials from respected scientists that there is literally no scientific controversy over the health effects of GMOs. My investigation into the scientific literature tells another story.
And contrast:
Panchin, Alexander Y.; Tuzhikov, Alexander I. (14 January 2016). "Published GMO studies find no evidence of harm when corrected for multiple comparisons".Critical Reviews in Biotechnology.37 (2):213–217.doi:10.3109/07388551.2015.1130684.ISSN0738-8551.PMID26767435.S2CID11786594.Here, we show that a number of articles some of which have strongly and negatively influenced the public opinion on GM crops and even provoked political actions, such as GMO embargo, share common flaws in the statistical evaluation of the data. Having accounted for these flaws, we conclude that the data presented in these articles does not provide any substantial evidence of GMO harm.
The presented articles suggesting possible harm of GMOs received high public attention. However, despite their claims, they actually weaken the evidence for the harm and lack of substantial equivalency of studied GMOs. We emphasize that with over 1783 published articles on GMOs over the last 10 years it is expected that some of them should have reported undesired differences between GMOs and conventional crops even if no such differences exist in reality.
and
Yang, Y.T.; Chen, B. (2016). "Governing GMOs in the USA: science, law and public health".Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.96 (4):1851–1855.Bibcode:2016JSFA...96.1851Y.doi:10.1002/jsfa.7523.PMID26536836.It is therefore not surprising that efforts to require labeling and to ban GMOs have been a growing political issue in the USA(citing Domingo and Bordonaba, 2011). Overall, a broad scientific consensus holds that currently marketed GM food poses no greater risk than conventional food... Major national and international science and medical associations have stated that no adverse human health effects related to GMO food have been reported or substantiated in peer-reviewed literature to date.
Despite various concerns, today, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the World Health Organization, and many independent international science organizations agree that GMOs are just as safe as other foods. Compared with conventional breeding techniques, genetic engineering is far more precise and, in most cases, less likely to create an unexpected outcome.
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^"Homoeopathy's benefit questioned".BBC News. 25 August 2005.Archived from the original on 3 August 2017. Retrieved30 January 2008.Professor Egger said: "We acknowledge to prove a negative is impossible. But good large studies of homeopathy do not show a difference between the placebo and the homoeopathic remedy, whereas in the case of conventional medicines you still see an effect."
^"Homeopathy: systematic review of systematic reviews". Bandolier. Archived fromthe original on 26 May 2008. Retrieved30 January 2008.None of these systematic reviews provided any convincing evidence that homeopathy was effective for any condition. The lesson was often that the best designed trials had the most negative result
^"Questions and Answers About Homeopathy". National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. April 2003.Archived from the original on 31 July 2016. Retrieved30 January 2008.In sum, systematic reviews have not found homeopathy to be a definitively proven treatment for any medical condition.
^Tyler, Chris (September 2006)."Sense About Homeopathy"(PDF).Sense about Science. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 4 October 2007. Retrieved29 January 2008.The scientific evidence shows that homeopathy acts only as a placebo and there is no scientific explanation of how it could work any other way.
^"Questions and Answers About Homeopathy". National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. April 2003.Archived from the original on 31 July 2016. Retrieved30 January 2008.a number of its key concepts do not follow the laws of science (particularly chemistry and physics)
^"What is Homeopathy". American Cancer Society. 5 January 2000. Archived fromthe original on 20 January 2008. Retrieved30 January 2008.Most scientists say homeopathic remedies are basically water and can act only as placebos.
^"Scientists attack homeopathy move".BBC News. 25 October 2006.Archived from the original on 21 August 2016. Retrieved2 February 2008.In a statement, the Royal College of Pathologists said they were "deeply alarmed" that the regulation of medicine had "moved away from science and clear information for the public"
^D. S. Vohra (2002).Bach flower remedies: a comprehensive study. New Delhi: Health Harmony. p. 258.OCLC428012690.
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^"Iridology".Natural Standard. 7 July 2005. Archived fromthe original on 24 August 2010. Retrieved1 February 2008.Research suggests that iridology is not an effective method to diagnose or help treat any specific medical condition.
^Pimentel L (2003). "Scurvy: historical review and current diagnostic approach".American Journal of Emergency Medicine (Review).21 (4):328–332.doi:10.1016/s0735-6757(03)00083-4.PMID12898492.Persons at risk include... followers of fad diets such as the Zen macrobiotic diet
^Bijlefeld M, Zoumbaris SK (2014)."Macrobiotics".Encyclopedia of Diet Fads: Understanding Science and Society (2nd ed.). ABC-CLIO. pp. 127–128.ISBN978-1-61069-760-6.
^Hübner J, Marienfeld S, Abbenhardt C, Ulrich CM, Löser C (November 2012). "[How useful are diets against cancer?]".Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift (Review) (in German).137 (47):2417–2422.doi:10.1055/s-0032-1327276.PMID23152069.S2CID76124925.
