RationalWiki:To do list/archive2014

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109John SearlCreate draft. Free energy con man. By reader request.
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65Gregory S. PaulWikipedia is a paleontologist of some renownWikipedia, but has also has written on the correlation of societal religiosity with social disfunction, particularly with regard to negative American exceptionalism compared to other developed countries. See The Guardian review by Sue Blackmore, Are we better off without religion?, and his most recent paper.
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66Universal Medicine,Wikipedia an esoteric healing group given to legal threats to hide criticism.
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67Jody Hice,Wikipedia the dominionist, pro-conversion therapy preacher was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives from Georgia's 10th district. His book, claimed that Islam is not deserving of 1st Amendment rights.
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102Monika MilkaCreate draft, proprietor of Monika's EntityCreate draft, a deeply fraudulent medical woo site. News reports, homeopathy of the oceans. The writing on the Facebook page should be entirely in green. And the Freeman disclaimer.
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70HasbarahWikipedia - because Israel's "public diplomacy" is cuttingly close to both Propaganda and espionage.
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100Inference: International Review of ScienceCreate draft, an alleged academic journal with a taste for crankery. Includes Michael Denton on creationism intelligent design, and writings by Michael Fumento. http://inference-review.com/
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112Street EpistemologyCreate draft developed by Peter BoghossianWikipedia is a newer activity which is a partly scripted question asking method some atheists use to induce doubts in people's god beliefs-seems worth researching for potential benefits and problems it might have. Or it could just be acting like a stereotypical atheist dick. Let's write it up and see!
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65 Due to their many Mildly Decent contributions, perhaps John GreenWikipedia and Hank GreenWikipedia of VlogbrothersWikipedia fame should get some more scrutiny via RW.
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61Kang Youwei,Wikipedia A Chinese political thinker and reformer of the late 19th century and the turn of the century who was popular in China than under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. Among other things he advocated both Constitutional Monarchy and Socialism in China. On the other hand, he was a eugenicist. The political theories he set forth in his book Da Tong Shu are objective and utterly indisputable proof that the Horseshoe theory is either mostly or completely correct, it is the "missing link" between Communism and Fascism. In light of what he wrote in that book he should be either given a prominent spot on the Horseshoe Theory page or given his own page.
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50JusticarWikipedia - He's one of thunderfoot's buddies. misogynist, conservative, and anti-feminist (and a Slymepitter), and may I add, extremely pedantic.
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104Remnant of GodCreate draft, a Webshite about end times paranoia. Apparently thinks The Pope is the Antichrist.
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57Lucis trustWikipedia We had a stub article, but it was deleted. It's a company that focus of occultry, conspiracy Theories regarding Freemasons, etc. The reason this particular one gets so much attention is because it's original name was "Lucifer Publishing Company", and was acknowledged by the United Nations.
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64Myron FaganWikipedia - A Red Scare Proponent, and an early proponent of the Illuminati conspiracy Theory. "A lot of modern ideas about the Rothschilds come from him, and I am sick of me being linked to videos of his talk show." (example)
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107InternetAristocratCreate draft - conservative, racist, MRA who is a leader of Gamergate.
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116Detroit.Wikipedia See Chicago, below, add municipal bankruptcy and dog-whistle criticisms of the decidedly non-Caucasian city administration. Who - liberals, conservatives or the Stormfront crowd - if any of them, is correct about the reasons for it becoming what it has?
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100Benjamin FulfordCreate draft. claims a bunch of absurd things about the Illuminati and Freemasons, and that he'll take them down singlehandedly. This is him.
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66George Dillman,Wikipedia a mall ninja manager of McDojo training camps who claims that, among other things, you can use your body to generate chi/bioelectricity/radio waves to block attacks and knock people out.
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65John O'Connor,Wikipedia a Catholic priest who claims to expose the Antichrist, and Conspiracy whackers claim he was kicked out of the Catholic church.
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65Roger Morneau,Wikipedia an "Ex-Satanist", who claims to expose evolution.
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104Masonicinfo.comCreate draft. If you have an anti-freemason claim, masonicinfo will have the refutation, and the conspiracy theorist will throw the shill gambit.
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97Pawns in the GameCreate draft By William Guy Carr.Wikipedia Oh boy...
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64Reader suggestion: "An article about the term freedom,Wikipedia in my eyes its current usage in the States resembles pretty much some damn newspeak, as a great example calling French fries freedom fries because of France not.. er, supporting the forced spreading of freedom huh? Anyway, that's pretty much all I can say myself about that topic, but I'd really appreciate someone writing an essay or something about it." Two crappy articles at this title have been deleted already, so do a good one if you do this one.
