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Koranic scientific foreknowledge

Moved from article for discussion.

  • Koranic scientific foreknowledge (or Qur'anic science or Hadeeth science) asserts that foundational Islamic religious texts made accurate statements about the world that science verified hundreds of years later. This belief is a common theme in Bucailleism.[1] According to Turkish American physicist Taner 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 this respect with other respected religious beliefs. Edis maintains that the motivation to read modern scientific truths into holy books is also stronger for Muslims than Christians.[2] 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.[2]

My objections are that the first source never mentions pseudoscience, Islam, or the Koran. Maybe other words are used? That leaves one podcast, and only one source is not good enough sourcing for inclusion here. This is why we require an independent article, or inclusion in an article, that specifically mentions the topic and uses more than one RS to label it as pseudoscience. This prevents gaming the system, because anyone can find one or more sources that labels anything as pseudoscience. We can't allow that here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:35, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Parkins, Michael D.; Szekrenyes, J. (March 2001). "Pharmacological Practices of Ancient Egypt" (PDF). Proceedings of the 10th Annual History of Medicine. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 7 November 2010.
  2. ^ a b "Reasonable Doubts Podcast". CastRoller. 2014-07-11. Archived from the original on 2013-05-23. Retrieved 2014-07-23.
The "more than one RS" seems to be a made-up requirement. The topic of this list is "topics that have been characterized as pseudoscience." Here we have a topic that has been characterized as pseudoscience. The characterization was made by a reliable source, a notable physicist and skeptic. We also have an article on the topic, Islamic attitudes towards science, that mentions the same thing.
This isn't original research, this is a WP:BLUESKY situation. This applies to any religion that has writings predating modern science, not just Islam and Christianity. I would advocate combining the sections in Christianity and Islam and simply call it "Religious scientific foreknowledge", and including any further examples that can be found from Hinduism or other religions. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:22, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
I am not denying that religion and pseudoscience are often connected, but such a low bar as this presentation opens the door wide to gaming the system. First establish the subject strongly in an article with several good sources, then bring it here. If that can't be done, then the claim becomes a fringe claim, and I'm pretty sure it isn't. So bolster the concept better. This isn't a list for isolated claims with scanty sourcing. You can do much better than this. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:05, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Here's more sources that mention this as pseudoscience: [1][2][3] And here are 1 and 2 better sources verifying Edis (neither is a podcast and both are considered reliable sources). — Shibbolethink ( ) 23:07, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for doing this. I believe it belongs, it just needed better sourcing. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:41, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Why is this list even allowed to exist? Answered.

The strict inclusion criteria were a condition. There was a lot of resistance when we tried to create and keep this list in existence, and only after these inclusion criteria were formulated and enforced did we finally find peace, and the list has now been here for a very long time. IIRC, we had the whole community against us, but they finally backed off.

The current attempts to circumvent or weaken those conditions will endanger the list again. Please don't go there. Learn from history. Those who forget history are doomed to have their work destroyed. Is this a joe job? (Bad joke. I don't believe that for a moment.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

I was not there at the time, but I understand your concern and your reticence to test something like that again. But I would still ask you: do you think the community has, in any way, changed in the time since? I think it very possibly has. In my mind, all consensus has a time past which it should be challenged. Deletions are absolutely subject to a changing consensus. — Shibbolethink ( ) 05:51, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
In the last decade the whole WP:FRINGE scene on enwp has matured. I know ජපස (jps) has had some thoughts on this. Bon courage (talk) 06:03, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
I suspect you're right, but sourcing is still a requirement here. It always will be. WE "know" this stuff, but it isn't sky is blue to far too many preople, so we provide what RS say. That's all. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:36, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
Agreed, WP:V cannot be shirked. Bon courage (talk) 06:55, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
Absolutely agreed that SKYBLUE is not enough. But I just don't think we should require also that petty squabbles on the parent articles of each one always be resolved in favor of the word "pseudoscience" if we have a very good sourcing here to show it is. It just means we should also have good sourcing there, but was either lost or never added! — Shibbolethink ( ) 18:30, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
What inclusion criteria are used for this list? SurfingOrca2045 (talk) 09:03, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

I still don't like the title of the article. It should just be list of pseudosciences. But whatever.... ....My opinion from years past was that the ideal framing for this list with an eye towards WP:LISTCRIT should be to find excellent sources that say "X is psuedoscience" or a directly equivalent argument and then just list the idea without much commentary.... but the problem comes in when you hit things like psychoanalysis or string theory where I can point to severe critics who are pretty reliable doing just that with some controversy. This isn't even counting the unreliable idiots saying things like modern synthesis is pseudoscience or whatnot. ....Long and the short of this is that I think that the current ugly compromise is about as functional we can get as long as Wikipedia lacks an editorial board (which, let's be honest, it always will). jps (talk) 19:49, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

To be included in this list, do potential pseudosciences have to be characterized as such by a consensus of the mainstream scientific community, or just by a significant proportion? SurfingOrca2045 (talk) 23:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
By reliable source(s). Many source don't even consider the pseudoscience categorization. For any description explicitly of "consensus" (a special case) WP:RS/AC is required. Bon courage (talk) 07:19, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
It is very hard to judge consensus of the mainstream scientific community without consensus statements from umbrella organizations or dedicated studies. This typically only happens when the idea in question is gaining traction beyond what the vast majority of identified pseudosciences ever enjoy. Normally it's in a political context. So it's easy to point to "consensus statements" for things like global warming denialism or creationism, but obvious instances of pseudoscience like Ancient Aliens or ghost hunting are only parochially criticized. Because of this, we necessarily need to rely on individual reliable sources and it isn't particularly useful to the reader to distinguish in compendiums like this between "consensus" instances and otherwise because often it's the most obvious cases of pseudoscience that get the least attention. Rather than trying to decide what the "community" thinks, it is best to find excellent sources which explain the pseudoscientific nature of an idea and leave it at that. For the vast majority of ideas, that'll be good enough. Edge cases will exist, however, but it is important not to get distracted by this. It is in the interest of WP:PROFRINGE to argue that their particular idea is at least an edge case, and often that is not a well-supported or good-faith argument. jps (talk) 12:42, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
This is where WP:Parity comes into play. We don't need major scientific sources. Subject matter experts will do. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:36, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
So what happens if subject-area experts (or scientific sources) disagree over categorization? Does the benefit of the doubt go towards characterization or non-characterization? (Roughly) what percent of subject-area experts need to characterize a topic as pseudoscientific before it is listed here? SurfingOrca2045 (talk) 23:41, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
The benefit of the doubt goes to whomever doesn't have their whole reputation riding on the matter and whomever isn't making money off it. It's quality, not quantity. MrOllie (talk) 00:12, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
That makes sense. But what about genuinely contestable topics, such as the simulation theory or superdeterminism?, or other areas where there's no money? SurfingOrca2045 (talk) 04:45, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:FRIND, in so many words. Independence matters. jps (talk) 04:46, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
Since neither of those topics is listed on this page, I don't see the relevance. These are invented cases. In general, on Wikipedia, we care about actual subjects which are actually implicated, not hypothetical ones. We operate on a case-by-case basis, not generalized logical or theoretical constructs without concrete examples. Wikipedia is not a scientific discipline, or a mathematical theorem. It is a contradictory, imperfect, and ever-changing enterprise which only gets closer to the ideal if and when our sources do.
In other words, any attempts to create hard and fast rules, or logical "gotchas" will inevitably fail. We operate on community consensus. — Shibbolethink ( ) 16:36, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria / Edit note

This list article does not have a "proper" edit note. It should.

Currently there is some disagreement regarding whether we should require that the entry be described as pseudoscience in the main article. There is a hidden editors note somewhere that states this requirement, but apparently it was added without discussion many years ago.

So, let's try to craft an edit note, and address whether the above requirement should be part of the inclusion criteria.

