Came across a list of pseudosciences and was fun seeing where im woo woo.
Lunar effect – the belief that the full Moon influences human and animal behavior.
Ley Lines
Accupressure/puncture
Ayurveda
Body Memory
Faith healing
Anyway, list too long to read. I guess Im quite the nonscientific woowoomancer. How about you? What pseudoscience do you believe? Also I believe nearly every stone i find was an ancient indian stone. Also manifesting and or prayer to manipulate via subconscious aligning the future. oh and the ability to subconsciously deeply understand animals, know the future, etc
Uff, i have a lot:
Life on earth is a huge organized organism. It created intelligent humans deliberately sothat we can spread life to other planets. Living beings (plants, insects, other animals, fungi) could not do that otherwise.
All life is sentient. Sentience doesn’t come from the brain, rather it comes from the hormones in your bloodstream. When we sweat, these hormones enter the air (apparently within the fraction of a second) and other people can smell them. That is how we can instinctually know how others are feeling.
Also i have a lot of mythology:
Heaven (realm of all ideas, knowledge and forms) and Earth (origin of mass and material) are a love pair. Because they couldn’t easily meet (there was an insurmountable gap between them), they created a bridge, which is life. This way, heaven supplies the shape (genes), and Earth supplies the body, and these two can be together in this way.
Viruses are books. They have a cover (shell) and contain scripture (RNA/DNA). We humans let them in because they are nature’s messengers and have a specific purpose, which is to exchange some information.
ask for more and i will give.
More plz
sry i’m too tired rn
maybe another time :D
here’s a short summary:
plants produce life out of the four elements (water, air, sunlight, earth), so they are producers of life. animals/fungus are consumers of such life (they eat fruit) and decompose it into urine, air, shit, and heat/energy. so it goes full-circle.
what, however - you may ask -, is in it for the plants? why produce food only for animals to eat it? it is because the plants get something for it, and that is that animals transport the seed in the fruit around and drop it somewhere far away. so plants get movement or transport from the animals. and that advantage is, in fact, large enough for the plants for it to even bother producing food in the first place. so quite big. that’s not really pseudoscience btw, more real biology done by real biologists, but still interesting :D
Feng Shui, though I mostly credit it to the Dear Modern channel breaking the concept of qi and energy down into stuff like human traffic flow, activities, scenery, and noise, and using that to optimize spaces for comfort. It’s mostly psychology, and some of the superstitious stuff I’m not really into.
Body Memory
I mean, cellular memory and muscle memory exist.
I believe that literally every esotheric and nonesotheric bullshit is more trustworthy than everything a politician says at any given moment.
Definitely the lunar effect, but that is still under study. There’s a documentary called “The Shark Side of the Moon” which follows a scientist trying to prove a lunar effect on sharks. There’s also some inconclusive evidence of a lunar effect on people with bipolar disorder; the full moon might trigger mania, probably due to excess light during nighttime. Context: >!People with bipolar disorder (known as ‘manic depression’ years ago) are very sensitive to light, substances, and many other things that can trigger manic or depressive episodes for them. The possible mania under the full moon may be a reason behind myths like werewolves and terms like ‘lunatic’.!<
I’ll edit if I find more.
Edit: I found another one which I would easily try or suggest to others if evidence-based therapies have failed.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of psychotherapy in which the person being treated is asked to recall distressing images; the therapist then directs the person in one type of bilateral sensory input, such as side-to-side eye movements or hand tapping. It is included in several guidelines for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some clinical psychologists have argued that the eye movements do not add anything above imagery exposure and characterize its promotion and use as pseudoscience.
Mind-body. That you can think yourself sick, or well. Not like magic, but a lot of the time. Like how people won’t get sick until vacation a lot of the time, they say “don’t have time to get sick” so then on the day off, the mind tells the body “ok now you have time!”. All of my kids were born on a day off or weekend, same thing in a way. And once I read a book where the protagonist’ hands were burned, very vividly described, and got blisters on my fingertips.
I just really believe a lot of physical illness, and health, comes from thinking.
I really want to believe the Assassin’s Creed concept that our DNA holds memories from our ancestors.
Epigenetics. But that’s not as cool as whatever Assassin’s Creed is.
That’s a long list I’ve only skimmed it and I didn’t find the theory I like most, the stoned ape theory. That belief that some distant ancestors ate some shrooms and discovered art and a higher state of mind. I’ve taken a microdose a little too high and my vision was like an impressionist painting for a few moments and it made me so happy because Monet and Van Gogh now made absolute sense.
It might be a little too convenient but I think it works and it’s really sweet.
That wiki article is very biased.
It also has problems distinguishing pseudo medicine (proven not to work) from alternative medicine (not conclusively proved or disproved).
Once something works, we call it medicine. There’s no such thing as “alternative medicine”.
Even if it’s weird, or comes from popular knowledge, or disrupts the profits of a pharmaceutical company - if it’s proven to work, it’s medicine.
Modern doctors are using fish skin to combat burns, maggots against necrosis, electroshock therapy for depression.
The things that need the “alternative” qualifier before the word “medicine” are the ones that do nothing but extract your money.
