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+---
+title: "21 grams experiment"
+chunk: 1/2
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:58.393301+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The 21 grams experiment refers to a study published in 1907 by Duncan MacDougall, a physician from Haverhill, Massachusetts. MacDougall hypothesized that souls have physical weight, and attempted to measure the mass lost by a human when the soul departed the body. MacDougall attempted to measure the mass change of six patients at the moment of death. One of the six subjects lost three-quarters of an ounce (21.3 grams).
+MacDougall stated his experiment would have to be repeated many times before any conclusion could be obtained. The experiment is widely regarded as flawed and unscientific due to the small sample size, the methods used, as well as the fact only one of the six subjects met the hypothesis. The case has been cited as an example of selective reporting. Despite its rejection within the scientific community, MacDougall's experiment popularized the concept that the soul has weight, and specifically that it weighs 21 grams.
+
+== Experiment ==
+
+In 1901, Duncan MacDougall, a physician from Haverhill, Massachusetts, who wished to scientifically determine if a soul had weight, identified six patients in nursing homes whose deaths were imminent. Four were suffering from tuberculosis, one from diabetes, and one from unspecified causes. MacDougall specifically chose people who were suffering from conditions that caused physical exhaustion, as he needed the patients to remain still when they died to measure them accurately. When the patients looked like they were close to death, their entire bed was placed on an industrial sized scale that was sensitive within two tenths of an ounce (5.6 grams). On the belief that humans have souls and that animals do not, MacDougall later measured the changes in weight from fifteen dogs after death. MacDougall said he wished to use dogs that were sick or dying for his experiment, though was unable to find any. It is therefore presumed he poisoned healthy dogs.
+
+=== Results ===
+One of the patients lost weight but then put the weight back on, and two of the other patients registered a loss of weight at death but a few minutes later lost even more weight. One of the patients lost "three-fourths of an ounce" (21.3 grams) in weight, coinciding with the time of death. MacDougall disregarded the results of another patient on the grounds the scales were "not finely adjusted", and discounted the results of another as the patient died while the equipment was still being calibrated. MacDougall said that none of the dogs lost any weight after death.
+While MacDougall believed that the results from his experiment showed the human soul might have weight, his report, which was not published until 1907, stated the experiment would have to be repeated many times before any conclusion could be obtained.
+
+== Reaction ==
+
+Before MacDougall was able to publish the results of his experiments, The New York Times broke the story in an article titled "Soul has Weight, Physician Thinks." MacDougall's results were published in April of the same year in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, and the medical journal American Medicine.
+
+=== Criticism ===
+Following the publication of the experiment in American Medicine, physician Augustus P. Clarke criticized the experiment's validity. Clarke noted that at the time of death there is a sudden rise in body temperature as the lungs are no longer cooling blood, causing a subsequent rise in sweating which could easily account for MacDougall's missing 21 grams. Clarke also pointed out that, as dogs do not have sweat glands, they would not lose weight in this manner after death. Clarke's criticism was published in the May issue of American Medicine. Arguments between MacDougall and Clarke debating the validity of the experiment continued to be published in the journal until at least December that year.
+MacDougall's experiment has been rejected by the scientific community, and he has been accused of both flawed methods and outright fraud in obtaining his results. Noting that only one of the six patients measured supported the hypothesis, Karl Kruszelnicki has stated the experiment is a case of selective reporting, as MacDougall ignored the majority of the results. Kruszelnicki also criticized the small sample size, and questioned how MacDougall was able to determine the exact moment when a person had died considering the technology available at the time. Physicist Robert L. Park has written that MacDougall's experiments "are not regarded today as having any scientific merit", and psychologist Bruce Hood wrote that "because the weight loss was not reliable or replicable, his findings were unscientific." Professor Richard Wiseman said that within the scientific community, the experiment is confined to a "large pile of scientific curiosities labelled 'almost certainly not true'."
+An article by Snopes in 2013 said the experiment was flawed because the methods used were suspect, the sample size was much too small, and the capability to measure weight changes too imprecise, concluding: "credence should not be given to the idea his experiments proved something, let alone that they measured the weight of the soul as 21 grams." The fact that MacDougall likely poisoned and killed fifteen healthy dogs in an attempt to support his research has also been a source of criticism.
+
+=== Aftermath ===
+In 1911, The New York Times reported that MacDougall was hoping to run experiments to take photos of souls, but he appears to not have continued any further research into the area and died in 1920. His experiment has not been repeated.

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+---
+title: "21 grams experiment"
+chunk: 2/2
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:58.393301+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Similar experiments ==
+In December 2001, physicist Lewis E. Hollander Jr. published an article in Journal of Scientific Exploration where he exhibited the results of a similar experiment. He tested the weight of one ram, seven ewes, three lambs and one goat at the moment of death, seeking to explore upon MacDougall's purported findings. His experiment showed that seven of the adult sheep varied their weight upon dying, though not losing it, but rather gaining an amount of 18 to 780 grams, which was lost again over time until returning to their initial weight. In 2009, Hollander Jr.'s experiment was subjected to critical review by Masayoshi Ishida in the same journal. Ishida found Hollander's statement of a transient gain of weight was "not an appropriate expression of the experimental result", though he admitted "the cause of the force event remains to be explained." He also warned about possible malfunctions of the weighing platform in two of the cases.
+Similarly inspired by MacDougall's research, physician Gerard Nahum proposed in 2005 a follow-up experiment, based on utilizing an array of electromagnetic detectors to try to pick up any type of escaping energy at the moment of death. He offered to sell his idea to engineering, physics, and philosophy departments at Yale, Stanford, and Duke University, as well as the Catholic Church, but he was rejected.
+
+== In popular culture ==
+Despite its rejection as scientific fact, MacDougall's experiment popularized the idea that the soul has weight, and specifically that it weighs 21 grams. The title of the film 21 Grams references the experiment.
+The concept of a soul weighing 21 grams is mentioned in numerous media, including a 2013 issue of the manga Gantz, a 2013 podcast of Welcome to Night Vale, the 2015 film The Empire of Corpses, a 2021 episode of Ted Lasso, and a 2023 issue of the manga One Piece. Songs entitled "21 Grams" which reference the weight of a soul have been released by Looptroop Rockers (2005), Niykee Heaton (2015), Fedez (2015), August Burns Red (2015), Thundamentals (2017), Arena (2022), and Klan featuring Madeline Juno (2024). Songs that reference the concept include  "Duck or Ape" by Roar (2010), "No Bystanders" by Travis Scott (2018), "La Yugular" by Rosalía (2025) and "The Manifesto" by Gorillaz (2026). 
+MacDougall and his experiments are explicitly mentioned in the 1978 documentary film Beyond and Back, and episode five of the first season of the 2011 television series Dark Matters: Twisted But True. A fictional American scientist named "Mr. MacDougall" appears in Gail Carriger's 2009 novel Soulless, as an expert in the weight and measurement of souls, and a similar experiment appears in the 2009 novel The Lost Symbol, conducted by the character Katherine Solomon in her noetic sciences lab. In 2022, the TV series Evil featured a fictional recreation of the experiment in the episode "The Demon of Death". In the 2016 alternate reality game Cipher Hunt, an encrypted message on a contract selling your soul can be deciphered as "you're now 21 grams lighter."
+
+== See also ==
+Fringe science
+
+== References ==
+
+== External links ==
+Duncan MacDougall's original report

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_charcoal_cleanse-0.md

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+---
+title: "Activated charcoal cleanse"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_charcoal_cleanse"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:59.462593+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Activated charcoal cleanses, also known as charcoal detoxes, are a pseudoscientific use of a proven medical intervention for poisoning, activated charcoal. Activated charcoal is available in powder, tablet, and liquid form. Its proponents claim the use of activated charcoal regularly will detoxify and cleanse the body as well as boost one's energy and brighten the skin. Such claims violate basic principles of chemistry and physiology. There is no medical evidence for any health benefits of cleanses or detoxes via activated charcoal or any other method. Charcoal, when ingested, will absorb vitamins and nutrients as well as prescription medications present in the gastrointestinal tract which can make it dangerous to use unless directed by a medical doctor.
+
+
+== Background ==
+
+
+=== Production and industrial applications ===
+
+Activated charcoal, also known as activated carbon, is commonly produced from high-carbon source materials such as wood or coconut husk. It is made by treating the source material with either a combination of heat and pressure, or with a strong acid or base followed by carbonization to make it highly porous. This gives it a very large surface area for its volume, up to 3000 square metres per gram. It has a large number of industrial uses including methane and hydrogen storage, air purification, decaffeination, gold purification, metal extraction, water purification, medicine, sewage treatment and air filters in gas masks and respirators.
+
+
+=== Medical use ===
+
+Activated charcoal is used to detoxify people, but only in life-threatening medical emergencies such as overdoses or poisonings. As it is indigestible it will only work on poisons or medications still present in the stomach and intestines. Once these have been absorbed by the body the charcoal will no longer be able to adsorb them so early intervention is desirable. Charcoal is not an effective treatment for alcohol, metals or elemental poisons such as lithium or arsenic as it will only adsorb certain chemicals and molecules. It is usually administered by a nasogastric tube into the stomach as the thick slurry required for maximum adsorption is very difficult to swallow.
+
+
+== Use in alternative therapies ==
+
+Activated charcoal, as used in cleanses or detoxes, became popular around 2014 after it was brought to mainstream attention by Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop company where it was described as "one of the best juice cleanses". In the following years, it became a popular additive to many different types of foods and drinks including juices, lemonades, coffee, pastries, ice cream, burgers, pizzas and pet food. The City of New York has banned activated charcoal in food products unless approval for their use is granted from the FDA. Activated charcoal, excluding products designed for emergency medical interventions, is available in many pharmacies, wellness and health food stores in tablet, capsule and powder forms.
+
+
+=== Claims ===
+Proponents of charcoal detoxes claim that it will cleanse the body by aiding in the removal of excess toxins that the body is unable to get rid of by itself. Other claims made include that the use of activated charcoal provides anti-ageing benefits, will increase energy, brighten skin, decrease flatulence and bloating, and aid weight loss. It is also said to be an ideal product in skincare products for improving acne and scarring.
+
+
+=== Criticism ===
+Scott Gavura of Science Based Medicine was highly critical of the use of activated charcoal in the wellness industry. In his 2015 article "Activated charcoal: The latest detox fad in an obsessive food culture", he said:Fake detox, the kind you find in magazines, and sold in pharmacies, juice bars, and health food stores, is make-believe medicine. The use of the term 'toxin' in this context is meaningless. There are no toxins named, because there's no evidence that these treatments do anything at all, but it sounds just scientific enough to be plausible.Sophie Medlin, a lecturer in nutrition and dietetics at King's College in London suggests avoiding the use of activated charcoal cleanses for several reasons:
+It will bind with nutrients in food present in the stomach and intestines, making the food less nutritious.
+It will bind with some medications, making it dangerous to use if medications have recently been used.
+Charcoal will only adsorb particles present in the gastrointestinal tract when it is taken. If taken to cure a hangover from consuming alcohol the night before, it will not work.
+Activated charcoal will slow down the bowel and can cause nausea, constipation and dehydration.
+Jay Rayner of The Guardian contacted a manufacturer of activated charcoal lemonade to ask about its detoxifying properties. He was told that they make no claims at all about the product. When he then asked how the product detoxes the body, he was told that he was confusing the term "detox" with the medical term "detoxification".
+
+Carrie Dennett of The Seattle Times said of activated charcoal:unless you have a rare health condition that renders your liver—or its supporting players: your kidneys, digestive system, lungs and lymphatic system—unable to perform as designed, then your body doesn't need help. Unless you have overdosed or been poisoned, there's no substantial evidence that activated charcoal will benefit you.Charcoal is also used as an alternative to whitening products in toothpastes, but was found to not be as effective in whitening the teeth as regular products such as hydrogen peroxide.
+
+
+== See also ==
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Anti-Aging_Medicine-0.md