Thanks. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:23, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Do we need one though? Since the early days of this article the WP:PAGs have moved on and WP:FRINGE become well established. We could say material here should be in WP:SYNC with main topic article, but I would oppose anything which implied editing had to be done in a certain sequence of that lack of WP:SYNC'd content was an excuse to delete well-sourced content from anywhere. Bon courage (talk) 14:27, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
There are several reasons why each entry should already be described as pseudoscience in the main article:
  • WP:POVFORK - "all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article"
  • WP:FRINGE - is this a fact and major point of view? Hard to tell if we (are) showing "broadly supported by scholarship" or just cherry picked sources.
  • WP:LISTPURP-NAV - list is (or has become) a navigation list, a series of linked articles (topics) that all contain the feature topics characterized as pseudoscience - content needs to be there to be indexed here.
  • INVISIBLE to editors working on the topic. There can be allot of name calling here and those who know the topic (editors of the topic) will never see it. Best to bring up material at the linked article where it can be evaluated to see if it meets guidelines and policy.
Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 16:13, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
The material should be in sync, but the problem is elevating this into an absolute requirement, so that editors can use the lack of synchronisation as an excuse to delete content, even if it is well-sourced. Also some topics (e.g. Earthing therapy) are so obscure they don't even have a main article, but are worth mentioning here. Bon courage (talk) 16:23, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
No edit note, please. I see no reason why we should require that the primary article A) exist, B) directly claim in the body that it is pseudoscience. It should be enough that we have sources here describing it as such. That is the inherent nature of WP:V. Yes, consistency is good (and should be the goal), but it isn't a mandate, and it isn't about having "first one article say something then the other". There is no hierarchy of list vs content articles on wikipedia. it's all the same jazz. — Shibbolethink ( ) 16:58, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
It should be enough that we have sources here describing it as such. By that standard Climate change[4] and Evolution[5] belong on this list. Anyone could just start a POVFORK here. Hence the note added by Valjean is a pretty good idea. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:28, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Neither of those is a particularly fair comparison. I would urge you to please WP:STEELMAN instead of straw-man. The overall weight of sources for both lean towards it being an accepted practice among experts. AA and 12-step do not have that, they are more in the realm of "minority views which are controversial". It is only recently that these have had beneficial evidence published in reliable sources per WP:MEDASSESS and WP:MEDSCI. Absolutely nothing like evolution or climate change. In this instance, we have accepted experts who are publishing in scholarly sources which are saying 'This is controversial and has been criticized as pseudoscience'. And we do not have a clear scholarly consensus that it is not pseudoscience. We have only some limited sourcing showing some benefit. It's far from academic consensus that these programs are beneficial. — Shibbolethink ( ) 18:29, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
per WP:STEELMAN, check my edit history at this topic. Like I said above, this article is the wrong place to debate inclusion. You are making augments that belong on the 12-step page, that's where all the sourcing, the UNDUE comparison, and the experts are. With a fluffy title like "characterized as pseudoscience" and a WP:CONTENTIOUS claim we are on a sliding scale somewhere between including everything and deleting this list (it has been proposed). A WP:LSC based on this being a rip-and-read list of already existent (and verified) article content in Wikipedia is a reasonable middle ground. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:36, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
No, it absolutely is not. Wikipedia articles are not WP:RSes and should not be treated as such; there is no reason to think that any individual article on Wikipedia has gotten more attention or has more eyes on it than this list, and therefore no reason why a difference between the two should automatically be resolved in favor of other articles. Either the sourcing exists or it doesn't; if it exists, it should be easy to pull it up here. If it doesn't, pointing to the other article is inappropriate, and trying to ignore valid sources because they haven't been added to another article is likewise inappropriate. There is a reason why MOS:COMMENT forbids comments that try to overtly "set rules" the way this one does, and why the process of adding an edit note is so difficult; editors are not supposed to casually create their own sweeping absolute rules for every topic area. Plainly this page is getting plenty of attention and discussion now, and WP:FRINGEN exists if there's a dispute here; that means that you haven't demonstrated even an iota of the level of problems that would be needed for the sorts of sweeping bespoke requirements you're trying to impose here, not when we have detailed and well-established systems for dealing with these exact problems already. If the question of whether something is pseudoscience was already discussed and settled on another page, you should be able to point to the discussion and repeat the arguments from there, and take it to WP:FRINGEN if that fails to settle things. --Aquillion (talk) 08:57, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Pointing to the other articles that already have verified content (and requiring, or strongly urging, that it be there) is appropriate per: WP:POVFORK (Forks are not permitted on Wikipedia), WP:LISTPURP-NAV (navigating a reader to a list that contains certain content), and WP:SOURCELIST (consider if the list's format allows room for all the details of competing views in the list item or if those details should only be covered in the linked, main article on the topic. Either way, make sure to add them to the main article if they are not already there). Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 14:01, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Support adding an editnotice. If the description, characterization, or label of 'pseudoscience' doesn't pass (or isn't included) at the primary article, editors could easily start a WP:POVFORK here, which violates WP:NPOV. For example, consensus at [topic] is that it's not pseudoscience, but a random editor could find a random source or two (meeting WP:RS standards) which describes it as such and then add it to this article, arguing that the sources "characterize it as pseudoscience". I also support keeping the hidden note: [6] Some1 (talk) 03:51, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
    Err, if a truly reliable source has stated that something is pseudoscience, per WP:NPOV we are obliged to reflect that, and prominently, per WP:PSCI. NPOV is not negotiable. Bon courage (talk) 18:47, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
    See the example given above by Fountains of Bryn Mawr on Climate change and Evolution.[7] A random editor could cherry pick some random RS to say that a topic is pseudoscience and add it to this article, when there's consensus on the primary article against labeling it as such. That's one of the reasons why the articles should be in sync, to prevent WP:POVFORKS. Some1 (talk) 21:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
    A random editor could cherry pick some random RS to say that a topic is pseudoscience and add it to this article, when there's consensus on the primary article against labeling it as such
    Our existing policies of WP:RSUW, WP:FRINGE, and Wikipedia:Scientific consensus handle that situation pretty well already. This is also probably the most watched article on the site by subscribers of the Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard! Any addition of material like that to this page would be removed pretty quickly, citing the aforementioned policies. This is a solution looking for a problem, imo. — Shibbolethink ( ) 22:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
  • List articles are based on existing articles. (On topics that are notable enough to deserve their own article, hence we required they prove it by being created and surviving the usual AFDs. THEN they can be listed in a list article.) That's been standard practice for eons. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:06, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
    That's not always true. Sometimes topics are obscure enough not to deserve a standalone article, but per WP:NOPAGE are worth mentioning in the list. And while of course having everything lined up is best practice, making it an absolute requirement on a par with things in WP:BLP seems like asking for gaming trouble. Bon courage (talk) 18:43, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Note: This discussion has been advertised at the Fringe theories noticeboard.— Shibbolethink ( ) 22:25, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
However much I wish that were true, it's not. WP:NLIST says Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable .... As long as you have a few sources that mention the the idea of the items as a group, you can have a list of anything. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested transmissions °co-ords° 23:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
That would mean this entire group or set would have to have appeared en masse in a few reliable sources... that exists? Per the Arbitration Ruling noted at the top of this talk page, this is not a list of anything, it has limits. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 16:37, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
That would mean this entire group or set would have to have appeared en masse in a few reliable sources
That's not what NLIST means. It means "things characterized as pseudoscience" as a concept has appeared in RS. And we have entire encyclopedias about pseudoscience, so that sourcing is very robust.
The alternative (the entire list would have to have appeared all together in RSes) is such a high burden, extremely few (if any) lists would ever meet it, and we would probably not have any lists on wikipedia. It also is not a logical conclusion from the phrasing at NLIST which says: "The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable". Because if that were the bar, then we wouldn't need this sentence at all, as the source showing each member would also show notability for each individual. — Shibbolethink ( ) 18:32, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
  • No edit note per Shibbolethink. Having RS that call a topic pseudoscience explicitly (or something obviously equivalent) is enough. However we should not be including ideas that are simply based on dubious methodologies or alternative theoretical foundations in this list. Or topics that are primarily legitimate but have some fringe elements, like say Hair analysis or Psychometrics. The key difference is in how the RS describe these topics broadly. Generalrelative (talk) 23:09, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
    I honestly don't know enough about Hair analysis to say anything about it. But psychometrics, I would tell you, has a lot of RSes which describe a long history of pseudoscience even if there are parts of it that are valid. E.g. [8][9][10][11] And things like personality testing (Myers-Briggs, OCEAN, et al) are explicitly pseudoscience: [12][13]
    So this is an example of a field with a lot of pseudoscience within it, but also some elements of real science. I think in such instances, we should include it but accurately describe the state of the field, that there are some valid things, and also some invalid things. And that would be compliant with FRINGE imo. — Shibbolethink ( ) 23:21, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
    I'm mostly in agreement with this, and where we disagree essentially comes down to a judgment call. I'd suggest that a topics like psychometrics is a great limit case for discussing the boundary of what belongs in this list precisely because so much of it is bunk. My own view is that because the entire topic is not usually described as pseudoscience, it doesn't belong in this list. This essentially comes down to an intuition about how readers are mostly likely going to use and understand the list. But reasonable minds may certainly disagree here. Generalrelative (talk) 00:20, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

We wouldn't want to exclude topics just because they're not notable enough for their own WP article. A lot of pseudoscience is not notable, but people coming here after hearing about them deserve at least a little guidance. I'd say that if we have no article, we should have an RS (best an accessible RS) here describing it as pseudoscience for those who wish to follow up on it. — kwami (talk) 23:15, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  • Support adding an editnotice with requirement that each listing has a main article and has a description as pseudoscience in that main article per WP:LSC/broad subject and WP:NPOV/WP:RSUW/WP:FRINGE. WP:LSC notes "notability is often a criterion for inclusion in overview lists of a broad subject" and WP:NPOV/WP:RSUW/WP:FRINGE is the icing on the cake - you need an article on the topic where all RS, policy, and guidelines have been hashed out re:whether a topic can be, or can not be, tagged with pseudoscience. It has the added bonus of preventing long talk pages here full of arguments and long reference text walls (scroll up for example). Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:46, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Support adding an editnotice per Bryn Mawr and this comment. This prevents gaming the system, because anyone can find a few sources about any topic claiming it's PS. That won't do. It should only be here because it's described as PS because it actually is PS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:35, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Do not add edit note at least until there's some actual wording to consider. I understand the motivation, and it's true that best practice is that knowledge will be synchronized across articles. However, there are some edge cases where this doesn't work (where the topic doesn't have a standalone article), and there's a danger in effect of making a new POLICY with such a note, especially if it adopts "you are required" or "you must" wording. Ultimately, article content is governed by the WP:PAGs and not by the content of other articles. Is there any evidence in recent years that there's a problem here that needs fixing? I could get on board with something milder (something like "Where a main article exists on a topic in the list, content here should reflect content there with regard to pseudoscience" ?) Bon courage (talk) 04:51, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

For reference, the text of the current edit note is below. It resides inside an html comment near the top of the article.

NOTE ON SOURCES AND INCLUSION:

  • WP:RS states that sources must be generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand.
  • WP:V states that [t]he appropriateness of any source always depends on the context.

Please note that due to the controversial nature of the label "Pseudoscience", we must demand a reliable source from an appropriate source in order to include it. If something seems to be obviously pseudoscience, then either such a source likely exists somewhere or it isn't notable enough to warrant inclusion.

The inclusion criteria must necessarily be strict enough that notability should be established at the main article first, using RS. So ensure that the main article first contains proper information documenting that the subject is labeled as pseudoscience before entering the item here.

UNSOURCED entries WILL BE REMOVED in order to keep this list clear of original research and possible NPOV violations.

For more clarification, see the top of the talk page.

It is my strong preference that we should either:

a) Move it (with perhaps some revisions) to a "proper" edit note so that it is visible to anyone who edits the page before the do so.

OR

b) Remove it since it makes no sense to have inclusion criteria that nobody can see.

I do not have a strong opinion on which is preferable. But we need to do one or the other. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:17, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I'd add that everything in that note is already covered by standard wikipedia policies, except for:
"The inclusion criteria must necessarily be strict enough that notability should be established at the main article first, using RS. So ensure that the main article first contains proper information documenting that the subject is labeled as pseudoscience before entering the item here."
So the note is mostly redundant. Those two sentences seem to be the sticking point. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:49, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose both the proposed content of this edit note and any edit note or comment that directly instructs editors to do or not do something. First, articles and lists are ultimately edited independently; their content doesn't, and shouldn't, depend on what's stated elsewhere on the wiki. A hard requirement that the main article for something on a list say X or Y is totally inappropriate and should never have been suggested, let alone written by an inappropriate inline comment (see MOS:COMMENT; such comments are directly contrary to the MOS.) Inclusion or exclusion here depends on sourcing, consensus, and WP:FRINGE; a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS on another page cannot become a binding one wiki-wide in the way that this edit note would try to enforce. It does not, and should not, matter one iota whether our article on a topic says something or not - only WP:RSes matter, and the article is not an RS. Finally, none of the discussions above have actually demonstrated the level of problems that would require a detailed edit note (but even if it were, the focus should be on sourcing, only on sourcing. I would never support even the suggestion that editors should consider what another Wikipedia article says before adding it here, let alone trying to make it a requirement; it is utterly inappropriate. --Aquillion (talk) 08:50, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Holocaust denial

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I tried adding holocaust denial to the list, and the edit was reverted. If Holocause is not a pseudoscience, then many topics here would need to be removed as well. DTMGO (talk) 15:40, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

