this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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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

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[–] sleeplessone@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I subscribe to historical materialism, which is apparently a pseudoscience according to that Wikipedia article.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 days ago

Is that some kind of magazine

[–] stray@pawb.social 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Karl Marx stated that technological development can change the modes of production over time. This change in the mode of production inevitably encourages changes to a society's economic system.

I dunno, man, that doesn't sound too crazy. I'm in a really bad condition for learning new things right now, and I can't even figure out what claims this idea would be making. It sounds like it's just describing a process of advancement and the types of conflicts that arise?

I'm finding this especially hard to grasp because my brain's on a tangent about how you'd really go about falsifying most stuff in history or sociology. You gonna put a bunch of people in a series of jars with carefully controlled conditions for hundreds of years and observe the results? Like we have this piece of paper from 1700 that says Jimothy won the big game, but our understanding of this guy and his alleged win of this supposed game are totally vibes-based because we don't have a time machine. I think like the best you can do is try to base your beliefs and claims off things that have been observed repeatedly, but does that make these kinds of topics unscientific? We test what we can and go with our best guess for what we can't, right? This is going to bother me.

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[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Like you, I ain't reading the list.

However, I'm not dismissive of stuff that's woowoo, but the stuff you listed has pretty much been shown to be nothing better than placebo effects, with the partial exception of the cycles of some things in nature matching the moon. But it isn't about the phase, per se (at least, the last serious publication I saw on it indicated it wasn't).

Thing is, woowoo placebo effect isn't a fake thing. Hence me not being dismissive. If something A: helps get someone through shit, B: doesn't hurt anyone, and C: isn't being used by someone as a tool to manipulate, it ain't my business to correct anyone.

Some shit, like acupressure has benefits beyond the placebo, even though it isn't for the claimed reasons. When stuff like that works, it's very often the touch itself combined with the idea it will help that makes it effective enough to be worth keeping around.

But, with that kind of thing, that's only okay if it's conjunction with evidence based beat practices. That's when woowoo really shines. To help someone decrease stress, handle the horrible, and get through another day. Because it really does help in that regard.

See, it's known that religion serves that purpose. It's a psychological coping tool in one of its aspects. It doesn't matter if the same effect happens because of faith in a deity or not. It's that we can, to a limited degree, improve our selves by how our minds are functioning. So, if someone gets through their divorce, or being sick, or grieving by burning incense and playing with pretty rocks, IDGAF, I'll lie to their face and tell them that it's great, as long as they're also working on whatever it is more holistically with something evidence based.

Even then, I'd just try to convince them to add to, not abandon.

That being said, I wish some of that shit worked. It would be so fucking nice.

[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

It is impossible to communicate pain effectively. Pseudoscience acceptance causes harm because it greys the line when situations are high risk and complicated. I am quite literally collateral damage with my entire life thrown away in this grey area. Not offended at you, just saying it is not harmless.

[–] Kanzar@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago

When someone says it's quiet at work, suddenly all these emergencies come in...

[–] moufle@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Osteopathy.

I thought it was scientifically proven, it seems that's not the case 😬

[–] N0x0n@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Tell that to my back/arm pain I had for months after a Ski accident... After 4 session and one good knack I literally felt how everything got back in place.

I felt so exhausted and somehow strange like a little bit drunk... But after a few weeks the pain went away ! Like magic !

So yeah, science can't prove everything but that doesn't mean it doesn't work or has some positive benefits ! Science has also been wrong numerous times or has been controlled by conflict of interests... What ever, choose your poison !

[–] Elaine@lemm.ee 3 points 4 days ago

I like all the ones you listed and I love β€œwoowoomancer” as a description. Other than those, I have a good feel for future sight.

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

The full moon does something to people's brains and makes them act weirder than usual.

There's been more than one time when I've been out and thought people were driving crazier than usual or people on the bus were being more psycho than they normally are, and I've looked it up and it's been within like 2 days of the full moon on either side.

People are ~70% water and the moon does move the entire ocean around, so maybe it's something to do with that?

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Acupuncture, to a certain extent. There's obviously something to it (a friend of mine went there because of various issues, and it helped), but the actual science isn't nailed down yet.

My insurance pays for it which I find shocking. I do find it helpful whether it's placebo or something else, and since it's covered I do it.

[–] Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Goodness, that's a lot to read.

I don't know if I believe any of them with actual faith instead of just chalking coincidental things up to some beliefs like that. The Lunar phase one comes to mind as something I'll often reference, but I don't actually believe in lunacy.

However, there's one about grounding methods in the health section. I definitely don't believe there's anything about elecron alignment or whatever bull that all is. But being on the ground helps me a lot with anxiety and relaxation in general. To the point where I prefer sitting in front of my couch vs on it, lol. So maybe I believe in that one, but not in any pseudoscience way??

[–] Fondots@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

I work in 911 dispatch, and I don't have hard stats to back it up, I'm not even really sure how it could be objectively measured, and I'm sure I have a whole lot of bias and such, but I'm pretty sure everyone I work with agrees that we just get weirder calls on full moons.

Not necessarily busier, or more severe, there's just a certain something that's hard to explain about a lot of our callers that seems to get a little strange on a full moon.

It's not something we're actively keeping track of, it's not like we have a reminder set on our phones for the full moon, but when we have one of those nights where everything just seems to be a little off and we check the moon phase, it seems like it's full or nearly full more often than not.

Although personally I think we see a bigger difference for a couple days after the clocks change for daylight savings time. My pet theory on that is it throws people's medication schedules off by an hour and it takes them a few days to readjust. Plus throwing off sleep schedules, and dementia patients who sundown may be up and acting up at a time they would otherwise be asleep.

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