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+---
+title: "American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine"
+chunk: 1/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Anti-Aging_Medicine"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:09:00.684461+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) is a United States 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, that promotes the field of anti-aging medicine, and the organization trains and certifies physicians in this specialty. As of 2011, approximately 26,000 practitioners had been given A4M certificates.  The field of anti-aging medicine is not recognized by established medical organizations, such as the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and the American Medical Association (AMA). The academy's activities include lobbying and public relations. The A4M was founded in 1993 by osteopathic physicians Robert M. Goldman and Ronald Klatz, and as of 2013 claimed 26,000 members from 120 countries.
+Several of the anti-aging methods recommended by the academy have wide support among experts in the field, such as exercise and a healthy diet, but others, such as hormone treatments, do not have support from a consensus of the wider medical community. Many scientists studying aging, dissociate themselves from the claims of A4M, and critics have accused the group of using misleading marketing to sell expensive and ineffective products. The A4M's founders and merchants who promote products through the organization have been involved in legal and professional disputes.
+The activities of the A4M are controversial: in 2003 a commentary on the response of the scientific community to the promotion of anti-aging medicine noted that the activities of the A4M were seen as a threat to the credibility of serious scientific research on aging. According to MSNBC, anti-aging advocates have responded to such criticism by describing it as censorship perpetrated by a conspiracy of the US government, notably the Food and Drug Administration, the AMA, and the mainstream media, motivated by competing commercial interests. Tom Perls of the Boston University School of Medicine, a prominent critic of the organization, has stated that claims of censorship and suppression are a common theme in what he calls "anti-aging quackery".
+
+== Beliefs ==
+According to The New York Times, their co-founder and president Ronald Klatz stated that "We're not about growing old gracefully. We're about never growing old."
+Writing in the 2001 issue of the journal Generations, historian Carole Haber of the University of Delaware, states that Klatz' aspirations  and the rhetoric of the A4M "reflect well-worn ideas and the often-enunciated hopes of the past", drawing parallels with the ideas of the 19th century physiologists Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard, Serge Voronoff and Eugen Steinach. Haber states that the current resurgence of these ideas may be due to their appeal to the aging Baby Boom Generation, in a culture that is focused on the ideal of youth.  Haber has also discussed the strong continuities within the philosophy of the anti-aging movement, writing that "For Steinach and Voronoff, as for the members of the A4M, old age was a 'grotesque' disease that could be scientifically eradicated through the correct combination of hormones, diet, and surgery."
+A 2006 review of anti-aging medicine notes that of the researchers who are interested in this topic, the "vast majority dissociate themselves from the A4M." The Los Angeles Times states that "Many physicians, researchers and scientists, delving into the physiological aspects of human aging, view the Academy's activities with disdain, saying that the organization is an inappropriate blend of scientific and commercial interests."
+
+== Activities ==
+The main activity of the A4M is PR and advocacy for its brand of anti-aging medicine. It does this through publications, on-line activity and sponsoring conferences including the World Anti-Aging Congress and Exposition and the Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine. Some of these conferences are in conjunction with the World Anti-Aging Academy of Medicine, an umbrella group for several national anti-aging organizations that is also headed by Goldman. The Los Angeles Times stated that the 2004 annual conference of the A4M at Las Vegas presented a mix of "scientific and technical presentations" and exhibitors selling "wrinkle creams, hair-growing potions, sexual enhancement pills and hormone treatments".
+According to a review of the anti-aging movement published in 2005, the A4M is one of the most prominent organizations that are making "attempts at legitimizing anti-aging as a medical specialty". The review notes that these efforts at legitimization are contentious and have been rebuffed by some academic scientists who work on aging, who instead attempt to portray the A4M as "charlatans whose main goal is making money." In a review of the history of anti-aging medicine published in 2004, Robert Binstock of Case Western Reserve University noted that A4M "actively solicits and displays numerous advertisements on its website for products and services (such as cosmetics and alternative medicines and therapies), anti-aging clinics, and anti-aging physicians and practitioners." The Times reported in 2004 that Klatz professes outrage at suggestions that he is motivated by money, quoting him as insisting that "The only thing that I sell are books... my website is non-commercial – we're just trying to advance science." The Times went on to note a partnership between Klatz and Goldman and a business named Market America, which sells products that promise to "slow the ageing process". However, according to a 2005 article in the Chicago Tribune, the company later pulled out of this contract.
+The A4M's American Board of Anti-Aging Medicine (ABAAM) states that it offers anti-aging medicine as a specialty and gives educational credits to those who attend A4M conferences. The New York Times has reported that the American Board of Medical Specialties does not recognize this body as having professional standing. MSNBC noted that "as far as the American Medical Association or the American Board of Medical Specialties is concerned, there is no such thing as an anti-aging specialty." Robert Binstock stated in a 2004 review article in The Gerontologist that "Although the organization is not recognized by the American Medical Association, A4M has established three board-certification programs under its auspices—for physicians, chiropractors, dentists, naturopaths, podiatrists, pharmacists, registered nurses, nurse practitioners, nutritionists, dieticians, sports trainers and fitness consultants, and PhDs."

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+---
+title: "American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine"
+chunk: 2/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Anti-Aging_Medicine"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:09:00.684461+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Publications ==
+The A4M publishes Anti Aging Medical News, a trade periodical which is their official magazine, as well as proceedings of its anti-aging conferences in a periodical called Anti-Aging Therapeutics, this is edited by Klatz and Goldman.
+The International Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine (IJAAM) was another periodical published by the A4M. According to Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, IJAAM was published by Total Health Holdings, LLC from 1998 to 2001, on behalf of the A4M.
+The contents of the International Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine have been strongly criticised. In a 2002 letter published in Science, Aubrey de Grey described them as consisting of a set of advertisements for a "pseudoscientific anti-aging industry". According to Bruce Carnes of the University of Oklahoma:
+
+This alleged "journal" is particularly misleading because it gives the false impression that it is a genuine scientific journal and that what is published in it is peer-reviewed. It is little more than an advertising vehicle for every conceivable anti-aging product.
+Leonard Hayflick of the University of California, San Francisco, a former editor of Experimental Gerontology, writes:
+
+The International Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine is not a recognized scientific journal. What I find reprehensible about this 'journal' is that advertisers who publish in it can then claim there is scientific evidence to support their outrageous assertions by pointing to the publication in an alleged scientific journal.
+In 2009 the A4M stated that it is no longer associated with the journal and that it had sold its interests in this publication in 1999. They also defended the scientific quality of its contents, writing that almost all of its articles were reviewed by an editorial board before publication. Robert Binstock of Case Western Reserve University stated in 2004 that this periodical is a "nonrefereed publication".
+
+== Divergent views on anti-aging products ==
+According to a 2002 article in the Seattle Times, there are two opposing viewpoints of anti-aging products. The article states that the first view is represented by scientists who publish their findings in the scientific literature and who believe that no currently available intervention can slow or prevent aging. The alternative viewpoint is represented by people who the article states have "fewer credentials" and who promote a range of products that claim to have anti-aging properties. A similar observation was made by Business Week in 2006, when they stated that although anti-aging medicine is increasingly popular, there is "precious little scientific data to back up their claims that the potions extend life."
+As an example of the first viewpoint, a 2004 review in Trends in Biotechnology written by Leigh Turner of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey stated that the products promoted by the A4M have "no credible scientific basis" and that "there are no proven, scientifically established 'anti-aging' medications". A 2006 review published in the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine of the antioxidants and hormones that are promoted as anti-aging products by A4M and clinics like the Palm Springs Life Extension Institute concluded that these products have "minimal to no effect on improving longevity or functional abilities." In an editorial accompanying this study, Thomas Perls stated that although many unjustified claims were made about anti-ageing products, no substance had yet been shown to halt or slow the aging process. Similarly, the National Institute on Aging, who are part of the National Institutes of Health, published a general warning in 2009 against businesses that claim anti-aging benefits for their products, describing these as "health scams" and stating that "no treatments have been proven to slow or reverse the aging process".
+The Seattle Times quotes Klatz as describing those who doubt the validity of anti-aging medicine as "flat-earthers" who make unjustified criticisms that are not backed by scientific evidence, the article also states that Klatz "sees the science and medical establishments as out to get him."
+
+=== Human growth hormone controversy ===

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+---
+title: "American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine"
+chunk: 3/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Anti-Aging_Medicine"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:09:00.684461+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine was formed following a 1990 study on human growth hormone (hGH) that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was performed by Daniel Rudman and colleagues at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Rudman had treated twelve men over 60 years of age with human growth hormone; after six months, these men had an increase in lean body mass and a decrease in adipose tissue mass when compared with a group of nine men who did not receive hormone.  Members of the anti-aging movement have interpreted these results to support a role for growth hormone in slowing or reversing aging. A review in The Journal of Urology noted that this promotion of growth hormone as an anti-aging remedy is "arguably similar" to ideas that date back to the late 19th century, when the physiologist Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard advocated rejuvenating hormone products prepared from animal testicles and stated that "the injections have taken 30 years off my life".
+The New York Times reports that the idea that growth hormone can improve "health, energy level and sense of well-being." is a core belief of the A4M, with Klatz writing a book in 1998 entitled Grow Young with HGH: The Amazing Medically Proven Plan to Reverse Aging where he states "The 'Fountain of Youth' lies within the cells of each of us. All you need to do is release it". A 2005 review in the Journal of Endocrinological Investigation noted the long history of these ideas, but stated that the "concept of a 'hormonal fountain of youth' is predominantly mythological."  Nevertheless, Klatz maintains that growth hormone reverses aging as a physical process and has described growth hormone as "the first medically proven age-reversal therapy." However, MSNBC reports that Daniel Rudman, the author of the 1990 study that sparked the movement, "issued many caveats and cautions about using HGH and never recommended its use to delay aging. In fact, he was horrified his study was being used to support the industry especially since heavy use of growth hormone can have unwanted side effects".
+The New York Times states that medical authorities not affiliated with the A4M question the safety and efficacy of the use of growth hormone in anti-aging medicine, quoting Michael Fossell of Michigan State University who stated that "hormone therapies are the new patent medicines – cure-alls embraced by a too-trusting public."  A 2003 review that was published in the Annual Review of Medicine noted that the long-term risks or benefits of this treatment are uncertain, that "neither the benefits nor the dangers have been defined" and advising that a "prudent physician should not condone the use of GH for normal aging".
+As a result of the reactions to the 1990 article and its frequent citation by proponents of HGH as an anti-aging agent, in 2003 the New England Journal of Medicine published two articles that strongly and clearly stated that there was insufficient medical and scientific evidence to support use of HGH as anti-aging drug. One article was written by the Journal's then-editor in chief, Jeffrey M. Drazen, M.D. and was entitled, "Inappropriate Advertising of Dietary Supplements". It focused mostly on the advertising of dietary supplements.  The other article was written by the editor-in-chief at the time the 1990 article was published, Mary Lee Vance, M.D., and was entitled, "Can Growth Hormone Prevent Aging?"; it focused more on the medical issues around whether there was sufficient evidence to use HGH as an anti-aging agent.
+A 2007 review on the use of human growth hormone as an anti-aging treatment in healthy elderly people published in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded the risks of HGH significantly outweigh the benefits, noted soft tissue edema as a common side effect and found no evidence that the hormone prolongs life.  ABC News interviewed Hau Liu of Stanford University and lead author of the paper, who stated that people are paying thousands of dollars a year for a treatment that has not been proved to be beneficial and has many side effects.  ABC News also reported that the A4M disputed the conclusions of this review, quoting from an A4M statement which maintained that growth hormone supplementation is beneficial in healthy adults and which described arguments against the use of the hormone as a "heinous act of malpractice".
+Some small studies have shown that low-dose GH treatment for adults with severe GH deficiency, such as that produced after surgical removal of the pituitary gland, produces positive changes in body composition by increasing muscle mass, decreasing fat mass, increasing bone density and muscle strength; improves cardiovascular parameters (i.e. decrease of LDL cholesterol), and improves quality of life without significant side effects. The extension of this approach to healthy elderly people is an area of current research, with a 2000 review in Hormone Research commenting that "Clearly more studies are needed before GH replacement for the elderly becomes established." and noting that "safety issues will require close scrutiny".
+A 2008 review of the controversy surrounding the use of growth hormone in anti-aging medicine which published in Clinical Interventions in Aging noted the opinions of the A4M on this topic, but suggested that high levels of growth hormone might actually accelerate aging. This concern was repeated by the United States National Institute on Aging who stated in 2009 that:

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+---
+title: "American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine"
+chunk: 4/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Anti-Aging_Medicine"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:09:00.684461+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+As with other hormones, hGH levels often decline with age, but this decrease is not necessarily bad. At least one epidemiological study suggests that people who have high levels of hGH are more apt to die at younger ages than those with lower levels of the hormone.  Researchers have also studied animals with genetic disorders that suppress growth hormone production and secretion and found reduced growth hormone secretion may actually promote longevity in those species that have been tested.
+The Clinical Interventions in Aging review also stated that although the decreasing levels of the hormone seen in the elderly might reduce quality of life, this change could protect from age-related diseases and cited evidence linking GH to cancer. This concern was mirrored in a 2008 review published in Clinical Endocrinology, which stated that the risk of increasing the incidence of cancer was a strong argument against the use of this hormone as an "elixir of youth" in healthy adults.
+
+== Legal disputes ==
+
+=== Credential dispute ===
+The academy's co-founders include Klatz and Goldman, who are licensed osteopathic physicians and have Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degrees (D.O.). However, according to The New York Times, they also received M.D. degrees as doctors of medicine from a university in Belize in 1988, although the paper notes that they had not studied in Belize. In 2009 Klatz and Goldman stated that these degrees involved eight years of medical and surgical training and a year of clinical rotations. The New York Times reported that the Illinois State Board of Medical Registration did not recognize these M.D. degrees, and stated that the Board fined the men for using M.D. after their names. Writing in 2004, The Times stated that Klatz and Goldman "agreed to pay $5,000 penalties for allegedly identifying themselves as doctors of medicine in the state without being "properly licensed"." The Illinois Division of Professional Regulation disciplinary records state that Klatz and Goldman "agreed to cease and desist using the designation "M.D." in addition to the appropriate "D.O." title and fined $5,000. Both physicians did receive degrees as doctors of medicine, but were never properly licensed to use the title "M.D." in Illinois". In 2009, Klatz and Goldman stated that Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation had determined that they are currently:
+
+licensed physicians and surgeons of osteopathic medicine in good standing in Illinois for over 20 years, which allows them to practice and carry out all duties equivalent to what a medical doctor, an M.D., may do in Illinois.
+They go on to state that they have "valid M.D. degrees from a recognized medical school". Writing in 2004, the historian Carole Haber put this dispute into context, noting that "like the gland doctors before them, the leaders of the A4M have had their practices and credentials assailed by the medical and legal communities".
+
+=== Regulatory and tort issues ===
+Two articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association have stated that the use of growth hormone as an anti-aging product is illegal. However, Klatz and Goldman dispute this, arguing that this use of growth hormone is legal. The United States Department of Justice states that growth hormone is a potentially dangerous drug and its supply "for any use ... other than the treatment of a disease or other recognized medical condition, where such use has been authorized by the Secretary of Human Services" is a felony under the Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990. Similarly, the FDA has stated in a Warning Letter that no growth hormone products have been approved as anti-aging treatments and supply for this use is therefore illegal and an "offense punishable by not more than 5 years in prison". In 2007 The New York Times discussed ongoing federal and state investigations into illegal trafficking of human growth hormone and anabolic steroids, noting that "many of the individuals and companies cited in the indictments have been involved with the academy and its conventions over the years". However, the paper notes that the academy is not accused of any wrongdoing as part of these investigations and quotes Klatz and Goldman as stating that "they barely knew the suspects or the nature of their businesses". A May 2000 article in the Los Angeles Times suggested that, from an examination of the disciplinary records of doctors in California, members of the A4M in this state were approximately ten times more likely to be disciplined than the national average. In the article, Klatz is quoted as commenting that:
+
+When you are out on the frontier, you are going to attract some of the very best people, and some who are ... not the very best. We have had situations where we've had to contact people and say, 'Would you mind affiliating yourself with another organization?' It is an ongoing process, and I think we are attracting better and better doctors.
+
+=== Wikipedia ===
+According to lawyers claiming to act for A4M and one or more people involved with it, their clients had initiated "defamation actions in New York and Massachusetts" against Wikipedia editors in 2009.
+According to Courthouse News Service, the A4M co-founders Ronald Klatz and Robert Goldman are pursuing legal action against the online encyclopedia Wikipedia in New York County Court, seeking damages for alleged defamation.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Anti-Aging_Medicine-4.md

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+---
+title: "American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine"
+chunk: 5/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Anti-Aging_Medicine"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:09:00.684461+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Dispute with Olshansky and Perls ===
+In 2002, A4M was a co-recipient of the first "Silver Fleece Award", created to publicize "the most ridiculous claims about antiaging medicine" according to the award's inventor, S. Jay Olshansky. Heated legal and academic controversies ensued. Olshansky, a biodemographer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, described it as "a lighthearted attempt to make the public aware of ... anti-aging quackery". This "award" was presented by Olshansky, who stated that in his opinion, a "suite of anti-aging substances created by Ronald Klatz and Robert Goldman ... and sold on the Internet by Market America, Inc." had made "outrageous or exaggerated claims about slowing or reversing human aging". Writing in Biogerontology, anthropologist Courtney Mykytyn of the University of Southern California states that this award appears to have been an attempt by Olshansky to protect what he saw as "'real' science from the taint of swindle." Mykytyn states that this involved Olshansky "tagging the A4M as fraudulent and its principals as profiteers". In response, the academy filed defamation lawsuits, demanding $150 million in damages, with Klatz stating "We take great exception to Mr Olshansky and his tactics which have finally compelled us to file suit for various unprofessional and improper actions". Klatz and Goldman described this action as "part of a larger campaign of disparagement by Olshansky and Perls aimed at discrediting A4M and its founders". The Chicago Tribune quoted experts on libel law who stated that the action was an "almost unheard-of attempt to punish academics for comments made in their professional capacity". CNN states that Olshansky countersued and that "both sides eventually agreed to drop their cases". The Chicago Tribune states that the case "ended in a settlement, with neither side paying damages or the other's costs."
+In 2002, Olshansky, Hayflick, and Carnes published a position paper, endorsed by 51 scientists in the field of aging, stating that "no currently marketed intervention has yet been proved to slow, stop or reverse human aging...The entrepreneurs, physicians and other health care practitioners who make these claims are taking advantage of consumers who cannot easily distinguish between the hype and reality of interventions designed to influence the aging process and age-related diseases".
+In 2009, Imre Zs-Nagy of the University of Debrecen, Hungary, defended A4M from what he called the "gerontological establishment" in an editorial published in Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, a journal Zs-Nagy founded and of which he is editor-in-chief. Zs-Nagy defended therapies promoted by A4M, which he states are related to his own "membrane hypothesis of aging", as theoretically feasible. He described the conflict between the scientific community and the academy as one pitting government funds, "personal gain" and "intellectual dishonesty" against the "independent, open-minded approach" of A4M, calling the conflict one of the "biggest scandals of the recent history of medicine".
+
+== See also ==
+Maximum life span
+ApothéCure Inc.
+Strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP Suits)
+List of organizations opposing mainstream science
+
+== References ==
+
+== External links ==
+A4M.com Official website
+Newspaper articles
+A Drug's Promise (or Not) of Youth Los Angeles Times
+Holding back the years with a little passion Daily Telegraph
+Holding back the years: Scientists say extended youth may be near The Seattle Times
+Selling The Promise Of Youth Business Week
+Academic and governmental
+Olshansky, S. Jay; Leonard Hayflick; Bruce A. Carnes (June 19, 2002). "Position Statement on Human Aging". Science of Aging Knowledge Environment. 2002 (24): pe9. doi:10.1126/sageke.2002.24.pe9. Retrieved September 14, 2009.
+Beware of Health Scams National Institute on Aging
+Can We Prevent Aging? National Institute on Aging

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalistics-0.md

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+---
+title: "Anomalistics"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalistics"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:09:01.767249+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Anomalistics is the use of scientific methods to evaluate anomalies (phenomena that fall outside current understanding), with the aim of finding a rational explanation. The term itself was coined in 1973 by Drew University anthropologist Roger W. Wescott, who defined it as being the "serious and systematic study of all phenomena that fail to fit the picture of reality provided for us by common sense or by the established sciences."
+Wescott credited journalist and researcher Charles Fort as being the creator of anomalistics as a field of research, and he named biologist Ivan T. Sanderson and Sourcebook Project compiler William R. Corliss as being instrumental in expanding anomalistics to introduce a more conventional perspective into the field.
+Henry Bauer, emeritus professor of science studies at Virginia Tech, writes that anomalistics is "a politically correct term for the study of bizarre claims", while David J. Hess of the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute describes it as being "the scientific study of anomalies defined as claims of phenomena not generally accepted by the bulk of the scientific community."
+Anomalistics covers several sub-disciplines, including ufology, cryptozoology, and parapsychology. Researchers involved in the field have included ufologist J. Allen Hynek and cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans, and parapsychologist John Hayes.
+
+
+== Field ==
+According to Marcello Truzzi, Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University, anomalistics works on the principles that "unexplained phenomena exist", but that most can be explained through the application of scientific scrutiny. Further, that something remains plausible until it has been conclusively proven not only implausible but actually impossible, something that science does not do. In 2000, he wrote that anomalistics has four basic functions:
+
+to aid in the evaluation of a wide variety of anomaly claims proposed by protoscientists;
+to understand better the process of scientific adjudication and to make that process both more just and rational;
+to build a rational conceptual framework for both categorizing and accessing anomaly claims; and
+to act in the role of amicus curiae ("friend of the court") to the scientific community in its process of adjudication.
+
+
+== Scope ==
+In the view of Truzzi, anomalistics has two core tenets governing its scope:
+
+Research must remain within the conventional boundaries; and
+Research must deal exclusively with "empirical claims of the extraordinary", rather than claims of a "metaphysical, theological or supernatural" nature.
+According to Wescott, anomalistics is also concerned with ostensibly paranormal phenomena, such as apparitions and poltergeists, or "psi" (parapsychology, e.g., ESP, psychokinesis and telepathy).
+
+
+== Validation ==
+According to Truzzi, before an explanation can be considered valid within anomalistics, it must fulfill four criteria. It must be based on conventional knowledge and reasoning; it must be kept simple and be unburdened by speculation or overcomplexity; the burden of proof must be placed on the claimant and not the researcher; and the more extraordinary the claim, the higher the level of proof required.
+Bauer states that nothing can be deemed proof within anomalistics unless it can gain "acceptance by the established disciplines".
+
+
+== Computational approaches ==
+Recent work has applied computational text analysis to large, citizen-compiled anomaly databases in an effort to identify recurring descriptive patterns across reports and time periods. In a 2025 study, Luke J. Matthews used machine-learning methods (including lexical clustering and large language model–assisted theme coding) to compare multiple historical and modern anomaly datasets, including UFO/UAP reports, and argued that some report features recur across diverse sources.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP)
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis-0.md

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+---
+title: "Aquatic ape hypothesis"
+chunk: 1/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:09:03.054964+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The aquatic ape hypothesis (AAH), also referred to as aquatic ape theory (AAT) or the waterside hypothesis of human evolution, postulates that the ancestors of modern humans took a divergent evolutionary pathway from the other great apes by becoming adapted to a more aquatic habitat. While the hypothesis has some popularity with the lay public, it is generally ignored or classified as pseudoscience by anthropologists.
+The theory developed before major discoveries of ancient hominin fossils in East Africa. The hypothesis was initially proposed by the English marine biologist Alister Hardy in 1960, who argued that a branch of apes was forced by competition over terrestrial habitats to hunt for food such as shellfish on the coast and seabed, leading to adaptations that explained distinctive characteristics of modern humans such as functional hairlessness and bipedalism. The popular science writer Elaine Morgan supported this hypothesis in her 1972 book The Descent of Woman. In it, she contrasted the theory with zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris's theories of sexuality, which she believed to be rooted in sexism.
+Anthropologists do not take the hypothesis seriously: John Langdon characterized it as an "umbrella hypothesis" (a hypothesis that tries to explain many separate traits of humans as a result of a single adaptive pressure) that was not consistent with the fossil record, and said that its claim that it was simpler and therefore more likely to be true than traditional explanations of human evolution was not true. According to anthropologist John Hawkes, the AAH is not consistent with the fossil record. Traits that the hypothesis tries to explain evolved at vastly different times, and distributions of soft tissue the hypothesis alleges are unique to humans are common among other primates.
+
+== History ==
+In 1942 the German pathologist Max Westenhöfer (1871–1957) discussed various human characteristics (hairlessness, subcutaneous fat, the regression of the olfactory organ, webbed fingers, direction of the body hair etc.) that could have derived from an aquatic past, quoting several other authors who had made similar speculations. As he did not believe human beings were apes, he believed this might have been during the Cretaceous, contrary to what is possible given the geologic and evolutionary biology evidence available at the time. He stated: "The postulation of an aquatic mode of life during an early stage of human evolution is a tenable hypothesis, for which further inquiry may produce additional supporting evidence." He later abandoned the concept.
+Independently of Westenhöfer's writings, the marine biologist Alister Hardy had since 1930 also hypothesized that humans may have had ancestors more aquatic than previously imagined, although his work, unlike Westenhöfer's, was rooted in the Darwinian consensus. On the advice of his colleagues, Hardy delayed presenting the hypothesis for approximately thirty years. After he had become a respected academic and knighted for contributions to marine biology, Hardy finally voiced his thoughts in a speech to the British Sub-Aqua Club in Brighton on 5 March 1960. Several national newspapers reported sensational presentations of Hardy's ideas, which he countered by explaining them more fully in an article in New Scientist on 17 March 1960: "My thesis is that a branch of this primitive ape-stock was forced by competition from life in the trees to feed on the sea-shores and to hunt for food, shellfish, sea-urchins etc., in the shallow waters off the coast."
+The idea was generally ignored by the scientific community after the article was published. Some interest was received, notably from the geographer Carl Sauer whose views on the role of the seashore in human evolution "stimulated tremendous progress in the study of coastal and aquatic adaptations" inside marine archaeology. In 1967, the hypothesis was mentioned in The Naked Ape, a popular book by the zoologist Desmond Morris, who reduced Hardy's phrase "more aquatic ape-like ancestors" to the bare "aquatic ape", commenting that "despite its most appealing indirect evidence, the aquatic theory lacks solid support".
+While traditional descriptions of 'savage' existence identified three common sources of sustenance: gathering of fruit and nuts, fishing, and hunting, in the 1950s, the anthropologist Raymond Dart focused on hunting and gathering as the likely organizing concept of human society in prehistory, and hunting was the focus of the screenwriter Robert Ardrey's 1961 best-seller African Genesis. Another screenwriter, Elaine Morgan, responded to this focus in her 1972 Descent of Woman, which parodied the conventional picture of "the Tarzanlike figure of the prehominid who came down from the trees, saw a grassland teeming with game, picked up a weapon and became a Mighty Hunter," and pictured a more peaceful scene of humans by the seashore. She took her lead from a section in Morris's 1967 book which referred to the possibility of an Aquatic Ape period in evolution, his name for the speculation by the biologist Alister Hardy in 1960. When it aroused no reaction in the academic community, she dropped the feminist criticism and wrote a series of books–The Aquatic Ape (1982), The Scars of Evolution (1990), The Descent of the Child (1994), The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (1997) and The Naked Darwinist (2008)–which explored the issues in more detail. Books published on the topic since then have avoided the contentious term aquatic and used waterside instead.
+
+== The Hardy/Morgan hypothesis ==
+Hardy's hypothesis as outlined in New Scientist was:

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis-1.md

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+---
+title: "Aquatic ape hypothesis"
+chunk: 2/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:09:03.054964+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+My thesis is that a branch of this primitive ape-stock was forced by competition from life in the trees to feed on the sea-shores and to hunt for food, shell fish, sea-urchins etc., in the shallow waters off the coast. I suppose that they were forced into the water just as we have seen happen in so many other groups of terrestrial animals. I am imagining this happening in the warmer parts of the world, in the tropical seas where Man could stand being in the water for relatively long periods, that is, several hours at a stretch.
+Hardy argued a number of features of modern humans are characteristic of aquatic adaptations. He pointed to humans' lack of body hair as being analogous to the same lack seen in whales and hippopotamuses, and noted the layer of subcutaneous fat humans have that Hardy believed other apes lacked, although it has been shown that captive apes with ample access to food have levels of subcutaneous fat similar to humans. Additional features cited by Hardy include the location of the trachea in the throat rather than the nasal cavity, the human propensity for front-facing copulation, tears and eccrine sweating, though these claimed pieces of evidence have alternative evolutionary adaptationist explanations that do not invoke an aquatic context.
+The diving reflex is sometimes cited as evidence. This is exhibited strongly in aquatic mammals, such as seals, otters and dolphins. It also exists as a lesser response in other animals, including human babies up to 6 months old (see infant swimming). However adult humans generally exhibit a mild response.
+Hardy additionally posited that bipedalism evolved first as an aid to wading before becoming the usual means of human locomotion, and tool use evolved out of the use of rocks to crack open shellfish. These last arguments were cited by later proponents of AAH as an inspiration for their research programs.
+Morgan summed up her take on the hypothesis in 2011:
+
+Waterside hypotheses of human evolution assert that selection from wading, swimming and diving and procurement of food from aquatic habitats have significantly affected the evolution of the lineage leading to Homo sapiens as distinct from that leading to Pan.
+
+== Reactions ==
+
+The AAH is generally ignored by anthropologists, although it has a following outside academia and conferences on the topic have received celebrity endorsement, for example from David Attenborough. Despite being debunked, it returns periodically, being promoted as recently as 2019.
+
+Academics who have commented on the aquatic ape hypothesis include categorical opponents (generally members of the community of academic anthropology) who reject almost all of the claims related to the hypothesis. Other academics have argued that the rejection of Hardy and Morgan is partially unfair given that other explanations which suffer from similar problems are not so strongly opposed. A conference devoted to the subject was held at Valkenburg, Netherlands, in 1987. Its 22 participants included academic proponents and opponents of the hypothesis and several neutral observers headed by the anthropologist Vernon Reynolds of the University of Oxford. His summary at the end was:Overall, it will be clear that I do not think it would be correct to designate our early hominid ancestors as 'aquatic'. But at the same time there does seem to be evidence that not only did they take to water from time to time but that the water (and by this I mean inland lakes and rivers) was a habitat that provided enough extra food to count as an agency for selection.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis-2.md

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+---
+title: "Aquatic ape hypothesis"
+chunk: 3/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:09:03.054964+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Critiques ===
+The AAH is considered to be a classic example of pseudoscience among the scholarly community, and has been met with significant skepticism. The Nature editor and paleontologist Henry Gee has argued that the hypothesis has equivalent merit to creationism, and should be similarly dismissed.
+In a 1997 critique, anthropologist John Langdon considered the AAH under the heading of an "umbrella hypothesis" and argued that the difficulty of ever disproving such a thing meant that although the idea has the appearance of being a parsimonious explanation, it actually was no more powerful an explanation than the null hypothesis that human evolution is not particularly guided by interaction with bodies of water. Langdon argued that however popular the idea was with the public, the "umbrella" nature of the idea means that it cannot serve as a proper scientific hypothesis. Langdon also objected to Morgan's blanket opposition to the "savannah hypothesis" which he took to be the "collective discipline of paleoanthropology". He observed that some anthropologists had regarded the idea as not worth the trouble of a rebuttal. In addition, the evidence cited by AAH proponents mostly concerned developments in soft tissue anatomy and physiology, whilst paleoanthropologists rarely speculated on evolutionary development of anatomy beyond the musculoskeletal system and brain size as revealed in fossils. After a brief description of the issues under 26 different headings, he produced a summary critique of these with mainly negative judgments. His main conclusion was that the AAH was unlikely ever to be disproved on the basis of comparative anatomy, and that the one body of data that could potentially disprove it was the fossil record.
+In a blog post originally published in 2005 and continually updated since, anthropologist John D. Hawks said that anthropologists don't accept the AAH for several reasons. Hardy and Morgan situated the alleged aquatic period of human nature in a period of the fossil record that is now known not to contain any aquatic ancestors. The traits the AAH tries to explain actually evolved at wildly different time periods. The AAH claims that the alleged aquatic nature of humanity is responsible for human patterns of hair, fat, and sweat, but actually all of these things are similar in humans to other primates. To the extent they are exceptional in any primate relative to other primates, or in primates relative to other mammals, they are exceptional for well-understood thermodynamic reasons.
+Palaeontologist Riley Black concurred with the pseudoscience label, and described the AAH as a "classic case of picking evidence that fits a preconceived conclusion and ignoring everything else". Physical anthropologist Eugenie Scott has described the aquatic ape hypothesis as an instance of "crank anthropology" akin to other pseudoscientific ideas in anthropology such as alien-human interbreeding and Bigfoot.
+In The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution (2013), Henry Gee remarked on how a seafood diet can aid in the development of the human brain. He nevertheless criticized the AAH because "it's always a problem identifying features [such as body fat and hairlessness] that humans have now and inferring that they must have had some adaptive value in the past." Also "it's notoriously hard to infer habits [such as swimming] from anatomical structures".
+Popular support for the AAH has become an embarrassment to some anthropologists, who want to explore the effects of water on human evolution without engaging with the AAH, which they consider "emphasizes adaptations to deep water (or at least underwater) conditions". Foley and Lahr suggest that "to flirt with anything watery in paleoanthropology can be misinterpreted", but argue "there is little doubt that throughout our evolution we have made extensive use of terrestrial habitats adjacent to fresh water, since we are, like many other terrestrial mammals, a heavily water-dependent species." But they allege that "under pressure from the mainstream, AAH supporters tended to flee from the core arguments of Hardy and Morgan towards a more generalized emphasis on fishy things."
+In "The Waterside Ape", a pair of 2016 BBC Radio documentaries, David Attenborough discussed what he thought was a "move towards mainstream acceptance" for the AAH in the light of new research findings. He interviewed scientists supportive of the idea, including Kathlyn Stewart and Michael Crawford who had published papers in a special issue of the Journal of Human Evolution on "The Role of Freshwater and Marine Resources in the Evolution of the Human Diet, Brain and Behavior". Responding to the documentaries in a newspaper article, paleoanthropologist Alice Roberts criticized Attenborough's promotion of AAH and dismissed the idea as a distraction "from the emerging story of human evolution that is more interesting and complex". She argued that AAH had become "a theory of everything" that is simultaneously "too extravagant and too simple".
+Philosopher Daniel Dennett, in his discussion of evolutionary philosophy, commented "During the last few years, when I have found myself in the company of distinguished biologists, evolutionary theorists, paleoanthropologists and other experts, I have often asked them to tell me, please, exactly why Elaine Morgan must be wrong about the aquatic theory. I haven't yet had a reply worth mentioning, aside from those who admit, with a twinkle in their eyes, that they have also wondered the same thing." He challenged both Elaine Morgan and the scientific establishment in that "Both sides are indulging in adapt[at]ionist Just So stories". Along the same lines, historian Erika Lorraine Milam noted that independent of Morgan's work, certain standard explanations of human development in paleoanthropology have been roundly criticized for lacking evidence, while being based on sexist assumptions. Anatomy lecturer Bruce Charlton gave Morgan's book Scars of Evolution an enthusiastic review in the British Medical Journal in 1991, calling it "exceptionally well written" and "a good piece of science".
+In 1995, paleoanthropologist Phillip Tobias declared that the savannah hypothesis was dead, because the open conditions did not exist when humanity's precursors stood upright and that therefore the conclusions of the Valkenburg conference were no longer valid. Tobias praised Morgan's book Scars of Evolution as a "remarkable book", though he said that he did not agree with all of it. Tobias and his student further criticised the orthodox hypothesis by arguing that the coming out of the forest of man's precursors had been an unexamined assumption of evolution since the days of Lamarck, and followed by Darwin, Wallace and Haeckel, well before Raymond Dart used it.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis-3.md

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+---
+title: "Aquatic ape hypothesis"
+chunk: 4/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:09:03.054964+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Reactions of Hardy and Morgan ===
+Alister Hardy was astonished and mortified in 1960 when the national Sunday papers carried banner headlines "Oxford professor says man a sea ape", causing problems with his Oxford colleagues. As he later said to his ex-pupil Desmond Morris, "Of course I then had to write an article to refute this saying no this is just a guess, a rough hypothesis, this isn't a proven fact. And of course we're not related to dolphins."
+Elaine Morgan's 1972 book Descent of Woman became an international best-seller, a Book of the Month selection in the United States and was translated into ten languages. The book was praised for its feminism but paleoanthropologists were disappointed with its promotions of the AAH. Morgan removed the feminist critique and left her AAH ideas intact, publishing the book as The Aquatic Ape 10 years later, but it did not garner any more positive reaction from scientists.
+
+== Related academic and independent research ==
+
+=== Wading and bipedalism ===
+AAH proponent Algis Kuliukas, performed experiments to measure the comparative energy used when lacking orthograde posture with using fully upright posture. Although it is harder to walk upright with bent knees on land, this difference gradually diminishes as the depth of water increases and is still practical in thigh-high water.
+In a critique of the AAH, Henry Gee questioned any link between bipedalism and diet. Gee writes that early humans have been bipedal for 5 million years, but our ancestors' "fondness for seafood" emerged a mere 200,000 years ago.
+
+=== Diet ===
+
+Evidence supports aquatic food consumption in Homo as early as the Pliocene, but its linkage to brain evolution remains controversial. Further, there is no evidence that humans ate fish in significant amounts earlier than tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago. Supporters argue that the avoidance of taphonomic bias is the problem, as most hominin fossils occur in lake-side environments, and the presence of fish remains is therefore not proof of fish consumption. They also claim that the archaeological record of human fishing and coastal settlement is fundamentally deficient due to postglacial sea level rise.
+In their 1989 book The Driving Force: Food, Evolution and The Future, Michael Crawford and David Marsh claimed that omega-3 fatty acids were vital for the development of the brain:
+
+A branch of the line of primitive ancestral apes was forced by competition to leave the trees and feed on the seashore. Searching for oysters, mussels, crabs, crayfish and so on they would have spent much of their time in the water and an upright position would have come naturally. Crawford and Marsh opined that the brain size in aquatic mammals is similar to humans, and that other primates and carnivores lost relative brain capacity. Cunnane, Stewart, Crawford, and colleagues published works arguing a correlation between aquatic diet and human brain evolution in their "shore-based diet scenario", acknowledging the Hardy/Morgan's thesis as a foundation work of their model. As evidence, they describe health problems in landlocked communities, such as cretinism in the Alps and goitre in parts of Africa due to salt-derived iodine deficiency, and state that inland habitats cannot naturally meet human iodide requirements.
+Biologists Caroline Pond and Dick Colby were highly critical, saying that the work provided "no significant new information that would be of interest to biologists" and that its style was "speculative, theoretical and in many places so imprecise as to be misleading." British palaeontologist Henry Gee, who remarked on how a seafood diet can aid in the development of the human brain, nevertheless criticized AAH because inferring aquatic behavior from body fat and hairlessness patterns is an unjustifiable leap.
+
+=== Diving behavior and performance ===
+Professor of animal physiology and experienced scuba and freediver Erika Schagatay researches human diving abilities and oxygen stress. She suggests that such abilities are consistent with selective pressure for underwater foraging during human evolution, and discussed other anatomical traits speculated as diving adaptations by Hardy/Morgan. John Langdon suggested that such traits could be enabled by a human developmental plasticity.
+
+== See also ==
+
+== References ==
+
+== Bibliography ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_technology-0.md