You'd need a good source saying "holocaust denial" was pseudoscience. I'd be surprised if one existed, though certain element of HD are pseudoscientific (e.g. analysis of gas chamber walls to "prove" no gas was there - see Leuchter report). Bon courage (talk) 15:45, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
Like I said, if Holocaust is not a pseudoscience, then many topics here would need to be removed as well. Because many topics here don't have a good source saying that they are a pseudoscience. DTMGO (talk) 15:50, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
@Bon courage There you go. Here you have a reputable source backing up the statement that Holocaust denialism is a pseudoscience: "There is widespread agreement for instance that creationism, astrology, homeopathy, Kirlian photography, dowsing, ufology, ancient astronaut theory, Holocaust denialism, Velikovskian catastrophism, and climate change denialism are pseudosciences." [14] DTMGO (talk) 16:14, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
It's not that great, and also says "The misrepresentations of history presented by Holocaust deniers and other pseudo-historians are very similar in nature to the misrepresentations of natural science promoted by creationists and homeopaths", making a distinction between science and other fields of misrepresentation. Other (published) sources say HD is pseudohistory.[15]. Let's see what others think ... Bon courage (talk) 16:52, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
I think a mention is warranted, if we focus it on the elements of pseudoscience that are perpetrated in support of HD. The focus should be on these things, not the pseudohistory elements. — Shibbolethink ( ) 16:54, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Since that one is just a passing mention, I think we should try and find more sources, especially to give us better guidance as to how to cover it. I think pseudohistory and pseudoscience are usually categorized differently. By my reading that entry is mostly discussing some of the pseudoscience holocaust deniers use, which may be worth covering here but which we'd probably need more sources going into detail on. --Aquillion (talk) 18:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
    There may be enough to say something about pseudoscientific aspects of Holocaust denial. The term has definitely been applied: In the 1970s, Holocaust denial took up more sophisticated pseudoscientific methods [16]. 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 [...] Many of the pseudoscientific publications available internationally were published under cover of fictitious academic publishing houses. [...] The very public destruction of David Irving's already tarnished reputation, as a result of his libel case against Deborah Lipstadt, effectively undermined the position of the pseudoscientific deniers, as did the more recent conviction of Germar Rudolf. Some years ago Fred Leuchter attempted to prove technically that Zyklon B was not used in the gas chambers. His lack of any engineering qualification was the subject of a successful criminal action in the American courts and his capacity to comment was curtailed. [17] It is possible that the terms "pseudoscience" and "pseudohistory" have been used in overlapping ways, to an extent, which would then raise the question of whether it is our job to disentangle them. XOR'easter (talk) 19:18, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I have removed the entry again with the following edit summary: "You need to do more than mention the source on the talk page. You need to add multiple RS to the main Holocaust denial article, and if they are accepted there, then return here and restore the entry here." We have strict standards here to prevent this page from becoming a massive hit piece backed by very limited sourcing. List articles require that each listing is notable, and that is proven to us by the creation of an article. Then, to be listed at THIS list, that article must document, using multiple RS, that the subject is considered pseudoscientific. There may be certain aspects of HD that are pseudoscientific, so document that at the article. Otherwise, the whole subject is not considered pseudoscientific. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:00, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I see that this topic has been forumshopped by DTMGO on several articles. We need to limit it to one place. Right now I have commented at Talk:Pseudoscience#Holocaust_denial_is_a_pseudoscience. Can we keep all discussion there? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:23, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

By several articles you mean just two articles, right? DTMGO (talk) 16:22, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
I thought I saw three: Pseudoscience, List of topics characterized as pseudoscience, and Holocaust denial, but I now see that you apparently didn't comment at the last one, so it's only the first two. Sorry for causing confusion. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:51, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
DTMGO Why don't you try discussing at the Holocaust denial article itself first on whether that's considered pseudoscience or not? Per the hidden notice on this article: ...ensure that the main article first contains proper information documenting that the subject is labeled as pseudoscience before entering the item here. UNSOURCED entries WILL BE REMOVED in order to keep this list clear of original research and possible NPOV violations. Some1 (talk) 17:58, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Though of course, and leaving aside the pros and cons of this particular question, the "hidden notice" has zero WP:PAG force, so feel free to ignore. Bon courage (talk) 18:28, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • I hate to say this, but that hidden notice needs to be removed or reworded. Per MOS:COMMENT it is not appropriate to use a hidden notice to directly instruct an editor not do something - you can say "there's an established consensus for X, see [link]" if there's a clear, definitive consensus for something that you can link to, and can remind them of policy or suggest that they also update X if they update Y, but a hidden notice saying "do not add anything here that is not called a pseudoscience in its own article" (or words to that effect) is not acceptable. At best you could point editors towards a discussion establishing that consensus. --Aquillion (talk) 18:38, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
    There's a discussion about the hidden note at Talk:List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience#Inclusion_criteria_/_Edit_note if you'd like to add your thoughts and/or proposal for re-wording it. Some1 (talk) 18:52, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Eugenics

The eugenics entry mentions that eugenics was a pseudoscience, with journals publishing articles in USA and many other countries, for example.

I will prepare an edit draft for your consideration. DTMGO (talk) 09:12, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 February 2023

In the sociology section of the article i want to add Mises' praxeology as a pseudocience. Numerous arguments show it's incapacity to make predictions for the invalidity of it's axioms. An example of it's invalidity is it's view around macro-economics, which ignores how complex systems work, like society itself.

I'm going to put some sources... which are NOT all that i'm going to use in the article....


Philophical point of view: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02150-8

Here is talked about Bunge's work around the philosophy of science and it's view around praxeology : https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10838-021-09553-7 Rodrigo IB (talk) 18:43, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Illusion Flame (talk) 16:08, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Phantom time hypothesis

i have prepared the phantom time hypothesis in the history section any problem are there then you can edit it Ppppphgtygd (talk) 14:35, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Politics

Is it required to create a page for political science in social science section since they are more pseudoscience theories like 2020 us election fraud theory conducted by Donald Trump Ppppphgtygd (talk) 11:54, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

do we have secondary sources which describe that theory as pseudoscience? I would just call it "misinformation." — Shibbolethink ( ) 16:56, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
like JFKs assassination conspiracy theories Ppppphgtygd (talk) 19:14, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
Yes. I agree with Shibbolethink here. If this list becomes too bloated with tangential topics better classified as misinformation, its usefulness to our readers will be compromised. Generalrelative (talk) 19:23, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Shakespeare authorship questions

Whether is it necessary to add Shakespeare authorship question in pseudoscience or its is better to create a new article on the list of pseudohistory Ppppphgtygd (talk) 19:26, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Remove "History" section?

I would argue that the entire "History" section should be removed, and any non-repetitive content should be added to the "Categories and examples" section of Pseudohistory. We could then include a link to that article in the "See also" here.

My argument for this is rather pragmatic and straightforward: There is simply so much pseudohistory out there that I imagine the scope could creep on and on and on. If this proposal is rejected, I strongly encourage a pruning of the section to include only those pseudohistorical narratives that RS have described as involving pseudoscientific arguments, e.g. Holocaust denial (as discussed here). Generalrelative (talk) 19:37, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

yes you are right but some of them like Adolf Hitler's death theory, holocaust denial, Armenian genocide denial and holodomor and myth of christ is should be included as pseudoscience since science concepts like genetics and dna are used. Ppppphgtygd (talk) 19:48, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
We have Pseudohistory, which includes its own list and identifies Historical negationism and Pseudoarchaeology as articles with further information (each having their own lists). Maybe we just list a few, highly noteworthy examples while identifying the articles that have further lists and information. --Hipal (talk) 20:03, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
I'd be okay with this, especially if they are examples with notable pseudoscientific aspects, like Holocaust denial.
And in reply to the previous comment: there is nothing even remotely pseudohistorical about the Holodomor. Presumably you are talking about Holodomor denial? Generalrelative (talk) 20:21, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
ok it was a mistake.sorry Ppppphgtygd (talk) 21:02, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
No worries :) Generalrelative (talk) 22:06, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Misleading image

The top Image of the Big Bang according to WMAP/Planck does not belong in this article. It could cause casual readers to misunderstand that it is part of pseudoscience instead of the well-confirmed cosmological model that it is. Unfortunately, I have not yet found a way in the mobile app to remove it, so someone else please do it (and replace it with a more fitting image if possible). PointedEars (talk) 19:29, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

That image, the only one in the article, represents the broader topic of "Science" - of which this topic is a small part.
It is an excellent image to do that. - Roxy the dog 06:45, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Clunky Wording

The technology subsection has this phrase describing 5G conspiracy theories:

"theory proposing that 5G causes health issues and also causes COVID-19."

This wording seems quite clunky and poor-written. I propose it should be changed to:

"a theory proposing that 5G causes health issues, including COVID-19."

I would change it myself, but article is semi-protected (and for good reason).

Wikisincerely, 2601:600:9080:A4B0:C5F6:3A3F:38B1:6B3 (talk) 00:17, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

 Done. CWenger (^@) 00:23, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

EMDR does not claim to be a science

Collins dictionary defines pseudoscience as "a discipline or approach that pretends to be or has a close resemblance to science". . EMDR practioners do not claim a scientific base for it. Thus EMDR is not a pseudoscience. . (It just empirically works for some people (and is thus recommended by WHO, NICE, etc).) 5.66.63.86 (talk) 11:09, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi, we don't care about what Collins defines as pseudoscience. We care about what things our sources say have been characterized as pseudoscience. Hence the name of the article.
And, additionally, EMDR practitioners do indeed claim a scientific basis: [18][19][20][21][22][23] — Shibbolethink ( ) 16:39, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
ridiculous. I'm sure somebody somewhere, to use an example from the EMDR talk page, thinks thinks that "Steaming your vagina" has a science basis. That does not mean that is the consensus view. 5.66.63.86 (talk) 17:18, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
Follow the sources and all will be well. Suggest we're done here. Bon courage (talk) 17:22, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 June 2023

Hypnosis and hypnotherapy are not pseudoscience. There are many solid studies showing strong evidence, especially in the areas of pain and depression. The American Psychological Association (APA), specifically division 30, recognizes hypnosis as a science and provides definitions for each term involving hypnosis.

Here is an article showing evidence of how hypnosis is as effective as cognitive-behavioral therapy for mild to moderate depression in a randomized controlled rater-blind clinical trial (strong evidence):

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032721002032

Here are some additional articles that provide evidence of the effects of hypnosis:

Pain: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4465776/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10801169/

Hypnosis and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7751482/

If you need more information, please contact me.

Thanks. Meltbreak (talk) 18:30, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. Note that the top of the page says: This is a list of topics that have, either currently or in the past, been characterized as pseudoscience by academics or researchers (emphasis added). So, regardless if you want to litigate whether it's actually pseudoscience or not (I don't!), I feel like it's a good fit for this page, because the in-line reliable sources do classify it as such. Bestagon19:38, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Any entries not linked to existing articles?

Please list any you find right here so we can examine them. If they are notable enough for their own article, or are mentioned in an article, they may qualify for this list. Otherwise not. Individual entries in lists must be notable, in contrast to content in other articles. When they qualify for mention as a subtopic in an existing article, that article is often enough to justify their mention here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:01, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Individual entries in lists must be notable, in contrast to content in other articles This entire comment appears to be exercising your subjective opinion as a requirement for this article. It is certainly not the consensus in the section above or at WP:LISTN or WP:FTN, not by my reading.
WP:LISTN says: The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable — Shibbolethink ( ) 23:08, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

All seem to be linked articles. Found one MOS:EASTEREGG but fixed it, topic seems to be extensive. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:18, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

'pseudoscience' not mentioned in the article

Here's a list of topics that do not include any variations of the word "pseudoscience" in the body of their respective articles, but are listed in this article. So far I've gotten to Hexagonal water, so the list below isn't complete yet.

