Onno J. Boxma

This is a list of fields of endeavor and concepts regarded as pseudoscientific by organizations within the international scientific community or by notable skeptical organizations. The existence of such expressed opinions suffices for inclusion in this list, and inclusion on this list does not necessarily indicate consensus for every entry.

Critics may have explicitly described a field or concept as "pseudoscience" or used synonyms, some of which are identified in the references section below. Also included are important concepts associated with the main entries, and concepts that, while notable and self-evidently pseudoscientific, have not elicited commentary from mainstream scientific bodies or skeptical organizations. Notable parodies of pseudoscientific concepts are also included.

Some subjects in this list may be questioned aspects of otherwise legitimate fields of research, or have legitimate ongoing scientific research associated with them. For instance, while some proposed explanations for hypnosis have been criticized for being pseudoscientific, the phenomenon is generally accepted as real and scientific explanations exist.

Pseudoscientific concepts per scientific consensus

See also: Scientific consensus

The following have broad consensus concerning their pseudoscientific status. Indicative of this are assertions by mainstream, specialized scientific bodies (e.g., a society of plasma physicists) or one or more national- or regional-level Academies of Science, or expert scientists have challenged the legitimacy of these ideas and no other expert scientists have contradicted them.

• Apollo moon landing hoax accusations made by a small number of people claiming that parts of the Apollo program were hoaxed and subsequently covered up. While many of the accusations are best categorized under conspiracy theories, some do attempt to use faulty science to prove that the moon landing couldn't have happened, qualifying them as pseudoscience.

• Astrology refers to any of several systems of understanding, interpreting and organizing knowledge about reality and human existence, based on the relative positions and movement of various real and construed celestial bodies.
• Creation science is the belief that the origin of everything in the universe is the result of a first cause, brought about by a creator deity, and that this thesis is supported by geological, biological, and other scientific evidence.
  • Biblical scientific foreknowledge asserts that the Bible makes accurate statements about the world that science verifies thousands of years later.
  • Creation biology is the subset of creation science that tries to explain biology without evolution.
  • Creationist cosmologies are ones which, among other things, allow for a universe that is only thousands of years old.
  • Flood geology is the creationist form of geology that advocates most of the geologic features on Earth are explainable by a global flood.
  • Modern geocentrism, citing uniform gamma-ray bursts distribution, and other arguments of this type, as evidence that we are at the center of the universe.
  • Intelligent design is a version of creation science stated in secular terms, viz. that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."
    • Irreducible complexity is the claim that some systems are so complex that they cannot have evolved from simpler systems. It is used by proponents of intelligent design to argue that evolution by natural selection alone is incomplete or flawed, and that some additional mechanism (an "Intelligent Designer") is required to explain the origins of life.
    • Specified complexity is the claim that when something is simultaneously complex and specified, one can infer that it was produced by an intelligent cause (i.e., that it was designed) rather than being the result of natural processes.
• Crop circles are geometric designs of crushed or knocked-over crops created in a field. Aside from skilled farmers or pranksters working through the night, explanations for their formation include UFOs and anomalous, tornado-like air currents. The study of crop circles is termed "cerealogy" by proponents.
• Crystal healing is the belief that crystals have healing properties. Once common among pre-scientific and indigenous peoples, it has recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity with the new age movement.
• Dianetics is L. Ron Hubbard's pseudoscience that purports to treat a hypothetical reactive mind by means of an E-meter, a device which Hubbard was later legally forced to admit "does nothing".
• Dogon people and Sirius B a series of claims that the Dogon tribe knew about the white dwarf companion of Sirius despite it being invisible to the naked eye.
• Erich Von Däniken proposed that Earth was visited by ancient astronauts.
• The Face on Mars (in Cydonia Mensae) is a rock formation on Mars asserted to be evidence of intelligent, native life on the planet. High resolution images taken recently show it to appear less face-like. It features prominently in the pseudoscientific speculations of Richard C. Hoagland.
• Homeopathy is the belief in giving a patient with symptoms of an illness extremely dilute solutions of substances that produce those same symptoms in healthy people given larger doses. These preparations are often diluted beyond the point where any treatment molecule is likely to remain. Studies of homeopathic practice have been largely negative or inconclusive. No scientific basis for homeopathic principles has been substantiated.
• Immanuel Velikovsky proposed that ancient texts refer to the collision of astronomical bodies as in Worlds in Collision.
• Lunar effect is the belief that the full moon influences human behavior.
• Paranormal subjects
  • Channeling is the communication of information to or through a person allegedly from a spirit or other paranormal entity.
  • Dowsing refers to practices said to enable one to detect hidden water, metals, gemstones or other objects.
  • Electronic voice phenomenon is the alleged communication by spirits through tape recorders and other electronic devices.
  • Extra-sensory perception is the paranormal ability (independent of the five main senses or deduction from previous experience) to acquire information by means such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychic abilities, and remote viewing.
  • Levitation, in this sense, is the act of rising up from the ground without any physical aids, usually by the power of thought.
  • Materialization is the supposed creation or appearance of matter from unknown sources.
  • Psychic surgery is a type of medical fraud, popular in Brazil and the Philippines. Practitioners use sleight of hand to make it appear as though they are reaching into a patients body and extracting "tumours".
  • Séances are ritualized attempts to communicate with the dead.
  • Psychokinesis is the paranormal ability of the mind to influence matter or energy at a distance.
• Therapeutic touch is a form of vitalism where a practitioner, who may be also a nurse, passes his or her hands over and around a patient to "realign" or "rebalance" a putative energy field. A recent Cochrane Review concluded that "[t]here is no evidence that [Therapeutic Touch] promotes healing of acute wounds." No biophysical basis for such an energy field has been found.
• Perpetual motion is a class of proposed machines that violate one of the Laws of Thermodynamics. Perpetual motion has been recognized as extrascientific since the late 18th century, but proposals and patents for such devices continue to be made to the present day.
  • Free energy is a particular class of perpetual motion which purports to create energy (violating the first law of thermodynamics) or extract useful work from equilibrium systems (violating the second law of thermodynamics). Of particular note are proposals involving the extraction of zero point energy, a real energy found in quantum mechanics that cannot be used to do work.
  • Water-fuelled cars are an instance of perpetual motion machines. Such devices are claimed to use water as fuel or produce fuel from water onboard with no other energy input.
• Quantum mysticism builds on a superficial similarity between certain New Age concepts and such seemingly counter-intuitive quantum mechanical concepts as the indeterminacy principle, entanglement, and wave–particle duality, while generally ignoring the limitations imposed by quantum decoherence. One of the most abused ideas is Bell's theorem, which proves the nonexistence of local hidden variables in quantum mechanics. Despite this, Bell himself resisted mystical interpretations of the theory.
• Ufology is the study of unidentified flying objects (UFO) and frequently includes the belief that UFOs are evidence for extraterrestrial visitors.
  • Close encounters are events where persons witness UFOs, or purportedly meet and/or communicate with alien beings.