^National Science Foundation (2002)."7".Science and Engineering Indicators. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.ISBN978-0-16-066579-0. Archived fromthe original on 16 June 2016. Retrieved6 April 2018.Among all who had heard of [magnet therapy], 14 percent said it was very scientific and another 54 percent said it was sort of scientific. Only 25 percent of those surveyed answered correctly, that is, that it is not at all scientific.
^Barcan, Ruth (2009). "Intuition and Reason in the New Age". In Howes, David (ed.).The Sixth Sense Reader. Sensory Formations.Berg Publishers. p. 211.ISBN978-1-84788-261-5.
^Nambudripad, Devi S. (2003).NAET: Say Goodbye to Asthma: A Revolutionary Treatment for Allergy-Based Asthma and Other Respiratory Disorders. Say Good-Bye To... Series. Delta Publishing Company. p. 37.ISBN978-0-9743915-1-9.
^Thyer, Bruce A.; Pignotti, Monica G. (2015),Science and Pseudoscience in Social Work Practice, Springer Publishing, p. 47,ISBN978-0-8261-7769-8,Another energy-based therapy that is claimed to identify and treat allergies...is called the Nambudripad allergy elimination technique (NAET; Nambudripad, 2003). However, a dearth of studies is not the same thing as evidence which conclusively proves that NAET is either ineffective or dangerous. Organizations that do rigorous clinical trials would have little interest in studying NAET because it is non-drug based. Funding is not usually available for assessing any alternative healing modalities. Defenders of alternative and holistic healing point out that most family doctors treat patients who have a wide range of underlying emotional issues that impair the patient's health. This could happen, for example, through elevated cortisone or adrenaline levels from prolonged stress. NAET testing is carried out throughapplied kinesiology while a person is holding small vials that are said to contain the energetic essences of various substances. Once the allergies are identified, treatment is carried out through stimulation of points along the spine. These vials contain substances prepared in a process similar to that of homeopathic preparation. Mainstream science claims this method has not been shown reliable or valid in assessing a client's sensitivity to environmental toxins.
^Sarris, J., and Wardle, J. 2010. Clinical naturopathy: an evidence-based guide to practice. Elsevier Australia. Chatswood, NSW.
^Aaronson S, et al. (2003)."Cancer medicine". In Frei Emil, Kufe Donald W, Holland James F (eds.).Cancer medicine 6. Hamilton, Ontario: BC Decker. p. 76.ISBN978-1-55009-213-4.There is no evidence that megavitamin or orthomolecular therapy is effective in treating any disease.
^"NIH state-of-the-science conference statement on multivitamin/mineral supplements and chronic disease prevention".NIH Consens State Sci Statements.23 (2):1–30. 2006.PMID17332802.
^Lipton M, et al. (1973). Task Force Report on Megavitamin and Orthomolecular Therapy in Psychiatry (Report). American Psychiatric Association.
^Posadzki, P.; Lee, M. S.; Ernst, E. (2013). "Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment for Pediatric Conditions: A Systematic Review".Pediatrics.132 (1):140–152.doi:10.1542/peds.2012-3959.PMID23776117.S2CID5112754.
^Hondras, Maria A; Linde, Klaus; Jones, Arthur P (2005). Hondras, Maria A (ed.). "Manual therapy for asthma".Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (2) CD001002.doi:10.1002/14651858.CD001002.pub2.PMID15846609.
^Bilton, Karen; Zaslawski, Chris (August 2016). "Reliability of Manual Pulse Diagnosis Methods in Traditional East Asian Medicine: A Systematic Narrative Literature Review".Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.22 (8). New York:599–609.doi:10.1089/acm.2016.0056.ISSN1557-7708.PMID27314975.
^Pilkington, Mark (15 April 2004)."A vibe for radionics".The Guardian. London. Retrieved7 February 2008.Scientific American concluded: 'At best, [ERA] is all an illusion. At worst, it is a colossal fraud.'
^Radionic Association (23 May 2006)."10 lesser-known alternative therapies".BBC. Retrieved7 February 2008.Radionics is a technique of healing using extrasensory perception (ESP) and an instrument.
^"What is Radionics". The Radionic Association. Archived fromthe original on 15 January 2008. Retrieved7 February 2008.This subtle field cannot be accessed using our conventional senses. Radionic practitioners use a specialised dowsing technique to both identify the sources of weakness in the field and to select specific treatments to overcome them.
^"Electromagnetic Therapy".American Cancer Society. Archived fromthe original on 4 February 2008. Retrieved6 February 2008.There is no relationship between the conventional medical uses of electromagnetic energy and the alternative devices or methods that use externally applied electrical forces. Available scientific evidence does not support claims that these alternative electrical devices are effective in diagnosing or treating cancer or any other disease.
^Helwig, David (2004)."Radionics". In Longe, Jacqueline L. (ed.).The Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine. Gale Cengage.ISBN978-0-7876-7424-3. Archived fromthe original on 6 April 2008. Retrieved7 February 2008.
