Talk:List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts/Archive of unsupported items
Religious and spiritual beliefs
[edit]Spiritual and religious practices and beliefs are normally not classified as pseudoscience.[1] At least one prominent skeptical source relates the following to pseudoscience in some way, however:
- Anthroposophy: a philosophy which holds that the spirit world can be scientifically investigated through systematic analysis of inner experience.[2] The possibility of such a systematic study is disputed and the question remains unsettled.[3] In particular, Dusseldorf University Professor of Education Heiner Barz cites Thomas Kuhn, Feyerabend and Duerr in support of anthroposophy's underlying epistemology as a form of scientific knowledge.[4]
- Feng shui is the ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony with the environment and improve health and fortune.[2]
- Neoshamanism is a combination of shamanistic, new-age spiritual, and other philosophies which include belief in spirits, meditation and sometimes the use of entheogens.[2]
- Reincarnation is the belief that souls inhabit a succession of physical bodies over the course of their existence. It is not usually believed that memories survive reincarnation, but some people have claimed to have remembered past lives, which can be scientifically studied.[2]
Health
[edit]- Hypnosis is an extremely relaxed state in which a person is unusually responsive to suggestions made by the hypnotist. While hypnosis in some sense is almost universally regarded as real, explanations of the phenomenon are split between whether hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness, or falls within conscious psychology.[citation needed] Certain applications of hypnosis in psychotherapy, such as smoking cessation and self-esteem improvement, currently lack robust empirical support.[citation needed] Evidence in support of hypnosis comes from hypnotic suggestion studies, neuroscientific data (eg. EEG), and from patients who have received surgery under hypnosis.[5][2]. Some claimed uses of hypnosis outside of hypnotherapy clearly fall within the area of pseudo-science, such as using the hypnotic technique of regression beyond plausible limits; past life regression. Also see false memory syndrome.
Concepts
[edit]- Materialization is the supposed creation or appearance of matter from unknown sources.
- Séances are ritualized attempts to communicate with the dead.[2]
- Psychokinesis is the paranormal ability of the mind to influence matter or energy at a distance.
- Spiritualism is a religious movement which holds the belief that communication with the dead can occur through the powers of individuals called mediums.[6][2]
- Close encounters are events where persons witness UFOs, or purportedly meet and/or communicate with alien beings.
- Levitation, in this sense, is the act of rising up from the ground without any physical aids, usually by the power of thought.
- Out-of-body experiences are experiences where a person seems to see the world from a location outside of the physical body. Qua experience, OBEs are real and theory-neutral, but some explanations invoke the paranormal.[2]
- Pseudoarcheology is the investigation of the ancient past using alleged paranormal or otherwise means which have not been validated by mainstream science.[2]
- 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.[2]
- Tutankhamun's curse was allegedly placed on the discoverers of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, causing widespread deaths and other disastrous events.[2]
Other
[edit]- Laundry balls are spherical or toroidal objects marketed as soap substitutes for washing machines.[2]
- Stock market prediction mostly involves a large range of technical analysis techniques that are of dubious scientific legitimacy.[2]
- Synchronicity is a phenomenon described by psychologist Carl Jung as "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events." The inability to test for it has marginalized its scientific importance.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ Carl Sagan, "Does Truth Matter? Science, Pseudoscience, and Civilization", Skeptical Inquirer, 1996
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n entry in The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience.
- ^ Carlo Willmann, Waldorfpädogogik, Cologne Publications on the History of Religion, published by the Interdisciplinary Institute for the History of Religion, Bählau Verlag, Köln-Weimar-Vienna, pp. 5-6
- ^ Heiner Barz, Der Waldorfkindergarten, p. 173 (cited in Willmann, p. 8)
- ^ Westen et al. 2006 "Psychology: Austraian and New Zealand edition" John Wiley.
- ^ National Science Board (2002). Science and Engineering Indicators – 2002. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation. pp. ch. 7. ISBN 978-0160665790.
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