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71Justine Tunney.Wikipedia Possibly the clearest living embodiment of the horseshoe theory, she went from being the voice of Occupy Wall Street (literally, managing a Twitter account with the name OccupyWallSt) in 2011 to vocally supporting the neoreactionary movement in 2014, particularly its technocratic wing. (Though she has consistently stated that she is not affiliated with neoreaction.) She even said Obama should be kicked out and Google CEO Eric Schmidt installed as the new President. Arthur Chu has a nice summary of her bizarre swing here.
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63EcoscienceWikipedia by John Holdren,Wikipedia a book touted by Conspiracy Theorists to be froof of the Depopulation conspiracy theory
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105Modafinil,Wikipedia a sleep-cycle-adjusting drug with some documented effects and some woo-ish notions that it's a smart drug of some sort.
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61Larry Klayman.Wikipedia
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68The “Women are Wonderful” effectWikipedia
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65Fraser Institute;Wikipedia nuff said.
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106Another "messiah", Goel RatzonCreate draft, convicted on rape and incest, this one went on a breeding campaign in Israel. See [1] and [2]
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70Progress in PhysicsWikipedia, a pseudojournal whose Wikipedia article[3] calmly and neutrally paints them as absolutely frothing. About the only place that will publish Pierre-Marie Robitaille.
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70I can't believe that there are medical quacks (and quite a few misguided feminists) still promulgating the bullshit in the book Dressed to Kill,Wikipedia which argues for the completely debunked notion that bras cause breast cancer. Full title: Dressed To Kill: The Link between Breast Cancer and Bras. Written in 2002 by two non-scientists asserting that bras cause cancer. The authors apparently did not offer up any actual evidence. A scientific study just came out that showed there is no evidence to support this wacky claim (Does Wearing a Bra Cause Cancer? New Study Says No).
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80PetrodollarWikipedia - reader suggestion. Conspiracists have some fondness for conspiracies involving the price of oil and US dollars as global currency. There's plenty of real economics and economics woo around this concept too.
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104Jace ConnorsCreate draft. Youtuber, conspiracy theorist, wingnut, stoner, mall ninja, racist, homophobe, and Islamophobe guilty of both consuming and promoting gratuitous amounts of paramilitary woo. Hosts a weekly political call-in show where he has, among other things, posited that not only is Obama a Muslim but one born in the Middle East who plans to destroy America by instigating a race war. On the other hand, he isn't that well-known outside of his cult following of trolls.
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73Inter-Services IntelligenceWikipedia (ISI), the Pakistani CIA, cuz we're all about authoritarianism, liars, and extremism, and ISI provides plenty of each
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65Charles C. W. CookeWikipedia- It might not be an understatement to call him the most insufferable National Review columnist. No seriously despite his pseudo-intellectual tone he's one of the most blatant anti-intellectuals writing for the NRO. Also a climate change denier, of course.
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73John Gray (philosopher).Wikipedia I just read his Straw Dogs and am uncertain whether I just read brilliance or bullshit. That in itself is an achievement. Not the John Gray behind Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.
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96Rima LaibowCreate draft, aka Dr Rima [4][5], quack and conspiracy theorist.
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82G. Edward Griffin,Wikipedia a famous conspiracy theorist and Bircher who popularized Federal Reserve and cancer-related conspiracy whackery (he even authored the libertarian/Glenn Beck favorite The Creature from Jekyll Island). A little suprising we don't have an article on him yet since he's a far more influential figure on the radical right conspiracy circuit than the likes of Mark Dice.
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71Presstitutes,Wikipedia what with part of our mission being to criticize the media where necessary.
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71Averroes.Wikipedia We have an article on Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Al-Ghazali, so we ought to have an article on Averroes too. It is extremely interesting to note that, according to both Westerners and Muslims, his influence on the Western world has been far greater than his influence on the Islamic world.
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70SilencingWikipedia - suppressing opposition arguments, directly or indirectly. The idea is to claim that counterarguments don't exist. Feminist versions here [6][7], though these are highly generalisable.
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113My Parents Open CarryCreate draft. Naming the father character in a pro-gun book "Dick Strong", frankly, is begging liberals to make fun of it. Even ignoring the content of this book, it's awful: wooden prose, bad grammar, hectoring tone. Yet, it's quite popular on Amazon (it was promoted by Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher according to the back cover).
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51Ahstar SheranWikipedia, a fake-ass pseudogod who migrated all across Europe via 1999-eschatology and then into China via 2012-eschatology. Nauseating face.