^Wallace, Sampson; Vaughn, Lewis (24 March 1998)."'Therapeutic Touch' Fails a Rare Scientific Test".CSICOP News. Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Archived fromthe original on 13 October 2007. Retrieved5 December 2007.Despite this lack of evidence, TT is now supported by major nursing organizations such as the National League of Nurses and the American Nurses Association.
^O'Mathúna, Dónal P.; Ashford, Robert L. (29 July 2014). O'Mathúna, Dónal P (ed.). "Therapeutic touch for healing acute wounds".The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (7) CD002766.doi:10.1002/14651858.CD002766.pub3.ISSN1469-493X.PMID25069726.
^Courcey, Kevin."Further Notes on Therapeutic Touch". Quackwatch. Retrieved5 December 2007.What's missing from all of this, of course, is any statement by Krieger and her disciples about how the existence of their energy field can be demonstrated by scientifically accepted methods.
^"Energy Medicine: An Overview". National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. 24 October 2007. Retrieved5 December 2007.neither the external energy fields nor their therapeutic effects have been demonstrated convincingly by any biophysical means.
^Huxley, Julian (August 1927). "The Tissue-Culture King".Amazing Stories.Well, we had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect, and had prepared for ourselves a sort of tin pulpit, behind which we could stand while conducting experiments. This, combined with caps of metal foil, enormously reduced the effects on ourselves.
^Unschuld, Paul Ulrich (1985).Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. University of California Press.ISBN978-0-520-06216-0.
^Mann, Felix (1996).Reinventing Acupuncture: A New Concept of Ancient Medicine. London: Butterworth Heinemann. p. 14....acupuncture points are no more real than the black spots that a drunkard sees in front of his eyes.
^Stenger, Victor J. (June 1998)."Reality Check: the energy fields of life".Skeptical Briefs. Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Archived fromthe original on 11 December 2007. Retrieved25 December 2007. "Despite complete scientific rejection, the concept of a special biological fields within living things remains deeply engraved in human thinking. It is now working its way into modern health care systems, as non-scientific alternative therapies become increasingly popular. From acupuncture to homeopathy and therapeutic touch, the claim is made that healing can be brought about by the proper adjustment of a person's or animal's 'bioenergetic fields.'"
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^Taylor, Luke E.; Swerdfeger, Amy L.; Eslick, Guy D. (June 2014). "Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies".Vaccine.32 (29):3623–3629.doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.04.085.PMID24814559.
^Hilton S, Petticrew M, Hunt K (2006). "'Combined vaccines are like a sudden onslaught to the body's immune system': parental concerns about vaccine 'overload' and 'immune-vulnerability'".Vaccine.24 (20):4321–4327.doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2006.03.003.PMID16581162.
^James D.G. Dunn "Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus" inSacrifice and Redemption edited by S.W. Sykes (3 December 2007) Cambridge University PressISBN978-0-521-04460-8 pp. 35–36
^Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould (1 April 2004)ISBN978-0-8028-0977-3 p. 34
^abPopper, Karl (2002).Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. Routledge. p. 49.ISBN978-0-415-28594-0.
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^Rosenfeld, Alvin H. (2015).Deciphering the new antisemitism. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. pp. 250, 350.ISBN978-0-253-01869-4.In the 1970s, Holocaust denial took up more sophisticated pseudoscientific methods and began to portray itself as a movement of historal revisionists...
^abPigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten (2013).Philosophy of pseudoscience: reconsidering the demarcation problem. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. p. 206.ISBN978-0-226-05182-6. Retrieved13 February 2023.The following are examples of claims that might best be placed in each of these three bins... Pseudoscience: creationism, Holocaust revisionism, remote viewing, astrology, Bible code, alien abductions, unidentified flying objects (UFOs), Bigfoot, Freudian psychoanalytic theory, reincarnation, angels, ghosts, extrasensory perception (ESP), recovered memories.
^Brittingham, Matthew H. (September 2020).""The Jews love numbers": Steven L. Anderson, Christian Conspiracists, and the Spiritual Dimensions of Holocaust Denial".Genocide Studies and Prevention.14 (2):44–64.doi:10.5038/1911-9933.14.2.1721.eISSN1911-9933.ISSN1911-0359.S2CID225256338.The preacher produced a nearly 40-minute video, "Did the Holocaust Really Happen?," in which he espoused what Deborah Lipstadt has called "hardcore" Holocaust denial, "den[ying] the facts of the Holocaust" in an "outright and forceful fashion." Though his "scientific" evidence for the "Holocaust hoax" or "Holocaust myth," as he often refers to the Holocaust, is mostly a regurgitation of the pseudoscientific arguments made by a more established group of Holocaust deniers, Anderson adds a spiritual dimension to Holocaust denial to make it attractive to Christian viewers.[permanent dead link]
^Hirvonen, Ilmari; Karisto, Janne (13 February 2022)."Demarcation without Dogmas".Theoria.88 (3):701–720.doi:10.1111/theo.12395.eISSN1755-2567.hdl:10138/345499.ISSN0040-5825.S2CID246834442.On the one hand, there is science denialism, such as climate change scepticism, the anti-vaccination movement, and holocaust denial, which attacks well-established scientific theories and practices. On the other hand, there is the promotion of pseudotheory, the attempt to get doctrines like homoeopathy and intelligent design accepted as sciences even though they have no warrant for such merit (Hansson, 2017). Both types of pseudoscience have harmful effects on health, environment, education, and society...Paradigmatic pseudosciences can also be very different from one another. Think of, say, intelligent design, Holocaust denial, ancient astronaut hypothesis, homoeopathy, the anti-vaccine movement, astrology, or climate change scepticism. Because there are different forms of pseudoscience, one cannot rule out the possibility that different criteria are needed to distinguish them from science.
