diff --git a/_index.db b/_index.db index 6a78ff30c..cb5a63731 100644 Binary files a/_index.db and b/_index.db differ diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Maggiore-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Maggiore-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..488cf6695 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Maggiore-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: "Christine Maggiore" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Maggiore" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:36.045771+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Christine Joy Maggiore (July 25, 1956 – December 27, 2008) was an HIV-positive activist and promoter of HIV/AIDS denialism. She was the founder of Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, an organization which disputes the link between HIV and AIDS and urges HIV-positive pregnant women to avoid anti-HIV medication. Maggiore authored and self-published the book What If Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong? +Maggiore's promotion of HIV/AIDS denialism had long been controversial, particularly since her 3-year-old daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill, died of Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia, which is an AIDS-defining illness. Consistent with her belief that HIV was harmless, Maggiore had not taken medication to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV to her daughter during pregnancy, and she did not have Eliza Jane tested for HIV during her daughter's lifetime. Maggiore herself died on December 27, 2008, after suffering from AIDS-related conditions. + +== Early life and career == +Born in Chicago, Illinois, Maggiore grew up in Southern California. After graduating with honors from Reseda High School, she worked in advertising and marketing in Los Angeles, California until 1984. She traveled through Europe and North Africa in 1984 before settling in Florence, Italy, where she lived from 1985 to 1987. By the late 1980s, she was earning a high salary at the Alessi International clothing company. + +== HIV diagnosis and activism == +In 1992, as part of a routine medical exam, Maggiore tested positive for HIV, as did a former boyfriend. Subsequently, Maggiore became involved in volunteer work for a number of AIDS charities, including AIDS Project Los Angeles, L.A. Shanti, and Women at Risk. However, following an interaction with prominent AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg in 1994, Maggiore began to question whether HIV causes AIDS. Maggiore came to believe that her positive test may have been due to influenza vaccination, pregnancy, or a common viral infection. +In 1995, Maggiore left the clothing business to work as a freelance consultant for US government export programs. At the same time, she founded Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, an organization denying the connection between HIV and AIDS and urging pregnant HIV-positive women to avoid HIV medications for themselves and their children. Maggiore herself drew criticism for breast-feeding her children, as breast feeding has been shown to increase the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. +In a 2002 article entitled "My Bout of So-Called AIDS", Maggiore wrote that she had an abnormal Pap smear (a "Grade 3 Pap smear with cervical dysplasia"), which she wrote would qualify her for an AIDS diagnosis. Maggiore's doctors recommended further evaluation with colposcopy; Maggiore writes that she instead followed a naturopathic program and had additional Pap tests performed under an assumed name by another doctor, ultimately obtaining what she described as a normal result. +In a 2005 article in the Los Angeles Times, Maggiore claimed to be in excellent health without taking anti-retroviral treatment. Maggiore's husband and partner, filmmaker Robin Scovill, has repeatedly tested negative despite what Maggiore describes as "a decade of normal, latex-free relations". Their son Charlie, born in 1997, has also tested negative for HIV. +Maggiore's inclusion as an exhibitor at the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa has been criticized by AIDS activists. Her influence on Thabo Mbeki's decision to block medical treatment of HIV-positive pregnant women was criticized following her death, with medical researchers noting that an estimated "330,000 lives were lost to new AIDS infections during the time Mbeki blocked government funding of AZT treatment to mothers." + +== Daughter Eliza Jane == + +Christine Maggiore chose not to take antiretroviral drugs or other measures which reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV during her pregnancies. Maggiore also breastfed her children, despite evidence that breastfeeding can also transmit HIV from mother to child. Her youngest daughter, Eliza Jane, was never tested for HIV, nor did she or her older brother Charlie receive any of the recommended childhood vaccines. Maggiore later reported Charlie to have tested HIV-negative three times, and asserted that both were in good health. +In April 2005, Eliza Jane, then three and a half years old, became ill with a runny nose. She was seen by two physicians, one of whom reportedly knew of Maggiore's HIV status. Eliza Jane was not tested for HIV and was diagnosed with pneumonia. When Eliza Jane failed to improve, Maggiore took her to see Philip Incao, a holistic practitioner and board member of Maggiore's organization Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, who described Eliza Jane as only mildly ill and prescribed her amoxicillin for a presumed ear infection. +On May 16, 2005, Eliza Jane collapsed and stopped breathing. She was rushed to Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, California, where, after failed attempts to revive her, she was pronounced dead. An autopsy revealed that Eliza Jane was markedly underweight and under-height (consistent with a chronic illness), exhibited pronounced atrophy of her thymus and other lymphatic organs, and died of pneumonia caused by Pneumocystis jirovecii, a common opportunistic pathogen in people with AIDS and the leading cause of pediatric AIDS deaths. +The postmortem examination of Eliza Jane's brain showed changes consistent with HIV encephalitis; protein components of HIV itself were identified in Eliza Jane's brain tissue via immunohistochemistry. The coroner concluded that Eliza Jane had died of Pneumocystis pneumonia in the setting of advanced AIDS. +Maggiore rejected the coroner's conclusion, ascribing it to political bias and attacking the personal credibility of the senior coroner. Maggiore had the autopsy reviewed by Mohammed Al-Bayati, a veterinary pathologist who holds a Ph.D. in animal disease pathology, but is neither a medical doctor nor board-certified in human pathology. Al-Bayati argued that Eliza Jane had died from an allergic reaction to amoxicillin, a conclusion Maggiore embraced. Al-Bayati's report has been dismissed as medically unsound by independent pathology experts, who agreed with the coroner's conclusion that Eliza Jane had died of complications of untreated AIDS. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Maggiore-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Maggiore-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..dcfe7213a --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Maggiore-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +title: "Christine Maggiore" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Maggiore" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:36.045771+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Reaction to Eliza Jane's death === +Controversy ensued in the wake of Eliza Jane's death; as Eliza Jane had acquired HIV from Maggiore perinatally or via breastfeeding, her HIV infection might have been prevented had Maggiore taken antiretroviral drugs or avoided breastfeeding, and her death may have been preventable with proper medical care. John Moore, a prominent HIV/AIDS researcher speaking at the 16th International AIDS Conference, described Eliza Jane's death as a concrete example of the human harm that can result from pseudoscientific beliefs such as AIDS denialism: + +... infants whose HIV infected mothers listen to AIDS denialists never got the chance to make their own decisions. The Maggiore case received wide publicity. Christine Maggiore is a person who’s proselytized against the use of antiretrovirals to prevent HIV/AIDS. She's a classic AIDS denialist, and she gave birth to a child who died at age three late last year of an AIDS-related infection. The coroner’s report clearly reports that the child died of AIDS. That was another unnecessary death. +During this controversy, Maggiore had held fast to her views on HIV/AIDS and to Al-Bayati's conclusion. She received support from others in the AIDS-denialist community; journalist Celia Farber wrote an article in June 2006 in the independent paper Los Angeles CityBeat arguing Maggiore's case and alleging incompetence, conspiracy, and coverups on the part of the coroner, the mainstream AIDS community, the mainstream media, and the medical community. In particular, Farber claimed that the coroner's office had not disclosed the records of Eliza Jane's HIV serology test, and quoted another denialist who claimed Eliza Jane's total lymphocyte count was elevated at the time of her death. +Eliza Jane's death was investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Department of Child Protective Services as a possible case of medical neglect or child endangerment. In September 2006, the L.A. County District Attorney's office announced that it would not file charges against Christine Maggiore, noting that Maggiore did take her sick child to several physicians. In September 2006, the Medical Board of California filed charges of gross negligence against Eliza Jane's pediatrician, Paul M. Fleiss. +The board argued that Fleiss had failed to test Eliza Jane for HIV (or to document her parents' refusal of testing), failed to counsel Maggiore to avoid breastfeeding given the risk of transmitting HIV, and committed similar violations of standard medical practice in Fleiss' care of a second HIV-positive child. Ultimately, Fleiss conceded a failure to keep adequate medical records and was sanctioned with 35 months of probation, but was not found grossly negligent by the Board. +Maggiore and her husband, Robin Scovill, sued Los Angeles County in 2007 for allegedly violating their daughter's civil rights and privacy by releasing her autopsy report, which indicated that she was HIV-positive. A settlement was reached in 2009. + +== Death == +On December 27, 2008, Maggiore died at the age of 52. She was under a doctor's care and was being treated for what was originally reported as pneumonia. The Los Angeles County coroner's office stated that Maggiore had been treated for pneumonia in the six months prior to her death as well. A doctor familiar with the family noted that anti-HIV drugs could have prevented her death, but Maggiore's fellow AIDS denialists argued that her pneumonia was not AIDS-related and suggested instead that she died as a result of a toxic alternative medicine "holistic cleanse", stress, or the cold and flu. Maggiore's death certificate states that the cause of death was disseminated herpes virus infection and bilateral pneumonia, with oral candidiasis as a contributing cause, all of which is related to HIV infection. The death certificate also states that no autopsy was performed. + +== See also == +The Other Side of AIDS +House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic + +== References == + +== External links == +A Mother's Denial, A Daughter's Death: from the Los Angeles Times. +Did HIV-Positive Mom's Beliefs Put Her Children at Risk? An ABC News Primetime special. +AIDS denial: A lethal delusion Jonny Steinberg, New Scientist 2009. +Obituary from the Los Angeles Times. +Debunking the AIDS Denialist Movie House of NumbersMy by Myles Power mainly criticizing Christine Maggiore and her role in this movie and during its making. (Youtube) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridology-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridology-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ce1941eb3 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridology-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Iridology" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:50.546586+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Iridology (also known as iridodiagnosis or iridiagnosis) is an alternative medicine technique whose proponents claim that patterns, colors, and other characteristics of the iris can be examined to determine information about a patient's systemic health. Practitioners match their observations to iris charts, which divide the iris into zones that correspond to specific parts of the human body. Iridologists see the eyes as "windows" into the body's state of health. +Iridologists claim they can use the charts to distinguish between healthy systems and organs in the body and those