25 Opinions On Things That Could Be Classified As Scams Or Pseudoscience
Many ideologies and beliefs exist simply because they once sounded convincing. Astonishingly, people continue to trust these concepts even though they have been disproven by science over time.
Unfortunately, the damage is done, and many still accept these myths as valid. However, Redditors are actively debunking the spread of misinformation by questioning the veracity of widely held beliefs that lack proof. Scroll below to check out a few suggestions from netizens regarding famous notions that are regarded as true despite evidence to the contrary.
#1
Nutritionist. You want to talk to a dietitian. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist.
#2
Lie detectors.
BoredAtWork1976:
There’s a good reason polygraphs aren’t admissible in court — its junk science. It really just measures how much stress the subject is feeling, and then it assumes that any sudden surges in stress mean the subject is lying (as opposed to the subject being stressed because he knows they’re trying to pin a crime on him).
#3
Chiropractors. If they don’t have peer reviewed journals, it’s pseudoscience. They are at best cracking joints for a lot of your money, at worst hurting you for a lot of your money.
#4
Gluten intolerance. Gluten free food is a massive scam.
I get there are people with a genuine medically diagnosed gluten intolerance, but there millions now who are self diagnosed (incorrectly) and have been caught up in the scam. My wife being one of them.
All sold to them through the “wellness” marketing machine.
#5
Homeopathy
Personality tests (e.g., Myers-Briggs)
Polygraph.
#6
Conversion therapy. you can’t un-gay-ify someone. the methods used are often just “intentionally traumatize this teenager so that they associate homosexuality/transgender identity with suffering”.
#7
“Alpha” based dog training.
#8
Anyone who says you need to “detox” your ________.
#9
Alkaline water. Your stomach acid neutralizes it instantly.
#10
The claim that your brain finishes developing at 25.
#11
Cleaning products marketing that they are “natural” and/or “organic”. Arsenic is natural and organic.
#12
Essential oils. Just smelly oil. They don’t do anything other than smell.
#13
Had a actual nurse practitioner tell me ear wax candles work…. Nope.
#14
Manifesting money by “raising your vibration”? Where’s the proof in that?
#15
Blood type horoscope b******t.
#16
Getting wet in the rain will make you sick. One does not “catch a cold” while outside in the rain.
#17
Pretty much anything related to “race” as a scientific idea rather than a social construct.
Racial definitions are based on pseudoscience and a few visible phenotypes but don’t really correlated with anything scientific.
#18
Just about anything peddled with the word ‘wellness’ in the description.
#19
Love languages. These were created by a Christian couple “therapist” who encouraged abused women to stay with their husbands. These “languages” have no real scientific value; they’re inconsistent when applied to a person/couple, and are generally just things you normally see in any couple.
(Edited for clarity).
#20
Sending your child to a “program” in the Trouble Teen Industry to get “help” with their mental health only for them to leave with more trauma. Those programs are trash. Wilderness therapy was a therapeutic model created to have a low overhead to maximize profits and serve as a pipeline feeder for residential treatment centers and “therapeutic boarding schools”, often owned by the same parent company….
#21
Fire cutters. It’s a wild thing some people I know in France genuinely swear by. It’s where your doctor sends essentially magic, even over the phone, to heal ailments and pain. It floors me how much they believe it!
#22
A lot of the hype around vitamins. Many if not most are unneeded for the majority of people and don’t get absorbed anyway.
#23
Fire cutters. It’s a wild thing some people I know in France genuinely swear by. It’s where your doctor sends essentially magic, even over the phone, to heal ailments and pain. It floors me how much they believe it!
#24
Live Blood analysis.
“Live blood analysis (LBA), also known as darkfield microscopy or live cell analysis, is a method where a small drop of blood is examined under a microscope to assess a person’s health. It involves observing the blood’s components, like red and white blood cells, platelets, and plasma, in their live state, looking for patterns and abnormalities that may indicate imbalances or deficiencies according to Holistic Fertility Group.”
I know a person who does this, she always comes back saying she has parasites in her blood and needs to cleanse. Is she did have parasites she would be very sick, but she just doesn’t get it…
#25
Anything Freudian. I find it alarming that his theories are given the time of day at all. It seems like unfalsifiable bunkum to me.
Shanilou Perera
Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.