^Laqueur, Walter; Baumel-Schwartz, Judith Tydor (2001).The Holocaust encyclopedia. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 300.ISBN978-0-300-08432-0.Holocaust revisionism enlists a wide variety of strategies and assumes many different forms adapted to the history and political cultures in which it operates. It has nonetheless developed into an international movement with its own networks, gatherings, public forums, propaganda, and pseudo-scientific journal
^Novella, Steven (17 July 2009)."Holocaust Denial".New England Skeptical Society. Retrieved13 February 2023.Those who deny that there ever was a Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II have used a similar style of arguing. Deniers have subjugated science, in this case historical science, to a political agenda, creating a pseudoscience called Holocaust Denial.... Inventing and promoting pseudoscience [the art of using "expert witnesses"]: Leuchter claims that the gas chamber was not really used against human beings.... Error #1: Leuchter estimates that a certain crematorium at Auschwitz could process only 156 bodies. He was apparently unaware of an SS report which confirms that the same building (which he describes) destroyed 4756 bodies in the course of a single 24 hour period. Error #2: He notes that the cyanide residue from one gas chamber wall is less than the residue from a wall inside a known delousing chamber. Leuchter claims that this is the most conclusive evidence that a "gas chamber" could not have been used for killing humans. His argument is based on the assumption that humans require much more cyanide than lice to die – an assumption that, as it happens, is wrong. In fact, lice require about a 50 times higher dose of cyanide gas than humans in order to die.
^Whine, Michael (2008). "Expanding Holocaust Denial and Legislation Against It".Jewish Political Studies Review.20 (1/2):57–77.ISSN0792-335X.JSTOR25834777.Holocaust deniers, and the media they use, are changing as a consequence of international political developments... New forms of this propaganda encompassed pseudoscientific books and papers; crude denial material, usually published in leaflet form by small neo-Nazi groups; and what can be called political denial, which includes the most recent and increasingly potent source, namely, Islamists as well as Internet and television transmissions within some Muslim states. Many of the pseudoscientific publications available internationally were published under cover of fictitious academic publishing houses. These works included, for example,The Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Arthur Butz,Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Harwood, andThe Leuchter Report. Historians challenged these and rebutted their false theses.
^Berlin, Lisa J.; Ziv, Yair; Amaya-Jackson, Lisa; Greenberg, Mark T., eds. (2007). "Preface".Enhancing Early Attachments. Theory, Research, Intervention and Policy. Duke series in child development and public policy. Guilford Press. p. xvii.ISBN978-1-59385-470-6.
^Chaffin, M; Hanson, R; Saunders, BE; Nichols, T; Barnett, D; Zeanah, C; Berliner, L; Egeland, B; et al. (2006). "Report of the APSAC task force on attachment therapy, reactive attachment disorder, and attachment problems".Child Maltreat.11 (1):76–89.doi:10.1177/1077559505283699.PMID16382093.S2CID11443880.
^Feske, Ulrike (1998). "Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder".Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice.5 (2):171–181.doi:10.1111/j.1468-2850.1998.tb00142.x.
^"Barry Beyerstein Q&A".Ask the Scientists.Scientific American Frontiers. Archived fromthe original on 20 February 2007. Retrieved22 February 2008.they simply interpret the way we form these various features on the page in much the same way ancient oracles interpreted the entrails of oxen or smoke in the air. I.e., it's a kind of magical divination or fortune telling where 'like begets like.'
^"The use of graphology as a tool for employee hiring and evaluation". British Columbia Civil Liberties Union. 1988. Archived fromthe original on 17 February 2008. Retrieved22 February 2008.On the other hand, in properly controlled, blind studies, where the handwriting samples contain no content that could provide non-graphological information upon which to base a prediction (e.g., a piece copied from a magazine), graphologists do no better than chance at predicting the personality traits
^Thomas, John A. (2002)."Graphology Fact Sheet". North Texas Skeptics. Retrieved22 February 2008.In summary, then, it seems that graphology as currently practiced is a typical pseudoscience and has no place in character assessment or employment practice. There is no good scientific evidence to justify its use, and the graphologists do not seem about to come up with any.