Topics which notable skeptical groups consider to be pseudoscientific

The following are subjects closely related to pseudoscience by notable skeptical bodies such as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP). Some of these items are not considered pseudoscientific by these groups in and of themselves: only certain aspects, explanations, and/or applications of them have been thus classified. (See an item's description text for more information on this.)

Earth and Earth sciences

• The Bermuda Triangle is a region of the Atlantic Ocean that lies between Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and (in its most popular version) Florida. Frequent disappearances and ship and aircraft disasters in this area have led to the circulation of stories of unusual natural phenomona, paranormal encounters, and interactions with extraterrestrial.

Paranormal and Ufology

• Pseudoarchaeology is the investigation of the ancient past using alleged paranormal or otherwise means which have not been validated by mainstream science.
  • Ancient astronauts are extraterrestrials said to have initiated the rise of human civilization or provided significant technological assistance to various ancient civilizations.
• Animal mutilations are cases of animals, primarily domestic livestock, with seemingly unexplainable wounds. These wounds have been said to be caused by natural predation, extra terrestrials, cults, or covert government organizations.
• Tutankhamun's curse was allegedly placed on the discoverers of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, causing widespread deaths and other disastrous events.
• Tunguska event is an anomalous meteor strike said to actually be the impact of a miniature black hole or a large body composed of antimatter, or Ball lightning.

