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List of topics characterized as pseudoscience

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Template:Totally disputed This is a list of fields of endeavor and concepts that have been regarded as pseudoscientific by (1) organizations that are representative of the international scientific community and/or (2) mainstream scientific skeptical bodies. The organizations may have explicitly called a field or concept "pseudoscience" or used words to that effect: instances of the latter are identified in the references section. Also included are important concepts associated with the main entries, as well as notable parodies and concepts that, while notable, are still too obscure to catch the serious attention of mainstream scientific bodies.

Main topics

The following have broad consensus concerning their pseudoscientific status. Indicative of this are assertions by mainstream, specialized scientific bodies (e.g., a society of plasma physicists) or one or more national- or regional-level, cross-disciplinary Academies of Science.

  • Astrology refers to any of several systems of understanding, interpreting and organizing knowledge about reality and human existence, based on the relative positions and movement of various real and construed celestial bodies.Template:FnTemplate:FnTemplate:Fn
    • Planetary alignments are events where two or more planets and the Sun and Moon line up from the perspective of Earth. Much of astrology has been developed around such alignments.
    • Sun signs are astrological signs that are determined by the location of the Sun at a particular moment in time such as an individual's birth.
  • Creation science is the belief that the origin of everything in the universe is the result of a first cause, brought about by a creator deity, and that this thesis is supported by geological, biological, and other scientific evidence.Template:FnTemplate:FnTemplate:Fn
    • Biblical scientific foreknowledge asserts that the Bible makes accurate statements about the world that science verifies thousands of years later.
    • Creation biology is the subset of creation science that tries to explain biology without evolution.
    • Creationist cosmologies are ones which, among other things, allow for a universe that is only thousands of years old.
    • Flood geology is the creationist form of geology that advocates most of the geologic features on Earth are explainable by a global flood.
    • Modern geocentrism, citing uniform gamma ray bursts distribution as evidence that we are at the center of the universe, and other ideas of this type.
  • Intelligent design is a version of creation science stated in secular terms, viz. 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."Template:FnTemplate:Fn
    • Irreducible complexity is the claim that some systems are so complex that they cannot have evolved from simpler systems. It is used by proponents of intelligent design to argue that evolution by natural selection alone is incomplete or flawed, and that some additional mechanism (an "Intelligent Designer") is required to explain the origins of life.
    • Specified complexity is the 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.
  • Levitation, in this sense, is the act of rising up from the ground without any physical aids, usually by the power of thought.Template:Fn
    • Anti-gravity refers to devices which allow a craft to maneuver in a gravitational field free from the effects of its force.
  • Paranormal research is the study of purported paranormal phenomena.Template:Fn
    • Channeling is the communication of information to or through a person allegedly from a spirit or other paranormal entity.
    • Dowsing refers to practices said to enable one to detect hidden water, metals, gemstones or other objects.
    • Electronic voice phenomenon is the alleged communication by spirits through tape recorders and other electronic devices.
    • Extra-sensory perception is the paranormal ability (independent of the five main senses or deduction from previous experience) to acquire information by means such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and remote viewing.
    • Materialization is the supposed creation or appearance of matter from unknown sources.
    • Parapsychology is the study of certain types of paranormal phenomenon.
    • Séances are ritualized attempts to communicate with the dead.
    • Spiritualism is a religious movement which holds the belief that communication with the dead can occur through the powers of individuals called mediums.
    • Therapeutic touch is a form of vitalism where one passes one's hands over and around the body of a sick person so as to treat his/her illness.

Other significant topics

The following are subjects regarded as pseudoscientific by mainstream scientific skepticism bodies but not by an Academy of Sciences or specialized organization. The lack of attention to these subjects by the latter groups may be due to either or both of the following:

  1. The subject has yet find its way into education, law, and/or business to the extent that it motivates an organization to make a statement on it.
  2. The subject is not regarded as pseudoscientific by a sufficiently large number of scientists (from multiple fields), which would be necessary for a statement on it to pass.

Unless otherwise noted, the following entries are from The Skeptics Society's The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Finally, some of these items are not considered pseudoscientific in and of themselves: only certain aspects, explanations, and/or applications of them. See an item's description text for more information on this.

