- Enneagram
An enneagram is, literally, a nine-sided drawing. Figuratively, however, the enneagram is a New Age mandala, a mystical gateway to personality typing. The enneagram represents nine personality types, defined by a fundamental weakness or sin. There are three enneagram points for each of the mental types, emotional types, and physical types.
URL: http://www.skepdic.com/enneagr.html
(Added: 28-Feb-2000 Hits: 2588)
- Graphology
Graphology is the study of handwriting, especially when employed as a means of analyzing character. Real handwriting experts are known as forensic document examiners, not as graphologists. Forensic document examiners consider loops, dotted "i's" and crossed "t's," letter spacing, slants, heights, ending strokes, etc. They examine handwriting to detect authenticity or forgery. Graphologists examine loops, dotted "i's" and crossed "t's," letter spacing, slants, heights, ending strokes, etc., but they believe that such handwriting minutiae are physical manifestations of unconscious mental functions.
URL: http://www.skepdic.com/graphol.html
(Added: 29-Jul-2000 Hits: 2047)
- National Council Against Health Fraud
NCAHF is a private nonprofit, voluntary health agency that focuses upon health misinformation, fraud, and quackery as public health problems. Our positions are based upon the principles of science that underlie consumer protection law.
URL: http://www.ncahf.org/
(Added: 31-Jan-2001 Hits: 551)
- New Age Psychotherapies
A psychotherapy is a treatment technique for mental and emotional disorders. There are many types of psychotherapy. Some have been empirically tested and are known to be very effective, such as cognitive therapy. Many New Age therapies, however, are little more than a mixture of metaphysics, religion and pseudoscientific "insights". Some of the therapies described are energy breathing, rebirthing, and reparenting.
URL: http://skepdic.com/therapy.html
(Added: 18-May-2000 Hits: 2188)
- Phrenology (cranioscopy)
Phrenology is the study of the structure of the skull to determine a person's character and mental capacity. This pseudoscience is based upon the false assumption that mental faculties are located in brain "organs" on the surface of the brain and can be detected by visible inspection of the skull.
URL: http://skepdic.com/phren.html
(Added: 23-Feb-2000 Hits: 1241)
- QuackWatch Home Page
Quackwatch, Inc., a member of Consumer Federation of America, is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, and fallacies.
URL: http://www.quackwatch.org/
(Added: 28-Nov-1998 Hits: 1241)
- The Cargo-Cult Science of Subliminal Persuasion
The topic of subliminal persuasion has attracted the interest of Americans on at least four separate occasions: at the turn of the century, in the 1950s, in the 1970s, and now in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Each of these four flourishings of subliminal persuasion show a similar course of events. First, someone claims to find an effect; next, others attempt to replicate that effect and fail; the original finding is then criticized on methodological grounds; nevertheless the original claim is publicized and gains acceptance in lay audiences and the popular imagination. Today we have reached a point where one false effect from a previous era is used to validate a false claim from another.
URL: http://csicop.org/si/9204/subliminal-persuasion.html
(Added: 29-Apr-2000 Hits: 1269)
- The Forer Effect, subjective validation, the Barnum effect
The Forer or Barnum effect is also known as the subjective validation effect or the personal validation effect. Psychologist B.R. Forer found that people tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves without realizing that the same description could be applied to just about anyone.
URL: http://skepdic.com/forer.html
(Added: 28-Feb-2000 Hits: 1258)
- The Skeptic's Dictionary
Over 338 skeptical definitions and essays on occult, paranormal, supernatural and pseudoscientific
ideas and practices with references to the best skeptical literature.
URL: http://skepdic.com/
(Added: 28-Sep-1999 Hits: 1678)
- Unlikely Events and Coincidence
Pseudoscientists frequently take advantage of this inability of people to understand the nature of coincidence. Thus coincidences that are hardly remarkable are passed off as "miracles" that can only be explained by ESP, intervention by benevolent Space Brothers or guardian angels, etc. The failure to understand the odds is particularly noticeable when one hears about feats of alleged psychics, fortunetellers, astrologers, and others who claim to foresee future events.
URL: http://www.csj.org/studyindex/studycrthk/study_pseddoscience/study_factcoincidence.htm
(Added: 11-Oct-2000 Hits: 1132)
- Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die
Because beliefs are designed to enhance our ability to survive, they are biologically designed to be strongly resistant to change. To change beliefs, skeptics must address the brain's 'survival' issues of meanings and implications in addition to discussing their data.
URL: http://csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html
(Added: 19-Apr-2001 Hits: 1460)
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