that are overactive, inflamed, or distressed. Iridologists claim this information demonstrates a patient's susceptibility towards certain illnesses, reflects past medical problems, or predicts later health problems. +As opposed to evidence-based medicine, iridology is not supported by quality research studies and is considered pseudoscience. The features of the iris are one of the most stable features on the human body throughout life. The stability of iris structures is the foundation of the biometric technology which uses iris recognition for identification purposes. + +== History == +Medical practitioners have been searching the eyes for signs of illness since at least 3,000 BCE. +The first explicit description of iridological principles, such as homolaterality (without using the word iridology) are found in Chiromatica Medica, a famous work published in 1665 and reprinted in 1670 and 1691 by Philippus Meyeus (Philip Meyen von Coburg). + +The first use of the word Augendiagnostik ("eye diagnosis", loosely translated as iridology) began with Ignaz von Peczely, a 19th-century Hungarian physician who is recognised as its founding father. The most common story is that he got the idea for this diagnostic tool after seeing similar streaks in the eyes of a man he was treating for a broken leg and the eyes of an owl whose leg von Peczely had broken many years before. At the First International Iridological Congress, Ignaz von Peczely's nephew, August von Peczely, dismissed this myth as apocryphal and maintained that such claims were irreproducible. +The second 'father' to iridology is thought to be Nils Liljequist from Sweden, who greatly suffered from the outgrowth of his lymph nodes. After a round of medication made from iodine and quinine, he observed many differences in the colour of his iris. This observation inspired him to create and publish an atlas in 1893, which contained 258 black and white illustrations and 12 colour illustrations of the iris, known as the Diagnosis of the Eye. +In Germany, Pastor Emanuel Felke developed a form of homeopathy for treating specific illnesses and described new iris signs in the early 1900s. However, Felke was subject to long and bitter litigation. The Felke Institute in Gerlingen, Germany, was established as a leading center of iridological research and training. +Iridology became better known in the United States in the 1950s, when Bernard Jensen, an American chiropractor, began giving classes in his method. This is in direct relationship with P. Johannes Thiel, Eduard Lahn (who became an American under the name of Edward Lane), and J Haskell Kritzer. Jensen emphasized the importance of the body's exposure to toxins, and the use of natural foods as detoxifiers. In 1979, in collaboration with two other iridologists, Jensen failed to establish the basis of their practice when they examined photographs of the eyes of 143 patients in an attempt to determine which ones had kidney impairments. Of the patients, 48 had been diagnosed with kidney disease, and the rest had normal kidney function. Based on their analysis of the patients' irises, the three iridologists could not detect which patients had kidney disease and which did not. + +== Criticism == +Scientists dismiss iridology given that published studies have indicated a lack of success for its claims. No clinical study to date has demonstrated a correlation between illness in the body and coinciding observable changes in the iris. In controlled experiments, practitioners of iridology have performed statistically no better than chance in determining the presence of a disease or condition solely through observation of the iris. +Iridology is based on a premise that is at odds with the fact that the iris does not undergo substantial changes in an individual's life. Iris texture is a phenotypical feature that develops during gestation and remains unchanged after infancy. There is no evidence for changes in the iris pattern other than variations in pigmentation in the first years of life and variations caused by glaucoma treatment. The stability of iris structures is the foundation of the biometric technology, which uses iris recognition for identification purposes. +James Randi has argued that despite the lack of clinical efficacy, iridology remains unfalsifiable since iridologists do not provide a distinction between current physical defects and "future" defects; thus, iridiagnostic claims cannot be proven wrong. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridology-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridology-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0315959f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridology-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +--- +title: "Iridology" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:50.546586+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Scientific research into iridology == +Well-controlled scientific evaluation of iridology has shown negative results, with all rigorous double blind trials failing to find any statistical significance to its claims. +In 2015, the Australian Government's Department of Health published the results of a review of alternative therapies that sought to determine if any were suitable for being covered by health insurance. Iridology was one of 17 therapies evaluated for which no clear evidence of effectiveness was found. +A German study from 1957, which took more than 4,000 iris photographs of more than 1,000 people, concluded that iridology was useless as a diagnostic tool. +In 1979, Bernard Jensen, a leading American iridologist, and two other iridology proponents failed to establish the basis of their practice when they examined photographs of the eyes of 143 patients in an attempt to determine which ones had kidney impairments. Of the patients, 48 had been diagnosed with kidney disease, and the rest had normal kidney function. Based on their analysis of the patients' irises, the three iridologists could not detect which patients had kidney disease and which did not. One iridologist, for example, decided that 88% of the normal patients had kidney disease, while another judged through his iris analysis that 74% of patients who needed artificial kidney treatment were normal. +Another study was published in the British Medical Journal which selected 39 patients who were due to have their gall bladder removed the following day, because of suspected gallstones. The study also selected a group of people who did not have diseased gallbladders to act as a control. A group of five iridologists examined a series of slides of both groups' irises. The iridologists could not correctly identify which patients had gallbladder problems and which had healthy gallbladders. For example, one of the iridologists diagnosed 49% of the patients with gallstones as having them and 51% as not having them. The author concluded: "this study showed that iridology is not a useful diagnostic aid." + +Edzard Ernst raised the question in 2000:Does iridology work? ... This search strategy resulted in 77 publications on the subject of iridology. ... All of the uncontrolled studies and several of the unmasked experiments suggested that iridology was a valid diagnostic tool. The discussion that follows refers to the 4 controlled, masked evaluations of the diagnostic validity of iridology. ... In conclusion, few controlled studies with masked evaluation of diagnostic validity have been published. None have found any benefit from iridology.A 2005 study tested the usefulness of iridology in diagnosing common forms of cancer. An experienced iridology practitioner examined the eyes of 110 total subjects, of which 68 people had proven cancers of the breast, ovary, uterus, prostate, or colorectum, and 42 for whom there was no medical evidence of cancer. The practitioner, who was unaware of their gender or medical details, was asked to suggest a diagnosis for each person, and their results were then compared with each subject's known medical diagnosis. The study conclusion was that "Iridology was of no value in diagnosing the cancers investigated in this study." + +== Methods == + +Iridologists generally use equipment such as a flashlight and magnifying glass, cameras, or slit-lamp microscopes to examine a patient's irises for tissue changes, as well as features such as specific pigment patterns and irregular stromal architecture. The markings and patterns are compared to an iris chart that correlates zones of the iris with parts of the body. Typical charts divide the iris into approximately 80–90 zones. For example, the zone corresponding to the kidney is in the lower part of the iris, just before 6 o'clock. There are minor variations between charts' associations between body parts and areas of the iris. +According to iridologists, details in the iris reflect changes in the tissues of the corresponding body organs. One prominent practitioner, Bernard Jensen, described it thus: "Nerve fibers in the iris respond to changes in body tissues by manifesting a reflex physiology that corresponds to specific tissue changes and locations." This would mean that a bodily condition translates to a noticeable change in the appearance of the iris, but this has been disproven through many studies. (See section on Scientific research.) For example, acute inflammatory, chronic inflammatory and catarrhal signs may indicate involvement, maintenance, or healing of corresponding distant tissues, respectively. Other features that iridologists look for are contraction rings and Klumpenzellen, which may indicate various other health conditions, as interpreted in context. +In Canada and the United States, iridology is not regulated or licensed by any governmental agency. Numerous organizations offer certification courses. + +== Possible harms == +Medical errors—treatment for conditions diagnosed via this method that do not exist (false positive result) or a false sense of security when a serious condition is not diagnosed by this method (false negative result)—could lead to improper or delayed treatment and even loss of life. + +== See also == +Moleosophy +Phrenology +Reflexology + +== References == + +== External links == +The Skeptics Dictionary +Quackwatch +Your-Doctor.com +James Randi Educational Foundation \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irlen_syndrome-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irlen_syndrome-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c9d78c90c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irlen_syndrome-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Irlen syndrome" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irlen_syndrome" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:51.734310+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Irlen syndrome (or scotopic sensitivity syndrome) is a purported medical condition defined by disordered visual processing. It is proposed that it can be treated by wearing colored lenses. The ideas of Irlen syndrome are not supported by scientific evidence, and psychologists and medical professionals have described its treatment as a health fraud. + + +== History == + +The condition was proposed in the 1980s, by Helen Irlen, an educational psychologist. Irlen found that certain children and adults who had reading difficulties improved upon overlaying coloured acetate sheets on top of the text that was being read. Irlen defines the Syndrome as a light-based visual processing problem. She theorizes that the brain is unable to process light and visual stimuli efficiently, leading to visual stress and poor reading comprehension. The symptoms of Irlen Syndrome can include behavioural difficulties, reading difficulties, headaches, fatigue, and light sensitivity. +The diagnostic test for Irlen Syndrome was developed by Irlen, and consists of a questionnaire of 32 questions, a series of visual tasks, and an assessment where coloured lenses are presented to the patient to see if there is any reading improvement when using them. Irlen has not provided any data related to the diagnostic test or released a comprehensive diagnostic criteria. +In 1985 Irlen submitted a patent for coloured lenses, to be used in glasses frames, for dyslexics and people with Irlen syndrome. +The Irlen method uses tinted lenses. The method is intended to reduce visual distortions, eye strain, and fatigue. + + +== Criticism == + +Some psychologists and medical professionals say that the ideas of Irlen syndrome are pseudoscientific and not supported by scientific evidence. Others say that the treatment of Irlen syndrome is a form of health fraud, that takes advantage of vulnerable people. +Medical organisations that don't recognise Irlen Syndrome include the World Health Organization, American Academy of Ophthalmology, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. +The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO) released a statement in 2018, stating that there is no scientific evidence that Irlen Syndrome exists, or that the supposed treatments help people who struggle with reading difficulties. + + +== See also == +Dyslexia – Learning disability affecting reading + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochronic_tones-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochronic_tones-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8603b3192 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochronic_tones-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +title: "Isochronic tones" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochronic_tones" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:52.921365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Isochronic tones are regular beats of a single tone that are used alongside monaural beats and binaural beats in the process called brainwave entrainment (synchronization of brainwaves). At its simplest level, an isochronic tone is a tone that is being turned on and off rapidly. The sounds are played in both ears. They create sharp, distinctive pulses of sound. +Isochronic tones are tones of any frequency that recur at regular intervals, usually rapid. Isochronic tones can quantitatively be distinguished by both the frequency or pitch of the tone itself, and by the interval or frequency of repetition of the tone. +While listening to isochronic tones is a technique often employed in the theoretical practice of brainwave entrainment, there has been very little research related to any claims of health benefits by listening to isochronic tones. +A form of auditory beats stimulation that uses alternating tones may be considered a derivative of isochronic tones; alternatively, isochronic tones can be considered, along with monaural beats and binaural beats, to be a subtype of auditory beats stimulation. + + +== See also == +Audio–visual entrainment +Hemi-Sync +Trance + + +== References == + +‌ \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-0.md index d7efc4f5d..7b5e11964 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-0.