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+---
+title: "Criticism of technology"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_technology"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:54.167273+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Criticism of technology is an analysis of adverse impacts of industrial and digital technologies. It is argued that, in all advanced industrial societies (not necessarily only capitalist ones), technology becomes a means of domination, control, and exploitation, or more generally something which threatens the survival of humanity.  Some of the technology opposed by the most radical critics may include everyday household products, such as refrigerators, computers, and medication. However, criticism of technology comes in many shades.
+
+
+== Overview ==
+Some authors such as Chellis Glendinning and Kirkpatrick Sale consider themselves Neo-Luddites and hold that technological progress has had a negative impact on humanity. Their work focused on seeking meaning out of technological change, specifically wrestling with the question of "how tools and their affordances change and alter the fabric of everyday life." Ellul, for instance, maintained that when people assert that technology is an instrument of freedom or the means to achieve historical destiny or the execution of divine vocation, it results in the glorification and sanctification of Technique so that it becomes that which gives meaning and value to life rather than mere ensemble of materials. This is echoed by rhetorical critics who cite the way technological discourse damages institutions and individuals who make up those institutions due to its idealization and capacity to define social hierarchies.
+In its most extreme, criticisms of technology produce analyses of technology as potentially leading to catastrophe. For instance, activist Naomi Klein described how technology is employed by capitalism in its commitment to a "shock doctrine", which promotes a series of crises so that speculative profit can be accumulated. There are theorists who also cite the 2008 financial crisis as well as the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters to support their critique. Critiques also focus on specific issues such as how technology—through robotics, automation, and software—is destroying people's jobs faster than it is creating them, contributing to the incidence of poverty and inequality.
+In the 1970s in the US, the critique of technology became the basis of a new political perspective called anarcho-primitivism, which was forwarded by thinkers such as Fredy Perlman, John Zerzan, and David Watson. They proposed differing theories about how it became an industrial society, and not capitalism as such, that was at the root of contemporary social problems. This theory was developed in the journal Fifth Estate in the 1970s and 1980s, and was influenced by the Frankfurt School, the Situationist International, Jacques Ellul and others.
+The critique of technology overlaps with the philosophy of technology but whereas the latter tries to establish itself as an academic discipline the critique of technology is basically a political project, not limited to academia. It features prominently in neo-Marxist (Herbert Marcuse and Andrew Feenberg), ecofeminism (Vandana Shiva) and in post development (Ivan Illich)
+
+
+== See also ==
+Critical theory
+Deep ecology
+Development criticism
+The Failure of Technology
+Frankfurt School
+History of science and technology
+Luddite
+Medicalization
+Paradigm shift
+Postdevelopment theory
+Science, technology and society
+Social criticism
+Social effect of evolutionary theory
+Technology and society
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== Further reading ==
+Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Control and freedom (2006)
+Donna J. Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto (1985)
+Gilles Deleuze, Postscript on the Societies of Control (1992)
+Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (1934)
+Layla AbdelRahim, Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness, Routledge, 2018 paperback ISBN 9781138547810; 2015 hardback ISBN 9780415661102
+Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance, Cornell University Press 1990
+Braun, Ernest (2009). Futile Progress: Technology’s Empty Promise, Routledge.
+Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, Trans. John Wilkinson. New York: Knopf, 1964. London: Jonathan Cape, 1965. Rev. ed.: New York: Knopf/Vintage, 1967. with introduction by Robert K. Merton (professor of sociology, Columbia University).
+Jacques Ellul, The Technological Bluff, Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.
+Andrew Feenberg, Transforming Technology. A Critical Theory Revisited, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition 2002, ISBN 0-19-514615-8 - Feenberg offers a "coherent starting point for anticapitalist technical politics"  to overcome what he considers to be the "fatalism" of Ellul, Heidegger, and other proponents of "substantive" theories of technology.
+Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays, B&T 1982, ISBN 0-06-131969-4
+Huesemann, Michael H., and Joyce A. Huesemann (2011). Technofix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada, ISBN 0865717044.
+Derrick Jensen and George Draffan, Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2004, ISBN 1-931498-52-0
+Mander, Jerry (1992). In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations, Sierra Club Books.
+Postman, Neil (1993). Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Vintage.
+David Watson, Against the Megamachine, Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1998, ISBN 1-57027-087-2 - The title essay is available online here
+Joseph Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation, W.H.Freeman & Co Ltd, New Edition 1976
+Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology: Technics-Out-Of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought, MIT Press 1977, ISBN 978-0-262-23078-0
+Peter Zelchenko (1999). Exploring Alternatives to Hype. Educational Leadership 56(5), pp. 78–81.
+Theodore John Kaczynski, Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, Fitch & Madison, 2016
+
+
+== External links ==
+
+Collection of early anarcho-primitivist articles published in Fifth Estate
+S. Ravi Rajan - Science, State and Violence: An Indian Critique Reconsidered
+Wikiversity: The limits of technological potential

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+title: "Criticism of the Space Shuttle program"
+chunk: 1/4
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+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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+---
+
+Criticism of the Space Shuttle program stemmed from claims that NASA's Space Shuttle program failed to achieve its promised cost and utility goals, as well as design, cost, management, and safety issues. Fundamentally, it failed in the goal of reducing the cost of space access. Space Shuttle incremental per-pound launch costs ultimately turned out to be considerably higher than those of expendable launchers.
+In 2010, the incremental cost per flight of the Space Shuttle was $409 million, or $14,186 per kilogram ($6,435 per pound) to low Earth orbit (LEO). In contrast, the comparable Proton launch vehicle cost was $141 million, or  $6,721 per kilogram ($3,049 per pound) to LEO and the  Soyuz 2.1 was $55 million, or $6,665 per kilogram ($3,023 per pound), despite these launch vehicles not being reusable.
+
+When all design and maintenance costs are taken into account, the final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation (2008), was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch, or $60,000 per kilogram ($27,000 per pound) to LEO. This should be contrasted with the originally envisioned costs of $260 per kilogram ($118 per pound) of payload in 1972 dollars (approximately $554 per pound adjusting for inflation to 2019)."The Space Shuttle was designed to be cost effective at a weekly flight rate, a goal that was never credible."
+- Michael D. Griffin, NASA administrator, 2007, Aviation Week.While the Shuttle did serve a purpose servicing satellites and space stations in orbit, it failed at its original goal of achieving routine, reliable access to space, partly due to multi-year interruptions in launches following Shuttle failures. It was never as economical as expendable rockets for the task of launching satellites. NASA budget pressures partly caused by the chronically high NASA Space Shuttle program costs eliminated NASA crewed space flight beyond low earth orbit for over fifty years, until the 2026 Artemis II mission, and severely curtailed use of uncrewed probes. NASA's promotion of and reliance on the Shuttle slowed domestic commercial expendable launch vehicle (ELV) programs until after the 1986 Challenger disaster.
+Two out of the five spacecraft were destroyed in accidents, killing 14 astronauts, the largest loss of life in space flight.
+
+== Purpose of the system ==
+The "Space Transportation System" (NASA's formal name for the overall Shuttle program) was created to transport crewmembers and payloads into low Earth orbits. It would afford the opportunity to conduct science experiments on board the shuttle to be used to study the effects of space flight on humans, animals and plants. Other experiments would study how things can be manufactured in space. The shuttle would also enable astronauts to launch satellites from the shuttle and even repair satellites already out in space. The Shuttle was also intended for research into the human response to zero-g.
+The Shuttle was originally billed as a space vehicle that would be able to launch once a week and give low launch costs through amortization. Development costs were expected to be recouped through frequent access to space. These claims were made in an effort to obtain budgetary funding from the United States Congress. Beginning in 1981, the space shuttle began to be used for space travel. However, by the mid-1980s the concept of flying that many shuttle missions proved unrealistic and scheduled launch expectations were reduced 50%. Following the Challenger accident in 1986, missions were halted pending safety review. This hiatus became lengthy and ultimately lasted almost three years as arguments over funding and the safety of the program continued. Eventually the military resumed the use of expendable launch vehicles instead. Missions were put on hold again after the loss of Columbia in 2003. Overall, 135 missions were launched during the 30 years after the first orbital flight of Columbia, averaging approximately one every 3 months.
+
+== Costs ==
+Some reasons for the higher-than-expected operational costs were:

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+
+NASA secured funding from the US Air Force's budget in exchange for USAF input to the design process. In order to fulfill the USAF's mission to launch payloads into polar orbit, the USAF insisted on a very large cross-range requirement. This necessitated the Shuttle's huge delta wings, which are far larger than the stub wings of the original design. Besides adding drag and weight (almost 20 percent), the excessive number of heat tiles needed to protect the delta wings added greatly to maintenance costs, besides increasing operational risks such as those that resulted in the Columbia disaster.
+At Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the USAF duplicated the entire infrastructure needed to launch and service the Space Shuttle, at a cost of over 4 billion dollars. Following the Challenger explosion, the facility was dismantled without ever having launched a single Shuttle mission.
+Aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin describes the Shuttle as having been designed "backwards" in that the Orbiter, the harder-to-recover portion, is made recoverable, while part of the booster (the liquid fuel tank) is thrown away even though it is easier to recover since it does not fly so high or fast.
+Maintenance of the thermal protection tiles was a very labor-intensive and costly process, with some 35,000 tiles needing to be inspected individually and with each tile specifically manufactured for one specific slot on the shuttle.
+Due to the complexity of the RS-25 engines, following each flight they required removal for thorough inspection and meticulous maintenance. Prior to the delivery of the Block II engines, the primary engine component, the turbopump, had to be removed, disassembled, and overhauled after each use.
+The toxic propellants used for the OMS/RCS thrusters required special handling, during which time no other activities could be performed in areas sharing the same ventilation system. This increased turn-around time.
+The launch rate was significantly lower than initially expected. While not reducing absolute operating costs, more launches per year gives a lower cost per launch. Some early hypothetical studies examined the possibility of making 55 launches per year (see above), but the maximum possible launch rate was limited to 24 per year based on manufacturing capacity of the Michoud facility in Louisiana that constructs the external tank. Early in shuttle development, the expected launch rate was about 12 per year. Launch rates reached a peak of 9 per year in 1985 but averaged 4.5 for the entire program.
+When the decision was made on the main shuttle contractors in 1972, work was spread among companies to make the program more attractive to Congress, such as the contract for the Solid Rocket Boosters to Morton Thiokol in Utah. Over the course of the program, this raised operational costs, though the consolidation of the US aerospace industry in the 1990s meant that the majority of the Shuttle program expenditure was now with one company: the United Space Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
+
+== Cultural issues and problems ==
+For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
+Some researchers have criticized a pervasive shift in NASA culture away from safety in order to ensure that launches took place in a timely fashion, sometimes called "go fever". Allegedly, NASA upper-level management embraced this decreased safety focus in the 1980s while some engineers remained wary. According to sociologist Diane Vaughan, the aggressive launch schedules arose in the Reagan years as an attempt to rehabilitate America's post-Vietnam War prestige.
+The physicist Richard Feynman, who was appointed to the official inquiry on the Challenger disaster, wrote in his report that working NASA engineers estimated the risk of mission failure to be "on the order of a percent", adding, "Official management, on the other hand, claims to believe the probability of failure is a thousand times less. One reason for this may be an attempt to assure the government of NASA perfection and success in order to ensure the supply of funds. The other may be that they sincerely believed it to be true, demonstrating an almost incredible lack of communication between themselves and their working engineers."
+Despite Feynman's warnings, and despite the fact that Vaughan served on safety boards and committees at NASA, the subsequent press coverage has found some evidence that NASA's relative disregard for safety still persisted. For example, leading up to the Columbia disaster, NASA discounted the risk from small foam chunk breakage at launch and assumed that the lack of damage from prior foam collisions suggested the future risk was low.
+
+== Shuttle operations ==
+
+The Shuttle was originally conceived to operate somewhat like an airliner. After landing, the orbiter would be checked out and start being mated to the External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters, and be ready for launch in as little as two weeks.
+In practice, before the loss of Challenger, about half of the turnaround time after a mission was unplanned tests and modifications based on unexpected events that occurred during flight. The process usually took months; Atlantis set the pre-Challenger record by launching twice within 54 days, while Columbia set the post-Challenger record of 88 days. The Shuttle program's goal of returning its crew to Earth safely conflicted with the goal of a rapid and inexpensive payload launch. Furthermore, because in many cases there were no survivable abort modes, many pieces of hardware had to function perfectly and so required careful inspection before each flight. The result was high labor cost, with around 25,000 workers in Shuttle operations and labor costs of about $1 billion per year.
+Some shuttle features initially presented as important to Space Station support have proved superfluous:

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+title: "Criticism of the Space Shuttle program"
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+
+As the Soviets demonstrated, capsules and uncrewed supply rockets are sufficient to supply a space station.
+NASA's initial policy of using the Shuttle to launch all crewless payloads declined in practice, and eventually was discontinued. Expendable launch vehicles (ELVs) proved much cheaper and more flexible.
+Following the Challenger disaster, use of the Shuttle to carry the powerful liquid fueled Centaur upper stages planned for interplanetary probes was ruled out for Shuttle safety reasons.
+The Shuttle's history of unexpected delays also made it liable to miss narrow launch windows.
+Advances in technology have made probes smaller and lighter. As a result, many robotic probes and communications satellites can now use expendable launch vehicles, such as the Delta and Atlas V, which are less expensive and perceived to be more reliable than the Shuttle.
+Advances in technology today happen much faster than in the years the Shuttle was developed. Thus the notion that Shuttle would be useful for recovering expensive satellites for return to Earth for refurbishment and updating with new technology is obsoleted; costs have dropped and capabilities increased so much that it is much more cost-effective to abandon old satellites and simply launch new ones.
+
+== Accidents ==
+
+While the technical details of the Challenger and Columbia accidents are different, the organizational problems show similarities. Flight engineers' concerns about possible problems were not properly communicated to or understood by senior NASA managers. The vehicle gave ample warning beforehand of abnormal problems. A heavily layered, procedure-oriented bureaucratic structure inhibited necessary communication and action. In addition, both mission failures have been attributed to the flawed notion of a crewed orbiter attached to the flank of the launch vehicle, precluding the possibility of ejection in the case of the Challenger disaster, and exposing the heat shield to damage in the case of Columbia.
+With Challenger, an O-ring which should not have eroded at all did erode on earlier shuttle launches. Yet managers felt that because it had previously eroded by no more than 30%, this was not a hazard as there was "a factor of three safety margin" (in reality, the part had failed, and there was no safety factor). Morton-Thiokol designed and manufactured the SRBs, and during a pre-launch conference call with NASA, Roger Boisjoly, the Thiokol engineer most experienced with the O-rings, pleaded with management repeatedly to cancel or reschedule the launch. He raised concerns that the unusually low temperatures would stiffen the O-rings, preventing a complete seal during flexing of the rocket motor segments, which was exactly what happened on the fatal flight. However, Thiokol's senior managers, under pressure from NASA management, overruled him and allowed the launch to proceed. One week prior to the launch, Thiokol's contract to reprocess the solid rocket boosters was also due for review, and cancelling the flight was an action that Thiokol management wanted to avoid. Challenger's O-rings eroded completely through as predicted, resulting in the complete destruction of the spacecraft and the death of all seven astronauts on board.
+
+Columbia was destroyed because of damaged thermal protection from foam debris that broke off from the external tank during ascent. The foam had not been designed or expected to break off, but had been observed in the past to do so without incident. The original shuttle operational specification said the orbiter thermal protection tiles were not designed to withstand any debris hits at all. Over time NASA managers gradually accepted more tile damage, similar to how O-ring damage was accepted. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board called this tendency the "normalization of deviance" –  a gradual acceptance of events outside the design tolerances of the craft simply because they had not been catastrophic to date.
+
+The subject of missing or damaged thermal tiles on the Shuttle fleet only became an issue following the loss of Columbia in 2003, as it broke up on re-entry. In fact, Shuttles had previously come back missing as many as 20 tiles without any problem. STS-1 and STS-41 had both flown with missing thermal tiles from the Orbital Maneuvering System pods (visible to the crew). The problem on Columbia was that the damage was sustained from a foam strike to the reinforced carbon-carbon leading edge panel of the wing, not the heat tiles. The first Shuttle mission, STS-1, had a protruding gap filler that diverted hot gas into the right wheel well on re-entry, resulting in a buckling of the right main landing gear door.
+
+=== Risk contributors ===
+An example of technical risk analysis for an STS mission is SPRA iteration 3.1 top risk contributors for STS-133:
+Micro-Meteoroid Orbital Debris (MMOD) strikes
+RS-25-induced or RS-25 catastrophic failure (the Space Shuttle Main Engine)
+Ascent debris strikes to TPS leading to LOCV on orbit or entry
+Crew error during entry
+RSRM-induced RSRM catastrophic failure (RSRM are the rocket motors of the SRBs)
+COPV failure (COPV are tanks inside the orbiter that hold gas at high pressure)

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+title: "Criticism of the Space Shuttle program"
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+
+John Young and Jerry L. Ross were among those astronauts who believed that the shuttle was always an experimental craft, not an operational vehicle for routine spaceflight as President Ronald Reagan declared after STS-4. Rick Hauck said in 2017 that before STS-1 he saw an analysis estimating the risk of loss of the vehicle as 1 in 280, but an internal NASA risk assessment study (conducted by the Shuttle Program Safety and Mission Assurance Office at Johnson Space Center) released in late 2010 or early 2011 concluded that the agency had seriously underestimated the level of risk involved in operating the Shuttle. The report assessed that there was a 1 in 9 chance of a catastrophic disaster during the first nine flights of the Shuttle but that safety improvements had later improved the risk ratio to 1 in 90. In 1984 Reagan signed a National Security Decision Directive stating that the shuttle would not be "fully operational" until it could fly 24 missions a year, perhaps by 1988; the shuttle never flew more often than the nine missions of 1985, and averaged about six missions a year between 1988 and 2003.
+Although many NASA astronauts criticized the payload specialist program, in part because they did not believe less-trained outsiders were fully aware of the risks of spaceflight, full-time astronauts may not have been either. Charles Bolden was amazed to learn after the loss of Columbia that the "impenetrable" leading wing edges of the vehicle he flew for 14 years were less than an inch thick. NASA in October 1982 predicted 37 shuttle flights by early 1986, but Challenger's loss was the 25th shuttle flight. Hauck, with much experience flying dangerous aircraft at the United States Naval Test Pilot School, said "If I knew in advance that one in twenty-five would fail, I would probably think twice about flying three (as I did) out of the first twenty-six flights".
+
+== Retrospect ==
+While the system was developed within the original cost and time estimates given to President Richard M. Nixon in 1971, the operational costs, flight rate, payload capacity, and reliability by the time of the February 2003 Columbia accident proved to be much worse than originally anticipated. A year before STS-1's April 1981 launch, Gregg Easterbrook in The Washington Monthly accurately forecasted many of the Shuttle's issues, including an overambitious launch schedule and the consequently higher-than-expected marginal cost per flight; the risks of depending on the Shuttle for all payloads, civilian and military; the lack of a survivable abort scenario if a Solid Rocket Booster were to fail; and the fragility of the Shuttle's thermal protection system. General Lew Allen, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, reportedly said that year that he would have canceled the shuttle.
+In order to get the Shuttle approved, NASA over-promised its economies and utility. To justify its very large fixed operational program cost, NASA initially forced all domestic, internal, and Department of Defense payloads to the shuttle. When that proved impossible (after the Challenger disaster), NASA used the International Space Station (ISS) as a justification for the shuttle. NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin argued in a 2007 paper that the Saturn program, if continued, could have provided six crewed launches per year – two of them to the Moon – at the same cost as the Shuttle program, with an additional ability to loft infrastructure for further missions:
+
+If we had done all this, we would be on Mars today, not writing about it as a subject for "the next 50 years." We would have decades of experience operating long-duration space systems in Earth orbit, and similar decades of experience in exploring and learning to utilize the Moon.
+Some had argued that the Shuttle program was flawed. Achieving a reusable vehicle with early 1970s technology forced design decisions that compromised operational reliability and safety. Reusable main engines were made a priority. This necessitated that they not burn up upon atmospheric reentry, which in turn made mounting them on the orbiter itself (the one part of the Shuttle system where reuse was paramount) a seemingly logical decision. However, this had the following consequences:
+
+a more expensive "clean sheet" engine design was needed, using more expensive materials, as opposed to existing and proven off-the-shelf alternatives (such as the Saturn V mains);
+increased ongoing maintenance costs related to keeping the reusable SSMEs in flying condition after each launch, costs which in total may have exceeded that of building disposable main engines for each launch.
+
+A concern expressed by the 1990 Augustine Commission was that "the civil space program is overly dependent upon the Space Shuttle for access to space." The committee pointed out, "that it was, for example, inappropriate in the case of Challenger to risk the lives of seven astronauts and nearly one-fourth of NASA's launch assets to place in orbit a communications satellite."
+There are some NASA spin-off technologies related to the Space Shuttle program which have been successfully developed into commercial products, such as using heat-resistant materials developed to protect the Shuttle on reentry in suits for municipal and aircraft rescue firefighters.
+
+== See also ==
+
+Buran (spacecraft)
+Skylab 4
+
+== References ==
+
+== External links ==
+When Physics, Economics, and Reality Collide: The Challenge of Cheap Orbital Access
+Review of ELV cost-to-orbit per pound Archived 2021-10-01 at the Wayback Machine
+Space Transportation Costs: Trends in Price Per Pound to Orbit
+Popular Science November 1974, "Reusable space shuttle" by Wernher von Braun

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+---
+title: "Fringe science"
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+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_science"
+category: "reference"
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+
+Fringe science refers to ideas whose attributes include being highly speculative or relying on premises already refuted. The chance of ideas rejected by editors and published outside the mainstream being correct is remote. When the general public does not distinguish between science and imitators, it risks exploitation, and in some cases, a "yearning to believe or a generalized suspicion of experts is a very potent incentive to accepting some pseudoscientific claims".
+The term "fringe science" covers everything from novel hypotheses, which can be tested utilizing the scientific method, to wild ad hoc hypotheses and mumbo jumbo. This has resulted in a tendency to dismiss all fringe science as the domain of pseudoscientists, hobbyists, and quacks.
+A concept that was once accepted by the mainstream scientific community may become fringe science because of a later evaluation of previous research. For example, focal infection theory, which held that focal infections of the tonsils or teeth are a primary cause of systemic disease, was once considered to be medical fact. It has since been dismissed because of a lack of evidence.
+
+== Description ==
+The boundary between fringe science and pseudoscience is disputed. Friedlander writes that there is no widespread understanding of what separates science from nonscience or pseudoscience. Pseudoscience, however, is something that is not scientific but is incorrectly characterised as science.
+The term may be considered pejorative. For example, Lyell D. Henry Jr. wrote, "Fringe science [is] a term also suggesting kookiness."
+Continental drift was rejected for decades lacking conclusive evidence before plate tectonics was accepted.
+
+The confusion between science and pseudoscience, between honest scientific error and genuine scientific discovery, is not new, and it is a permanent feature of the scientific landscape .... Acceptance of new science can come slowly.
+
+== Examples ==
+
+=== Historical ===
+Some historical ideas that are considered to have been refuted by mainstream science are:
+
+Wilhelm Reich's work with orgone, a physical energy he claimed to have discovered, contributed to his alienation from the psychiatric community. He was eventually sentenced to two years in a federal prison, where he died. At that time and continuing today, scientists disputed his claim that he had scientific evidence for the existence of orgone. Nevertheless, amateurs and a few fringe researchers continued to believe that orgone is real.
+Focal infection theory (FIT), as the primary cause of systemic disease, rapidly became accepted by mainstream dentistry and medicine after World War I. This acceptance was largely based upon what later turned out to be fundamentally flawed studies. As a result, millions of people were subjected to needless dental extractions and surgeries. The original studies supporting FIT began falling out of favor in the 1930s. By the late 1950s, it was regarded as a fringe theory.
+The Clovis First theory held that the Clovis culture was the first culture in North America. It was long regarded as a mainstream theory until mounting evidence of a pre-Clovis culture discredited it.
+
+=== Modern ===
+Relatively recent fringe sciences include:
+
+Aubrey de Grey, featured in a 2006 60 Minutes special report, is studying human longevity. He calls his work "strategies for engineered negligible senescence" (SENS). Many mainstream scientists believe his research is fringe science (especially his view of the importance of nuclear epimutations and his timeline for antiaging therapeutics). In a 2005 article in Technology Review (part of a larger series), it was stated that "SENS is highly speculative. Many of its proposals have not been reproduced, nor could they be reproduced with today's scientific knowledge and technology. Echoing Myhrvold, we might charitably say that de Grey's proposals exist in a kind of antechamber of science, where they wait (possibly in vain) for independent verification. SENS does not compel the assent of many knowledgeable scientists; but neither is it demonstrably wrong."
+A nuclear fusion reaction called cold fusion, which occurs near room temperature and pressure, was reported by chemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons in March 1989. Numerous research efforts at the time were unable to replicate their results. Subsequently, several scientists have worked on cold fusion or have participated in international conferences on it. In 2004, the United States Department of Energy commissioned a panel on cold fusion to reexamine the concept. They wanted to determine whether their policies should be altered because of new evidence.
+The theory of abiogenic petroleum origin holds that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating to the formation of the Earth. The ubiquity of hydrocarbons in the Solar System may be evidence that there may be more petroleum on Earth than commonly thought and that petroleum may originate from carbon-bearing fluids that migrate upward from the Earth's mantle. Abiogenic hypotheses saw a revival in the last half of the twentieth century by Russian and Ukrainian scientists. More interest was generated in the West after the 1992 publication by Thomas Gold of the journal article, "The Deep, Hot Biosphere". Gold's version of the theory is partly based on the existence of a biosphere composed of thermophile bacteria in the Earth's crust, which might explain the existence of specific biomarkers in extracted petroleum.
+Young Earth creationism, asserts the Universe is under 10,000 years old, with variations, such as Gap creationism, and Old Earth creationism, offering similar propositions.
+Modern flat Earth advocates assert that Samuel Rowbotham was correct, in his, 1849, pamphlet, and 1865 book, Zetetic Astronomy: The Earth not a Globe, to reject the Hellenistic (323 BCE–31 BCE) spherical earth model, for a flat disc world, centred on the North pole.
+Out of India theorem - asserts Indo-European languages evolved in India, and spread to Europe through waves of pre-historic Indian immigrants.
+
+=== Accepted as mainstream ===
+Some theories that were once rejected as fringe science but were eventually accepted as mainstream science include:
+
+Plate tectonics
+The existence of Troy
+Heliocentrism
+Norse colonization of the Americas
+The Big Bang theory
+Helicobacter pylori bacteria as the causative agent of peptic ulcer disease
+The germ theory of disease
+Neanderthal-Homo sapiens hybridization