^Lynn, Steven Jay; Lock, Timothy; Loftus, Elizabeth; Krackow, Elisa; Lilienfeld, Scott O. (2003)."The remembrance of things past: problematic memory recovery techniques in psychotherapy". In Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven Jay; Lohr, Jeffrey M. (eds.).Science and Pseudoscience in Psychotherapy. New York: Guilford Press. pp. 219–220.ISBN978-1-57230-828-2. "[H]ypnotically induced past life experiences are rule-governed, goal-directed fantasies that are context generated and sensitive to the demands of the hypnotic regression situation."
^Vickers, A; Zollman, C; Payne, DK (2001)."Hypnosis and relaxation therapies".West. J. Med.175 (4):269–272.doi:10.1136/ewjm.175.4.269.PMC1071579.PMID11577062.Evidence from randomized controlled trials indicates that hypnosis, relaxation, and meditation techniques can reduce anxiety, particularly that related to stressful situations, such as receiving chemotherapy
^Hunsley, John; Catherine M. Lee; James M. Wood (2003). "Controversial and questionable assessment techniques".Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology:39–76.
^abCorballis, MC (1999). "Are we in our right minds?". In Sala, S (ed.).Mind Myths: Exploring Popular Assumptions About the Mind and Brain. Wiley, John & Sons. pp. 25–41.ISBN978-0-471-98303-3.
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^Gould, Stephen Jay (1981).The Mismeasure of Man. W W Norton and Co.ISBN978-0-393-01489-1.Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.
^Kurtz, Paul (September 2004)."Can the Sciences Help Us to Make Wise Ethical Judgments?".Skeptical Inquirer. Archived fromthe original on 23 November 2007. Retrieved1 December 2007.There have been abundant illustrations of pseudoscientific theories-monocausal theories of human behavior that were hailed as "scientific"-that have been applied with disastrous results. Examples: [...] Many racists today point to IQ to justify a menial role for blacks in society and their opposition to affirmative action.
^Regal, Brian. 2009. Pseudoscience: a critical encyclopedia Greenwood Press. pp. 27–29
^Encyclopædia Britannica:Aryan. "This notion, which had been repudiated by anthropologists by the second quarter of the 20th century, was seized upon by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and made the basis of the German government policy of exterminating Jews, Gypsies, and other 'non-Aryans.'".
^Nourse, Victoria (25 February 2016)."History of science: When eugenics became law".Nature.530 (7591): 418.Bibcode:2016Natur.530..418N.doi:10.1038/530418a.ISSN1476-4687.S2CID4448617.Eugenics is a well-known low point in the modern history of science. In the United States, from the late nineteenth century to the 1940s, credence was given to this pseudoscience focused on the notional 'improvement' of human populations by halting the reproduction of supposedly lesser genes.
^"The Gene: Science's Most Powerful—and Dangerous—Idea".Science. 24 July 2016. Archived fromthe original on 25 February 2021. Retrieved19 February 2023.The gene is "one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in the history of science," argues Siddhartha Mukherjee in The Gene: An Intimate History. Since its discovery by Gregor Mendel, an obscure Moravian monk, the gene has been both a force for good and ill. In the 1930s, the Nazis exploited the pseudoscience of eugenics as a prelude to the Holocaust.
^Black, Edwin (2012).War against the weak: eugenics and America's campaign to create a master race (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Dialog Press. Introduction.ISBN978-0-914153-29-0.OCLC268790346.In America, this battle to wipe out whole ethnic groups was fought not by armies with guns nor by hate sects at the margins. Rather, this pernicious white-gloved war was prosecuted by esteemed professors, elite universities, wealthy industrialists and government officials colluding in a racist, pseudoscientific movement called eugenics. The purpose: create a superior Nordic race. To perpetuate the campaign, widespread academic fraud combined with almost unlimited corporate philanthropy to establish the biological rationales for persecution.
^Saini, Angela (19 February 2020)."Eugenics refuses to die – and now Andrew Sabisky has put it back in the headlines".The Guardian.ISSN0261-3077. Retrieved20 February 2023.This week, one old and discredited technological fix has reared its head: eugenics, the pseudoscientific belief that humans can be bred to "perfection" in the same way we breed cattle or domestic pets for particular traits. Developed by Charles Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, in the 19th century, it was promoted by politicians and intellectuals in Britain, before becoming the justification for millions of involuntary sterilisations globally, mainly of the poor and disabled, and the Nazis' devastating programme of "racial hygiene" that culminated in the Holocaust.