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-0.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/4 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:11:26.935463+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:54.136732+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-1.md index 5ad4d7180..a9b86cfaf 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-1.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-1.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 2/4 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:11:26.935463+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:54.136732+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-2.md index 44e900ab1..bb1357803 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-2.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-2.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 3/4 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:11:26.935463+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:54.136732+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-3.md index eeb6f7b32..2d802140c 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-3.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic-3.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 4/4 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:11:26.935463+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:54.136732+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theory-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theory-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f21d9554b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theory-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +--- +title: "Japhetic theory" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theory" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:55.348105+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In linguistics, the Japhetic hypothesis or Japhetic theory (Russian: яфетическая теория, yafeticheskaya teoriya) of Soviet linguist Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr (1864–1934) postulated that the Kartvelian languages of the Caucasus area are related to the Semitic languages of the Middle East. The hypothesis gained favor in the 1930s and '40s among some Soviet linguists for ideological reasons as it was thought to represent "proletarian science" as opposed to "bourgeois science", but also had numerous detractors, most notably Arnold Chikobava. The hypothesis finally fell into disrepute and was largely discarded after 1950, when Joseph Stalin published a scathing critique of the views of Marr and his supporters, titled "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics". + + +== Term == +Marr adopted the term "Japhetic" from Japheth, the name of one of the sons of Noah, in order to characterise his hypothesis that the Kartvelian languages of the Caucasus area were related to the Semitic languages of the Middle East (named after Shem, Japheth's brother). Marr postulated a common origin of Caucasian, Semitic-Hamitic, and Basque languages. This initial hypothesis pre-dated the October Revolution (the first reference to it is made in Pan Tadeusz written by Adam Mickiewicz in the 1830s). In 1917, Marr enthusiastically endorsed the revolution, and offered his services to the new Soviet regime. He was soon accepted as the country's leading linguist. + + +== Hypothesis == +Under the Soviet government, Marr developed his hypothesis to claim that Japhetic languages had existed across Europe before the advent of the Indo-European languages. They could still be recognised as a substratum over which the Indo-European languages had imposed themselves. Using this model, Marr attempted to apply the Marxist theory of class struggle to linguistics, arguing that these different strata of language corresponded to different social classes. He stated that the same social classes in widely different countries spoke versions of their own languages that were linguistically closer to one another than to the speech of other classes who supposedly spoke “the same” language. This aspect of Marr's thinking was an attempt to extend the Marxist theory of international class consciousness far beyond its original meaning, by trying to apply it to language. Marr also insisted that the notion that a people are united by common language was nothing more than false consciousness created by “bourgeois nationalism”. +To draw support for his speculative doctrine, Marr elaborated a Marxist footing for it. He hypothesized that modern languages tend to fuse into a single language of communist society. This hypothesis was the basis for a mass campaign of "Latinisation" in the 1920s and 1930s to replace the existing Cyrillic alphabets of minority languages with Latin alphabets. +Obtaining recognition of his hypothesis from Soviet officials, Marr was permitted to manage the National Library of Russia from 1926 until 1930 and the Japhetic Institute of the Academy of Sciences from 1921 until his death in 1934. He was elected vice-president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1930. +In 1950, sixteen years after Marr's death, an article titled "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics", written by Joseph Stalin, was published in major Soviet periodicals. It was inspired by the writings of Marr's most energetic opponent, Arnold Chikobava, In the article, Stalin rebuts the Japhetic hypothesis, stating that "N. Ya. Marr introduced into linguistics another and also incorrect and non-Marxist formula, regarding the ‘class character’ of language, and got himself into a muddle and put linguistics into a muddle. Soviet linguistics cannot be advanced on the basis of an incorrect formula which is contrary to the whole course of the history of peoples and languages." Since then, the Japhetic hypothesis has been seen as deeply flawed, both inside and outside the former Soviet Union, but some of Marr's surviving students continued to defend and develop it into the late 1960s. + + +== See also == +Georgy Danilov +Dené-Caucasian languages +Khazar theory +Lemurian Tamil +Lysenkoism +Proto-language +Sun Language Theory + + +== References == + + +== External links == +The Soviet Linguistic Theory (chapter 4 of Roman Smal-Stocki, The Nationality Problem of the Soviet Union): a hostile but thorough exposition of Japhetic hypothesis \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f279a3513 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Jewish astrology" +chunk: 1/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:57.914324+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Astrology in Jewish antiquity (Hebrew: מזלות, romanized: mazzalot) is the belief that celestial bodies can influence the affairs of individuals and of entire nations upon the earth. This involves the study of the celestial bodies' respective energies based on recurring patterns that change by the hour, by the week, month, year or by several years (time categories). In each of these time categories one of the seven planetary spheres, or what are known as the seven classical planets: the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, or Mars, along with the month's current Zodiac constellation, come into play and influence the sublunary world. At times, it involves a complex combination of several of these factors working together. In Judaism this belief is expressed by the biblical affirmation: "Do you know the laws of heaven / Or impose its authority on earth?" (Job 38:33), from which statement the Sages of Israel have inferred, "There is no single herb below without its corresponding star above, that beats upon it and commands it to grow." +Complementary to the records of past civilisations, the corpus of Jewish literature has preserved many of the details instructive of the determining factors involved in rendering any astrological forecast, although astrology in terms of modern science is understood to be a pseudoscience. + +== Rabbinic belief == + +A famous meme that underscores the importance with which Judaism views the influences of the horoscope is found in the Idra of the Zohar:Everything is dependent upon mazzal (astral influences), even the Torah scroll in the ark. (הַכֹּל תָּלוּי בְּמַזָּל, וַאֲפִילּוּ סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה בָּהֵיכָל) +In the Babylonian Talmud, a controversy is presented among the sages of Israel as to whether the changing signs of the zodiac affect a person's destiny. The supportive opinions are of Joshua ben Levi, who lists the types of people according to their various zodiac signs, and of Hanina bar Hama, who believes that the astrological constellations (mazzal) can make a person wise and can even make a person wealthy. Conversely, Johanan bar Nappaha held the view that "Israel is not bound by the effects of the changing horoscopes." He assayed to bring proof from a verse taken from the prophet Jeremiah: "Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them." +The opinions of Abba Arikha, of Samuel of Nehardea and of Rabbi Akiva, however, seem to be supportive of applied astrology, even though the people of Israel are not bound by the influences of the constellations. Other rabbis have vaunted their knowledge of applied astrology. Said Samuel of Nehardea, "I know the pathways of heaven as I do the pathways of Nehardea, excepting the comet, about which I know nothing." + +Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi reported that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said in the name of Bar Kappara: Anyone who knows how to calculate astronomical seasons and the movement of constellations and does not do so, the verse says about him: "They do not take notice of the work of God, and they do not see His handiwork" (Isaiah 5:12). +In several places in the Talmud it is stated that every man has a celestial body (mazzal), i.e. a particular star which is his patron from conception and birth (Shabbat 53b; Baba Kama 2b) and which perceives things unknown to the man himself (Megillah 3a; Sanhedrin 94a). Two people born under the same star are also said to have a bodily and spiritual kinship (Nedarim 39b; Baba Metzia 30b). +Rava says, "Duration of life, progeny, and subsistence are dependent upon the constellations." +The great men of Israel in the Middle Ages, viz., Saadia Gaon, in his commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah; Solomon ibn Gabirol in his Keter Malkhut, and Abraham bar Hiyya, ha-Nasi and Abraham ibn Ezra considered astrology to be true wisdom and even expressed this belief in their works. Judah Halevi also acknowledges in his magnum opus, the Kuzari, that the celestial bodies have an influence on earthly affairs, but does not admit that the astrologers have the ability to determine the mode of operation of the star systems on human beings and other living creatures in the terrestrial world. +Maimonides, who lived in the late twelfth century, took a more critical approach to the topic of astrology, ruling that man was entirely incapable of foretelling futurities by observing the celestial bodies, especially if those same astrological formulae were faulty. He, therefore, cancelled