  • Anthroposophy/Anthroposophical medicine refers to homeopathic remedies for illnesses of a person's non-physical "soul."
  • Attachment therapy is a psychotherapeutic treatment for aggressive, disobedient, and/or unaffectionate children. A minor version (relative to most other attachment therapies) involves the child being physically restrained by adults who then attempt to maintain prolonged eye contact. Perhaps the most extreme 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.
  • Ball lightning is a slow-moving, luminous sphere which is up to 30cm in diameter. While many scientists find the existence of these at least minimally plausible, evidence of them are often unreliable, anecdotal reports, and explanations for them have ranged from combusted hydrocarbon gas to "Will o' the wisp" creatures.
  • The Bermuda Triangle is a region of the Atlantic Ocean that lies between Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and (in its most popular version) Florida. Frequent disappearances and ship and aircraft disasters in this area have led to claims of paranormal phenomena and extraterrestrial attacks and abductions.
  • Biorhythms are alleged periodic cycles of human physiology and behavior that govern physical, emotional, and intellectual well-being.
  • Crop circles are 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.
  • Cryptozoology is the study of animals whose existence is suspect. Famous examples include Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and the goat-killing "Chupacabra."
    • Animal mutilations are cases of domestic livestock with seemingly unexplainable wounds. Sources of these wounds are said to be supernatural, malevolent forces or bizarre—but terrestrial—creatures.
  • Cydonia Mensae is a rock formation on Mars asserted to be evidence of intelligent, native life on the planet.
  • Dietary supplements are products marketed as health-promoting, but which have little or no evidence to support the claim. They are usually derived from exotic(-sounding) plant life and are often sold over the Internet.
  • Earthquake prediction is the purported ability to accurately forecast the time, place, and size of earthquakes.
  • Elves, fairies, gnomes, pixies are creatures of mythical character which are sometimes alleged to be real. The testimonials, which are sometimes even accompanied by photographic evidence, have often been outed as hoaxes.
  • Faith healing is the act of curing disease by such means as prayer and laying on of hands.
  • Faster-than-light travel, sometimes referred to as superluminal travel, is the feat of breaking the light speed barrier of 299,792,458 meters per second.
  • Feng shui is the practice of aligning gravesites, buildings, and furniture a certain way with the aim to positively affect one's health and fortune.
  • Handwriting analysis/graphology is the practice of gleaning information about a person's personality through examination of his or her handwriting.
  • Hypnosis is an extremely relaxed state in which a person is unusually responsive to suggestions made by the hypnotist. While hypnosis in some sense is almost universally regarded as real, explanations of the phenomenon invoking anything more than just an especially cooperative subject have far less scientific support. In addition, certain applications of hypnosis in psychotherapy, such as smoking cessation and self-esteem improvement, also lack empirical support.
  • Laundry balls are spherical or toroidal objects marketed as soap substitutes for washing machines.
  • Magnetic therapy is the practice of using magnetic fields to positively influence one's health.
  • Meditation is the practice of quieting and calming the mind, often as a religious practice, to produce transcendental experiences. While there are copious amounts of experimental data demonstrating positive and interesting effects of meditation, most traditional explanations of the associated experiences and benefits are of a pre-scientific nature.
  • Mobile phone radiation and health concerns have occasionally been raised as possible causes of immune system dysfunction and cancers of the nervous system, brain, and blood.
  • Multiple personality disorder, also called dissociative identity disorder, is a mental condition that is characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personalities. The post-traumatic model if this disorder has been the target of numerous scientific critics but is still popular among many psychotherapists.
  • Neoshamanism is a combination of shamanistic, new-age spiritual, and other philosophies which include belief in spirits, meditation and sometimes the use of entheogens.
  • Near-death experiences are experiences reported by persons who nearly died or who experienced clinical death and then revived.
  • Out-of-body experiences are exerperiences where a person seems to see the world from a location outside of the physical body. Qua experience, OBEs are real and theory-neutral, but some explanations invoke the paranormal.
  • Phrenology is a theory which claims to be able to determine character and personality traits on the basis of the shape of the head (reading "bumps").
  • Polygraph/Lie detection are methods use to detect lying and truthfulness in a subject. Its use in police departments and other government agencies persists despite its questionable reliability.
  • Pseudoarcheology is the investigation of the ancient past using alleged paranormal or otherwise scientifically dubious means.
    • Ancient astronauts are extraterrestrials said to have initiated the rise of human civilization.
  • Reincarnation is the belief that souls inhabit a succession of physical bodies over the course of their existence.
  • Shroud of Turin is a length of linen cloth alleged by some members of the Christian community to have been Jesus's death shroud. Radiocarbon dating places the shroud's origin at somewhere between 1260 and 1390 BCE.
  • Stock market pseudoscience mostly involves a large range of technical analysis techniques that are of dubious scientific legitimacy.
  • Subliminal perception is visual or auditory information that is allegedly discerned below the threshold of awareness and has the power to influence human behavior.
  • Synchronicity is a phenomenon described by psychologist Carl Jung as "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events." The inability to test for it has marginalized its scientific importance.
  • Tunguska event is an anomalous meteor striking said to actually be the impact of a miniature black hole or a large body composed of antimatter.
  • Tutankhamun's curse was allegedly placed on the discoverers of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, causing widespread deaths and other disastrous events.

