List of topics characterized as pseudoscience and The Skeptic's Dictionary

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List of topics characterized as pseudoscience vs. The Skeptic's Dictionary

This is a list of topics that have, at one point or another in their history, been characterized as pseudoscience by academics or researchers. The Skeptic's Dictionary is a collection of cross-referenced skeptical essays by Robert Todd Carroll, published on his website skepdic.com and in a printed book.

Alternative medicine

Alternative medicine, fringe medicine, pseudomedicine or simply questionable medicine is the use and promotion of practices which are unproven, disproven, impossible to prove, or excessively harmful in relation to their effect — in the attempt to achieve the healing effects of medicine.--> --> --> They differ from experimental medicine in that the latter employs responsible investigation, and accepts results that show it to be ineffective. The scientific consensus is that alternative therapies either do not, or cannot, work. In some cases laws of nature are violated by their basic claims; in some the treatment is so much worse that its use is unethical. Alternative practices, products, and therapies range from only ineffective to having known harmful and toxic effects.--> Alternative therapies may be credited for perceived improvement through placebo effects, decreased use or effect of medical treatment (and therefore either decreased side effects; or nocebo effects towards standard treatment),--> or the natural course of the condition or disease. Alternative treatment is not the same as experimental treatment or traditional medicine, although both can be misused in ways that are alternative. Alternative or complementary medicine is dangerous because it may discourage people from getting the best possible treatment, and may lead to a false understanding of the body and of science.-->---> Alternative medicine is used by a significant number of people, though its popularity is often overstated.--> Large amounts of funding go to testing alternative medicine, with more than US$2.5 billion spent by the United States government alone.--> Almost none show any effect beyond that of false treatment,--> and most studies showing any effect have been statistical flukes. Alternative medicine is a highly profitable industry, with a strong lobby. This fact is often overlooked by media or intentionally kept hidden, with alternative practice being portrayed positively when compared to "big pharma". --> The lobby has successfully pushed for alternative therapies to be subject to far less regulation than conventional medicine.--> Alternative therapies may even be allowed to promote use when there is demonstrably no effect, only a tradition of use. Regulation and licensing of alternative medicine and health care providers varies between and within countries. Despite laws making it illegal to market or promote alternative therapies for use in cancer treatment, many practitioners promote them.--> Alternative medicine is criticized for taking advantage of the weakest members of society.--! Terminology has shifted over time, reflecting the preferred branding of practitioners.. Science Based Medicine--> For example, the United States National Institutes of Health department studying alternative medicine, currently named National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, was established as the Office of Alternative Medicine and was renamed the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine before obtaining its current name. Therapies are often framed as "natural" or "holistic", in apparent opposition to conventional medicine which is "artificial" and "narrow in scope", statements which are intentionally misleading. --> When used together with functional medical treatment, alternative therapies do not "complement" (improve the effect of, or mitigate the side effects of) treatment.--> Significant drug interactions caused by alternative therapies may instead negatively impact functional treatment, making it less effective, notably in cancer.--> Alternative diagnoses and treatments are not part of medicine, or of science-based curricula in medical schools, nor are they used in any practice based on scientific knowledge or experience.--> Alternative therapies are often based on religious belief, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural energies, pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, or lies.--> Alternative medicine is based on misleading statements, quackery, pseudoscience, antiscience, fraud, and poor scientific methodology. Promoting alternative medicine has been called dangerous and unethical.--> Testing alternative medicine that has no scientific basis has been called a waste of scarce research resources.--> Critics state that "there is really no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works and medicine that doesn't",--> that the very idea of "alternative" treatments is paradoxical, as any treatment proven to work is by definition "medicine".-->.

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Cryptozoology

Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience that aims to prove the existence of entities from the folklore record, such as Bigfoot or chupacabras, as well as animals otherwise considered extinct, such as non-avian dinosaurs.

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Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience

The Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy (2000), edited by William F. Williams, "identifies, defines and explains terms and concepts related to the world of "almost science".

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Extraterrestrial life

Extraterrestrial life,Where "extraterrestrial" is derived from the Latin extra ("beyond", "not of") and terrestris ("of Earth", "belonging to Earth").

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Fraud

In law, fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right.

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John Wiley & Sons

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., also referred to as Wiley, is a global publishing company that specializes in academic publishing.

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List of books about skepticism

This list of books about skepticism is a skeptic's library of works centered on scientific skepticism, religious skepticism, critical thinking, scientific literacy, and refutation of claims of the paranormal.

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List of common misconceptions

This list of common misconceptions corrects erroneous beliefs that are currently widely held about notable topics.

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Logic

Logic (from the logikḗ), originally meaning "the word" or "what is spoken", but coming to mean "thought" or "reason", is a subject concerned with the most general laws of truth, and is now generally held to consist of the systematic study of the form of valid inference.

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New Age

New Age is a term applied to a range of spiritual or religious beliefs and practices that developed in Western nations during the 1970s.

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Paranormal

Paranormal events are phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described to lie beyond normal experience or scientific explanation.

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Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be both scientific and factual, but are incompatible with the scientific method.

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Science

R. P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol.1, Chaps.1,2,&3.

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Skeptic (US magazine)

Skeptic, colloquially known as Skeptic magazine, is a quarterly science education and science advocacy magazine published internationally by The Skeptics Society, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting scientific skepticism and resisting the spread of pseudoscience, superstition, and irrational beliefs.

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Skeptical Inquirer

Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: The Magazine for Science and Reason.

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Skeptical movement

The skeptical movement (also spelled sceptical) is a modern social movement based on the idea of scientific skepticism (also called rational skepticism).

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Snopes.com

Snopes.com, formally known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is one of the first online fact-checking websites.

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Unidentified flying object

An unidentified flying object or "UFO" is an object observed in the sky that is not readily identified.

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