its practice altogether. Among the rabbis of the Middle Ages, Maimonides was the sole antagonist of such practices. +One of his contemporaries and disputants, Abraham ben David, in his glosses to Maimonides' Mishneh Torah (Hil. Teshuvah 5:5), asserts the influence of the stars upon destiny, while contending that by faith in God man may overcome this influence. +Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, during the Age of Enlightenment and although never actually having used his knowledge of the occult to foretell futurities, speaks about the influences of the stars in his book, Derekh Hashem (II, chapter 7 – The Influence of Stars). \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..734fd688c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: "Jewish astrology" +chunk: 2/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:57.914324+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Proscription against idolatry == +The rabbis have distinguished between gaining an occult knowledge of the stars' influences on human beings (which is permitted) and the actual worshipping of the stars (which is prohibited), a view that is also met with the Scripture; cf. [the stars and all the host of heaven] "which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations" (Deut. 4:19), that is to say, the stars, which God appointed to be the means of governing His creatures, and not the objects of man's worship. +The Midrash HaGadol (on Deuteronomy 4:19) clarifies what is meant by, "[And beware] lest you raise your eyes to heaven, etc." It is hereby inferred that you are not to say, 'since these stars and constellations govern the world, and they provide light unto the entire universe, and they serve before their Creator on High, it is fitting that we serve them and bow down unto them, just as the king would want [all] human beings to behave with respect towards his servants and ministers.' For this reason it says, lest you raise your eyes to heaven, beware that you do not err in this manner, on account of what [is written], which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations. They (i.e. the astrological horoscopes) have been delivered into the hands of the nations, so that they may live [thereby] and their beings be sustained [thereby], [without] suffering loss, as is the custom of the world. But you (i.e. the nation of Israel) have been given over to me, and I do not behave towards you as is customarily practised with all the world, as it says, But the Lord has taken you (Deut. 4:20), etc. Likewise he says, Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens; for the gentiles are dismayed at them (Jer. 10:2). The nations of the world are alarmed by them, but Israel is not alarmed by them." +A similar theme is found in other rabbinic literature concerning Abraham the patriarch, who, although wise in the astrological sciences, and who saw thereby that he would not beget any children, was reprimanded by God who said to him: "Break away from your astrological speculations, for [the people of] Israel are not bound by the influences of the horoscope." By this Rashi learnt that through prayers, repentance and meritorious deeds (sometimes also through a change of name), they are able to alter what has been determined for them. +The people of Israel are prohibited by Jewish law to consult the astrologers and star-gazers for guidance, but are commanded to be perfect in their awe of God and to consult him for guidance, even when they are told by astrologers what might happen. + +== Astral influences and how they are determined == +The day is divided into 12 equal hours. The night, likewise, is divided into 12 equal hours. In both cases, the method of configuration used in measuring the hour is known as the Relative hour. To determine the length of each relative hour, one needs but simply know two variables: (a) the precise time of sunrise, and (b) the precise time of sunset. Although in Talmudic literature one begins to reckon the beginning of a day some 72 minutes before sunrise and where each day ends 13½ minutes after the sun has already set, here, in the case of astrological computations, it was only necessary to reckon the day from the moment of sunrise. Rashi, however, alludes to the day beginning at dawn (עמוד השחר‎). By collecting the total number of minutes in any given day (from daylight hours) and dividing the total number of minutes by 12, the quotient that one is left with is the number of minutes to each hour. In summer months, when the days are long, the length of each hour during daytime can be as much as 77 minutes or more, whereas the length of each hour during nighttime can be less than 42 minutes. +To each hour of the day and night is assigned one of the seven planets or spheres, which same planet governs the world during that hour. The names of these planets are: Saturn (shabtai), Venus (nogah), Jupiter (tzedek), Mercury (kokhav), Mars (ma'adim), Moon (levanah) and the Sun (ḥamah). [Note: The ancients conceived that there were only seven primary planets. The moon, although a satellite rather than a planet, was also numbered among them; the sun, which is a star rather than a planet, was also numbered among them. The earth was not numbered among them since it was central to the rest. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, as well as the other recently discovered planets and satellites, were not known to the ancients, and therefore are considered trivial to the rest]. The star or planet that begins the first diurnal hour of a particular weekday, or the first nocturnal hour of a particular weeknight, it is the same star or planet that broadly governs that entire day or night. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e647d732c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +--- +title: "Jewish astrology" +chunk: 3/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:57.914324+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The observance and reckoning of the movements of the 12 constellations are believed by some scholars to have been learnt from Hellenistic culture, after first being divested of influences that were deemed idolatrous. Accordingly, it was believed that God determined that each of the seven planets be subordinate to the twelve constellations of the Zodiac, and work in conjunction with them. For example, the Sun is directly subservient to the influences emanating from the constellation known as Leo, while the Moon is subservient to the influences emanating from the constellation known as Cancer. Mars is subservient to the influences emanating from two constellations, namely, Aries and Scorpio. The planet Venus is also subservient to the influences emanating from two constellations, namely, Taurus and Libra. The planet Mercury is, likewise, subservient to two constellations, drawing its influences from them, namely, that of Gemini and Virgo. The planet Saturn is subservient to two constellations, those being Capricorn and Aquarius, whence it draws its influences. Finally, the planet Jupiter is directly subordinate to the influences emanating from Sagittarius and Pisces. Weekly nocturnal duties: Each of the seven planets takes turn governing one day of the week, with the active involvement of all the planets on that same day working in concert, hour after hour, day by day, night by night, such that on the evening that commences Sunday (i.e. Saturday night), the night is governed by Mercury (kokhav), which begins its turn of duty in the first hour of the night, followed by all the other planets one after the other. On the evening that commences Monday (i.e. Sunday night), the night is governed by Jupiter (tzedek), which begins its turn of duty in the first hour of the night, followed by all the other planets one after the other. And so it is in this manner all throughout the week, the evening that commences Tuesday (i.e. Monday night) is governed by Venus (nogah); the evening that commences Wednesday (i.e. Tuesday night) is governed by Saturn (shabtai); the evening that commences Thursday (i.e. Wednesday night) is governed by the Sun (ḥamah); the evening that commences Friday (i.e. Thursday night) is governed by the Moon (levanah); the evening that commences Saturday (i.e. Friday night) is governed by Mars (ma'adim). The mnemonic used to denote this order is כצנ"ש חל"ם‎. Hourly nocturnal duties: Since each planet takes its turn of duty in the 12-hour night, the order taken in their hourly rotation is as follows: When Mercury (kokhav) finishes the 1st hour of the night, it is joined by the Moon (levanah) who takes up the 2nd hour of the night, followed by Saturn (shabtai) who takes up the 3rd hour of the night, followed by Jupiter (tzedek) who takes up the 4th hour of the night, followed by Mars (ma'adim) who takes up the 5th hour of the night, followed by the Sun (ḥamah) whose influence takes up the 6th hour of the night, followed by Venus (nogah) who takes up the 7th hour of the night, and in this order it is repeated until the 12-hour night has concluded for each of the seven nights. This hourly rotation is denoted by the mnemonic כל"ש צמח"ן‎. Fixing their rotation in such a way, hour by hour, was seen as vital in order to determine the character of the child who is born at any given hour of the night, based on the hour's acting "mazzal" (astrological influence), in accordance with the principle laid out by Rabbi Hanina: "Not the constellation of the day but that of the hour is the determining influence." +Weekly diurnal duties: As in the night, so, too, each of the 12-hour weekdays has a set order pre-determined for it, while each of the seven planets rotating and serving in its respective hour. However, the planet that began to serve in the first hour of the night is not the same planet that begins in the first hour of the day. During the weekdays, the first hour of the first day of the week (Sunday), starts with the influences of the Sun (hence: Sunday); the first hour of the second day of the week (Monday) starts with the influences of the Moon (hence: Monday); the first hour of the third day of the week (Tuesday) with Mars, and the first hour of the fourth day of the week (Wednesday) with Mercury, while the first hour of the fifth day of the week (Thursday) with Jupiter, and the first hour of the sixth day of the week (Friday) with Venus, and lastly, the first hour of the seventh day of the week (Saturday) with Saturn. The mnemonic used to denote this order is חל"ם כצנ"ש‎. Hourly diurnal duties: When the Sun finishes the 1st hour of the day on Sunday, it is joined by Venus who takes up the 2nd hour of the day on Sunday, followed by Mercury who takes up the 3rd hour of the day on Sunday, followed by the Moon whose influence takes up the 4th hour of the day on Sunday, followed by Saturn who takes up the 5th hour of the day on Sunday, followed by Jupiter who takes up the 6th hour of the day on Sunday, followed by Mars who takes up the 7th hour of the day on Sunday, and in this order it is repeated until the 12-hour day has concluded. Again, fixing their rotation in such a way, hour by hour, was seen as vital in order to determine the character of the child who is born at any given hour of the day. The mnemonic used by the Sages of Israel to remember their order of rotation is שצ"ם חנכ"ל‎ = ShaTzaM ḤaNKaL (shabtai [= Saturn] → tzedek [= Jupiter] → ma'adim [= Mars] → ḥamah [= Sun] → nogah [= Venus] → kokhav [= Mercury] → levanah [= Moon]). Although each of the seven planets will rotate one after the other on an hourly basis, whether by day or whether by night, it is only the planet or orb that began to serve in the first hour, whether by day or whether by night, that is considered the principal planet and master of that entire day (if it began its turn of duty in the first hour of the day), or the principal planet and master of that entire night (if it began its turn of duty in the first hour of the night). The participation of all the other planets on that same day or that same night is inconsequential to the fact that the mazzal (= astral influences) for that day, or what is called mazzal yom, belongs to the planet that began serving in the first hour of the day, or in the first hour of the night, while the other planets are only concerned with their specific hour, or what is called mazzal sha'ah. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b91d43803 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +--- +title: "Jewish astrology" +chunk: 4/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:57.914324+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Since the Moon begins its turn of duty in the first hour of every Monday morning, and Jupiter begins its turn of duty in the first hour of every Thursday morning, and since both these planets are considered planets possessing good influences, it follows that Mondays and Thursdays are considered auspicious days in the Jewish calendar. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c99accb57 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: "Jewish astrology" +chunk: 5/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:57.914324+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Energies emanating from the seven classical planets === + +By saying, "on the night of such-and-such a weekday," the sense here is to the idea in Jewish tradition, where nightfall ushers-in a new day, as is written (Gen. 1:5): "And the evening and the morning were the first day." Therefore, the "night of Sunday" is to be understood as beginning on Saturday night, when the first three stars appear in the night sky; the "night of Saturday" is, likewise, to be understood as beginning on Friday night, when the first three stars appear in the night sky, and so forth, and so on. + +=== Other factors taken into consideration === +To accurately determine the time in which each of the classical planets are in their respective line of duty, per hour, one must either have access to a printed lunar calendar showing the Jewish months, and know the precise starting point for each day and night, or else be familiar with the ever-changing aspects of the Jewish months, as the planetary influences will change with the conjunction of the moon with the sun, also known as the New Moon (occurring every 29 days, 12 hours and 793 parts of an hour), as also with the intercalation of the lunar month during a Jewish Leap Year (occurring seven times in a 19-year period), when the lunar month Nisan and its influences will be delayed by one month on account of an additional lunar month Adar. Moreover, the length of each 12-hour day fluctuates, depending on summer and winter. Several online websites provide conversion tables for converting a known date in the Gregorian calendar with the corresponding weekday, day and month in the Hebrew calendar. + +=== Events attributed to the influences of the constellations === +In Jewish thought, the destruction of, both, the First and Second Temples which happened in the lunar month of Av is linked to the astrological influences of Leo (arieh), which are generally considered to be bad. For this reason, the use of the rabbinic dictum, "When Av ushers-in, happiness is diminished" (Hebrew: משנכנס אב ממעטין בשמחה), is commonly heard in the mouths of the Jewish people. The month is marked by the Ninth of Av (Tisha B'Av) fast day. During the same lunar month and its astral influences, the Jewish populous of Betar met their destruction under the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd-century CE. +King Edward I of England issued his decree (Edict of Expulsion) on 18 July, in the year 1290 CE (a date corresponding with the 9th-day of the lunar month Av when the month's influences were under the sign of the Zodiac Leo), that all Jews in his kingdom will be expelled from the country, and whosoever remained in the country beyond November of that same year would be executed. +The outbreak of World War I began on 28 July, 1914 (a date corresponding with the 5th-day of the lunar month Av when the month's influences were under the sign of the Zodiac Leo); the Austro-Hungarian Empire having then declared war on Serbia. On the 7th-day of the lunar month Av, Russia joined the war. On the 9th-day of the lunar month Av, Germany joined the war. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..214809fe3 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Jewish astrology" +chunk: 6/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:57.914324+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Kabbalah == +The Kabbalist and rabbi Hayyim ben Joseph Vital explained the seven classical planets in a more conceptual and esoteric sense. While ranking ten spheres (realms) (Hebrew: גלגלים) from the highest to the lowest, he describes the Ninth Sphere as having nothing in it, and which rejects the presence of any star. As for the Eighth Sphere (Hebrew: גלגל השמיני), he states that all the stars of the universe, with the 12 constellations of the Zodiac, are contained therein, being below the Ninth Sphere, while each of the Seven classical planets occupies a space or realm below them: In the Seventh Sphere there is only one planet, Saturn (shabtai); in the Sixth Sphere there is only one planet, Jupiter (tzedek); in the Fifth Sphere there is only one planet, Mars (ma'adim); in the Fourth Sphere there is only one star, the Sun (ḥamah); in the Third Sphere there is only one planet, Venus (nogah); in the Second Sphere there is only one planet, Mercury; and in the First Sphere there is only the Moon (levanah). Hayyim Vital does not speak about their physical distance in relation to the earth, seeing that, besides the Moon (a satellite), the planet Venus is the closest planet, physically, to the earth. Rather, everything is expressed in relative spiritual distances, by virtue of their rank. +Hayyim Vital, when speaking of their relative influences, wrote: "It has already been explained in the books on the science of astrology that all the changing occurrences which take place and which appear anew in the world, they are in accordance with the encounter of one of the Seven Planets standing in proximity to a certain star (Hebrew: מזל) of the twelve astrological constellations (Hebrew: מזלות) located in the Eighth Sphere, or else in accordance with the encounter of some of those planets which belong to the Seven, when they are found together in one place. Moreover, any encounter of the Seven Planets with the other [celestial] forms found in the [vast] open space of the Eighth Sphere will cause a little of the instructions [relegated unto it] to surge, although not with the same vigor as in the place of those twelve astrological constellations that are synchronous with the Eighth Sphere." +One of the more arcane and mystical writings on the subject, Sefer Yetzirah "Book of Creation", a book that endeavors to show the interconnection between all things, says that God created the classical planets by means of seven Hebrew letters, which are בג"ד כפר"ת (being the sole double-sounding consonants in the Hebrew alphabet), and that the 12 constellations of the Zodiac were also created by means of 12 ordinary Hebrew letters. The author of this work, without divulging the influences of the horoscopes, names simply those things created by means of the letters, naming also the weekdays, seven groupings of words and their opposites (life and death; peace and evil disturbances; wisdom and foolishness; wealth and poverty; fertility and desolation; beauty and ugliness; governance and servitude), among other things. According to Judah Halevi, the seven planets and the 12 constellations, and the various other examples mentioned in the book, are the means by which man is capable of understanding the unity and omnipotence of God, which are multiform on one side and, yet, uniform on the other. + +== Fatalism == +While astrology in Jewish thought is generally acknowledged to mean that "every happening related to man, whether small or great, has been delivered into the power of the stars by the blessed Creator," it still allows for self-determination and free will of the individual in what concerns his choice of right and wrong actions, in spite of fate governing other aspects of man's life. This is expressed by the rabbinic dictum: "Everything is determined by heaven, except one's fear of heaven," meaning, everything in a person's life is predetermined by God —except that person's choice to be either good or bad; righteous or wicked, which is left up entirely to his own free will. Under this principle, as articulated by 13th-century rabbinic scholar, Menachem Meiri, a man that is born under the influences of Mars will have a default inclination to shed blood, and if he were the son of a king born under the same Martian influence, he will grow-up to wage wars on other countries, and when victorious, he will sentence the defeated enemy to be executed. Even so, an ordinary man that is born under such influences should be instructed to take-up the profession of ritual slaughter, or livestock butcher, or similar skill crafts (e.g. mohel, surgeon). So, too, with all the other signs of the Zodiac which incline to a certain unwanted trait, man is able to choose between right and wrong, and between good and bad. +In some instances, a person can alter what has been seen by an astrologer concerning his fate, simply by performing a charitable deed. The Jerusalem Talmud relates a story where two men were saved by giving a portion of their bread to a hungry man. In other cases, a person's fortune may be altered by a change of place or by a change of name. Rabbi and philosopher Joseph Albo (c. 1380–1444) wrote in his Sefer ha-Ikkarim that "the stars determine the destiny at some point, but can be changed by free will or merit." + +== See also == +Beth Alpha – Astrological symbols found at Beth Alpha synagogue +Hebrew astronomy +Hebrew calendar +Jewish views on astrology +Mazzaroth +Relative hour +Western astrology +Zodiac +Zodiac mosaics in ancient synagogues + +== References == + +== Notes == + +== Bibliography == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-6.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-6.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..995894d27 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology-6.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: "Jewish astrology" +chunk: 7/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_astrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:57.914324+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Further reading == +Bar-Ilan, Meir [in Hebrew] (2010). Astrology and Other Sciences among the Jews in Land of Israel During the Hellenistic-Roman and Byzantine Periods (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. +Charlesworth, J.H. (1977). "Jewish Astrology in the Talmud, Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Early Palestinian Synagogues". The Harvard Theological Review. 70 (3/4). Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School: 183–200. doi:10.1017/S0017816000019908. JSTOR 1509628. S2CID 163300042. +Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. (2007). "Talmudic Astrology: Bavli Šabbat 156a–b". Hebrew Union College Annual. 78. Hebrew Union College Press: 109–148. JSTOR 23508945. +Schwartz, Dov (1993), "Astrology and Astral Magic in the Writings of Solomon Alconstantin", Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore (in Hebrew), vol. 15, Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies, JSTOR 23356290, OCLC 5542562900 [Solomon Alconstantin (or Alcostantin) is the author of the book Megalleh ʿAmuqot, which exists in manuscript only and consists of two parts. The first and shorter part, written in 1352 in Burgos, defends the legitimacy of astrology; its text appears at the end of this paper]. + +== External links == +Jewish Encyclopedia (1906) – Astrology +David Clive Rubin, Astrology in the Torah: A Comparative Study of Astrological Themes in the Hebrew Bible and Babylonian Talmud, Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of an M.A. in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology, University of Wales Trinity Saint David (January 2019) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Major_Jenkins-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Major_Jenkins-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5ff1777b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Major_Jenkins-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +--- +title: "John Major Jenkins" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Major_Jenkins" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:56.584518+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +John Major Jenkins (4 March 1964 – 2 July 2017) was an American author and pseudoscientific researcher. He is best known for his works that theorize certain astronomical and esoteric connections of the calendar systems used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. His writings are particularly associated with 2012 millenarianism and the development of Mayanism in contemporary and popular culture, as an outgrowth from the New Age milieu. He is one of the principal figures who have promoted the idea that the ancient Maya calendar ends on 21 December 2012 and that this portended major changes for the Earth. He has self-published a number of books through his Four Ahau Press. +He died on 2 July 2017 from cancer of the kidney at the age of 53. + + +== Alternative view of cosmology == +Jenkins considered scientific approaches to cosmology a byproduct of limited thinking. In Tzolkin: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies, he writes, "I primarily wish to promote a visionary approach to these matters, as there is much more to the Sacred Calendar than can be seen with the rational intellect," and that these visionary perspectives "can more closely touch the spirit of the calendar" than does the anthropological literature. +Jenkins also maintained that, in order to accept and understand his cosmological theories, one must also accept the premise that the Mayan kings journeyed to “distant places,” and continuously “renewed” their kingdoms at specific points in the Maya