I’m not sure what are you trying to tell me.
That you agree with me that “alternative medicine = not proven to work, but I’m wrong somehow”?
I think you sorted things into three types of medicine:
[ pseudo, alternative, modern/mainstream ]
I think he believes that most things you put into the alternative category have already been mostly studied; those being not proved or disproved to work.
I think the that some issue here comes from the fact that conspiracy theorists / other (for lack of an agreed upon modifier) medicine gurus may have used the argument that some medicines aren’t proven to be bad yet as a way to give them legitimacy.
Whether or not other medicine is good for you should be be studied and determined to be medicine or not. Until then we can’t say anything about its efficacy. But there can be carry on effects: protein powder was found to have heavy metals, is protein powder good? Maybe in certain circumstances, but concentrating a given substance can have unintended consequences when not properly analyzed.
If your definition is that something can be called “alternative medicine” simply because we have no proof if it works or not, my magic stick that heals all wounds is alternative medicine.
What? There are no studies proving it doesn’t work… and no, I won’t let you touch it. But it’s alternative medicine!
That’s literally alternative medicine defined as per well, science. And you being silly doesn’t take from it. In the past, viruses were considered alternative medicine (quackery even), until they were proven to exist and work as in theory.
If you hit someone with a stick and that person gets cured of cold, it’s alternative medicine (you suspect there’s correlation or causation, and repeating the treatment during other incidents tends to have similar effect, i.e. when you hit more people they also get cured). When it’s proven that there’s causation between your action and the cure, then it’s medicine.
There’s no scientific definition of alternative medicine, it’s not a real category.
You might want to check out wikipedia.
Ah, that explains why you think popular definitions are somehow scientific.
The Moon landing was staged, but Stanley Kubrick insisted to shoot on location…
Pffft, you believe in the Moon?
How else would you explain the Lunar effect?
Made up by lunatics.
The Apollo moon landings have been faked dozens if not hundreds of times and only done for real 6 times.
The USB law.
When you try to plug in a USB-A connector, there’s a 70% probability it won’t go in. Mathematically it should be 50%, but I don’t believe that.
You switch it around, and there’s a 30% probability it won’t go in. This is not something they taught at school.
You switch it around the third time, and there’s a 5% chance it still won’t go in. Your mind begins to melt down, you switch and insert repeatedly until it finally works sooner or later.
That’s true only if you don’t want to or cannot look at the connector. The side with the seam goes to the part of the hole with the plastic bit.
Shun the nonbeliever! ShunNnNnn!
Also, the overwhelming majority of USB plugs have the logo on the side away from the plastic bit, and sockets have their plastic bits towards the top of the device. You want the plastic bits on opposite sides (as physical objects don’t like to overlap), so that means that if you can feel the logo with your thumb, that side goes up when you plug it in, and you don’t even have to look.
Amazing! I need to check how many of my cables actually follow this rule.
Also, the socket side tends to be aligned in a particular way, but it won’t work with all manufacturers. I recall seeing some laptops that had their USB-A sockets upside down. Oh, and desktops too! Those sockets are usually vertical, and facing a wall, so it’s anyone’s guess which way is right.
Towards the back of the machine normally counts as up for upwards-facing sockets, unless it’s a case with feet on the side, in which case it’ll be away from those feet so the sockets would be the right way up if it were sideways and on the alternative feet.
USB Superposition
The orientation of the connector occupies both states at the same time. If you look at it, the superposition collapses into either of the two.
It’s the XCOM principle lol.
A shot with a 99% chance to hit will miss far more often than you think.
A shot with a 1% chance to hit will miss pretty much exactly as much as you think.
None. If any of it was reproducable it would science instead of pseudoscience
Although anyone who works in an ER will tell you the full moon is the busiest night; the occurrence rate of every issue but murder goes up.
My mother is a career nurse and swears by this and I’m inclined to believe her. I’d love to see if numbers actually back it up or whether it’s sort of confirmation bias.
Not murder, but I’ll be damned if as a teacher and parent kids aren’t wackier during the full moon.
Also, sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity. Who ever doesn’t think that can teach for me on Halloween
CITATION NEEDED
Cryptozoology. There are definitely creatures unknown to science. Dozens of new ones are discovered every day. Loch Ness monster - no. Unknown ape - possibly.
I still like the thought that the Loch Ness monster was real, but died out. That legends grew from the real thing, and occasional real sightings, then popularized with more recent faked evidence.
Of course that doesn’t mean it probably was real, just it might have been.
Speaking of unknown animals. Unicorns could pretty much be real. Just imagine: We have horses, we have horned animals (even one-horned animals), it is not impossible that a horse-like animal with a horn exists.
And it’s called a rhino! I do admit that I use the term horse-like rather broadly here.
They are part of the same order (broad toed ungulates) and share a common ancestor, so they are certainly related
It’s an armored unicorn then!
Hippopotamus literally means river horse, so they are related (not genetically, of course, but etymologically).
Hippos 🦛 aren’t rhinos 🦏
We even have sea unicorns, land unicorns don’t seem too far fetched.
Except all of their remains have somehow disappeared
Hunted and had their horns removed by greedy humans.