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107Connection theoryCreate draft is a new nuttiness dreamed up by the Bay Area transhumanist crowd. It's sufficiently nutty that even LessWrong posters take the piss out of it. But they're apparently attracting actual money. Anyone feel like researching and writing it up? [8] [9] [10] [11] Most of the original pages about it have been taken down, but are still in the Wayback Machine.
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61Jeffrey Goodman,Wikipedia archaeologist, once in favor of "psychic archaeologyWikipedia," and who wrote a book on the comets of God.
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64Edward Tobinick,Wikipedia an apparent quack who is suing Steve Novella for blogging about him. [12]
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43William Poundstone,Wikipedia the Counter-Malcolm Gladwell.
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66Elizabeth WhelanWikipedia, a wingnut libertarian who is currently head of the American Council on Science and Health,Wikipedia the "go to" source for many right-wing bloggers. ACSH is either an astroturf denialist organization that spreads misinformation, or the most staunchly centrist anti-public-scare organization on the web.
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110Ted BundyWikipedia - Aside from being a disgusting serial killer, his career trajectory reads like a who's who's of the pre-Reagan religious right.
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70Morton Downey Jr.,Wikipedia a pro-life activist and right-wing Democrat who became a pundit who's controversial "edgy" style bascally helped lead to the rise of nearly every wingnut pundit you can think of. If Coughlin was the prototype for right-wing radio pundits Downey was basically the same for televised ones such as Hannity.
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94CNBC.Wikipedia I am surprised we don't have an article on it yet.
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122AnimeWikipedia - We have an article on Furry fandom, I don't think it's that much of a jump. Sandbox Start
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81ArchetypeWikipedia and or collective unconscious.Wikipedia Carl Jung's idea about our inborn psychic connections, and his gift to the New Age.
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94Inflammation,Wikipedia the latest trendy bogeyman in the alternative medicine/food woo crowd. If you don't feel good, it must be because of "inflammation" caused by eating junk food/exposure to toxins/not being on the paleo diet. Plus, inflammation is why you're fat.
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64Oxford Groups,Wikipedia later re-named to Moral Re-Armament.Wikipedia An evangelical group that is most famous for spawning Alcoholics Anonymous and the involvement of Mary Whitehouse.
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76I'm surprised that the cultish, deceptive ultra-Orthodox Jewish "kiruvWikipedia" organizations, such as ChabadWikipedia and Aish HaTorah,Wikipedia haven't been mentioned here yet.
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73Brute fact,Wikipedia a fact that cannot be explained at a more "fundamental" level, or a fact in a different category than "institutional" facts, which depend on social agreement for their validity.
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48Paul BlanshardWikipedia and/or American Freedom and Catholic Power.Wikipedia I continue to find at least his first book quite well argued.
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106Edinburgh Creation GroupCreate draft - a creationist group in Edinburgh with a bunch of videos (most of them by Seraph Media) on the web site featuring the guys promoted by AiG
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78Fighting wordsWikipedia - There isn't a page on how insults and rudeness breaks the limit of free speech, and there isn't an entry on the Freedom of speech page.
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78ActivismWikipedia - The general concept; whether and where it's effective, in what cases the members of any activist movement are and aren't sensible, etc..
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66WitnessWikipedia - (not the degree of wit) somehow we have expert witness without the article of witness.
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65Lord Our Righteousness Church,Wikipedia one of the cults in New Mexico with UK TV coverage. Google "Wayne Bent" for more info
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78Nouri al-Maliki,Wikipedia because he was "elected" to prime minister of Iraq during the United States occupation, acted like a dictator, used American troops to carry out ethnic killings, and had the full backing of the US government. (Or Hamid Karzai,Wikipedia who's also become a straight-up asshole.)
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70Cybertopianism.Wikipedia I can't be the only one who remembers the days when the Internet would create a global village of peace and understanding.
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91Twitchy,Wikipedia a Twitter propaganda site run by none other than Michelle Malkin herself.
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64Daniel Lapin,Wikipedia the favorite rabbi of the Christian Religious Right.
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85James Dobson,Wikipedia other than a link to the Focus on the Family page.
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70Quannengshen,Wikipedia the Chinese "Church of the Almighty God" - A cult in China formed in the 1990s which hijacks both religious (Protestant or Islam) and other cult meetings, and used to preach the 2012 Apocalypse. Recently they murdered people in public for refusing to make contact with them.
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65A Troublesome Inheritance,Wikipedia the half-assed attempt to re-open the eugenics debate by once-influental NYT correspondent Nicholas Wade.