calendar. Jenkins is also a supporter of “The Lost Star” theory which extrapolates the existence of a binary companion of the Earth’s sun based on a believed mathematical discrepancies in “earth wobble.” + + +== Appearances == +In October of the year 2000, Jenkins work was featured on two episodes of Places of Mystery series on the Discovery Channel. +Jenkins was interviewed and appears in the film Manifesting the Mind a film by Andrew Rutajit. +Jenkins is featured speaking in the documentary 2012: Science or Superstition. The film explores the interpretations of the ancient Mayan predictions by researchers and scholars. +Jenkins is also featured in the documentary/film 2012: Startling New Secrets. + + +== Publications == +Journey to the Mayan Underworld (Four Ahau Press, Boulder, CO: 1989) +Mirror in the Sky (Four Ahau Press, 1991) +Tzolkin: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies (Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, Garberville, CA: 1992/1994) +Mayan Sacred Science (Four Ahau Press, Boulder, CO: 1994) +Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 (Bear & Company, Santa Fe, NM: 1998) +Galactic Alignment: The Transformation of Consciousness According to Mayan, Egyptian, and Vedic Traditions (Inner Traditions International (Rochester, VT) 2002) +Pyramid of Fire, co-authored with Marty Matz, Bear & Company, 2004 +The 2012 Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth Behind the Most Intriguing Date in History (Tarcher/Penguin 2009) +Three Plumes of Judas (fiction) self-published, 2017 + + +== References == + + +== External links == +Alignment 2012 John Major Jenkins own website. Accessed April 2009 +John Major Jenkins video interview Archived 2009-10-10 at the Wayback Machine, John Major Jenkins discusses 2012 in a two-part video interview with his editor at Tarcher Books \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Traditional_Chinese_Medicine-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Traditional_Chinese_Medicine-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7d7c83f47 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Traditional_Chinese_Medicine-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: "Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Traditional_Chinese_Medicine" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:21:59.109961+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine was the first English-language journal on the subject of traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, herbal medicine, homeopathy, massotherapy, mind-body therapies, palliative care and other topics in complementary and alternative medicine. +The journal was original established in Chinese as Chung i tsa chih ying wen pan in 1955. The English edition of the Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine was first published in 1981. It is jointly sponsored and published by the China Association of Chinese Medicine and the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. Its headquarters are in Beijing. The journal is also published in German, Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese editions. + + +== Abstracting and indexing == +The journal is abstracted and indexed in the following bibliographic databases: + +EMBASE +MEDLINE +Science Citation Index Expanded +Scopus + + +== References == + + +== External links == +Website of the Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine Archived 2018-06-26 at the Wayback Machine +Website of JTCM on Elsevier Archived 2018-06-26 at the Wayback Machine +Website of the Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine http://journaltcm.cn \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Baigorri_Velar-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Baigorri_Velar-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..79c47929a --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Baigorri_Velar-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +--- +title: "Juan Baigorri Velar" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Baigorri_Velar" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:00.268321+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Juan Pedro Baigorri Velar (1891 in Concepción del Uruguay – 24 March 1972 in Buenos Aires) was an Argentine engineer; known for his claims that he had invented a rain-making machine. + + +== Career == +His father was a military officer. Raised in Buenos Aires, he studied at the Colegio Nacional. Later, he travelled to Italy, where he attended the University of Milan and received a degree in engineering, with a specialty in geophysics. He worked for several fuel companies, which involved trips to numerous countries, investigating soil composition and exploring for oil. During the course of these trips he made his own instruments, for detecting minerals and electromagnetism. +In 1929, he was invited by Enrique Mosconi to join the newly created YPF, a state-owned Argentine energy company. He had been working primarily from the United States but, at that time, he returned to Argentina and settled there permanently. + + +== The Rain-Making Machine == +According to the newspaper Crítica, its invention came about accidentally, when he was in Bolivia using his mineral detecting device. When it was connected, a light rain suddenly began to fall. He apparently concluded that was due to the "electromagnetic congestion" it produced. After that, he spent much of his time attempting to make it more effective. The final version was about the size of a 14" TV set, with a battery and two antennas...one negative, one positive. It was presented at the offices of the Central Argentine Railway, for publicity purposes. +The company manager proposed that he make it rain in Santiago del Estero Province, which was going through one of the worst droughts in its history. In 1938, he travelled to Pinto with a representative of the company. According to witnesses, when the machine was turned on the wind changed direction, it became cloudy, and twelve hours later there was a brief downpour. He was encouraged to create a higher-power device and, later that year, took it to Santiago del Estero, the provincial capital. After fifty-five hours of being in operation, 2.5 inches of rain fell. +Upon returning to Buenos Aires, he was interviewed by several newspapers and magazines, local and foreign. He also received criticism from Alfredo Galmarini, head of the Meteorology Directorate, who called the machine a "parody" and didn't believe that Baigorri was serious. In response, he promised to make it rain in Buenos Aires in three days, activated the machine, and sent an umbrella to Galmarini. Clouds began to gather on the first night and, the following morning, there was a downpour. After claiming another successful demonstration in Carhué, he returned to his regular career, saying that he was tired of the publicity. +In 1951 Raúl Mendé, the Minister of Technical Affairs, asked him to put his machine back into use. The following year, he claimed to have caused rain in Caucete, where there had supposedly been a drought for eight years. In 1953, he made a similar claim for La Pampa Province. Eventually, interest in him and his device waned, and he went into seclusion. He had never revealed exactly how his device worked, and suggested that only he could put it into operation properly. He was gradually forgotten. +His refusal to patent his machine led to suspicions that it was a fraud. Eduardo Piacentini, of the Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, declared that Baigorri's machine might be able to predict rain, but not cause it. There was also the possibility that his work was affected by confirmation bias, whereby people would remember when it rained, but not when it had failed to. Nevertheless, similar experiments in other parts of the world, such as the United Arab Emirates, indicated that his basic theory might be correct. +He died in poverty and was buried at La Chacarita Cemetery. Few people attended his funeral, as it was raining heavily that day. His house in the Villa Luro district has not been preserved, and the fate of his device is unknown. + + +== References == + + +== Further reading == +Baigorri hacía llover by Diego Huberman, Ediciones La Buena Nueva, 2008 ISBN 978-987-98573-1-1 + + +== External links == +Baigorri, el mago de las lluvias, short documentary (9 mins.) +Brief interview with Baigorri. (3 mins., 1969) +"Recreating a Century-old Argentinian Rainmaking Machine" @ Arduino \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_science-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_science-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..85fd53a87 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_science-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +--- +title: "Junk science" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_science" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:01.480829+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Junk science is spurious or fraudulent scientific data, research, or analysis. The concept is often invoked in political and legal contexts where facts and scientific results have a great amount of weight in making a determination. It usually conveys a pejorative connotation that the research has been untowardly driven by political, ideological, financial, or otherwise unscientific motives. +The concept was popularized in the 1990s in relation to expert testimony in civil litigation. More recently, invoking the concept has been a tactic to criticize research on the harmful environmental or public health effects of corporate activities, and occasionally in response to such criticism. +In some contexts, junk science is counterposed to the "sound science" or "solid science" that favors one's own point of view. Junk science has been criticized for undermining public trust in real science. Junk science is not the same as pseudoscience. + +== Definition == +Junk science has been defined as: + +"science done to establish a preconceived notion—not to test the notion, which is what proper science tries to do, but to establish it regardless of whether or not it would hold up to real testing." +"opinion posing as empirical evidence, or through evidence of questionable warrant, based on inadequate scientific methodology." +"methodologically sloppy research conducted to advance some extrascientific agenda or to prevail in litigation." + +== Motivations == +Junk science happens for different reasons: researchers believing that their ideas are correct before proper analysis (a sort of scientific self-delusion or drinking the Kool-Aid), researchers biased with their study designs, and/or a "plain old lack of ethics". Being overly attached to one's own ideas can cause research to veer from ordinary junk science (e.g., designing an experiment that is expected to produce the desired results) into scientific fraud (e.g., lying about the results) and pseudoscience (e.g., claiming that the unfavorable results actually proved the idea correct). +Junk science can occur when the perpetrator has something to gain from arriving at the desired conclusion. It can often happen in the testimony of expert witnesses in legal proceedings, and especially in the self-serving advertising of products and services. These situations may encourage researchers to make sweeping or overstated claims based on limited evidence. + +== History == +The phrase junk science appears to have been in use prior to 1985. A 1985 United States Department of Justice report by the Tort Policy Working Group noted: + +The use of such invalid scientific evidence (commonly referred to as 'junk science') has resulted in findings of causation which simply cannot be justified or understood from the standpoint of the current state of credible scientific or medical knowledge. +In 1989, the climate scientist Jerry Mahlman (Director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory) characterized the theory that global warming was due to solar variation (presented in Scientific Perspectives on the Greenhouse Problem by Frederick Seitz et al.) as "noisy junk science." +Peter W. Huber popularized the term with respect to litigation in his 1991 book Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom. The book has been cited in over 100 legal textbooks and references; as a consequence, some sources cite Huber as the first to coin the term. By 1997, the term had entered the legal lexicon as seen in an opinion by Supreme Court of the United States Justice John Paul Stevens: + +An example of 'junk science' that should be excluded under the Daubert standard as too unreliable would be the testimony of a phrenologist who would purport to prove a defendant's future dangerousness based on the contours of the defendant's skull. Lower courts have subsequently set guidelines for identifying junk science, such as the 2005 opinion of United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Judge Frank H. Easterbrook: +Positive reports about magnetic water treatment are not replicable; this plus the lack of a physical explanation