Some1 (talk) 02:20, 31 January 2023 (UTC) Some1 (talk) 02:52, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work. This presents an obvious problem. Their connection to pseudoscience should all be mentioned in their articles. If we are so weak that they are only mentioned here, but not in their articles, then the case is very weak for connecting them to pseudoscience at all, and I suspect that most here know that's not the case. It just needs to be done. If attempts to document them as pseudoscience in their parent articles fails (and that's an acid test), then they should not be mentioned here, unless we're going to endorse gaming the system here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:21, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes I think you have a valid concern. But I will also say, going through this list, an extremely high proportion of these are WP:SKYBLUE pseudoscience.
I think, looking at these, it will be possible to find sources for many of these which are of very high quality, reliable, verifiable, and describe the topic as one of: "alternative medicine", "discounted science", "dismissed science", "using flawed methodology", or some version of "(very/extremely/highly) implausible", if not outright "pseudoscientific", "falsely using the trappings of science" or "not employing the scientific method". I would say WP:SYNTHNOTSUMMARY tells us that such sources, in the absence of reliable sources saying the contrary, that we should include them on this list. I am willing to post a boilerplate message about such sources on each talk page. If we could demonstrate that, and yet there develops a local consensus on the page against inclusion, then I would want to take it to WP:FTN to be a more final consensus arbiter. Because my guess is that these each very likely had "pseudoscience" in their text at some point, and then removed with an imperfect or narrow consensus. And overall, We need some time to evaluate them before removing en masse.
I mean really, consider Vaccines and autism, 5G conspiracies, 5G causes coronavirus, Time Cube, Geocentric model. These are extremely well-known pseudoscience.
I'd like to add sources to your list for consideration @Some1. Would that be alright? — Shibbolethink ( ) 05:30, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
Amusingly, Time cube was mentioned by arbcom as an example of obvious pseudoscience in that old ruling ... Bon courage (talk) 05:48, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
Feel free to add sources in a new comment below; that way the list above is more readable (with just bare article links instead of references following them) and it'll be easier for items to be striken off the list later. Also, thanks for working on finding sources for these topics; since you've found some already, maybe you could add these to the parent articles? It doesn't need to be long, just a sentence or couple of sentences saying the topic has been characterized as pseudoscience/pseudo-scientific, etc. (provided that the sources actually do explicitly say the topic is pseudoscience). Some1 (talk) 23:46, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Sources for each list item

Each of the following is an item from the above list, with sources following which describe it as one of: "alternative medicine", "discounted science", "dismissed science", "using flawed methodology", (very/extremely/highly) implausible", "pseudoscientific", "falsely using the trappings of science" or "not employing the scientific method". Most just say "pseudoscience" and I'll put in the source a quote when it does not.

I could definitely use help with this, so anyone who wants to add sources, quotations, or challenge one of these sources, should feel free to do so!— Shibbolethink ( ) 00:31, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the citations on fasting are adequate. They say that various authors have made pseudoscientific claims about fasting; but they don't say that fasting itself is pseudoscience. Most fasting (religious and secular) isn't done for any claimed health benefits, so it's not a topic the label "pseudoscience" could be applied to. Nor have all the health benefits been debunked.
The article paragraph suffers from the same issue, since the sources just show that cure-all claims by quacks are pseudoscience. The underlying fasting practice is irrelevant; I've seen authors promote a whole foods diet as a cancer cure, but it's the "cancer cure" that's pseudoscience, not the whole foods diet. DFlhb (talk) 00:16, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
They say that various authors have made pseudoscientific claims about fasting; but they don't say that fasting itself is pseudoscience.
This article is about topics that have been characterized as pseudoscience. Various forms/types of fasting have been characterized as pseudoscience. That's what the sourcing shows.
Similar to medical uses of silver and aromatherapy, this does not mean all uses of it are pseudoscience. I love the way some essential oils smell, and I'll even use them to block out other smells under my mask during surgery, but I'm not going to use them to cure my patients' cancer. — Shibbolethink ( ) 05:41, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Various forms/types of fasting have been characterized as pseudoscience. If that's the case, shouldn't this article be more specific and list these various forms of fasting, instead of fasting itself? Similar to how colloidal silver and aromatherapy are both listed on this article, but medical uses of silver and essential oils are not. Some1 (talk) 11:44, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
If that's the case, shouldn't this article be more specific and list these various forms of fasting
Sure. It should say something akin to "Some fasting diets have been connected to pseudoscientific claims" or similar. That's what we have the ability to verify. — Shibbolethink ( ) 21:01, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Not sure why exorcism is included in this article. Exorcism is not claimed to be a scientific way of treating supernatural events. Exorcism, by definition, is a practice related to supernatural and non science related beliefs and ideas. To say that exorcism is 'pseudo science', one must first prove that Demonology is a pseudoscientific claim. MattJ7 (talk) 09:29, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Well, since this is a list of topics that someone once called pseudoscience, rather than a list of topics that actually are pseudoscience, then that's probably not necessary. All we need is a source in which someone made the rather silly implicit claim that religion is a branch of science.
I wonder, though, whether the WP:List selection criteria for this list is actually restricted to pseudoscience? The sources for the Bates method above, for example, say that it's "fringe" and has "little or no scientific basis" and is "fallacious", but I don't see a characterization as pseudoscience in the quotations. Is this perhaps a List of some topics characterized as pseudoscience, fringe science, bad science, or non-science? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:49, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure about that. Historically, people who believes in exorcism doesn't claim that it's has anything to do with natural philosophy/science. It has always been seen as a supernatural practice. So by definition, not scientific. It shouldn't matter if some random person claimed that exorcism is scientific. But if you really want to include exorcism in it, then you should atleast differentiate between that person's version of exorcism and all the other versions of exorcism. One of the most famous examples of exorcisms is Catholic exorcism. But the Catholic Church doesn't claim that exorcism is a part of science. So Catholic exorcisms cannot be called pseudoscience. There are numerous other examples like this. MattJ7 (talk) 15:47, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure that this list is excluding things that have been called pseudoscience by a tiny minority of sources. The list section criteria are unclear to me.
When we're working on a list such as List of common misconceptions, we're usually pretty strict about what gets included. For that list, I believe the usual standard, for anything, is to cite a source that either uses the exact phrase "common misconception" or something very similar. But it's not obvious to me that strict requirements are being used here. @Shibbolethink, @Valjean, what do you think? Do you expect the sources to actually use the word pseudoscience? Do you expect them to be a majority POV, or at least a significant minority POV? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Edit times
  • 01:51, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
  • 17:33, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
  • 16:17, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
  • 23:08, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
  • 22:21, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • 19:06, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
  • 11:47, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
Sources