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+title: "Fringe science"
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+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:57.227435+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Responding to fringe science ==
+Michael W. Friedlander has suggested some guidelines for responding to fringe science, which, he argues, is a more difficult problem than scientific misconduct. His suggested methods include impeccable accuracy, checking cited sources, not overstating orthodox science, thorough understanding of the Wegener continental drift example, examples of orthodox science investigating radical proposals, and prepared examples of errors from fringe scientists.
+Friedlander suggests that fringe science is necessary so mainstream science will not atrophy. Scientists must evaluate the plausibility of each new fringe claim, and certain fringe discoveries "will later graduate into the ranks of accepted" — while others "will never receive confirmation".
+Margaret Wertheim profiled many "outsider scientists" in her book Physics on the Fringe, who receive little or no attention from professional scientists. She describes all of them as trying to make sense of the world using the scientific method but in the face of being unable to understand modern science's complex theories. She also finds it fair that credentialed scientists do not bother spending a lot of time learning about and explaining problems with the fringe theories of uncredentialed scientists since the authors of those theories have not taken the time to understand the mainstream theories they aim to disprove.
+
+=== Controversies ===
+As Donald E. Simanek asserts, "Too often speculative and tentative hypotheses of cutting edge science are treated as if they were scientific truths, and so accepted by a public eager for answers." However, the public is ignorant that "As science progresses from ignorance to understanding it must pass through a transitional phase of confusion and uncertainty."
+The media also play a role in propagating the belief that certain fields of science are controversial. In their 2003 paper "Optimising Public Understanding of Science and Technology in Europe: A Comparative Perspective", Jan Nolin et al. write that "From a media perspective it is evident that controversial science sells, not only because of its dramatic value, but also since it is often connected to high-stake societal issues."
+
+== See also ==
+
+Books
+13 Things That Don't Make Sense (a book by Michael Brooks)
+The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (a book by Thomas S. Kuhn)
+
+== References ==
+
+== Bibliography ==
+Ben-Yehuda, Nachman (1990). The politics and morality of deviance: moral panics, drug abuse, deviant science, and reversed stigmatization. SUNY series in deviance and social control. Albany: State University of New York Press. OCLC 19128625.
+Brante, Thomas; Fuller, Steve; Lynch, William (1993). Controversial science: from content to contention. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. OCLC 26096166.
+Brooks, M. (2008). 13 Things That Don't Make Sense. New York: Doubleday. OCLC 213480209.
+—— (31 March 2009). "Why science doesn't make sense". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2009-04-04. Retrieved 2 April 2009.
+Brown, George E. Jr. (23 October 1996). Environmental science under siege: fringe science and the 104th Congress. Washington, D.C.: Democratic Caucus of the Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives. OCLC 57343997.
+Cooke, R. M. (1991). Experts in uncertainty: opinion and subjective probability in science. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506465-8. OCLC 22710786.
+CSICOP On-line: Scientifically Investigating Paranormal and Fringe Science Claims Archived 2014-03-16 at the Wayback Machine—Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
+de Jager, Cornelis (March 1990). "Science, fringe science and pseudo-science". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 31 (1): 31–45. Bibcode:1990QJRAS..31...31D. ISSN 0035-8738.
+Dutch, Steven I. (January 1982). "Notes on the nature of fringe science". Journal of Geological Education. 30 (1): 6–13. Bibcode:1982JGeoE..30....6D. doi:10.5408/0022-1368-30.1.6. ISSN 0022-1368. OCLC 92686827.
+Frazier, Kendrick (1981). Paranormal borderlands of science. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-148-7. OCLC 251487947.
+Friedlander, Michael W. (February 1995). At the Fringes of Science. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-2200-6. OCLC 31046052.
+Friedman, Sharon M; Dunwoody, Sharon; Rogers, Carol L, eds. (1998). Communicating uncertainty: Media coverage of new and controversial science. Mahwah, New Jersey; London: Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN 0-8058-2727-7. OCLC 263560777.
+Mauskopf, SH (1979). The reception of unconventional science. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. ISBN 0-89158-297-5. OCLC 4495634.
+Mousseau, Marie-Catherine (2003). "Parapsychology: Science or Pseudo-Science?" (PDF). Journal of Scientific Exploration. 17 (2): 271–282. ISSN 0892-3310. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-11-27.
+Truzzi, Marcello (1998). "The Perspective of Anomalistics". Anomalistics. Center for Scientific Anomalies Research. Archived from the original on February 6, 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-14.
+
+== External links ==
+ Media related to Fringe science at Wikimedia Commons

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Wilyman-0.md

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+---
+title: "Judy Wilyman"
+chunk: 1/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Wilyman"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:55.396200+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Roslyn Judith "Judy" Wilyman is an Australian anti-vaccination activist who came to prominence following the controversial award of a humanities PhD titled "A critical analysis of the Australian government's rationale for its vaccination policy" by University of Wollongong. The thesis came under heavy criticism from multiple directions, including medical professionals, due to claims within the thesis, including advancing a conspiracy theory whereby the World Health Organization (WHO) and the pharmaceutical industry supposedly conspire to promote vaccinations in the absence of evidence of safety and efficacy. The awarding of the degree created questions about the standards being applied and whether or not the thesis supervisors and examiners had sufficient knowledge to oversee the research, and led to calls for the university to review the doctorate. A number of individuals and medical organisations – including academics and researchers from other parts of the University of Wollongong – spoke out against the findings of the thesis, emphasising the need for vaccinations in order to prevent serious disease; and the University of Wollongong was criticised for a perceived lack of transparency in their doctoral process and an alleged failure to uphold standards of scholarship.
+The thesis was conducted from within the university's School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, under the primary supervision of cultural studies professor Brian Martin and the co-supervision of sociologist Andrew Whelan. Although describing himself as "hardly a neutral observer", Martin argued that the questions raised about the work equate to biased attacks on Wilyman and himself. The university responded to the criticism by asserting that the research was conducted and examined under high standards, and spoke in defence of academic freedom. The University of Wollongong also agreed to conduct a review into their overall doctoral process, but the scope did not include specific PhD recipients, and therefore did not address Wilyman's work.
+Prior to the PhD, Wilyman had already received some attention for her assertion that the parents of Dana McCaffery, a child who died of pertussis, has "cashed in" on their daughter's death following the award of a prize to the McCafferys by Australian Skeptics – they had donated the money to charity.
+More recently, she has been criticised for speaking at anti-vaccination events and for charging large sums for "expert reports" in court cases, despite having no medical qualifications.
+
+== Background ==
+Judith Wilyman was awarded a Masters by University of Wollongong (UOW) in 2007 in the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts; her thesis topic was the Australian government's pertussis vaccine policy. Her thesis alleges a connection between vaccinations and autism, a claim that was already convincingly refuted, and false claims that vaccines do not control whooping cough.
+By 2009, Wilyman was a member of the Australian Vaccination-risks Network (AVN), an anti-vaccination group, and coordinates two anti-vaccination groups; Vaccination Decisions and Vaccination Choice.
+In 2011 Wilyman opposed the cancer-preventing HPV vaccination saying evidence about the vaccine's benefits were not clear, and it was reported that she claimed that vaccinations are linked to autism. HPV vaccination has significantly reduced rates of cervical cancer, and is thought to have the potential to eliminate it altogether.
+In 2012 she caused controversy after the death of a child from whooping cough, questioning "whether the family had been paid to use their daughter's death to promote vaccine", causing the family of the deceased to request that Wilyman not use their daughter's death in furthering her agenda.
+In 2013, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) criticised the university's decision to fund Wilyman to attend a conference in the US. Wilyman was provided with $3,000 by the university to present a paper opposing human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinations. The conference was organised by predatory open access publishing company OMICS Publishing Group, which has also been criticised for running predatory meetings with no effective standards for speaker selection. In response to the criticism of Wilyman's trip, the university's Dean of Research, Tim Marchant, stated that the university upheld the principles of academic freedom and, accordingly, it was important to support Wilyman and the presentation of differing viewpoints, even when they were controversial. Brian Martin, who was supervising Wilyman's research, also supported the decision, arguing that attending the conference was a valuable experience for Wilyman.
+Questions of misconduct concerning Wilyman's Masters thesis were raised in 2014, and were investigated and cleared in 2015.
+The Australian reported that "Wilyman [was] shielded from critics" by the university in 2014 when their media office refused a request to promote the 44th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australasian Society for Immunology, to be held at a Novotel Hotel in Wollongong. The reason given was that, if the conference "will be discussing vaccinations, we should steer well clear of doing any publicity. We don't want to inflame any opponents of ... Judy Wilyman." According to the university, they were attempting to limit "the vicious and repeated attacks being directed ... towards a then student"

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+---
+title: "Judy Wilyman"
+chunk: 2/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Wilyman"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:55.396200+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== PhD award ==
+Wilyman entered a PhD a program in 2007 in the same UOW Faculty as awarded her Masters, but with her research focus expanded to cover Australian vaccination policy more generally. In 2008, the supervision of her studies was transferred to Peter Dingle at Murdoch University, and returned to UOW in 2011 under Brian Martin. The thesis was accepted by UOW in 2016. Although details of the examiners have not been released, in May 2016 The Australian reported that one of two original examiners did not recommend that a PhD be granted. It was passed after a third academic evaluated the thesis and recommended changes.
+The thesis came under heavy criticism from multiple directions, including medical professionals, due to claims within the thesis, including advancing a conspiracy theory that the World Health Organization (WHO) and the pharmaceutical industry supposedly conspire to promote vaccinations in the absence of evidence of safety and efficacy. The awarding of the thesis lead to criticism and questions about the standards being applied and whether or not the thesis supervisors and examiners had sufficient knowledge to oversee the research and led to calls for the university to review the doctorate. A number of individuals and medical organisations – including academics and researchers from other parts of the University of Wollongong – criticised the findings of the thesis, emphasising the need for vaccinations in order to prevent serious disease; and the University of Wollongong was criticised for a perceived lack of transparency in their doctoral process and an alleged failure to uphold standards of scholarship.
+The university responded to the criticism by asserting that the research was conducted and examined under high standards, and spoke in defence of academic freedom. The University also agreed to conduct a review into their overall doctoral process, but the scope did not include specific PhD recipients, and therefore did not encompass Wilyman's work.
+
+=== Doctoral claims ===
+Biological scientist Helen Petousis-Harris writes that the thesis abstract contains conclusion, and quotes Wilyman's aim of her thesis as an attempt to "assess the rigour of the claims supporting the efficacy, safety and necessity for the use of an expanding number of vaccines in the Australian Government's National Immunisation Program". Brull reports that according to supervisor Martin, Wilyman's thesis makes four major points:
+
+Wilyman claims that the death rates from diseases in Australia had declined before most vaccines were introduced, leading to a suggestion that other factors may have had a role in the reduced infection rate.
+It is alleged in the thesis that Australia's vaccination policy follows international models, rather than being based on local conditions.
+In her thesis, Wilyman claims that there is a conflict of interest when research on vaccination is conducted by pharmaceutical companies.
+She alleges that some areas of research which relate to vaccination policy have not been examined, even though there may be value in doing so.
+Other, more specific, claims include that the World Health Organization (WHO) formed a secret committee, which in turn orchestrated "hysteria relating to a global swine flu pandemic in 2009" and that the organisation is "perceived to be out of touch with global communities and … controlled by the interests of corporations and the World Bank".
+At one stage during Wilyman's candidature, Australian immunisation expert and advisor to the WHO Peter McIntyre offered to advise her on her research, but withdrew his offer as she was "not willing to entertain" alternative points of view that contradicted her beliefs. Wilyman's PhD thesis falsely claims that "diseases for which vaccines are recommended have not been demonstrated to be a serious risk to the majority of children".
+Medical academics and the Australian Medical Association (AMA) have questioned whether Martin had sufficient knowledge to supervise the thesis, with McIntyre observing "No doubt the examiners selected have credentials within that area of study but they are likely to lack necessary credentials in health sciences that would enable them to be aware of the full picture here". Similarly, an editorial in The Australian was harshly critical of both Wilyman and the University. It dismissed the central idea of the thesis as "rather like a sociologist who insists that jet aircraft remain aloft only because of a conspiracy between aeronautical engineers and greedy airlines" and noted the problem of academic overreach, with the faculty presuming to judge the quality of work well outside its area of expertise. It characterised the University of Wollongong as putting itself on the wrong side in a "battle of life and death", and questioned whether the granting of the PhD "could 'reasonably be expected' to lead to lower levels of vaccination?"
+
+=== Academic health science sector responses ===
+University of Auckland biological scientist Helen Petousis Harris, who has a PhD in Vaccinology, was highly critical of the thesis and writes:

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+---
+title: "Judy Wilyman"
+chunk: 3/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Wilyman"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:55.396200+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Wilyman's "references to support these outrageous comments are from the bottom dwelling literature that includes 50-year-old discussions along with well-established, thoroughly debunked pseudoscience. At no point does she mention any of the vast scientific literature that includes large clinical and epidemiological studies - or attempt a critique of it."
+"It is [a] litany of deceitful reveries. How it could possibly pass as a piece of Doctoral level work is inexplicable and it has made no contribution to knowledge. Shame on you University of Wollongong."
+Saxon Smith, president of the NSW branch of the AMA, characterised it as "a thesis that's talking about the science of medicine without any support of its argument from credible scientific literature", adding "the evidence is clear about the safety of vaccines."
+Alison Campbell, an associate dean and biological sciences lecturer at the University of Waikato, produced a blistering analysis criticising the use of out-of-date references as well as pointing out numerous scientific errors in Wilyman's master's work, including calling the unexplained exclusion of two of four types of vaccine components "an alarming omission for a paper on immunisation".
+The Medical Journal of Australia criticised the university in awarding a PhD to a student "demonstrating a glaring lack of understanding of immunology and vaccine science," suggesting that unless legislation keeps the anti-vaccination movement in check "we are ushering in a dangerous time."
+John Dwyer AO, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of New South Wales, wrote: "[Ms Wilyman] has endorsed a conspiracy theory where all sorts of organisations with claimed vested interests are putting pressure on WHO to hoodwink the world into believing that vaccines provide more benefits than they cause harm. Many well-established concepts in science are being challenged in this thesis with no data to support the conclusions provides [sic]." He pointed out that numerous leading scientists and at least five major scientific organisations are criticising the university for rewarding poor scholarship and asking that the thesis be re-examined by experts in immunology and epidemiology, which is what the thesis addresses.
+In a February 2016 media-release the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) directly questioned suggestions of bias from Wilyman. In challenging central arguments of her thesis, the RACP highlighted that the TGA is the regulatory body responsive to the monitoring and investigation of any adverse events and any significant concerns around vaccination safety.
+
+=== University response ===
+Responding to the criticism of the thesis from several medical researchers and public health advocates who called for a review by the university's academic board, the university reiterated that research is conducted under strict standards, and that they do not "restrict the subjects into which research may be undertaken just because they involve public controversy or because individuals or groups oppose the topic or the findings".
+In January 2016, the Vice Chancellor of the university, Paul Wellings, announced a review into the doctoral process. However, the review did not examine specific doctorates, and therefore did not look at the awarding of Wilyman's PhD. Upon completion, the university's report found that their higher degree research policies and procedures were consistent with those at other comparable Australian universities. Immunology academic John Dwyer noted that even though the university's review made some "excellent recommendations for improving the postgraduate research students' experience", it "failed to address the vital question of matching the scientific question to be examined to the expertise of the supervisor and the ultimate reviewers".
+According to the university, all theses are examined by two people with "unchallengeable knowledge in the field of study", but the university does not reveal the identities of the examiners or their respective academic fields. In March 2016, the university's compliance officer turned down a request to identify the examiners, arguing that "the examiners would be offended, humiliated or intimidated by the conduct of the media and the public once their names are released", concerned for "their physical, psychological or emotional wellbeing" and noting that current privacy laws forbid the release of the information.
+John Dwyer AO responded that the names of examiners would not have been required if the university had agreed to re-examine the thesis, adding "as we know they are social scientists not clinical scientists". In a rebuttal the Australian Skeptics considers UOW's statement of a possible "detrimental effect on the [examiner's] physical ... wellbeing" to be verging on a libellous depiction, as it "suggest[s] that the community critical of the PhD may physically attack the examiners".

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+---
+title: "Judy Wilyman"
+chunk: 4/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Wilyman"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:55.396200+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Remonstrations ===
+In response to UOW and Wilyman's thesis an online petition called Stop the University of Wollongong's Spread of Disease and Death Via Anti-Vaccination PhD was established in January 2016 and attracted over 2,100 signatures within the first few weeks. The petition reportedly states that UOW's acceptance of the thesis "demonstrates an anti-scientific culture at the University of Wollongong that is inimical to scholarship".
+At the same time over sixty of the university's health and medical academics and researchers jointly signed a statement that "the evidence is clear" in support of vaccination urging all parents to ensure their children are fully immunised, Public Health Association of Australia president Heather Yeatman said the 65 academics wanted to clarify the scientific position and point out they are firmly behind vaccination and that "Universities need to publish papers based on sound evidence and the balance of evidence in relation to any matter".
+A week later, representatives from 12 medical research and clinical societies also signed a supporting statement on behalf of 5,000 scientists and clinicians in the fields of microbiology, virology, immunology and infectious diseases concerned about vaccine-preventable diseases in the community. Eminent research biologist Sir Gustav Nossal was one of signatories, and Jonathan Iredale who drafted the statement said "It's not about academic freedom; it's an academic issue. If the thesis comes from poor scholarship then that is something the university must deal with".
+In the Elsevier journal Vaccine three months later, UoW's executive dean of the Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health, researcher and toxicologist Alison Jones, co-authored a paper in-part referring to Wilyman, and in discussing the balance of good public health versus unchecked academic freedom stated: 
+
+"there is the very real potential for feral academic liberty and free speech to do harm ... this is particularly pertinent in the field of child health, where two recent controversial "scholarly" vaccine contributions ... could undermine community confidence in immunisation and immunisation uptake ... by suggesting scientific doubt where doubt is not warranted on the basis of the evidence available... [Wilyman has] repeated the discredited claims of a link between vaccines and autism, without providing compelling scientific evidence to support her claim".
+Martin responded to Durrheim and Jones, arguing that they had misrepresented parts of Wilyman's work.
+McIntyre, a senior doctor at the Westmead Children's Hospital, said that Wollongong University "must bear the major responsibility for manifestly inadequate supervision", saying: "It is clear from even cursory examination that Wilyman's thesis, although raising some legitimate questions about gaps in both the process and transparency of immunisation policy development, is based on a highly selective and poorly informed review of the literature, driven by the imperative to support pre-determined conclusions."
+
+=== Peer review ===
+The March 2019 issue of the journal Vaccine published an article titled "PhD thesis opposing immunisation: Failure of academic rigour with real-world consequences" that stated in its conclusion that Wilyman's "thesis is notable for its lack of evidence of systematic literature review. Despite its extensive claims, there is no primary research, but there is abundant evidence of strong bias in selecting the literature cited and sometimes outright misrepresentation of facts." The authors also criticised Wilyman's use of her PhD to position herself as an expert witness in a family law court case over immunisation.
+
+== After graduation ==
+Within two months of University of Wollongong publishing the thesis it was reported that Wilyman was claiming her "PhD provides evidence that all vaccines are not safe and effective and that the combined schedule of vaccines is doing more harm than good in the population through the increase in chronic illness".
+In June 2016 The Australian reported that Wilyman was an audience member at a vaccination forum run by the Telethon Kids Research Institute in Perth. Anti-vaccination activists at the event accused the forum members of lying, and heckled, interjected and continuously interrupted the speakers, forcing the event to close early.
+Wilyman wrote an open letter to Paul Wellings, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Wollongong asking the university to correct alleged inaccuracies in the Wikipedia article about her research, asserting that criticism of her thesis in the media and by individual scientists was not "a proper scientific debate (but) suppression of the literature using political strategies". She also criticised Alison Jones, a Wollongong academic, for using the university's website to publicise "personal opinions of vaccination". The university responded by saying that they do not endorse or otherwise the views of students or academic staff, and do not curate Wikipedia.
+Wilyman, Martin and the Faculty were awarded the satirical Australian Skeptics 2016 Bent Spoon Award for "a PhD thesis riddled with errors, misstatements, poor and unsupported 'evidence' and conspiratorial thinking".
+During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wilyman questioned whether there really was a pandemic saying "do not lock down a healthy population under the guidelines of 'social distancing' for a global pandemic when there is no evidence of that pandemic", and challenged health advice by saying "that if you accept this social distancing and banning of gatherings of more than two people, [which] is clearly about population control and not the control of this infectious disease outbreak… then you are accepting the new norm and you've already lost your freedom".

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+---
+title: "Judy Wilyman"
+chunk: 5/5
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Wilyman"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:55.396200+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Masters thesis investigation ==
+Wilyman was previously investigated and cleared by the university after allegations relating to her 2007 Masters thesis. After investigating the allegations and clearing Wilyman in 2015, the university declined to publicly release details, but under a Freedom of Information request a small number of documents were released after the Information & Privacy Commission of NSW intervened. In March 2016 there was a further release of hundreds of heavily redacted pages relating to the investigation, after the initial response was appealed. In what text was left unredacted, it showed that the complaint was referred to a high-level conduct committee, which dismissed the complaint after a two-month investigation and took no further action. The documents revealed that Judy Raper, the university's Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research, wrote to Wilyman after the investigation saying that it should not have occurred, that she was "sincerely sorry for this to have happened", and that "academic misconduct processes are not a forum for academic debate".
+
+== Political career ==
+Wilyman ran in the 2019 Australian federal election as a candidate for the Western Australia senate as a member of the anti-vaccination/anti-fluoridation, Involuntary Medication Objectors (Vaccination/Fluoride) Party. She was not successful, receiving a very small number of votes (594 on first preference, 0.04% of total; and 3,122 ticket votes, 0.22% of total).
+
+== References ==
+
+== Further reading ==
+Bowditch, Peter (March 2016). "What Is a PhD Worth?". Australasian Science.
+Durrheim, D.N.; Jones, A.L. (2016). "Public health and the necessary limits of academic freedom?". Vaccine. 34 (22): 2467–2468. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2016.03.082. PMID 27063454.
+
+== External links ==
+Wilyman, Judy (2015). A critical analysis of the Australian government's rationale for its vaccination policy (Doctor of Philosophy thesis). University of Wollongong.
+University of Wollongong (13 January 2016) press release responding to academic freedom.
+Statement from University of Wollongong health & medical researchers (18 January 2016) - "supporting immunisation".
+11 Medical Research & Clinical Societies statement (27 January 2016) - response to UOW controversy Archived 29 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Plants-0.md

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+---
+title: "The Secret Life of Plants"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Plants"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:08:51.824019+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Secret Life of Plants (1973) is a book by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, which documents controversial experiments that claim to reveal unusual phenomena associated with plants, such as plant sentience and the ability of plants to communicate with other creatures, including humans. The book goes on to discuss philosophies and progressive farming methods based on these "findings".
+It was heavily criticized by scientists for promoting pseudoscientific claims. Later editions were published with the subtitle A Fascinating Account of the Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Relations Between Plants and Man.
+
+
+== Authors ==
+Christopher Bird [de] (1928–1996) was a best-selling author who also wrote The Divining Hand: The 500-Year-Old Mystery of Dowsing. Peter Tompkins worked as a journalist, as well as a US military intelligence officer for the OSS in Italy during World War II.
+The original book cover design was created by underground comix illustrator Gail Burwen.
+
+
+== Summary ==
+The book includes summaries of the life and work of 20th century scientists Jagadish Chandra Bose and Corentin Louis Kervran as well as 19th century scientist George Washington Carver.
+The book includes experiments on plant stimuli using a polygraph, a method which was pioneered by Cleve Backster. Parts of the book attempt to disparage science, particularly plant biology, for example by claiming science is not concerned with "what makes plants live", in order to promote its own viewpoint that plants have emotions. The authors further say the authorities are unable to accept that emotional plants "might originate in a supramaterial world of cosmic beings which, as fairies, elves, gnomes, sylphs, and a host of other creatures, were a matter of direct vision and experience to clairvoyants among the Celts and other sensitives."
+
+
+== Criticism ==
+The book has been criticized by botanists such as Arthur Galston for endorsing pseudoscientific claims. According to Galston and physiologist Clifford L. Slayman many of the claims in the book are false or unsupported by independent verification and replicable studies.
+Botanist Leslie Audus noted that the book is filled with nonsensical "outrageous" claims and should be regarded as fiction.
+
+
+== Documentary ==
+The book was the basis for the 1979 documentary film of the same name, directed by Walon Green and featuring a soundtrack by Stevie Wonder, later released as Journey through the Secret Life of Plants. The film made use of time-lapse photography (where plants are seen growing in a few seconds, creepers reach out to other plants and tug on them, mushrooms and flowers open). The film was originally distributed by Paramount Pictures.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Plant perception (paranormal)
+Plant perception (physiology)
+Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants", Stevie Wonder's soundtrack for the documentary
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== Further reading ==
+Galston, Arthur. (1974). The Unscientific Method. Natural History 83: 18–24.
+Mescher, Mark C; Moraes, Consuelo M. De. (2015). The Role of Plant Sensory Perception in Plant–Animal Interactions. Journal of Experimental Botany 66: 425–433.