^Winfield, Ann Gibson (2007).Eugenics and education in America: institutionalized racism and the implications of history, ideology, and memory. New York. pp. XIX Introduction.ISBN978-0-8204-8146-3.OCLC70659989.The eugenics movement in America has impacted not only education, but also societal institutions in general. Myriad patterns of thought, policy considerations, forms of social dialogue, and multiple political, social, philosophical, and ideological trends within modern culture can be traced to the undercurrent of racialized scientism represented by eugenic ideology. Eugenics has been dangerously dismissed as an unfortunate, pseudo scientific blip in the grand expedition that is American Progress. This is an extremely dangerous stance for a number of reasons.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Lind, Michael (26 January 1997)."Generation Gaps".New York Times Review of Books. Retrieved1 November 2010.The idea that history moves in cycles tends to be viewed with suspicion by scholars. Although historians as respected asArthur M. Schlesinger Jr. andDavid Hackett Fischer have made cases for the existence of rhythms and waves in the stream of events, cyclical theories tend to end up in the Sargasso Sea of pseudoscience, circling endlessly (what else?).The Fourth Turning is no exception.
^Ruse, Michael (2013)."Evolution". InPigliucci, Massimo;Boudry, Maarten (eds.).Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. University of Chicago Press. pp. 239–243.ISBN978-0-226-05182-6.For the first one hundred and fifty years evolution was – and was seen to be – a pseudoscience.
^Pigliucci, Massimo (April 2011)."Evolution as pseudoscience?".Ruse's somewhat surprising yet intriguing claim is that "before Charles Darwin, evolution was an epiphenomenon of the ideology of [social] progress, a pseudoscience and seen as such..."
^National Science Foundation (2002)."ch. 7".Science and Engineering Indicators. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.ISBN978-0-16-066579-0. Archived fromthe original on 16 June 2016. Retrieved6 April 2018.Belief in pseudoscience is relatively widespread...At least half of the public believes in the existence of extrasensory perception (ESP).
^Vyse, Stuart A. (1997).Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition. Oxford University Press US. p. 129.ISBN978-0-19-513634-0.[M]ost scientists, both psychologists and physicists, agree that it has yet to be convincingly demonstrated.
^National Science Foundation (2002)."ch. 7".Science and Engineering Indicators. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.ISBN978-0-7567-2369-9. Archived fromthe original on 16 June 2016. Retrieved6 April 2018.Belief in pseudoscience is relatively widespread... A sizable minority of the public believes in UFOs and that aliens have landed on Earth.
^Edwin, Sherman R. (2004).Bible Code Bombshell: Compelling Scientific Evidence That God Authored the Bible. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press. pp. 95–109.ISBN978-1-4184-9326-4.
^abStenger, Victor J (Spring–Summer 1999)."Bioenergetic Fields".The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine.3 (1). Archived fromthe original on 8 May 2016. Retrieved20 April 2017.
^abSmith, Jonathan C. (2010).Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical Thinker's Toolkit. Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 268–274.ISBN978-1-4051-8122-8.
^Kuiper, Matthew J. (2021).Da'wa: A Global History of Islamic Missionary Thought and Practice. United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press. p. 238.ISBN978-1-4744-5155-0.The idea that qur'anic verses anticipate the findings of modern science is known by academics as 'Bucailleism', because this line of thinking originated with the French medical doctor Maurice Bucaille (1920–98). In his 1976 book,La Bible, La Coran, et La Science, translated into English asThe Bible, the Qur'an and Science in 1978, Bucaille promoted the idea that the Qur'an conforms exactly to modern science and imparts knowledge that was unknown during the lifetime of the Prophet...
^Hameed, Salman (October 2019). "Afterword".Journal of Qur'anic Studies.21 (3):145–158.doi:10.3366/jqs.2019.0402.eISSN1755-1730.ISSN1465-3591.S2CID242343597.This appeal of a western scientific authority also played a large role in the immense popularity of a 1976 book by French physician Maurice Bucaille (1920–1998), titled,The Bible, the Quran and Science. In this, Bucaille found twentieth-century scientific ideas, like the expansion of the universe, in his interpretations of Qur'anic verses...
^"Questions About Intelligent Design: What is the theory of intelligent design?". Discovery Institute, Center for Science and Culture.The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
^abJones, John (2005)."Ruling, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, Conclusion" .In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.
^Judge John E. Jones III.Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.We therefore find that Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large.
^Shulman, Seth (2006).Undermining science: suppression and distortion in the Bush Administration. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 13.ISBN978-0-520-24702-4.True in this latest creationist variant, advocates of so-called intelligent design [...] use more slick, pseudoscientific language. They talk about things like 'irreducible complexity' [...] For most members of the mainstream scientific community, ID is not a scientific theory, but a creationist pseudoscience.
^Decker., Mark D."Frequently Asked Questions About the Texas Science Textbook Adoption Controversy". College of Biological Sciences, General Biology Program, University of Minnesota. Archived from the original on 30 September 2010.The Discovery Institute and ID proponents have a number of goals that they hope to achieve using disingenuous and mendacious methods of marketing, publicity, and political persuasion. They do not practice real science because that takes too long, but mainly because this method requires that one have actual evidence and logical reasons for one's conclusions, and the ID proponents just don't have those. If they had such resources, they would use them, and not the disreputable methods they actually use.