  1. ^ Fraknoi, Andrew (28 October 2003). "Dealing with Astrology, UFOs, and Faces on Other Worlds: A Guide to Addressing Astronomical Pseudoscience in the Classroom" (PDF). Astronomy Education Review. 2 (2): 150–160. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  2. ^ Craddock, Robert A. (2005). "Keeping pseudoscience out of AGU meetings". Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union. 86 (26): 246. doi:10.1029/2005EO260004. ISSN 0096-3941. How many posters or presentations have been made at AGU meetings in the last 10-20 years that support creationism, intelligent design, or other forms of pseudo-science, such as the so-called "face" on Mars?
  3. ^ Pasachoff, Jay; Percy, John (2005). Teaching and learning astronomy : effective strategies for educators worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 172–173. ISBN 9780521842624. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  4. ^ Regal, Brian (2009). Pseudoscience : a critical encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Press. p. 63. ISBN 9780313355080. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  5. ^ Carroll, Robert Todd. "lunar effects (full moon) The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com". skepdic.com. Retrieved 31 January 2023. When such an analysis is done, says Nienhuys, one discovers that the study is "pompous pseudoscience.
  6. ^ Kelly, I.W.; Rotton, James; Culver, Roger (1985). "The Moon Was Full and Nothing Happened: A Review of Studies on the Moon and Human Behavior and Lunar Beliefs" (PDF). Skeptical Inquirer (Winter): 129–143. Retrieved 31 January 2023. Of the 23 studies we checked, nearly one-half contained one or more statistical errors. Some of these were serious enough to prompt us to publish interim reports (Kelly and Rotton 1983; Rotton, Kelly, and Frey 1983) to correct errors that had crept into the literature. For example, we found that Lieber and Sherin (1972) had employed inappropriate and misleading statistical procedures in their often-cited study of homicides in Dade County, Florida. On the basis of binominal tests of significance, they claimed that a disproportionate number of homicides occurred during the 24-hour period before and after full moons. We found that this claim was based upon 48 tests of significance, which are not reported in their article.
  7. ^ Mayoral, Olga; Solbes, Jordi; Cantó, José; Pina, Tatiana (2 July 2020). "What Has Been Thought and Taught on the Lunar Influence on Plants in Agriculture? Perspective from Physics and Biology". Agronomy. 10 (7): 955. doi:10.3390/agronomy10070955. eISSN 2073-4395. More specifically, it focuses on some pseudo-scientific questions and beliefs that impregnate a large part of agricultural traditions and agronomic practices according to which certain lunar phases encourage plant growth while others compromise their development.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  8. ^ Bensley, D. Alan; Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Rowan, Krystal A.; Masciocchi, Christopher M.; Grain, Florent (July 2019). "The generality of belief in unsubstantiated claims". Applied Cognitive Psychology. 34 (1): 16–28. doi:10.1002/acp.3581. eISSN 1099-0720. ISSN 0888-4080. Their survey included "science" items, with the false science items overlapping substantially with pseudoscientific claims, poorly supported practices, and psychological misconceptions. For instance, they labeled the misconception that the full moon causes people to behave abnormally a paranormal item.
  9. ^ WIESNER, MATTHEW P. (2015). "Modern Geocentrism: A Case Study of Pseudoscience in Astronomy" (PDF). Skeptical Inquirer. 39 (1): 50–53. Retrieved 31 January 2023. A small group of pseudoscience practitioners called modern geocentrists still suggest that the Earth is in fact the center of the universe. An astronomer examines their ideas and uses them to suggest common properties of pseudoscience purveyors.
  10. ^ Daempfle, Peter (2013). Good science, bad science, pseudoscience, and just plain bunk : how to tell the difference. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 23, 26. ISBN 9781442217263. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  11. ^ a b WIESNER, MATTHEW P. (2015). "Modern Geocentrism: A Case Study of Pseudoscience in Astronomy" (PDF). Skeptical Inquirer. 39 (1): 50–53. Retrieved 31 January 2023. One hears this claim a great deal from pseudoscientists around the world. It might be a free energy machine that utility companies don't want known, or it might be the dangers of vaccinations that medical doctors and drug companies want hidden, or it might be the "fabrication" of the Moon landings that the government wants hidden. The reason that conspiracy theory is so prevalent in pseudoscience is there is always a pressing question: If this idea is so good, why don't physics professors, or medical doctors, or energy companies talk about it?
  12. ^ Mechler, G.E. (May 2002). "Turning a problem into an opportunity using the Fox Network's ``Conspiracy Theory: Did we land on the moon?" as a tool to improve student thinking on science and pseudoscience". Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society. 34: 782. Retrieved 31 January 2023. Fox Network's ``Conspiracy Theory: Did we land on the moon?" offers educators a rich example of televised pseudoscience that 1) can be rebutted in ways readily understandable by nonscience students and 2) will not result in throngs of offended students as this is not a particularly popular pseudoscience and few students will have an emotional investment in it.
  13. ^ Bensley, D. Alan; Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Rowan, Krystal A.; Masciocchi, Christopher M.; Grain, Florent (July 2019). "The generality of belief in unsubstantiated claims". Applied Cognitive Psychology. 34 (1): 16–28. doi:10.1002/acp.3581. eISSN 1099-0720. ISSN 0888-4080. Although labels for different unsubstantiated claims such as "conspiracy theory" and "pseudoscience" may imply that they are qualitatively different, these unsubstantiated claims often share overlapping features. For instance, people who endorse the conspiracy theory that the 1969 moon landing was a hoax are also endorsing a pseudoscientific claim that has been refuted by robust scientific evidence from moon rocks and verified photographs of the earth from the moon (Bensley, 2018). Moreover, pseudoscientists sometimes invoke conspiracy theories to explain skeptics' resistance to their claims.
  14. ^ Bensley, D. Alan; Lilienfeld, Scott O. (September 2020). "Assessing belief in unsubstantiated claims". Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. 6 (3): 198–211. doi:10.1037/stl0000218. eISSN 2332-211X. ISSN 2332-2101.
  15. ^ Regal, Brian (2009). Pseudoscience : a critical encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Press. p. 119. ISBN 9780313355080. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  16. ^ Losh, Susan Carol; Nzekwe, Brandon (19 April 2011). "The Influence of Education Major: How Diverse Preservice Teachers View Pseudoscience Topics". Journal of Science Education and Technology. 20 (5): 579–591. doi:10.1007/s10956-011-9297-0. eISSN 1573-1839. ISSN 1059-0145. The omitted seven items either had ignorance rates of at least 20 percent among these students (King Tut's curse; the lost continent of Atlantis; or the Shroud of Turin); resembled none of the other pseudoscience general topics (reincarnation; communication with the dead; or the Bermuda Triangle) or were so highly skewed that the item was basically a constant (time travel).
  17. ^ Martin, Michael (October 1994). "Pseudoscience, the paranormal, and science education". Science and Education. 3 (4): 357–371. doi:10.1007/BF00488452. eISSN 1573-1901. ISSN 0926-7220.
  18. ^ PRATKANIS, ANTHONY R. (August 1995). "How to Sell a Pseudoscience" (PDF). Skeptical Inquirer: 19–25. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  19. ^ Kusche, Larry (November 2015). "The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Delusion: Looking Back after Forty Years". Skeptical Inquirer. 39 (6). Retrieved 31 January 2023. At the end of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery—Solved, I stated that the Triangle was a "manufactured" mystery. That was a polite way to say it was a fraud. The "mystery" of the Bermuda Triangle is one of the most widespread frauds that has ever been perpetrated. It was based on poor research and distorted, untrue, inaccurate information that was uncritically copied, embellished, and sensationalized.
  20. ^ Philipkoski, Kristen (13 July 1999). "Shedding Light in the Dark". Wired. Retrieved 31 January 2023. Mainstream physicists have considered autodynamics a crackpot theory for decades, and most agree that an experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in 1984 proved the theory wrong. "As far as I was concerned autodynamics was disproved. Special relativity is correct," said Pierre Noyes, professor in the theoretical physics section at SLAC, and lead researcher of the 1984 experiment.
  21. ^ "List of Good Pseudoscience Topics". Eduzenith. 3 January 2015. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  22. ^ "New York Times unskeptically presents discredited physics theory". Physics Today. 18 June 2015. doi:10.1063/PT.5.8122. eISSN 1945-0699. The Times commissioned Overbye to insert his intellect between readers and scientists in reporting on this noble astrophysics investigation that probes and tests Einstein's work. The Times also accepted and unskeptically ran a somewhat rambling screed about a discredited physics theory purporting to expose Einstein's alleged "misconceptions."
  23. ^ Ritter, Stephen K. (7 November 2016). "Cold fusion died 25 years ago, but the research lives on". cen.acs.org. Retrieved 1 February 2023. The excitement quickly died when the scientific community came to a consensus that the findings weren't real—"cold fusion" became a synonym for junk science.
  24. ^ Novella, Steven (11 April 2016). "More Cold Fusion Claims - NeuroLogica Blog". NeuroLogica Blog - Your Daily Fix of Neuroscience, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking. Retrieved 1 February 2023. Unfortunately the cold fusion community has fallen, in my opinion, into a cesspit of pseudoscience
  25. ^ BENNETT, JAY (21 December 2015). "Can Cold Fusion Come Back From the Dead?". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 1 February 2023. "Cold fusion is dismissed as pseudoscience, the kind of thing that respectable scientists and science journalists simply don't talk about (unless to remind us of its disgrace).
  26. ^ Collins, HM; Bartlett, A; Reyes-Galindo, LI (2016). "The Ecology of Fringe Science and its Bearing on Policy" (PDF). doi:10.48550/arXiv.1606.05786. Retrieved 1 February 2023. a large proportion of the fringe has characteristics of a distinctive community. Members will often meet at the same conferences and organisers are interconnected....Myron Evans, who heads the Alpha Institute for Advanced Studies (AIAS), helped establish the Vigier Symposia, which are now sponsored by NASI, while NASI founding director Richard Amoroso is also listed as member of the AIAS. The NPA's Sagnac Award has been given to Halton Arp (late editor of Apeiron) and Donald Scott, both luminaries among 'Electric Universe' theorists, while the TGA has awarded Gold Medals to, for example, Myron Evans and Wallace Thornhill, who is one of the founders of The Thunderbolts Project. The sense of community, fragile though it may be, is also indicated by certain common characteristics not shared by mainstream science {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  27. ^ a b Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten (2013). Philosophy of pseudoscience : reconsidering the demarcation problem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780226051826. Why physics rather than the pseudophysics of free-energy machines or antigravitation devices? Why standard history rather than von Daniken's ancient astronaut archeology? In general, why should we teach sciences rather than pseudosciences?
  28. ^ Echoes of an Alien Sky. Publishers Weekly. 2006;253(49):50. Accessed February 1, 2023. "Meanwhile, scientist Kyal Reen is trying to figure out whether Terrans managed to develop electrogravitic propulsion in time for some of them to escape Earth's death throes. The plot--a mix of exposition, polemics and pseudoscience."
  29. ^ Siegel, Ethan (21 November 2018). "This Is The One Key Difference Separating Good Science From Junk Science". Forbes. Retrieved 1 February 2023. (This is a WP:FORBES Contributor, which are typically not considered reliable, but this gentleman is an extremely well-regarded astrophysicist who writes prolifically about junk science in astronomy and physics.
  30. ^ Lancaster, Don (March 1998). "How to Bash Pseudoscience". The Blatant Opportunist. 49 (1). Pennsylvania State University: 1–4. Retrieved 1 February 2023. Pseudoscience Obviously, there are a lot of others who disagree. The web is full of people who are out there mightily striving towards developing perpetual motion machines, building "overunity" generators, running cars on water, abducting themselves to Alderon, traveling or communicating faster than light, performing miracles with magnets, expressing psychic powers, or extracting "zero point energy". I quite strongly believe that these pseudoscience subjects certainly do serve as useful adjuncts to porcine whole body cleanliness. But otherwise are total hogwash.
  31. ^ Point, Sebastien (January 2018). "Free Energy: When the Web Is Freewheeling" (PDF). Skeptical Inqurer. 42 (1): 51–55. Retrieved 1 February 2023. Claims about "free energy" are all over the Internet. What's it all about? Not real science...it is fortunately possible (but for how long, you will ask) to consult on the Internet many videos or descriptions of free energy machines that are presented as so much proof … mostly unverifiable....This type of reasoning comes from a misunderstanding of the very concept of energy: it is often imagined as an exchangeable fluid present in us and around us. But energy is an inherent property of matter, and it has no existence of its own...
  32. ^ Orzel, Chad (26 January 2018). "Scientific Failure as a Public Good: Illustrating the Process of Science and Its Contrast with Pseudoscience". Pseudoscience. The MIT Press. doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262037426.003.0010. I illustrate this contrast with three examples: the 2011 superluminal neutrino anomaly reported by the OPERA collaboration, the 2014 claim of primordial gravitational waves by the BICEP2 collaboration, and the pseudoscientific field of "hydrino" physics.
