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Talk:Woo

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This Pseudoscience related article has not received a brainstar for quality. Please consider expanding the article appropriately. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

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Editorial notes

The article could use a few references, a "see also" section and another subsection to qualify for copper or bronze.

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Coffee Woo article?[edit]

(Looks at fingers. Realizes they aren't broken.) OK, I'll start the pumps. - 66.211.109.190 (talk) 18:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Origin?[edit]

Early Computer core memory used square loop hysteresis ferrite cores. How they worked was sorta magic to those without expert knowledge of physics. Substantial early work in the field was carried out by the Shanghai-born American physicists An Wang and Way-Dong Woo... So there! :-) 60.242.247.177 (talk) 21:50, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

"Woo" and "woowoo" is used in the 1941 war film Parachute Battalion as a reference to silliness in flirting (with females in general, but the dummy in particular). A war propaganda educational movie meant for a popular audience would only include it if it was recognised as fairly common popular usage. 60.242.247.177 (talk) 19:01, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I have now twice tried to add the following to the origins section, but it has been 'reverted' both times: Notably, "woo-woo" has also been used as a slang term for female genitalia since at least the 1970s, presenting the possibility that the usage by skeptics may be influenced by associations of the irrational or non-scientific with the feminine. Although this may be an uncomfortable point to include, it is plainly relevant. Much more so than the waffle about woo also meaning to 'woo' somebody especially with false promises. That is not actually the meaning of the seductive woo, which does not imply falseness. --Feminist skeptic (talk) 12:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Probably because this looks like original research. Which, to be fair, this wiki technically allows for, but it would be better if you could add a citation to your claim. Because without evidence that there's a genuinely correlative link between the slang term for gemale genitalia and the slang term for pseudoscience, all you have is a neat-looking coincidence. Antares (talk) 12:47, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Ok - will re-phrase. Half of the section is on coincidental links, so should be fine! --86.186.38.4 (talk) 15:19, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Levels of woo[edit]

To what extent are there different levels of woo - from the relatively harmless to the 'causing serious problems' - and how can they be classified. 'Do not swim for half an hour after eating' and suchlike would be at the harmless end. 86.146.100.66 (talk) 22:51, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Today's woo[edit]

Is sometimes yesterday's area of exciting new research - and vice versa.

Probably most 'firm' topics have a 'halo of woo' around them - misunderstandings, false overlaps, creative misinterpretations, possibilities floating around the discussions, extrapolations into illogicality, those who want the comfort of a deeper structure that 'others do understand', those who make money or get authority by promoting certainty in a world which others find too inexplicable otherwise, etc, and some 'new areas of research' will be 90% woo and guff and 10% viable/sensible. #Some# of the theories will prove valid, helpful or just 'if you like it, might as well follow it.' Anna Livia (talk) 18:16, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Falsifiability[edit]

Would it be appropriate to add a lack of falsifiability to the characteristics of woo (often presented as a strength — "You can't prove that I'm wrong, so I must be right!"), or is that not actually part of the definition? --Luigifan18 (talk) 03:50, 16 February 2024 (UTC)