---
title: "List of topics characterized as pseudoscience"
chunk: 7/18
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"
---

The field has been compared to pseudoscience due to irreproducible or contradictory findings, exaggerated claims of usefulness and lack of high quality research protocols. Ear candling, also called ear coning or thermal-auricular therapy, is a pseudoscientific alternative medicine practice claimed to improve general health and well-being by lighting one end of a hollow candle and placing the other end in the ear canal. Medical research has shown that the practice is both dangerous and ineffective and does not functionally remove earwax or toxicants, despite product design contributing to that impression.