I just know we’ll find that damned Insulindian Phasmid soon
There are a fair few accounts in Tasmania about thylacines still existing. The lands are so rugged and harsh that there’s not really any solid way to get in there and search. But I’ll believe it, absolutely.
That is not really cryptozoology, a known real creature that we think is extinct, but if it’s turns out to not be… Nothing weird here.
A lot different to claiming there is a loch Ness monster.
Many people claim the Loch Ness monster is an animal thought to be extinct though. The thylacine is generally held to be a cryptid in my experience.
All electrical components contain magic smoke that was put into them at the time of manufacture. If that smoke is released, it doesn’t work anymore.
Some broken or malfunctioning machinery respond to incantations projected with emotion. Cuss a machine hard enough and it will start working again.
Another one I’ve personally experienced, but don’t know of any studies for: the main casting of machining equipment such as mills or lathes is a big crystal with unique properties. Each machine has different frequencies it resonates at when cutting. You can hear and feel the vibration when cutting and tune the machine/program for more efficient cutting and tool life. Sort of like taking a guitar that is out of tune and tuning it to a pleasant chord. Two identical machines will need different tunings. This tuning can change over time due to wear, temperature, humidity or maybe the phase of the moon.
Unrelated to machinery: there are mountain lions in the deep south in the deep woods. I had one check me out once. The state wildlife agency denies the modern existence of mountain lions and I didn’t believe in them until I was face to face with one. I had to growl and hiss at it to convince it that I wasn’t interesting.
I had an old Mustang and used to say I could cuss start it.
So that’s what happened when I plugged my 120 V appliance into a 240 V outlet, I released the magic smoke.
Yup. Unfortunately, once released, the magic smoke is gone and cannot be replaced.
I completely believe the mountain lions one. Wasn’t the largest ever mountain lion just captured and tagged in Florida? It’s not hard to believe a family or two migrated out of Florida into the rest of the South. The woods are so thick, it seems like a great place to live.
Novel inbound. Don’t think I’ve ever written this down.
I hadn’t heard of the big mountain lion from Florida, I’ll have to look into it. Nifty.
I have heard that the lions in Florida experienced a bad genetic bottleneck and are inbred and won’t survive long term without intervention. There has been discussion about bringing in fresh breeding stock to try and help them, don’t know if its been instituted.
I saw mine deep in the woods, about 10mi north of a place called Cougar Holler. (I heard about that holler after this.) I saw the cat in Skyline WMA in North Alabama. Was 2mi from a road, no trail, after dark, coming up the side of a holler.
On a flat spot up the side, almost to the top, I saw what looked like green headlights coming towards me. It was confusing because you couldn’t even get a four wheeler in there and it was quiet. Realized it was eyes as it got closer, we were moving towards each other. Got to about 20 yards and realized it was a giant cat. LED lamp, so color isn’t great/lot of green, but it looked like gold/tan fur and white belly. Its tail was proportionally shorter than a house cat and longer than a bobcat. End of the tail was squarish, almost tufted. Face was blocky and a little flatter than a common housecat. It was twice, maybe three times the size of a bobcat, so probably a juvenile.
The way it moved was like a snake slithering. It was up on a deadfall, and it kept sliding out of my light. It slid off the log towards me. At that point I drew my handgun and started growling and hissing. It stopped and stared at me and I kept moving towards it. It turned back the way it came and just casually slithered away. It wasn’t afraid of me, just no longer interested.
I know bobcats and house cats. This was not that.
I will never, ever, forget its eyes or the way it moved. The entire event is burned into my memory. Adrenaline was up, but I wasn’t scared, living in the moment, excited. Got the shakes when I made it back to my truck and sat down.
One of the peak experiences of my life.
All electrical components contain magic smoke that was put into them at the time of manufacture. If that smoke is released, it doesn’t work anymore.
I love this.
Not original to me. Totally stole it.
Pretty sure lunar effect is a real, scientifically confirmed thing, just known by a different name. Perhaps not the full moon specifically, but we do oscillate according to the moon phase. It’s called circalunar cycles. The name might sound familiar to circadian cycles because they both derive from the same word structure, ie circa-dia (“around a day”) and circa-lunar (“around a month”)
At minimum, I’m quite surprised that Wikipedia lists this as a pseudoscience, because my impression has generally been that circadian researchers acknowledge circalunar cycles as a given
A lot of these are adjacent to real observable phenomenon but a nutty belief system has been overlaid and then additional claims are made on the basis of that nutty belief system which are not observable.
For example, Feng Shui in practice is usually pretty sensible “where should I put the sofa” kind of stuff, but if you claim that it’s about the flow of qi through your house and suggest that based on that not only should the sofa go over there, but you need to put a topiary vase on the table next to it, that might be a nice aesthetic touch but there’s no evidence of qi.
Additionally there’s plenty of Traditional Chinese Medicine that became actual medicine because it has observable properties. For example turmeric is a mild anti-inflammatory.
According to Feng Shui, cacti are not suitable as home plants. Ergo Feng Shui is evil.
I mean, if you brush against their spikes every time you walk into the living room, you’d decry them as unsuitable too!