^Farley, Robert (30 March 2003). "Detox center seeks acceptance".St. Petersburg Times. pp. 1B, 5B – viaNewspapers.com.When Narconon opened its Chilocco facility in 1991, the Oklahoma Board of Mental Health issued a blistering assessment in denying its application for certification. "There is no credible evidence establishing the effectiveness of the Narconon program to its patients," the board concluded. It attacked the program as medically unsafe; dismissed the sauna program as unproven; and criticized Narconon for inappropriately taking some patients off prescribed psychiatric medication. (courtesy link)
^Robert W. Welkos; Joel Sappell (27 June 1990)."Church Seeks Influence in Schools, Business, Science".Los Angeles Times.Archived from the original on 23 October 2012. Retrieved13 September 2012.A fourth article did not mention Hubbard by name, but reported favorably on Narconon, his drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, which is run by Scientologists.
^Kyle Smith (20 April 2007). "Don't Be Tricked by $CI-FI Tom-Foolery".New York Post.Those who want a tan from his celebrity glow will urge a fair hearing for his quackery. Obscure City Councilman Hiram Monserrate suddenly finds himself talked about after issuing a proclamation of huzzahs for L. Ron Hubbard. Three: The Ground Zero maladies are so baffling that workers will try anything. Anyone who feels better will credit any placebo at hand – whether Cruise or the Easter Bunny. In 1991, Time called Scientology's anti-drug program "Narconon" a "vehicle for drawing addicts into the cult" – which the magazine said "invented hundreds of goods and services for which members are urged to give up 'donations' " – such as $1,250 for advice on "moving swiftly up the Bridge" of enlightenment. That's New Age techno-gobbledygook for advice on buying swiftly up the Bridge of Brooklyn. Scientology fronts such as the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project – its Web site immediately recognizable as the work of Hubbardites by its logo, which looks like the cover of a Robert Heinlein paperback from 1971 – hint that their gimmicks might possibly interest anyone dreaming of weight loss, higher I.Q. or freedom from addiction. And you might be extra-specially interested if you've faced heart disease, cancer, Agent Orange or Chernobyl. As Mayor Bloomberg put it, Scientology "is not science." Nope. It's science fiction.
^"30 arrested in Paris crackdown on Scientologists". Agence France-Presse. 14 January 1992.About 30 Scientologists were arrested – and 19 of them later indicted – between May and October 1990 on charges of fraud, conspiracy to defraud and the illegal practice of medicine following the 1988 suicide of a church member in Lyon, eastern France. [...] The sect has often found itself in trouble with officialdom the world over, accused of defrauding and brainwashing followers and, in France, of quackery at its illegal anti-drug clinics called "Narconon."
^Abgrall, Jean-Marie (2001).Healing Or Stealing?: Medical Charlatans in the New Age. Algora. p. 193.ISBN978-1-892941-51-0. Retrieved24 September 2012.Narconon, a subsidiary of Scientology, and the association "Yes to Life, No to Drugs" have also made a specialty of the fight against drugs and treating drug addicts. [...] Drug addicts are just one of the Scientologists' targets for recruitment. The offer of care and healing through techniques derived from dianetics is only a come-on. The detoxification of the patient by means of "dianetics purification" is more a matter of manipulation, through the general weakening that it causes; it is a way of brainwashing the subject. Frequently convicted for illegal practice of medicine, violence, fraud and slander, the Scientologists have more and more trouble getting people to accept their techniques as effective health measures, as they like to claim. They recommend their purification processes to eliminate X-rays and nuclear radiation, and to treat goiter and warts, hypertension and psoriasis, hemorrhoids and myopia... why would anyone find that hard to swallow? Scientology has built a library of several hundreds of volumes of writings exalting the effects of purification, and its disciples spew propaganda based on irresponsible medical writings by doctors who are more interested in the support provided by Scientology than in their patients' well-being. On the other hand, responsible scientific reviews have long since "eliminated" dianetics and purification from the lists of therapies – relegating them to the great bazaar of medical fraud. [...] Medical charlatans do not base their claims on scientific proof but, quite to the contrary, on peremptory assertions – the kind of assertions that they challenge when they come out of the mouths of those who defend "real" medicine.
^Asimov, Nanette (2 October 2004)."Church's drug program flunks S.F. test / Panel of experts finds Scientology's Narconon lectures outdated, inaccurate".San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved7 September 2012.The program, Narconon Drug Prevention & Education, "often exemplifies the outdated, non-evidence-based and sometimes factually inaccurate approach, which has not served students well for decades," concluded Steve Heilig, director of health and education for the San Francisco Medical Society. In his letter to Trish Bascom, director of health programs for the San Francisco Unified School District, Heilig said five independent experts in the field of drug abuse had helped him evaluate Narconon's curriculum. [...] "One of our reviewers opined that 'this (curriculum) reads like a high school science paper pieced together from the Internet, and not very well at that,' " Heilig wrote Bascom. "Another wrote that 'my comments will be brief, as this proposal hardly merits detailed analysis.' Another stated, 'As a parent, I would not want my child to participate in this kind of 'education.' " Heilig's team evaluated Narconon against a recent study by Rodney Skager, a professor emeritus at UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, describing what good anti-drug programs should offer students. "We concurred that [...] the Narconon materials focus on some topics of lesser importance to the exclusion of best knowledge and practices," Heilig wrote, and that the curriculum contained "factual errors in basic concepts such as physical and mental effects, addiction and even spelling."
