Pseudo-science and other bullshit

Hello mortals.
Mom: Your aunt told me about these healing crystals, and I bought you this amethyst crystal.
It gets rid of your negative vibrations and transmutes negativity into light!
How cool is that!
I want you to wear it forever!
Sciencephile: Mom, it doesn’t work.
Mom: Don’t argue with mom, you little shit!
So, as you might have guessed, today we will be talking about bullshit that thinks of itself
as legit science, but isn’t.
In other words – pseudoscience.
Some of them are even hard to distinguish.
So that’s why it is important to be able to differentiate real science from pseudo-crap,
as it may save you some money.
So let’s begin.
Okay I’m not even going to speak about these 3 ones.
If you believe in any of these, I’m sorry for you.
Next up, evolution denial.
Pretty much on par with the Young Earth creationism, this might be the hottest point in the totally
peaceful debates between religious and non-religious humans.
This topic deserves a video of its own, but briefly, evolution is a theory, but so is
gravity and relativity.
Humans didn’t evolve from apes, but a common ancestor, and there are no missing links.
Also 97% of scientists believe in evolution, and so does Pope Francis.
Hopefully that says something.
Astrology – the belief that constellations thousands of light years away that look nothing
like their name, can predict that you will meet an old classmate this Sunday.
Also, take into account that because stars are moving, in 100.000 years from now, all
constellations will become unrecognisable.
Next, we have parapsychology, which as expected, has absolutely nothing to do with psychology,
or in fact, with science altogether.
It implies that humans may have superpowers.
Like telekinesis, the ability to affect matter with some kind of brain force.
Here are the only forces in the entire universe, and none of them have anything to do with
the brain.
Also the one million dollar challenge, where anyone who could demonstrate a paranormal
ability would be given a million dollars.
From 1964 until now, nobody was successful.
However, telepathy will soon become a reality, as brain-to-brain communication technology
is on the rise.
When randomly generated text sounds the same as the actual thing, you know it is serious
stuff.
The New Age movement is a bunch of beliefs inspired by the Eastern religions, especially
Hinduism, in which humans are somehow special, and can reach their higher self through different
practices.
Most of their so-called self-help books use esoteric scientific words in a purposefully
vague context, having no scientific basis whatsoever.
Sufficiently said, all New Age preachers are scammers that want your money.
In the same boat, there is the quantum bullshit.
By that, I mean New Age-like ideas deliberately containing the word “quantum” inside in
order to confuse people.
However, to anyone with some knowledge of actual quantum mechanics, it will seem pure
comedy.
“Do you think an atom has that?
Sorry?
Do you think an atom has that?
According to Freeman Dyson, yes.
Freeman Dyson says an atom has awareness?
Yes sir!
Check it out!
Have you ever seen an UFO?
Well this Russian sober man has.
While it is almost certain that they do exist somewhere far away, all of the existing sightings
of UFO-s have been shown to be misinterpreted clouds, camera glitches or simply hoaxes.
After all, why would anyone in their right mind travel tens of light years just to draw
some circles in our crops.
The anti-vaccination movement claims that vaccines cause autism.
And guess what scientific evidence they use in support of their claim?
None.
I mean, there are conspiracy theory blogs and some YouTube videos, and that’s it.
There is no current scientific research that points to any links between autism and vaccination.
But even if it were true, vaccinating would be fucking worth it.
Next up, we have none other than homeopathy.
"Homeopathy claims that water can cure you, because it once held medicine.
That's like saying you can eat off an empty plate because it once held food."
Back in 2015, a major study analyzing more than 1800 studies on homeopathy concluded
that it is absolutely ineffective, and works no better than placebo, that is, your body
curing itself because it thinks that the medicine you take is actually useful, when in reality
it’s not.
Detoxification – the process of getting rid of dangerous levels of drugs, alcohol,
or poisons, like heavy metals from your body, in case of a life-threatening situation.
This is the real definition of detoxification, now here is the one told you by the scammers:
getting rid of the toxins accumulated from eating food.
Guess what science says about these toxins?
If they were to accumulate, you’d be long dead.
What do you have the liver and the kidneys for?
Whenever anyone mentions toxins in food I imagine a pizza with snake venom in it.
In fact, ingesting snake venom is safe, as it doesn’t go in contact with your blood.
Have you ever wondered, why lie detectors are not used in courts?
Because they don’t work.
In a recent study, the accuracy of the lie detectors barely got to 65%.
That is just a bit higher than guessing.
What do you see?
Some kind of moth?
Two elephants?
One elephant eating a dead corpse on a vertical mirror?
It doesn’t really matter because the Rorschach tests have close to no empirical evidence
of diagnosing any kinds of mental disorders.
Without a doubt, hypnosis exists and works.
What doesn’t work though, is the recalling of deep and long-forgotten memories while
in hypnosis.
What really happens, is that you are actually creating false memories based on the questions
of the hypnotizer.
Remember homeopathy?
Yeah, acupuncture is quite similar.
More than 3000 clinical trials proved that it is mostly a placebo.
The only reason I didn’t place it on the same line with homeopathy is because it actually
has some tiny benefits like muscle relaxation and anxiety relief.
Next up, meditation.
It does certainly work.
It is proven to relief stress, depression, increase pain tolerance, self-awareness and
improve memory.
However, meditation sometimes comes with a baggage of pseudo-scientific bullshit, like
chakras, the third eye or other New Age beliefs.
In our age when all the information is easily accessible, it is very important to be able
to learn to make a difference between what is false and what is true.
Especially, when it comes to science, which is our only hope of progressing and evolving.
Mom: Why are you not wearing the amethyst crystal necklace?

Pseudo-science and other bullshit

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