Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti, the chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, or the Mokele-mbembe. Cryptozoologists refer to these entities as cryptids, a term coined by the subculture. Because it does not follow the scientific method, cryptozoology is considered a pseudoscience by mainstream science: it is neither a branch of zoology nor of folklore studies. It was originally founded in the 1950s by zoologists Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson.
Clairvoyance is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant.
Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as intuition, telepathy, psychometry, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, empathy and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition.
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited.
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it. Parapsychology has also been criticised by mainstream critics for many of its practitioners claiming that their studies are plausible in spite of there being no convincing evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research.
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. The skepdic.com site was launched in 1994 and the book was published in 2003 with nearly 400 entries. As of January 2011 the website has over 700 entries. A comprehensive single-volume guides to skeptical information on pseudoscientific, paranormal, and occult topics, the bibliography contains some seven hundred references for more detailed information. According to the back cover of the book, the on-line version receives approximately 500,000 hits per month.
The biorhythm theory is the pseudoscientific idea that peoples' daily lives are significantly affected by rhythmic cycles with periods of exactly 23, 28 and 33 days, typically a 23-day physical cycle, a 28-day emotional cycle, and a 33-day intellectual cycle. The idea was developed by Wilhelm Fliess in the late 19th century, and was popularized in the United States in the late 1970s. The proposal has been independently tested and, consistently, no validity for it has been found.
Cargo cult science is a pseudoscientific method of research that favors evidence that confirms an assumed hypothesis. In contrast with the scientific method, there is no vigorous effort to disprove or delimit the hypothesis. The term cargo cult science was first used by physicist Richard Feynman during his 1974 commencement address at the California Institute of Technology.
Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud is a book published in 2000 by physics professor Robert L. Park, critical of research that falls short of adhering to the scientific method. Other people have used the term "voodoo science", but amongst academics it is most closely associated with Park. Park offers no explanation as to why he appropriated the word voodoo to describe the four categories detailed below. The book is critical of, among other things, homeopathy, cold fusion and the International Space Station.
In philosophy of science and epistemology, the demarcation problem is the question of how to distinguish between science and non-science. It examines the boundaries between science, pseudoscience and other products of human activity, like art and literature and beliefs. The debate continues after over two millennia of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in various fields. The debate has consequences for what can be called "scientific" in fields such as education and public policy.
Occult Chemistry:Investigations by Clairvoyant Magnification into the Structure of the Atoms of the Periodic Table and Some Compounds is a book written by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, who were both members of the Theosophical Society based in Adyar, India. Besant was at the time the President of the Society having succeeded Henry Olcott after his death in 1907.
Grover Cleveland "Cleve" Backster Jr. was an interrogation specialist for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), best known for his experiments with plants using a polygraph instrument in the 1960s which led to his theory of primary perception where he claimed that plants feel pain and have extrasensory perception (ESP), which was widely reported in the media. These claims have been rejected by the scientific community.
Plant perception or biocommunication is the paranormal idea that plants are sentient, that they respond to humans in a manner that amounts to ESP, and that they experience a range of emotions or parapsychological states. Since plants lack nervous systems, paranormal claims regarding plant perception are considered pseudoscience by the scientific community.
The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience is a two-volume collection of articles that discuss the Skeptics Society's scientific findings of investigations into pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The editor, Michael Shermer, director of the Skeptics Society, has compiled articles originally published in Skeptic magazine with some conceptual overviews and historical documents to create this encyclopedia. It was published by ABC-CLIO in 2002.
Rhonda Byrne is an Australian television writer and producer. Her book The Secret is based on the belief of the pseudoscientific law of attraction, which claims that thoughts can change a person's life directly. She wrote several sequels to the book, including The Power and The Magic.
Arthur W. Galston was an American plant physiologist and bioethicist. As a plant biologist, Galston studied plant hormones and the effects of light on plant development, particularly phototropism. He identified riboflavin and other flavins as the photoreceptors for phototropism, the bending of plants toward light, challenging the prevailing view that carotenoids were responsible.
ThetaHealing is the registered trademark for a method of meditation created by Vianna Stibal in 1995. ThetaHealing claims to change a practitioner's brain wave pattern to the theta pattern, allowing them to explore how "emotional energy" affects their health, and develop "natural intuition".
“The Nervous Mechanism of Plants”, published in 1926, is a botany book by Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose which summarises his most recent findings in the area of plant physiology. Bose had previously investigated this topic in books such as Plant response as a means of physiological investigation from 1906, or The physiology of photosynthesis, published in 1924. In this book, he proposes that the response mechanisms of plants to stimuli are physiologically similar to those in animals.
Gail Burwen was an American illustrator best known for her work in underground comix and the science fiction genre of the 1970s. She illustrated the original cover of the controversial plant perception book The Secret Life of Plants published in 1973.
