---
title: "List of topics characterized as pseudoscience"
chunk: 11/18
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:29:53.539791+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Research concerning qigong has been conducted for a wide range of medical conditions, including hypertension, pain and cancer, and with respect to quality of life. Most research concerning health benefits of qigong has been of poor quality, such that it would be unwise to draw firm conclusions at this stage. Zang-fu – concept of organs as functional yin and yang entities for the storage and manipulation of qi. These organs are not based in anatomy. Tomatis Method A type of auditory integration training devised by Alfred A. Tomatis and promoted, without supporting evidence, as being of benefit to people with autism. Urine therapy – drinking either one's own undiluted urine or homeopathic potions of urine for treatment of a wide variety of diseases is based on pseudoscience. Promotion of a link between autism and vaccines, in which the vaccines are accused of causing autism-spectrum conditions, triggering them, or aggravating them, has been characterized as pseudoscience. Many epidemiological studies have reported no association between either the MMR vaccine and autism, or thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. Consequently, the Institute of Medicine has concluded that there is no causal link between either of these varieties of vaccines and autism. Similarly, "vaccine overload", a non-medical term describing the notion that giving many vaccines at once may overwhelm or weaken a child's immature immune system and lead to adverse effects is strongly contradicted by scientific evidence. Vitalism – doctrine that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is, in some part, self-determining. The book Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience stated "today, vitalism is one of the ideas that form the basis for many pseudoscientific health systems that claim that illnesses are caused by a disturbance or imbalance of the body's vital force." "Vitalists claim to be scientific, but in fact they reject the scientific method with its basic postulates of cause and effect and of provability. They often regard subjective experience to be more valid than objective material reality."
Water memory – a homeopathic theory based on the purported ability of water to retain a memory of substances previously dissolved in it. Wilson's syndrome (not to be confused with Wilson's disease) is an alternative medicine concept, not recognized as a legitimate diagnosis in evidence-based medicine. Its supporters describe Wilson's syndrome as a mix of common and non-specific symptoms which they attribute to low body temperature and impaired conversion of thyroxine (T4) to triiodothyronine (T3), despite normal thyroid function tests. The American Thyroid Association (ATA) says Wilson's syndrome is at odds with established knowledge of thyroid function, has vague diagnostic criteria and lacks supporting scientific evidence. The ATA further raised concern that the proposed treatments were potentially harmful. Wind turbine syndrome and wind farm syndrome are terms for adverse health effects that have been ascribed to the proximity of wind turbines. Proponents have claimed that these effects include death, cancer and congenital abnormality. The distribution of recorded events, however, correlates with media coverage of wind farm syndrome itself and not with the presence or absence of wind farms. Reviews of the scientific literature have consistently found no reason to believe that wind turbines are harmful to health.