  33. ^ Sukharev, Maxim (June 2019). "A quick how-to user-guide to debunking pseudoscientific claims" (PDF). doi:10.48550/arXiv.1906.06165. Retrieved 1 February 2023. In what follows I will try to do my best to provide a simple how-to user's guide to debunking pseudoscientific claims...Now with a little bit of quantum background we can turn to our last example – hydrino (a curious reader may wish to google this word). Claim: hydrogen atoms can be brought to a new state called hydrino, which has an energy lower than the ground state...But remember – extraordinary claims must be supported by extraordinary evidence. Most importantly, the experimental evidence must be independently verified. It did not take too long for the scientific community to jump into this. Firstly, the experiments were scrutinized [7] and the experimental procedure was questioned. The scientists questioned the validity of the hydrino experiments. Secondly, the very theory of hydrino was checked for consistency [8] and it was clearly shown that the hydrino model is inconsistent and is in contradiction with the well experimentally tested quantum theory...To our biggest surprise the hydrino is still very well alive [10] with its author being interviewed by CNN, who seems to be constantly triggered by buzz words such as "clean energy". Moreover, some people even invest their money into this "hydrino clean energy" endeavor. It certainly is very clean in a sense that it does not exist. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  34. ^ Rathke, A (19 May 2005). "A critical analysis of the hydrino model". New Journal of Physics. 7: 127–127. doi:10.1088/1367-2630/7/1/127. eISSN 1367-2630. We found that CQM is inconsistent and has several serious deficiencies. Amongst these are the failure to reproduce the energy levels of the excited states of the hydrogen atom, and the absence of Lorentz invariance. Most importantly, we found that CQM does not predict the existence of hydrino states! Also, standard quantum mechanics cannot encompass hydrino states, with the properties currently attributed to them. Hence there remains no theoretical support of the hydrino hypothesis.
  35. ^ Dommerholt, Jan; Fernández-de-las-Peñas, César; Petersen, Shannon Mbravo (27 May 2019). "Needling: is there a point?". Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy. 27 (3): 125–127. doi:10.1080/10669817.2019.1620049. eISSN 2042-6186. ISSN 1066-9817. PMC 6600071. PMID 31230588. According to Nada, 'trigger point dry needling is a money grabbing marketing ploy hiding behind a veil of tooth-fairy and pseudoscience. No matter how well presented, this takes the profession further away from our roots and closer to fringe CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) professions' [35]. Others opined that 'DN is an utter fool's errand wrought with placebo ... induced by maximal ritual effect, novel and exciting stimulus as well as an injection of hope for those desperate enough to allow someone to stab them with a needle'
  36. ^ Bohr, Thomas. Problems with myofascial pain syndrome and fibromyalgia syndrome. Neurology. 1996;46(3):593-597. Accessed February 01, 2023. "However, we can at least be intellectually honest and admit that the trigger point injection is an unproven technique. Doubtless, it helps many patients, but given that dry needling has a similar effect, it is likely due to placebo effect...With FS, theory has traditionally outpaced science. Martin Gardner once said, "In no other field have pseudoscientists flourished as prominently as in the field of medicine." For years, muscle was pursued as the responsible site for the pain, with apparently ``positive biopsies described. Later, when investigators got around to using control subjects, it was decided some of the ``abnormal findings previously described were actually nonspecific. Other investigators found no consistent microscopic abnormalities in FS....Thus, the traditional foundation of FS is breaking down, that is, the notion that specific tender points exist in muscle and fibrous tissue. Given this fact, it is no surprise that the diagnosis is quite fungible. FS is whatever one wants it to be, and this includes either party in the physicianpatient duo. To officially diagnose a tender point, the examiner does not necessarily have to note a grimace, flinch, or withdrawal; he need only ask the patient if the palpation is painful, which constitutes virtual self-diagnosis."
  37. ^ Kreidler, Marc; Hall, Harriet (4 May 2020). "Dubious Claims in Psychotherapy for Youth Part III: Externalizing Issues and Daily Routines". Skeptical Inquirer. 44 (3). Retrieved 1 February 2023. Acupressure is a variant of acupuncture, a prescientific treatment system based on myths. Acupuncture has been extensively studied and found to be a theatrical placebo (Colquhoun and Novella 2013).
  38. ^ Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven Jay; Lohr, Jeffrey M.; Tavris, Carol (2015). Science and pseudoscience in clinical psychology (Second ed.). New York: The Guilford Press. p. 234. ISBN 1462517897. Currently, conventional science has yet to validate the core principles of New Age psychotherapies—the idea that thoughts can influence one's external environment, the existence of subtle energies and fields—or of meridians, acupressure points, chakras, auras, or of the ability of some psychotherapists to reliably detect these constructs.
  39. ^ Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven Jay; Lohr, Jeffrey M.; Tavris, Carol (2015). Science and pseudoscience in clinical psychology (Second ed.). New York: The Guilford Press. p. 234. ISBN 1462517897. ...these findings suggest that AA is indeed a pseudoscientific treatment, persisting by virtue of intuitive appeal and strident adherents despite weak empirical support...To conclude, the role of AA in the science-based AUD treatment enterprise has been highly controversial....from a scientific standpoint, there are reasons to be critical of AA's outmoded etiological model and to question the strong identification of formal treatment programs with AA principles (Kelly, 2013). Participation in community mutual-help groups like AA will not be for all patients, but, for some, AA may very well enhance formal treatment efforts.
  40. ^ Williams, William F. (2013). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience : From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. pp. 7, 303. ISBN 9781135955229.
  41. ^ Regal, Brian (2009). Pseudoscience : a critical encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Press. pp. 12, 13. ISBN 9780313355080. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  42. ^ Ernst, Edzard (11 November 2014). "Alexander technique: some evidence and plenty of wishful thinking". edzardernst.com. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  43. ^ Burley, Richard Ford (11 April 2016). "Borderline Woo: The Alexander Technique Vol. 3 / No. 24.1". This Week in Tomorrow. No. 3.24.1. Retrieved 4 February 2023. The Alexander Technique appears from the websites of its proponents to be totally nuts. It has all the signs: HTML from 1995, a pay-for lessons system, unreliable health claims (like that it cures asthma), and naturalistic fallacies ("we show our students precisely what they are inadvertently doing to themselves that gets in the way of their natural functioning" [emphasis mine])...The Alexander Technique. A little pseudosciencey, and probably not covered by your insurance the way PT is, but maybe not total bunk if you want to relieve muscular-based back pain through better posture and need someone to tell you how to pay attention to the way you use your body. The chances of it curing your asthma are rather less positive.
  44. ^ Čavojová, Vladimíra; Ersoy, Selin (7 October 2019). "The role of scientific reasoning and religious beliefs in use of complementary and alternative medicine". Journal of Public Health. 42 (3): e239–e248. doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdz120. eISSN 1741-3850. ISSN 1741-3842. PMID 31588497. Fries classifies CAM according to its effectiveness ratings of family physicians into two broad categories: 'accepted' (acupuncture for pain management, massage therapy for muskuloskeletal indications, chiropractic care for muskuloskeletal indications, relaxation therapy, biofeedback and somewhat surprisingly also spiritual or religious healing) and 'rejected' (homeopathy or naturopathy, Feldenkrais or Alexander technique, Rolfing, herbal medicine, traditional Chinese medicine and reflexology).
  45. ^ Austin, John (3 December 2022). "Dark Hidden Origins of the Alexander Technique". Connecting Up the Dots. Retrieved 4 February 2023. Alexander's ideas related to eugenics boil down to: if you help people change their habits, they can have better children...In Man's Supreme Inheritance, Alexander asserted that modern man had evolved beyond 'the savage' whom Alexander described as being driven by instinctual reaction rather than conscious control...In light of Alexander's philosophy of mind-body unity he saw, 'conscious control of the self' (or 'good use of the self' etc.) as a moral issue and someone with 'bad use' was behaving immorally (unconsciously). Because Alexander's thoughts on evolution of conscious control (essentially a racist ego development theory) he and Saleeby saw the AT as applied eugenics.In 1944, a scathing critique of the AT, 'Quackery Versus Physical Education' was published in the South African Fitness Journal, Manpower. It insisted that research cited as supportive did not provide any evidence in support of Alexander. It also referred to Alexander's 'followers' as a 'head balancing cult' and put their 'belief' down to 'group hystero-neurosis typical of a new faith.' The article contained a section, 'The misquoted Sherrington' which claimed Alexander had mischaracterized Sir Charles Sherrington's research as being supportive to his work.
  46. ^ Green S (1997). "Pseudoscience in Alternative Medicine: Chelation Therapy, Antineoplastons, The Gerson Diet and Coffee Enemas". Skeptical Inquirer. 21 (5): 39.
  47. ^ Vickers, AJ; Cassileth, BR (2008). "Living proof and the pseudoscience of alternative cancer treatments". Journal of the Society for Integrative Oncology. 6 (1): 37–40. PMID 18302909.
  48. ^ Grimes, David Robert (14 July 2019). "How to survive the fake news about cancer". The Observer. Retrieved 4 February 2023. "That pseudoscience is being hawked to vulnerable patients isn't a new problem – cancer scams have existed for decades, and combating them was the impetus behind the 1939 Cancer Act. The substantial difference now is the ease with which falsehoods can be disseminated. Cancer surgeon David Gorski, professor of surgery and oncology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan and managing editor of the online journal Science-Based Medicine, notes that cancer misinformation is "way more prevalent now for the same reason other misinformation and conspiracy theories are so prevalent – because they're so easily spread on social media."
  49. ^ Grimes, David Robert (1 January 2022). "The Struggle against Cancer Misinformation". Cancer Discovery. 12 (1): 26–30. doi:10.1158/2159-8290.CD-21-1468. eISSN 2159-8290. ISSN 2159-8274. PMID 34930788. This dubious amplification of pseudoscience diminishes trust in the medico-scientific sphere. Cancer misinformation is harmful even when it is not fully embraced or believed, precisely because it creates a lingering impression that no medical consensus exists on the topic or that official sources of information lack credibility.
  50. ^ Ernst, E (August 2001). "Alternative cancer cures". British Journal of Cancer. 85 (5): 781–782. doi:10.1054/bjoc.2001.1989. eISSN 1532-1827. ISSN 0007-0920. PMC 2364136. PMID 11531268. Alternative cancer cures (ACCs) typically have a common life cycle (Ernst, 2000). At the origin of almost every ACC is a charismatic individual who claims to have found the answer to cancer. He (the male sex seems to dominate) often supports his claims with pseudoscientific evidence referring to (but rarely presenting) many cured patients. Thus he soon gathers ardent supporters who lobby for a wider acceptance of this ACC. The pressure on the medical establishment increases to a point where the treatment is finally submitted to adequate testing. When the results turn out to be negative, the ACC's proponents argue that the investigations were not done properly. In fact, they were set up to generate a negative result so that the commercial interests of orthodoxy would not be threatened. A conspiracy theory is thus born, and the ACC lives on in the 'alternative underground'.
  51. ^ Shermer, Michael; Linse, Pat (2002). The Skeptic encyclopedia of pseudoscience (First ed.). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 125, 819, 820. ISBN 9781576076538.
  52. ^ Leach, Nathaniel (November 2014). "Gendering Pseudo-Science: Inchbald's Animal Magnetism". Literature Compass. 11 (11): 715–723. doi:10.1111/lic3.12198. ISSN 1741-4113. A commission appointed by the King of France determined that the effects claimed to be produced by animal magnetism were merely theatrical and imaginative, qualities that were feminized in an attempt to denigrate animal magnetism as pseudo-science. Inchbald's play follows this attack by satirizing animal magnetism through the absurd character of an old doctor who wishes to learn this pseudo-science in order to manipulate the affections of his young ward. Inchbald's satire, however, encompasses not only the fraudulent pseudo-science but also the official patriarchal power that the doctor also represents. Inchbald thus demonstrates the proximity between official structures of power and the supposedly fraudulent pseudo-science...
  53. ^ Coale, Samuel Chase. "Mesmerism and Other Pseudo-Sciences". Nathaniel Hawthorne In Context. Cambridge University Press. pp. 126–135. doi:10.1017/9781316271537.013.
  54. ^ Novella, Steven (20 June 2012). "Bee Venom Therapy Update". sciencebasedmedicine.org. Retrieved 4 February 2023. There are no published clinical studies of BVT and stroke recovery (however I did find a case report of a stroke following bee stings). There is also no legitimate scientific reason to suspect that BVT would be effective in stroke recover. Magsaysay gives his own explanation for how he thinks it works. His description is pure pseudoscience, just made up science-sounding nonsense.
  55. ^ Novella, Steven (25 April 2018). "Bee Venom is Snake Oil". sciencebasedmedicine.org. Retrieved 4 February 2023. What about the scientific research? Here we find the typical results anyone familiar with alternative pseudoscience should expect...Let's look at so-called bee-venom acupuncture (BVA) – which conveniently combines two pseudosciences into one treatment.