Philosophy and psychology

• Graphology is a purported psychological test based on a belief that personality traits unconsciously and consistently influence handwriting morphology - that certain types of people exhibit certain quirks of the pen. Analysis of handwriting attributes provides no better than chance correspondence with personality, and neuroscientist Barry Beyerstein likened the assigned correlations to sympathetic magic. Graphology is only superficially related to forensic document examination, which also examines handwriting.
• Phrenology was the first system to be characterized as pseudoscience in 1843. Phrenologists believed that the mind was compartmentalized, an idea featured in modern neuro-imaging technique (see also modularity of mind or faculty psychology). Phrenologists also claimed to determine character and personality traits on the basis of the shape of the head (reading "bumps").
• Primal therapy is sometimes presented as a science. The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology (2001) states that: "The theoretical basis for the therapy is the supposition that prenatal experiences and birth trauma form people's primary impressions of life and that they subsequently influence the direction our lives take... Truth be known, primal therapy cannot be defended on scientifically established principles. This is not surprising considering its questionable theoretical rationale.". Other sources have also questioned the scientific validity of primal therapy, some using the term "pseudoscience" (see Criticism of Primal Therapy).
• Subliminal perception is visual or auditory information that is discerned below the threshold of conscious awareness and has an effect on human behavior. It went into disrepute in the late 1970s but there has been renewed research interest recently.

Health and Medicine

• Anthroposophic medicine, or Anthroposophically extended medicine, is a school of complementary medicine founded in the 1920s by Rudolf Steiner in conjunction with Dr. Ita Wegman based on the spiritual philosophy of anthroposophy. Adherents practice a highly individualized holistic and salutogenic approach to health, embracing a "Fourfold Path" of healing by considering the physical body, formative processes, consciousness, and biography (ego). Medications are formulated to stimulate healing by matching "key dynamic forces" with symptoms, and prepared for external, oral, or parenteral introduction in various dilutions ranging from whole to homeopathic. Skeptic Robert Carroll likens to sympathetic magic the principle that curative plants may be identified by distortions or abnormalities in their morphology or physiology. Carroll and others suggest that the system is out of touch with conventional medicine. Practitioners give less significance to randomized controlled trials, emphasizing balancing these with individualized diagnosis and treatment. Because promotion of self-healing is preferred, anthroposophical doctors and parents generally restrict or delay the use of vaccinations, antibiotics, and antipyretics; this restriction has been associated with a relative reduction in incidence of allergies in children being raised according to an anthroposophic lifestyle. No thorough scientific analysis of the efficacy of anthroposophical medicine as a system independent of its philosophical underpinnings has been undertaken; no evidence-based conclusion of the overall efficacy of the system can be made at this time.
• Applied kinesiology is a means of medical diagnosis which proponents believe can identify health problems or nutritional deficiencies through practitioner assessment of external physical qualities such as muscle response, posture, or motion analysis. A variety of therapies are prescribed based on tested weakness or smoothness of muscle action and a conjectured viscerosomatic association between particular muscles and organs. The sole use of Applied Kinesiology to diagnose or treat any allergy or illness is not scientifically supported, and the International College of Applied Kinesiology requires concurrent use of standard diagnostic techniques. Applied kinesiologists are often chiropractors, but may also be naturopaths, physicians, dentists, nutritionists, physical therapists, massage therapists, and nurses. Applied Kinesiology should not be confused with kinesiology, the scientific study of human movement.
• Attachment therapy is a set of potentially fatal clinical interventions and parenting techniques aimed at controlling aggressive, disobedient, or unaffectionate children using "restraint and physical and psychological abuse to seek their desired results." Probably the most common form is holding therapy in which the child is restrained by adults for the purpose of supposed cathartic release of suppressed rage and regression. Perhaps the most extreme, but much less common, is "rebirthing," in which the child is wrapped tightly in a blanket and then made to simulate emergence from a birth canal. This is done by encouraging the child to struggle and pushing and squeezing him/her to mimic contractions. Despite its name it is not based on attachment theory or research. In 2006 it was the subject of an almost entirely critical Taskforce Report commissioned by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC).
• Ayurveda is a 5,000 year old alternative medical practice with roots in ancient India based on a mind-body set of beliefs. Imbalance or stress in an individual’s consciousness is believed to be the reason of diseases. Patients are classified by body types (three doshas, which are considered to control mind-body harmony, determine an individual’s "body type"); and treatment is aimed at restoring balance to the mind-body system. Its beliefs and practices include: 1) obvious and well established principles; 2) herbal remedies which might be proven useful by medical research; 3) absurd ideas, some of which are dangerous. It has long been the main traditional system of health care in India, and it has become institutionalized in India's colleges and schools. Although it superficially adheres to modern institutions, the institutional practitioners are haunted by Ayurvedic vaidyas, who were trained outside the traditional medicine school and are often referred to as "quacks".
• The Bates method for better eyesight is an educational method developed by ophthalmologist William Bates intended to improve vision "naturally" to the point at which it can allegedly eliminate the need for glasses by undoing a habitual strain to see. In 1929 Bates was cited by the FTC for false or misleading advertising in connection with his book describing the method, Perfect Sight Without Glasses. Although some people claim to have improved their eyesight by following his principles, Bates' ideas about vision and accommodation have been rejected by mainstream ophthalmology and optometry.