^Asimov, Nanette (27 March 2005). "Doctors back schools dropping flawed antidrug program".San Francisco Chronicle.The California Medical Association has declared unanimous support for school districts that have dropped Narconon and other "factually inaccurate approaches" to antidrug instruction from their classrooms, and will urge the American Medical Association to do the same. Nearly 500 California doctors also endorsed "scientifically based drug education in California schools"
^"Town Welcomes, Then Questions a Drug Project".The New York Times. 17 July 1989. p. A13.
^Park, Robert L (2000).p. 39. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-860443-3.[People] long to be told that modern science validates the teachings of some ancient scripture or New Age guru. The purveyors of pseudoscience have been quick to exploit their ambivalence.
^Stenger, Victor J. (January 1997)."Quantum Quackery".Skeptical Inquirer. Archived fromthe original on 17 January 2008. Retrieved7 February 2008.Capra's book was an inspiration for the New Age, and "quantum" became a buzzword used to buttress the trendy, pseudoscientific spirituality that characterizes this movement.
^Gell-Mann, Murray (1995).The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and Complex. Macmillan. p. 168.ISBN978-0-8050-7253-2.Then the conclusion has been drawn that quantum mechanics permits faster-than-light communication, and even that claimed "paranormal" phenomena like precognition are thereby made respectable! How can this have happened?
^Bell, J. S. (1988).Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge University Press. p. 170.ISBN978-0-521-52338-7.So I think it is not right to tell the public that a central role for conscious mind is integrated into modern atomic physics. Or that 'information' is the real stuff of physical theory. It seems to me irresponsible to suggest that technical features of contemporary theory were anticipated by the saints of ancient religions [...] by introspection.
^Dalton, Rex (8 July 1993). "Sharp HealthCare announces an unorthodox, holistic institute".The San Diego Union – Tribune. p. B.4.5.1.TM is a movement led by Maharishi Mehesh Yogi, ...
^Krisanaprakornkit, T.; Krisanaprakornkit, W.; Piyavhatkul, N.; Laopaiboon, M. (2006). Krisanaprakornkit, Thawatchai (ed.). "Meditation therapy for anxiety disorders".Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (1) CD004998.doi:10.1002/14651858.CD004998.pub2.PMID16437509.S2CID30878081.The small number of studies included in this review do not permit any conclusions to be drawn on the effectiveness of meditation therapy for anxiety disorders. Transcendental meditation is comparable with other kinds of relaxation therapies in reducing anxiety
^Ospina MB, Bond K, Karkhaneh M, et al. (June 2007)."Meditation practices for health: state of the research".Evid Rep Technol Assess (Full Rep) (155):1–263.PMC4780968.PMID17764203.Scientific research on meditation practices does not appear to have a common theoretical perspective and is characterized by poor methodological quality. Firm conclusions on the effects of meditation practices in healthcare cannot be drawn based on the available evidence.
^Canter PH, Ernst E (November 2004). "Insufficient evidence to conclude whether or not Transcendental Meditation decreases blood pressure: results of a systematic review of randomized clinical trials".Journal of Hypertension.22 (11):2049–2054.doi:10.1097/00004872-200411000-00002.PMID15480084.S2CID22171451.All the randomized clinical trials of TM for the control of blood pressure published to date have important methodological weaknesses and are potentially biased by the affiliation of authors to the TM organization.
^Canter PH, Ernst E (November 2003). "The cumulative effects of Transcendental Meditation on cognitive function—a systematic review of randomised controlled trials".Wien. Klin. Wochenschr.115 (21–22):758–766.doi:10.1007/BF03040500.PMID14743579.S2CID20166373.All 4 positive trials recruited subjects from among people favourably predisposed towards TM, and used passive control procedures ... The association observed between positive outcome, subject selection procedure and control procedure suggests that the large positive effects reported in 4 trials result from an expectation effect. The claim that TM has a specific and cumulative effect on cognitive function is not supported by the evidence from randomized controlled trials.
^Nye, M.J. (1980). "N-rays: An episode in the history and psychology of science".Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences.11 (1):125–156.doi:10.2307/27757473.JSTOR27757473.
^Goldacre, Ben (27 January 2005)."Testing the water".The Guardian. London: Guardian News and Media, Ltd. Retrieved29 April 2008.
Shermer, Michael (2002).Why people believe weird things: pseudoscience, superstition, and other confusions of our time. New York: A.W.H. Freeman/Owl Book.ISBN978-0-8050-7089-7.
Singer, Barry; Abell, George O. (1983).Science and the paranormal: probing the existence of the supernatural. New York: Scribner.ISBN978-0-684-17820-2.