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65Elizabeth Rauscher,Wikipedia a real but somewhat cranklike physicist. The WP article is bowdlerised but the crankiness shines through, and just check that talk page. Collaborates with Nassim Haramein.
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99Jack Donovan White nationalist, neoreactionary internet kook obsessed with masculinity. Hates gays despite, bizarrely, being gay himself. Currently a paragraph in Manosphere.
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104Testimony of conversionCreate draft, or some similar phrase, for every conservative Christian who starts a bout of proselytizing with "I used to be atheist/liberal/evolutionist/whatever, but then I learned about Jesus."
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66American Spectator,Wikipedia the UK Spectator's dumb loud younger brother.
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105Stop the Thyroid MadnessCreate draft ([13]), a book and blog by a non-endocrinologist non-doctor who blames everything that's wrong in the lives of people with hypothyroidism on the mainstream treatment regimen. Focus is on how much better you feel when you switch to desiccated thyroid extract, the "natural" treatment we used in the good ol' days.
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64Robert Zubrin.Wikipedia Because he's, you know, Robert Zubrin.
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65Tanaka MemorialWikipedia, like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, just substitute "Jew" with "Jap".
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71Godel's ontological proofWikipedia A formal argument for the existence of God proposed by mathematician Kurt Godel. Covered slightly in ontological argument.
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112Illumicorp video hoaxCreate draft An INCREDIBLY well done hoax/parody showing an Illuminati training video. Although the video producer admitted it was a joke a while back, it still is being touted as real by conspiracy whackers that didn't quite get the message. This could be its own article, or an add-on to our current Illuminati article.[14]
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65On our militia movementWikipedia page, we ought to have a mention of Norman Olson,Wikipedia considering how influential he was to the movement.
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106[15] Raw for BeautyCreate draft: Social media's answer to NaturalNews and mercola.com. Essentially a hive of misinformation advocating raw foodism, nature woo, alternative medicine, and other bogus crap. Unfortunately, they're also extremely popular and, being a Facebook page, their claims spread like wildfire.
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75Argan oil,Wikipedia apparently increasing in popularity to cure all skin/nail/hair ailments. I encountered it on a Dutch website where it is touted as `miracle cure' and `liquid gold', with `positive effects never seen before' ... all of which are supposed to be `scientific proven' (the louder it says that...the bigger the chance it's woo). Yet, perhaps there is some (kernel of) truth here?
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106Health Impact NewsCreate draft - a woo-freindly, anti-vaxxer promoting site, only a few rungs above NaturalNews. Also has articles such as "Intelligent Design vs. Scientism" (sic) and "More Evidence of Scientism as Religion." Website
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70Campbell's lawWikipedia - States that introducing definite criteria (often quantitative) into a decision-making process can make it easier to game the system, and so degrade the quality of decisions made based on those criteria.
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108getoutofdebtfree.orgCreate draft deserves a fisking of its "methods" (e.g. "common law" copyrighting of your name), or at least a section in the suitable article, whichever it is. (Prompted by someone linking to RW in their forum and the assertion that they are not FOTL; please don't touch this unless you have a good understanding of (pseudo)law)
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74Ripoff Report,Wikipedia a consumer complaints website whose owner and operator is somewhat paranoid and which is sometimes accused of being an extortion racket.
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140Vicious cycleWikipedia - I've heard some people making arguments involving vicious cycles being falsely accused of making circular arguments.
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76Adrenal fatigue,Wikipedia a made-up condition that alt med practitioners use to blame general aches and fatigue on a failing of the adrenal gland.
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68The American Council on Science and HealthWikipedia (ACSH). Orac calls these guys a "questionable science-based organization". They're staunchly anti-smoking and anti-hysteria (particularly when it comes to food scares), but they also have a definite axe to grind and it's hard to say how trustworthy they are. They call themselves a "consumer education consortium," and are currently funded by various large corporations. (They weren't corporate funded for the first two years, but were accused of being corporate shills during that period anyway.) SourceWatch article Added: See also the mess on Talk:Skepticism.
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67Decision theory,Wikipedia unless we have it merged somewhere.
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86Culture-bound syndromesWikipedia: phenomena believed within a culture to be diseases, but which are completely unknown outside of that culture, suggesting psychological rather than physiological origin. An example would be fan deathWikipedia, the belief that sleeping in a room with a running fan can be fatal, which is widespread in both North and South Korea but unheard of elsewhere.
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76Socionics.Wikipedia Fad pop-psychology butchery of MBTI, which is itself suspect, but this takes it up to eleven. Popular in Eastern Europe.