• Biorhythms – a hypothesis holding that human physiology and behavior are governed by physical, emotional, and intellectual cycles lasting 23, 28, and 33 days, respectively; not to be confused with Chronobiology, the scientific study of biological rhythms. The system posits that, for instance, errors in judgment are more probable on days when an individual's intellectual cycle, as determined by days since birth, is near a minimum. No biophysical mechanism of action has been discovered, and the predictive power of biorhythms charts is no better than chance. For the scientific study of biological cycles such as circadian rhythms, see chronobiology.

• Brain Gym – a commercial training program that claims that any learning challenges can be overcome by finding the right movements, to subsequently create new pathways in the brain. They claim that the repetition of the 26 Brain Gym movements "activates the brain for optimal storage and retrieval of information", and are designed to "integrate body and mind" in order to improve "concentration, memory, reading, writing, organizing, listening, physical coordination, and more." Its theoretical foundation has been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community, who describe it as pseudoscience. Peer reviewed scientific studies into Brain Gym have found no significant improvement in general academic skills. Its claimed results have been put down to the placebo effect and the benefits of breaks and exercise. Its founder, Paul Dennison, has admitted that many of Brain Gym's claims are not based good science, but on his "hunches".

• Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) is a reported sensitivity to electric and magnetic fields or electromagnetic radiation of various frequencies at exposure levels well below established safety standards. Symptoms are inconsistent, but can include headache, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and similar non-specific indications. Provocation studies find that the discomfort of sufferers is unrelated to hidden sources of radiation, and "no scientific basis currently exists for a connection between EHS and exposure to [electromagnetic fields]."
• Faith healing is the act of curing disease by such means as prayer and laying on of hands. No material benefit in excess of that expected by placebo is observed.
• Hypnosis is a state of extreme relaxation and inner focus in which a person is unusually responsive to suggestions made by the hypnotist. The modern practice has its roots in the idea of animal magnetism, or mesmerism, originated by Franz Mesmer. Though Mesmer's explanations were thoroughly discredited, hypnosis itself is today almost universally regarded as real. It is clinically useful for e.g. pain management, but some claimed uses of hypnosis outside of hypnotherapy clearly fall within the area of pseudoscience. Such areas include the use of hypnotic regression beyond plausible limits, including past life regression. Also see false memory syndrome.
• Iridology is a means of medical diagnosis which proponents believe can identify and diagnose health problems through close examination of the markings and patterns of the iris. Practitioners divide the iris into 80-90 zones, each of which is connected to a particular body region or organ. This connection has not been scientifically validated, and disorder detection is neither selective nor specific. Because iris texture is a phenotypical feature which develops during gestation and remains unchanged after birth (which makes the iris useful for Biometrics), Iridology is all but impossible.
• Magnetic therapy is the practice of using magnetic fields to positively influence health. While there are legitimate medical uses for magnets and magnetic fields, the field strength used in magnetic therapy is too low to effect any biological change, and the methods used have no scientific validity.
• Radionics is a means of medical diagnosis and therapy which proponents believe can diagnose and remedy health problems using various frequencies in a putative energy field coupled to the practitioner's electronic device. The first such "black box" devices were designed and promoted by Albert Abrams, and were definitively proven useless by an independent investigation commissioned by Scientific American in 1924. The internal circuitry of radionics devices is often obfuscated and irrelevant, leading proponents to conjecture dowsing and ESP as operating principles. Similar devices continue to be marketed under various names, though none is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration; there is no scientific evidence for the efficacy or underlying premise of radionics devices. The radionics of Albert Abrams and his intellectual descendants should not be confused with similarly named reputable and legitimate companies, products, or medical treatments such as radiotherapy or radiofrequency ablation.
• Scientific racism is the claim that scientific evidence shows the inferiority or superiority of certain races.
• Traditional Chinese Medicine. Practices such as acupuncture, qigong and ideas such as chi are held as "quackery" and pseudoscientific by skeptic groups like CSICOP[6][7].

Religious and spiritual beliefs

Spiritual and religious practices and beliefs are normally not classified as pseudoscience. At least one prominent skeptical source relates the following to pseudoscience in some way, however:

• The Shroud of Turin is a length of linen cloth believed by some members of the Christian community to have been Jesus' death shroud. Radiocarbon dating of the original material has shown that it dates from the 13th or 14th century, though some claim that the material tested was not representative of the whole shroud. Analyses of the paint and the herringbone twill weave of the cloth similarly point to a medieval origin.