  56. ^ Stukus, David R. (November 2019). "How Dr Google Is Impacting Parental Medical Decision Making". Immunology and Allergy Clinics of North America. 39 (4): 583–591. doi:10.1016/j.iac.2019.07.011. ISSN 0889-8561. PMID 31563191.
  57. ^ Burnett, Dean (6 April 2016). "Gwyneth Paltrow's bee sting beauty treatment just won't fly". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 February 2023. It's apparently a very old idea going back thousands of years, and we know that in pseudoscience circles age is a perfectly valid substitute for "evidence that is actually works". You can sort of see some rationale behind it; bee stings obviously have a definite physical effect on the body, they're 100% natural (another substitute for effectiveness), and a localised swelling certainly would remove wrinkles, albeit temporarily and painfully.
  58. ^ Barrett, S. "Aromatherapy: Making Dollars out of Scents". Science & Pseudoscience Review in Mental Health. Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  59. ^ Hodson, Derek (1 January 2009). "Further Thoughts on Demarcation". Teaching and Learning about Science. BRILL. pp. 113–150. doi:10.1163/9789460910531_006. An interesting feature of life in the late 20th century and early 21st century has been the upsurge of interest in "New Age" and pseudoscientific beliefs such as the healing power of crystals, reflexology, aromatherapy, iridology, qigong, feng shui, Tarot, and the like.
  60. ^ MacLennan, Alastair H; Morrison, Robert G B (March 2012). "Tertiary education institutions should not offer pseudoscientific medical courses". Medical Journal of Australia. 196 (4): 225–226. doi:10.5694/mja12.10128. eISSN 1326-5377. ISSN 0025-729X. PMID 22409674. "The international scientific credibility of Australian tertiary education institutions is being undermined by the increasing number of pseudoscientific health courses that they offer. Many universities teach therapies without a scientific basis to their students within their health care curricula, including homeopathy, iridology, reflexology, kinesiology, healing touch therapy, aromatherapy and "energy medicine".
  61. ^ "The Ockhams 2018". The Skeptic Magazine. 18 October 2018. Archived from the original on 18 December 2019. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
  62. ^ Hale, Tom. "This Year's Award For The Worst Pseudoscience Is Especially Deserved". IFL Science. Archived from the original on 11 March 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
  63. ^ Jha, Alok (23 December 2012). "Struck off MMR doctor handed award for 'lifetime achievement in quackery'". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 February 2023. Andrew Wakefield 'supported or practised pseudoscience in the most ludicrous, dangerous, irrational or irresponsible manner', according to campaign group Good Thinking Society
  64. ^ Swire-Thompson, Briony; Lazer, David (March 2022). "Reducing Health Misinformation in Science: A Call to Arms". The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 700 (1): 124–135. doi:10.1177/00027162221087686. eISSN 1552-3349. ISSN 0002-7162. The most infamous example of scientific disinformation is when The Lancet published an article suggesting a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism (Wakefield et al. 1998). A substantial vested interest existed for the lead author, Andrew Wakefield, whose research was funded by lawyers in legal battles against MMR manufacturers, and who had lodged a patent for a new vaccine (Eggertson 2010).
  65. ^ Pierce, Daniel E.; Farace, Anthony P.; Lewis, Dana M. (19 April 2021). "America's Haven of Health: Hydrotherapy and tourism at Excelsior Springs, Missouri, USA". History and Anthropology: 1–28. doi:10.1080/02757206.2021.1901286. eISSN 1477-2612. ISSN 0275-7206. Over the years, mineral water's use as a hydrotherapy was increasingly viewed by the public as pseudoscience and unreliable. This scepticism culminated in two U.S. Senate hearings on 'Health Frauds', 'Quackery', and 'Misrepresentations'. This bought much negative attention to the already declining heath tourism industry.
  66. ^ Wrobel, Arthur (2015). Pseudo-science and society in 19th-century America. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. pp. 74–78. ISBN 9780813165035.
  67. ^ Aramesh, K (1 July 2018). "Science and Pseudoscience in Traditional Iranian Medicine". Archives of Iranian medicine. 21 (7): 315–323. PMID 30041531. There are many reports of the treacherous, injurious, and pointless treatments imposed by the practitioners of TIM to their patients. In his book, Public Health in Qajar Iran, Willem Floor portrays some of the practices of these TIM practitioners. For example, at the time of the Cholera outbreak, believing that Cholera has a warm temperament, they prescribed immersion and plummeting the patients into the chilling cold water. This treatment killed some patients who could have survived the disease itself.20 In the contemporary TIM, also, various kinds of purging, venesection, leech therapy, wet-cupping, etc. are being performed, mostly without any scientific supporting evidences and based on the medieval understandings of human physiology and pathophysiology
  68. ^ May, Andrew (2016). Pseudoscience and science fiction. Cham: Springer. pp. 103, 104. ISBN 9783319426044. Another fringe therapy that interested van Vogt was the "Bates method" for improving eyesight. Devised early in the 20th century by Dr William Bates, it was described by SF writer and sceptic John Sladek
  69. ^ Deery, June (1996). "Huxley and the New Age". Aldous Huxley and the Mysticism of Science: 146–169. doi:10.1057/9780230375055_8. The Bates method has little or no scientific basis and there is no evidence that it improved Huxley's eyesight
  70. ^ Kreidler, Marc (8 July 2000). "Fallacies of the Bates System". Quackwatch. Retrieved 9 February 2023. The Bates theory of accommodation is not only fallacious; it is not even a new theory-as claimed by his supporters. The idea that the eyeball elongates when it accommodates was held by Sturm, Listing, and other scientists in the early nineteenth century. They abandoned it, however, when studies of the lens image proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that accommodation is produced by changes in the curvature of the lens. Dr. Bates is regarded as a discoverer of new truths by his disciples [6]. Yet all he did was to resuscitate a discredited, early-nineteenth-century theory, moving not forward to the future but backward to the past.
  71. ^ Ravindranath, Prasad (21 February 2018). "Oncologists step aside, here comes medical astrologers". Science Chronicle. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
  72. ^ Jones, Clay (23 October 2015). "The Time a Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Got Manipulated by a Chiropractor | Science-Based Medicine". sciencebasedmedicine.org. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
  73. ^ GIRARD, J. MARC (14 August 2018). "An example of pseudoscience: Chronic Lyme disease" (PDF). Le Spécialiste. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
  74. ^ Brown, Carolyn (17 November 2014). "Lyme law uses "junk science" says expert". Canadian Medical Association Journal. 186 (18): 1354–1354. doi:10.1503/cmaj.109-4936. eISSN 1488-2329. ISSN 0820-3946. PMC 4259767. PMID 25404395.
  75. ^ Auwaerter, Paul G; Bakken, Johan S; Dattwyler, Raymond J; Dumler, J Stephen; Halperin, John J; McSweegan, Edward; Nadelman, Robert B; O'Connell, Susan; Shapiro, Eugene D; Sood, Sunil K; Steere, Allen C; Weinstein, Arthur; Wormser, Gary P (September 2011). "Antiscience and ethical concerns associated with advocacy of Lyme disease". The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 11 (9): 713–719. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(11)70034-2. ISSN 1473-3099. PMID 21867956. Similar to other antiscience groups, these advocates have created a pseudoscientific and alternative selection of practitioners, research, and publications and have coordinated public protests, accused opponents of both corruption and conspiracy, and spurred legislative efforts to subvert evidence-based medicine and peer-reviewed science. The relations and actions of some activists, medical practitioners, and commercial bodies involved in Lyme disease advocacy pose a threat to public health.
  76. ^ Melanson, Vanessa R., et al. "The Epistemic Fallacy: Unintended Consequences of Empirically Treating (Clinically Diagnosed) Chronic Lyme Disease in a Soldier." Medical Journal, US Army Medical Center of Excellence (MEDCoE) (2022). "This case illustrates that an inappropriate clinical diagnosis and empirical treatment can be inherently detrimental to the health, safety, and well-being of the patient. Additionally, the amalgamation of perceived mistrust and limitations in LD testing combined with an eagerness to diagnose LD based on what may be considered “pseudoscience” is potentially harming patients with undiagnosed chronic illness."
  77. ^ Gorski, David (7 April 2008). "Colon "cleanses": A load of you know what… | Science-Based Medicine". sciencebasedmedicine.org. Retrieved 17 February 2023. This is, of course, utter nonsense.
  78. ^ Caulfeld T. From Kim Kardashian to Dr. Oz: The future relevance of popular culture to our health and health policy. Ottawa L. Rev. 2015;47:371. "In the past year alone, Gwyneth Paltrow, my favourite purveyor of pseudoscience,' has suggested that women should steam their vaginas, that infrared saunas are a good way to treat the flu, that we should all get regular colonics, and that wearing a bra increases your risk of getting breast cancer s Not only are all of these recommendations completely science-free, but they are also potentially harmful."
  79. ^ Dedmon, Robert E. (1 December 2011). "The urge to purge: colonic 'hydrotherapy', unproven but widely practiced, potentially dangerous, and unsupported by scientific evidence". Asian Biomedicine. 5 (6): 731–734. doi:10.5372/1905-7415.0506.099. ISSN 1905-7415. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
  80. ^ Atwood KC, 4th (25 March 2004). "Naturopathy, pseudoscience, and medicine: myths and fallacies vs truth". MedGenMed : Medscape general medicine. 6 (1): 33. PMID 15208545. ...others are highly implausible and easily explained by ordinary mechanisms (applied kinesiology by ideomotor action, colonic "cleansing" by the norm of reciprocity, etc.); and still others are barely plausible but highly unlikely and dangerous and, unlike aspirin, are without any empirical support (eg, St. John's wort as an anti-HIV drug). None of these claims should be studied in human trials...These points are irrelevant to the greater issue, however: the field of naturopathic medicine, as a whole and at its highest levels, promotes fanciful, pseudoscientific, dangerous, and unethical practices.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  81. ^ Caulfield, Timothy A. (2015). Is Gwyneth Paltrow wrong about everything? : how the famous sell us elixirs of health, beauty & happiness. Boston: Beacon Press. p. 29. ISBN 9780807057483. The idea that a colon cleanse removes toxins and promotes health is so ridiculous that it is a pretty good test for quacks.
  82. ^ Teovanović, Predrag; Lukić, Petar; Zupan, Zorana; Lazić, Aleksandra; Ninković, Milica; Žeželj, Iris (7 December 2020). "Irrational beliefs differentially predict adherence to guidelines and pseudoscientific practices during the COVID‐19 pandemic". Applied Cognitive Psychology. 35 (2): 486–496. doi:10.1002/acp.3770. eISSN 1099-0720. ISSN 0888-4080. PMC 7753549. PMID 33362344. Participants (N = 407) reported (1) how often they followed guidelines (e.g., handwashing, physical distancing), how often they engaged in pseudoscientific practices (e.g., consuming garlic, colloidal silver), and their intention to receive a COVID-19 vaccine
  83. ^ Giuffre, Maureen (December 1997). "Science, bad science, and pseudoscience". Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing. 12 (6): 434–438. doi:10.1016/S1089-9472(97)90007-1. ISSN 1089-9472. PMID 9464033.
  84. ^ Naeem, Salman Bin; Bhatti, Rubina; Khan, Aqsa (12 July 2020). "An exploration of how fake news is taking over social media and putting public health at risk". Health Information & Libraries Journal. 38 (2): 143–149. doi:10.1111/hir.12320. eISSN 1471-1842. ISSN 1471-1834. PMC 7404621. PMID 32657000. There are a range of other therapies promoted by those who subscribe to various pseudoscientific claims: The colloidal silver solution can help with coronavirus.
  85. ^ Pickett, Mallory (5 October 2017). "Colloidal Silver Turns You Blue—But Can It Save Your Life?". Wired. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  86. ^ Gavura, Scott (28 May 2020). "An incomplete list of COVID-19 quackery | Science-Based Medicine". sciencebasedmedicine.org.
  87. ^ Khazan, Olga (22 June 2020). "A Common Snake Oil Reemerges for the Coronavirus". The Atlantic. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  88. ^ Chavda, Vivek P.; Sonak, Shreya S.; Munshi, Nafesa K.; Dhamade, Pooja N. (14 July 2022). "Pseudoscience and fraudulent products for COVID-19 management". Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 29 (42): 62887–62912. doi:10.1007/s11356-022-21967-4. eISSN 1614-7499. ISSN 0944-1344. PMC 9282830. PMID 35836045. {{cite journal}}: no-break space character in |title= at position 18 (help)
  89. ^ Caulfield, Timothy (27 April 2020). "Pseudoscience and COVID-19 — we've had enough already". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-020-01266-z. eISSN 1476-4687. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 32341556.
  90. ^ Chinnu Sugavanam, Senthilkumar; Natarajan, Balakrishnan (22 July 2020). "Pseudoscientific beliefs and practices in the COVID-19 pandemic: A narrative review of unwanted experiments attributed to social media-based misinformation afflicting the public health". Journal of Health & Biological Sciences. 8 (1): 1. doi:10.12662/2317-3076jhbs.v8i1.3394.p1-9.2020. eISSN 2317-3076. ISSN 2317-3084.
  91. ^ Boutros, Alexandra (December 2020). "The Edges of a Pandemic: Pseudoscience, Alternative Medicine, and Belief in the Age of COVID". TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. 41: 42–49. doi:10.3138/topia-006. eISSN 1916-0194. ISSN 1206-0143.
  92. ^ Wang, Yuxi; Bye, John; Bales, Karam; Gurdasani, Deepti; Mehta, Adityavarman; Abba-Aji, Mohammed; Stuckler, David; McKee,, Martin (22 November 2022). "Understanding and neutralising covid-19 misinformation and disinformation". BMJ: e070331. doi:10.1136/bmj-2022-070331. eISSN 1756-1833. PMID 36414251.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
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Genetic ancestry testing entry