Obscure and parody pseudoscience

The following are subjects that are sufficiently notable to warrant mention yet still too obscure for any mainstream group (of the sort cited above) to comment on them. They are nonetheless uncontroversially regarded as pseudoscientific: the only people insisting on the topics' scientific status appear to be their lone, respective proponents and, perhaps, a single digit quantity of devotees. Also included here are notable parodies of other pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts.

See also

Further reading

  • Abell, George O. and Barry Singer, Science and the Paranormal: Probing the Existence of the Supernatural, Charles Scribner's, 1981, ISBN 0-684-17820-6
  • Collins, Paul S. (2002) Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn't Change the World. Picador. ISBN 0-312-30033-6
  • Gardner, Martin, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science
  • Gardner, Martin, Science, Good, Bad, and Bogus
  • Randi, James, Flim-Flam: Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and other Delusions, Prometheus, 1982, ISBN 0-87975-198-3
  • Sagan, Carl, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark. Ballantine Books, March 1997 ISBN 0-345-40946-9, 480 pgs. 1996 hardback edition: Random House, ISBN 0-394-53512-X, xv+457 pages plus addenda insert (some printings).
  • Schick, Theodore and Lewis Vaughn. (1998) How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age. Mayfield. ISBN 0-7674-0013-5
  • Shermer, Michael. (2002) Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. Owl Books. ISBN 0-8050-7089-3

Notes and references

  1. "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of Intelligent Design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." Johnson 2004. Christianity.ca. Let's Be Intelligent About Darwin.
  2. Discovery Institute, Center for Science and Culture. Questions about Intelligent Design: What is the theory of intelligent design? "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." Questions About Intelligent Design
  3. Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Public Understanding - Science Fiction and Pseudoscience
  4. http://parapsych.org/glossary_e_k.html#e Parapsychological Association website, Glossary of Key Words Frequently Used in Parapsychology, Retrieved January 24, 2006
  5. Alcock, James E. "Electronic Voice Phenomena:Voices of the Dead?". Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Retrieved 2007-03-08. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. Carroll, Robert Todd, The Skeptic's Dictionary 2003, Wiley Publishing Company, ISBN-10: 0471272426
  7. Shermer, Michael (2005). "Turn Me On, Dead Man". Scientific American. Retrieved 2007-02-28. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  8. Terrence Hines, Pseudoscience and the Paranormal: A Critical Examination of the Evidence, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1988. ISBN 0-87975-419-2.Thagard (1978) op cit 223 ff
  9. Parapsychological Association website, Glossary of Key Words Frequently Used in Parapsychology, Retrieved December 24, 2006
  10. "extrasensory perception" Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
  11. NAI Team Pages / SETI Institute / EPO Reports 2005 (7/04-6/05)
  12. Shermer, Michael, ed. The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2002. ISBN 1-576-07653-9.
  13. Ray, Gene. Time Cube. 12 Mar. 2007
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