Other

• Laundry balls are spherical or toroidal objects marketed as soap substitutes for washing machines.
• Stock market prediction can involve prediction of stock prices using technical analysis techniques based purely on charts of past price behavior or patterns in various metrics. These techniques are dubiously justified, and violate the efficient market hypothesis.

Parody pseudoscience

The following are notable parodies of other pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts, or scientific jokes posing as serious theories.

• Intelligent falling is a parody of intelligent design which attacks gravitation in the same way intelligent design attacks origin theories.
• Dihydrogen monoxide hoax dhmo.org is a web site purporting to be set up by concerned citizens to examine "the controversy surrounding dihydrogen monoxide" including evidence of its environmental, health, and other problems. Dihydrogen Monoxide is H₂O (also known as water).

Idiosyncratic ideas

The following concepts have only a very small number of proponents, yet have become notable.

• Autodynamics is an alternative to special relativity proposed by Ricardo Carezani based on revised Lorentz transformations. In addition to failing to make accurate predictions at relativistic velocities, the proposed transformations do not correspond to classical velocity addition. Promoters also propose a number of revisions to the "particle zoo" of subatomic physics, including the nonexistence of neutrinos.

• Bogdanov Affair was an academic dispute regarding the legitimacy of a series of theoretical physics papers written by French twin brothers Igor and Grichka Bogdanov.

• Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe is a proposed theory of everything made by an autodidact with allegedly the world's highest IQ.

• Einstein-Cartan-Evans Theory is a proposed theory of everything made by a Welsh chemist, Myron Evans.

• Electrogravitics is based upon the original work of Nikola Tesla and advanced by Thomas Townsend Brown that attempts to connect gravity and electromagnetism.

• Hutchison effect is a proposed explanation for purported levitation caused by devices made by John Hutchison.

• Lawsonomy was a proposed philosophy and system of claims about physics made by baseball player Alfred William Lawson.

• Scalar field theories are a set of proposals that modify electromagnetic theory in various non-standard ways.

• Kauko Armas Nieminen is a self-published Finnish autodidact proposing various alternative physical ideas.

• Nucleonic energy is a technological concept developed by Canadian autodidact and inventor Mel Winfield.

• Ousiograph is a device created by schizophrenic Steven Green to detect the messages that are sent to one's brain.

• Penta Water is a claimed acoustically-induced structural reorganization of liquid water into long-lived small clusters of five molecules each. Neither these clusters nor their asserted benefits to humans have been shown to exist.

• Polywater is a hypothetical polymerized form of water proposed in the 1960s with a higher boiling point, lower freezing point, and much higher viscosity than ordinary water. It was later found not to exist, with the anomalous measurements being explained by biological contamination.

• Theory of radial momentum is a proposal by Ed Seykota, a commodities trader, which claims to clarify "problems" with the application of the Bernoulli principle.

• Time Cube is a proposed theory of everything which holds that time is cubic. Its creator, Gene Ray, finds those who are ignorant of or in disagreement with his theory to be "stupid and evil." According to his own web site, he is a diagnosed schizophrenic.

• Welteislehre is a notion by the Austrian Hans Hörbiger that ice was the basic substance of all cosmic processes.

Previously disputed unusual natural phenomena

Certain unusual natural phenomena have previously been considered pseudoscientific but are no longer doubted by modern science:

• Meteorites are objects composed of stone and/or metal that fall from space onto the surface of the Earth. This was contested by skeptical scientists in the 18th century, especially those of the French Academy. Ernst Chladni demonstrated their celestial origin in 1794, and a substantial fall of meteorites in France in 1803 dispersed the skepticism.
• Ball lightning is a slow-moving, luminous sphere which is up to 30cm in diameter, explanations for which have ranged from combusted hydrocarbon gas to "Will o' the wisp" creatures. The phenomenon is now better understood and contemporary scientific consensus clearly accepts the existence of a phenomenon which mimics some reports of ball lightning, but is on a much smaller scale.

See also

• Cargo cult science
• Crank (referencing a disagreeable person)
• Falsification
• Fringe science
• Occam's razor
• Paradigm
• Paradigm shift
• ’Pataphysics
• Pathological science
• Philosophy of science
• Protoscience
• Pseudophilosophy
• Pseudoscience
• Pseudoskepticism
• Science
• Scientific consensus (describes the majority views of scientists)
• Superseded scientific theories

Further reading

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