Not my field of expertise, but a quick skim of the topic articles and the cited sources don't seem to establish that this is pseudoscience. The first cited source reads more like an opinion piece, and the other two are far more nuanced to the point where I don't see either as supporting the claim that genetic ancestry testing is pseudoscience.

I'm going to remove the entry pending review here. Granted, the commercial enterprises providing this service may overstate it's reliability or applicability, but that doesn't seem like enough, or if it is we should probably be more specific about which claims are non-scientific rather than describing the entire field as bogus.

Happy to hear other opinions. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 22:28, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Genetic ancestry testing services misleadingly conflate genetic ancestry with ethnic or geographical ancestry, which contradicts mainstream science, as scientists regard genetic ancestry to be distinct from ethnic or geographical ancestry[24]. It has been described as the genetic equivalent of astrology multiple times[25][26][27][28]. The assumptions made by genetic ancestry testing services are criticized by subject-matter experts[29][30], and you only need the opinions of subject-matter experts.Helioz9 (talk) 00:03, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
I think there is an entry to be had here, but I'm not sure that the current language accurately reflects the sources. Let's see what other editors think. I'm not going to edit-war here, but the preferred approach is to reach consensus on the talk page before re-reverting an edit. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 00:31, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm not going to edit-war According to WP:BRD, User:Helioz9 is the one who is misbehaving here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:11, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Reverting per WP:BRD and edit note/general consensus, if this is a notability pseudo scientific claim it should be all over Genealogical DNA testing. We can't just name-call here. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 17:36, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

The topic article says the following:
The reliability of this type of test is dependent on comparative population size, the number of markers tested, the ancestry informative value of the SNPs tested, and the degree of admixture in the person tested. Earlier ethnicity estimates were often wildly inaccurate, but as companies receive more samples over time, ethnicity estimates have become more accurate.
If that contradicts the reliable sources, the place to fix it is there, not create a WP:POVFORK here. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 23:58, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

The sources seem to point to a misconception, not pseudo-scientific research, fanned by claims made by an industry re:genetic connection is far more complicated than the industry lets on. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 19:30, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

This whole thing started over reverting User:Helioz9 edits on Drake's DNA test results, the edit war has been going since October 24 2023. The user's comments have included:

"WP:PROFRINGE there is no scientific consensus that someone's ethnicity can be determined by a DNA test", "That doesn't resolve the problems with the WP:FRINGE source that claims DNA tests can pinpoint the ancestral lineage of an individual person" "while the tests may not inherently be pseudoscience, they are typically falsely misinterpreted as being able to determine ancestry or ethnicity, making them unreliable sources for making statements about ancestry or ethnicity."

and because there was "no talk page consensus" the user feels it is ok to repeatedly remove the information again on said page. The only source the user cited originally was a journal from 2007, but the technology for DNA testing has advanced greatly in 17 years. Would prefer to see journal sources from the last 2-3 years making similar claims and less dated view points. The user went on to add a 'Ancestry and ethnicity' section in Common misunderstandings of genetics. There should be quality recent sources and a general consensus instead of adding/removing information at will.

The overarching umbrella of genetics and genetic genealogy are not pseudosciences. From what it seems there are two topics of contention to focus on, the one being genealogical DNA tests and the other being race and genetics. Important to have distinction between debating on both, or which one of the two to focus on. Are there merely limitations and nuances in these fields? Or do they actually have no basis with the scientific method? I think the main issue here are misconceptions and laypeople who over-interpret commercial DNA testing services they buy.[1][2] I also think part of the confusion here is how datasets from DNA tests change as reference databases grow and improve,[3] but are initially based more on probability, may have inaccuracies and give ancestral trivia.[4]

References

  1. ^ Hercher, Laura (2018-09-15). "23andMe Said He Would Lose His Mind. Ancestry Said the Opposite. Which Was Right?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  2. ^ Farzan, Antonia Noori (2018-09-25). "A DNA test said a man was 4% black. Now he wants to qualify as a minority business owner". Washington Post. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  3. ^ Garde, Damian (2019-05-22). "'What's my real identity?': As DNA ancestry sites gather more data, the answer for consumers often changes". STAT. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  4. ^ Rutherford, Adam (2018-10-15). "How Accurate Are Online DNA Tests?". Scientific American. Retrieved 2024-01-05.

What are the "criteria" for inclusion?

Hello,

I recently added an entry to this page, but it was reverted as "not meeting the criteria". Unlike many list pages, I do not see any list of criteria for inclusion. Please elaborate on what the criteria is for inclusion and what specific criteria would be violated by including the proposed entry. Thanks. Mr. Swordfish (talk) Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

On the face of it, this looks like a List of common misconceptions entry. The criteria is for inclusion in List of topics characterized as pseudoscience is in the title - an area of scientific study that someone else has labeled pseudoscience. The area would be "Lift"? and somebody called it a pseudoscience? Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 03:04, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I see upthread that specific criteria for inclusion is either absent or is undergoing discussion. Over at List of common misconceptions there is specific criteria and I think it would be useful to have something similar here.
(As for my reverted entry, I can't find a reliable source that labels it as pseudoscience so my objection to it being reverted is easily dismissed. So, let's agree not to argue about it.)
A couple of places to start would be MOS:LABEL which states:
For the term pseudoscience: per the policy Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, pseudoscientific views "should be clearly described as such". Per the content guideline Wikipedia:Fringe theories, the term pseudoscience, if supported by reliable sources, may be used to distinguish fringe theories from mainstream science.
and WP:FRINGE/PS, which like MOS:LABEL establishes a minimum criteria of when something may be described as pseudoscience. I suppose we could just refer new editors to those policies, but I think it would be helpful to have some synopsis of that here.
While not part of the manual of style or other Wikipedia policy, the article on Pseudoscience provides a definition of the term and perhaps we could incorporate that here. My opinion is that Wikipedia should be internally consistent, so the definition provided by the topic article (Pseudoscience) should be applied to this article's inclusion criteria.
On the subject of topic articles, reading previous discussions here, there seems to be disagreement on whether the topic article must treat the item as pseudoscience should be an inclusion criteria. My take is that since
1) Wikipedia should be internally consistent and
2) editors at the topic article are likely to be more familiar with the subject than editors here so we should defer to their judgment
that should be an inclusion criteria.
Other opinions? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:51, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
My opinion is that Wikipedia should be internally consistent Your opinion is not consistent with WP:RS. If an RS says that something is pseudoscience, but uses a different definition from Wikipedia's, and Wikipedia's definition does not fit, then WP:RS demands that we should include it while your internally consistency criterion demands that we should exclude it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:55, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Restored "unwarranted"

@JeffSpaceman and Hob Gadling:

Discussed at User talk:Hob Gadling#"Unwarranted". Should be held here. - DVdm (talk) 15:37, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

My comments on the matter can be found in my edit summaries, but I will recapitulate -- stating that the doubt is unwarranted is unnecessary. Given that the name of this page is topics characterized as pseudoscience, and the other forms of denialism (i.e., Germ theory denialism, Holocaust denial) discussed here do not have that description attached to them, I don't see why "unwarranted" is a necessary description. The fact that the doubt is unwarranted is proven by the description of the article name. "Unwarranted" just seems extraneous. JeffSpaceman (talk) 15:42, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Subjective?

The climate change denial thing feels subjective, yes, the climate has changed over the billions of years, but when the earth cooled down rapidly 3.8 billion years ago, why can't it warm up again? 82.168.190.109 (talk) 07:36, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

How is skepticism a (pseudo-)science?

Please remove 'GMO skepticism' from the list. Skepticism of a theory does not qualify as a science, so it cannot possibly pose as one.

Thanks in advance! 2A01:C22:AC2F:F900:2805:68CE:2EB3:10CA (talk) 18:00, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Skepticism is a not a pseudo-science. For the reason why GMO skepticism is —and likely will remain— on the list, see Genetically modified food controversies. - DVdm (talk) 18:39, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Entire article in need of an overhaul?

Visitors to this page have devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to arguing whether individual entries on this enormous list belong there, and sometimes to whether or not a single word should stay or go. But since the basic premise of the whole article is so flawed as to render it both useless and embarrassing, does it really matter what is or isn't included?

Most dictionaries (including Wikipedia) define pseudoscience as that which wrongly claims to be science. Therefore concepts such as exorcism or faith healing are not pseudoscience because they aren't any kind of science and never claimed to be. Whether or not they work is beside the point. If it wasn't, every religious, magical, or superstitious belief ever held to be true by anyone would belong on this list, and it would be a very, very long list indeed!

Except that this isn't a list of things which are pseudoscience according to any definition other than the one at the beginning of this article, which appears to be "anything described using the word 'pseudoscience' in any context by the authors of any books we choose to define as our source material". Using similar logic, I could write an equally useful article proving just as conclusively that almost everything listed here is real science because I can cite a published (or at least self-published) source chosen by me which says so.

Of course, most if not all of my sources would be cranks or outright nutters, but so what? It states quite clearly at the start of this article that whether or not the authors of the designated source material have any relevant qualifications, or indeed any qualifications at all, is unimportant, as are all other considerations, so long as they've used the word 'pseudoscience' in connection with a topic on the list.

Consider a simiarly compiled list of Nazis. I think most historians would define a Nazi as a member of a German political and ideological movement called the National Socialist Party which ceased to exist in 1945. Therefore if my list included Volodymyr Zelenskyy they'd raise a few objections, such as the fact that he wasn't even born until 1978. Ah, but this is a list of people characterised as Nazis! And Vladimir Putin has repeatedly characterised Zelenskyy as a Nazi, so he belongs on the list, even if he isn't a Nazi in any meaningful sense.

Putting it another way, what the authors of this dismal listicle appear to be saying is that whether or not something is pseudoscience is simply a matter of opinion. In fact, not even that. It's all down to name-calling. Claiming that something is pseudoscience because somebody who in their own opinion and yours, though not necessarily anybody else's, wrote a book in which they used that word to describe it is the reasoning behind religious dogma, and indeed a great deal of pseudoscience. And as I've already pointed out, the same argument can be turned on its head to prove its own exact opposite.

Seriously, this reads like something written by little boys who would be better suited to compiling one of those articles you have listing every appearance ever of obscure comic-book characters, including that time they popped up in the background of one panel of somebody else's comic by mistake after they were supposed to be dead. What you really need to do is flush the whole mess and start again, ideally with a title such as "List of major pseudoscientific topics" rather than a clumsily worded get-out clause allowing people too thick to write the article you ought to have here to cobble together a lazy, ramshackle approximation of it then pat themselves on the back and self-identify as clever.

Before you ask, no, I'm not going to write it. I've got better things to do than spend the next few years arguing with the kind of people who can write gibberish like this without a trace of irony, let alone self-awareness. All things considered, I'm pretty sure I'd get sick of edit-warring long before they did.

Oh, by the way, since many of you appear to enjoy having long discussions about whether or not individual words should stay or go, perhaps you should apply your mighty intellects to paragraph 1, line 4, because I strongly suspect "practices-efforts" isn't a proper word at all. Have fun! 86.130.66.52 (talk) 07:56, 9 February 2024 (UTC)