for any effects are hallmarks of junk science. +As the subtitle of Huber's book, Junk Science in the Courtroom, suggests, his emphasis was on the use or misuse of expert testimony in civil litigation. One prominent example cited in the book was litigation over casual contact in the spread of AIDS. A California school district sought to prevent a young boy with AIDS, Ryan Thomas, from attending kindergarten. The school district produced an expert witness, Steven Armentrout, who testified that a possibility existed that AIDS could be transmitted to schoolmates through yet undiscovered "vectors". However, five experts testified on behalf of Thomas that AIDS is not transmitted through casual contact, and the court affirmed the "solid science" (as Huber called it) and rejected Armentrout's argument. +In 1999, Paul Ehrlich and others advocated public policies to improve the dissemination of valid environmental scientific knowledge and discourage junk science: + +The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports offer an antidote to junk science by articulating the current consensus on the prospects for climate change, by outlining the extent of the uncertainties, and by describing the potential benefits and costs of policies to address climate change. +In a 2003 study about changes in environmental activism regarding the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, Pedynowski noted that junk science can undermine the credibility of science over a much broader scale because misrepresentation by special interests casts doubt on more defensible claims and undermines the credibility of all research. +In his 2006 book Junk Science, Dan Agin emphasized two main causes of junk science: fraud, and ignorance. In the first case, Agin discussed falsified results in the development of organic transistors: + +As far as understanding junk science is concerned, the important aspect is that both Bell Laboratories and the international physics community were fooled until someone noticed that noise records published by Jan Hendrik Schön in several papers were identical—which means physically impossible. +In the second case, he cites an example that demonstrates ignorance of statistical principles in the lay press: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_science-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_science-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..36e30c383 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_science-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ +--- +title: "Junk science" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_science" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:01.480829+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Since no such proof is possible [that genetically modified food is harmless], the article in The New York Times was what is called a "bad rap" against the U.S. Department of Agriculture—a bad rap based on a junk-science belief that it's possible to prove a null hypothesis. +Agin asks the reader to step back from the rhetoric, as "how things are labeled does not make a science junk science." In its place, he offers that junk science is ultimately motivated by the desire to hide undesirable truths from the public. +The rise of open-access (free to read) journals has resulted in economic pressure on academic publishers to publish junk science. Even when the journal is peer-reviewed, the authors, rather than the readers, become the customer and the source of funding for the journal, so the publisher is incentivized to publish as many papers as possible, including those that are methodologically unsound. + +== Misuse in public relations == + +John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton of PR Watch say the concept of junk science has come to be invoked in attempts to dismiss scientific findings that stand in the way of short-term corporate profits. In their book Trust Us, We're Experts (2001), they write that industries have launched multimillion-dollar campaigns to position certain theories as junk science in the popular mind, often failing to employ the scientific method themselves. For example, the tobacco industry has described research demonstrating the harmful effects of smoking and second-hand smoke as junk science, through the vehicle of various astroturf groups. +Theories more favorable to corporate activities are portrayed in words as "sound science". Past examples where "sound science" was used include the research into the toxicity of Alar, which was heavily criticized by antiregulatory advocates, and Herbert Needleman's research into low dose lead poisoning. Needleman was accused of fraud and personally attacked. +Fox News commentator Steven Milloy often denigrates credible scientific research on topics like global warming, ozone depletion, and passive smoking as "junk science". The credibility of Milloy's website junkscience.com was questioned by Paul D. Thacker, a writer for The New Republic, in the wake of evidence that Milloy had received funding from Philip Morris, RJR Tobacco, and ExxonMobil. Thacker also noted that Milloy was receiving almost $100,000 a year in consulting fees from Philip Morris while he criticized the evidence regarding the hazards of second-hand smoke as junk science. Following the publication of this article, the Cato Institute, which had hosted the junkscience.com site, ceased its association with the site and removed Milloy from its list of adjunct scholars. +Tobacco industry documents reveal that Philip Morris executives conceived of the "Whitecoat Project" in the 1980s as a response to emerging scientific data on the harmfulness of second-hand smoke. The goal of the Whitecoat Project, as conceived by Philip Morris and other tobacco companies, was to use ostensibly independent "scientific consultants" to spread doubt in the public mind about scientific data through invoking concepts like junk science. According to epidemiologist David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environment, Safety, and Health in the Clinton Administration, the tobacco industry invented the "sound science" movement in the 1980s as part of their campaign against the regulation of second-hand smoke. +David Michaels has argued that, since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., lay judges have become "gatekeepers" of scientific testimony and, as a result, respected scientists have sometimes been unable to provide testimony so that corporate defendants are "increasingly emboldened" to accuse adversaries of practicing junk science. + +== Notable cases == +American psychologist Paul Cameron has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as an anti-gay extremist and a purveyor of "junk science". Cameron's research has been heavily criticized for unscientific methods and distortions which attempt to link homosexuality with pedophilia. In one instance, Cameron claimed that lesbians are 300 times more likely to get into car accidents. The SPLC states his work has been continually cited in some sections of the media despite being discredited. Cameron was expelled from the American Psychological Association in 1983. + +== Combatting junk science == +In 1995, the Union of Concerned Scientists launched the Sound Science Initiative, a national network of scientists committed to debunking junk science through media outreach, lobbying, and developing joint strategies to participate in town meetings or public hearings. In its newsletter on Science and Technology in Congress, the American Association for the Advancement of Science also recognized the need for increased understanding between scientists and lawmakers: "Although most individuals would agree that sound science is preferable to junk science, fewer recognize what makes a scientific study 'good' or 'bad'." The American Dietetic Association, criticizing marketing claims made for food products, has created a list of "Ten Red Flags of Junk Science". + +== See also == + +== References == + +== Further reading == +Agin, Dan (2006). Junk Science – How Politicians, Corporations, and Other Hucksters Betray Us. St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 978-0312374808. Archived from the original on 2023-11-04. Retrieved 2016-10-18. +Huber, Peter W. (1993). Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465026241. +Mooney, Chris (2005). The Republican War on Science. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465046751. +Kiss Sarnoff, Susan (2001). Sanctified Snake Oil: The Effect of Junk Science on Public Policy. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0275968458. + +== External links == + +Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy(SKAPP) DefendingScience.org +Michaels, David (June 2005). "Doubt is Their Product". Scientific American. 292 (6): 96–101. Bibcode:2005SciAm.292f..96M. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0605-96. PMID 15934658. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2008-06-03. +Baba, Annamaria; Cook, Daniel M.; McGarity, Thomas O.; Bero, Lisa A. (July 2005). "Legislating 'Sound Science': The Role of the Tobacco Industry". American Journal of Public Health. 95 (1): 20–27. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2004.050963. hdl:10.2105/AJPH.2004.050963. PMID 16030333. Archived from the original on 2008-05-10. Retrieved 2008-06-03. +Michaels, David; Monforton, Celeste (July 2005). "Manufacturing Uncertainty: Contested Science and the Protection of the Public's Health & Environment". American Journal of Public Health. 95 (1): 39–48. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.620.6171. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2004.043059. PMID 16030337. Archived from the original on 2008-05-10. Retrieved 2008-06-03. +Yach, Derek; Aguinaga Bialous, Stella (November 2001). "Junking Science to Promote Tobacco". American Journal of Public Health. 91 (11): 1745–1748. doi:10.2105/ajph.91.11.1745. PMC 1446867. PMID 11684592. +Thacker, Paul D. (May 11, 2005). "The Junkman Climbs to the Top". Environmental Science & Technology. Archived from the original on June 20, 2005. Retrieved August 7, 2017. +Baloney Detection Kit on YouTube (10 questions we should ask when encountering a pseudoscience claim) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-0.md index b165d6e75..ec1f5bb2f 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-0.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-0.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/3 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:22:13.564234+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:02.677436+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-1.md index 891b784ef..5f41aafd2 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-1.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-1.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 2/3 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:22:13.564234+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:02.677436+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-2.md index 7fc23a12b..6ed96247d 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-2.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)-2.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 3/3 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambo_(drug)" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:22:13.564234+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:02.677436+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keraunography-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keraunography-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..bb032b6d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keraunography-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Keraunography" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keraunography" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:03.951919+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Keraunography or keranography is the belief that lightning, when striking an object (generally a human body), can leave markings which constitute a photographic image of surrounding objects. It is generally considered a myth: lightning can leave markings, called Lichtenberg figures, but they are not photographic. + + +== Origins == +Like most folklore, it is impossible to trace the origins of keraunography. However, it seems to have attracted scientific and media attention in England in the early 19th century, and by Victorian times the term "keraunography" had been coined to describe numerous unconnected events. With increasing scientific understanding of electricity and the popularity of photography, the time was right in the 19th century for keraunography, which seems to combine both concepts, to enter the public consciousness. However, it is likely that anecdotal accounts of keraunography had existed long before there was a word for it. + + +== Modern perception == +Although to some degree science has still not fully explained all the behaviours of lightning, very few people currently accept keraunography as truth. It is evident that lightning strikes do indeed produce burn marks, and like any basically random shape (clouds, birthmarks, inkblots, etc.) it is human nature to see shapes in them. The lightning often leaves skin marks in characteristic Lichtenberg figures, sometimes called lightning flowers; they may persist for hours or days, and are a useful indicator for medical examiners when trying to determine the cause of death. Although humans being struck by lightning is of course rare, it is nonetheless possible that over a wide period of time, certain cases of burn marks would exist which could be said to resemble objects nearby the point of the lightning strike. However, these cases are almost certainly the product of coincidence, or the tree-like appearance of Lichtenberg figures, rather than evidence of any photographic property of lightning. No supposed case of keraunography has been investigated by modern science, and unless further evidence is presented, it remains a strange object of 19th-century British folklore. + + +== Keraunographic markings == +In modern medical literature, "Keraunographic markings" also can refer to signs of a lightning strike injury on the skin, roughly synonymous with Lichtenberg figures or ferning patterns. These patterns can appear on a number of other materials, including wood and grass. + + +== Sources == + + +=== References === + + +=== General sources === +Pilkington, Mark (2004-06-03). "Keranography". the Guardian. Retrieved 8 June 2021. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimodameshi-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimodameshi-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..fbdb5692f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimodameshi-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Kimodameshi" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimodameshi" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:05.115456+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Kimodameshi (肝試し or きもだめし, pronounced [kʲimodaꜜmeɕi]; lit. "testing one's liver"), known in English as a test of courage, is a Japanese activity in which people explore frightening and potentially dangerous places to build up courage. +At night, usually during the summer, a group of people visits an ominous place such as a cemetery, haunted house, or secluded forest path to carry out specific missions there. The exercise teaches the group that, working together, they can overcome their fear. + + +== History == +In Ōkagami, a Japanese historical tale from the early 12th century, it is written that Emperor Kazan sent three of Fujiwara no Kaneie's sons to a house purportedly haunted by oni at 3 o'clock in the morning; only Fujiwara no Michinaga succeeded in visiting the house, returning with a sword-damaged wooden post as evidence. This suggests that the idea of a "test of courage" had existed near the end of Japan's Heian period. + + +== Modern day == +Kimodameshi may be overseen and carried out by school clubs or summer camps. In such instances, some preparation may be involved, and others may assume the role of scaring the participants. + + +=== Law === +Without proper consideration, kimodameshi can result in crimes being committed, such as trespassing (per Article 130 of the Penal Code of Japan), vandalism (Article 261), and intimidation or coercion of those unwilling to participate (Articles 222 and 223). + + +== See also == +Ghost hunting +Haunted house +Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai +Kaidan, Japanese ghost stories +Legend tripping + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..eff072fdc --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +--- +title: "Kirlian photography" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:06.287636+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Kirlian photography is a collection of photographic techniques used to capture the phenomenon of electrical coronal discharges. It is named after Soviet inventor and researcher of Armenian descent Semyon Kirlian, who, in 1939, accidentally discovered that if an object on a photographic plate is connected to a high-voltage source, an image is produced on the photographic plate. +The technique has been variously known as +electrography, +electrophotography, +corona(l) discharge photography (CDP), +bioelectrography, +gas discharge visualization (GDV), +electrophotonic imaging (EPI), and, in Russian literature, Kirlianography. +Kirlian photography has been the subject of scientific research, parapsychology research, and art. Paranormal claims have been made about Kirlian photography, but these claims are rejected by the scientific community. To a large extent, it has been used in alternative medicine research. + +== History == +In 1889, Czech Bartoloměj Navrátil coined the word "electrography". Seven years later in 1896, a French experimenter, Hippolyte Baraduc, created electrographs of hands and leaves. +In 1898, Polish-Belarusian engineer Jakub Jodko-Narkiewicz demonstrated electrography at the fifth exhibition of the Russian Technical Society. + +In 1939, two Czechs, S. Pratt and J. Schlemmer, published photographs showing a glow around leaves. The same year, Soviet electrical engineer Semyon Kirlian and his wife Valentina developed Kirlian photography after observing a patient in Krasnodar Hospital who was receiving medical treatment from a high-frequency electrical generator. They had noticed that when the electrodes were brought near the patient's skin, there was a glow similar to that of a neon discharge tube. +The Kirlians conducted experiments in which photographic film was placed on top of a conducting plate, and another conductor was attached to a hand, a leaf or other plant material. The conductors were energized by a high-frequency high-voltage power source, producing photographic images typically showing a silhouette of the object surrounded by an aura of light. +In 1958, the Kirlians reported the results of their experiments for the first time. Their work was virtually unknown until 1970, when two Americans, Lynn Schroeder and Sheila Ostrander, published a book, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain. High-voltage electrophotography soon became known to the general public as Kirlian photography. Although little interest was generated among western scientists, Russians held a conference on the subject in 1972 at Kazakh State University. +Kirlian photography was used in the former Eastern Bloc in the 1970s. The corona discharge glow at the surface of an object subjected to a high-voltage electrical field was referred to as a "Kirlian aura" in Russia and Eastern Europe. In 1975, soviet scientist Victor Adamenko wrote a dissertation titled Research of the structure of High-frequency electric discharge (Kirlian effect) images. Scientific study of what the researchers called the Kirlian effect was conducted by Victor Inyushin at Kazakh State University. +Early in the 1970s, Thelma Moss and Kendall Johnson at the Center for Health Sciences at UCLA conducted extensive research into Kirlian photography. Moss led an independent and unsupported parapsychology laboratory that was shut down by the university in 1979. + +== Overview == + + +Kirlian photography is a technique for creating contact print photographs using high voltage. The process entails placing sheet photographic film on top of a metal discharge plate. The object to be photographed is then placed directly on top of the film. High voltage current is momentarily applied to the object, thus creating an exposure. The corona discharge between the object and the plate due to high-voltage is captured by the film. The developed film results in a Kirlian photograph of the object. +Color photographic film is calibrated to produce faithful colors when exposed to normal light. Corona discharges can interact with minute variations in the different layers of dye used in the film, resulting in a wide variety of colors depending on the local intensity of the discharge. Film and digital imaging techniques also record light produced by photons emitted during corona discharge (see Mechanism of corona discharge). +Photographs of inanimate objects such as a coins, keys and leaves can be made more effectively by grounding the object to the earth, a cold water pipe or to the opposite (polarity) side of the high-voltage source. Grounding the object creates a stronger corona discharge. +Kirlian photography does not require the use of a camera or a lens because it is a contact print process. It is possible to use a transparent electrode in place of the high-voltage discharge plate, for capturing the resulting corona discharge with a standard photo or video camera. +Visual artists such as Robert Buelteman, Ted Hiebert, and Dick Lane have used Kirlian photography to produce artistic images of a variety of subjects. + +== Research == +Kirlian photography has been a subject of scientific research, parapsychology research and pseudoscientific claims. + +=== Scientific research === +Results of scientific experiments published in 1976 involving Kirlian photography of living tissue (human finger tips) showed that most of the variations in corona discharge streamer length, density, curvature, and color can be accounted for by the moisture content on the surface of and within the living tissue. + +Konstantin Korotkov developed a technique similar to Kirlian photography called "gas discharge visualization" (GDV). Korotkov's GDV camera system consists of hardware and software to directly record, process and interpret GDV images with a computer. Korotkov promotes the device and research in a medical context. Izabela Ciesielska at the Institute of Architecture of Textiles in Poland used Korotkov's GDV camera to evaluate the effects of human contact with various textiles on biological factors such as heart rate and blood pressure, as well as corona discharge images. The experiments captured corona discharge images of subjects' fingertips while the subjects wore sleeves of various natural and synthetic materials on their forearms. The results failed to establish a relationship between human contact with the textiles and the corona discharge images and were considered inconclusive. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..fc49128c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ +--- +title: "Kirlian photography" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:06.287636+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Parapsychology research === +In 1968, Thelma Moss, a psychology professor, headed University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)'s Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI), which was later renamed the Semel Institute. The NPI had a laboratory dedicated to parapsychology research and staffed mostly with volunteers. The lab was unfunded, unsanctioned and eventually shut down by the university. Toward the end of her tenure at UCLA, Moss became interested in Kirlian photography, a technique that supposedly measured the "auras" of a living being. According to Kerry Gaynor, one of her former research assistants, "many felt Kirlian photography's effects were just a natural occurrence." +Paranormal claims of Kirlian photography have not been observed or replicated in experiments by the scientific community. The physiologist Gordon Stein has written that Kirlian photography is a hoax that has "nothing to do with health, vitality, or mood of a subject photographed." + +=== Claims === +Kirlian believed that images created by Kirlian photography might depict a conjectural energy field, or aura, thought, by some, to surround living things. Kirlian and his wife were convinced that their images showed a life force or energy field that reflected the physical and emotional states of their living subjects. They thought that these images could be used to diagnose illnesses. In 1961, they published their first article on the subject in the Russian Journal of Scientific and Applied Photography. Kirlian's claims were embraced by energy treatments practitioners. + +==== Torn leaf experiment ==== +A typical demonstration used as evidence for the existence of these energy fields involved taking Kirlian photographs of a picked leaf at set intervals. The gradual withering of the leaf was thought to correspond with a decline in the strength of the aura. In some experiments, if a section of a leaf was torn away after the first photograph, a faint image of the missing section sometimes remains when a second photograph was taken. However, if the imaging surface is cleaned of contaminants and residual moisture before the second image is taken, then no image of the missing section will appear. +The living aura theory is at least partially repudiated by demonstrating that leaf moisture content has a pronounced effect on the electric discharge coronas; more moisture creates larger corona discharges. As the leaf dehydrates, the coronas will naturally decrease in variability and intensity. As a result, the changing water content of the leaf can affect the so-called Kirlian aura. Kirlian's experiments did not provide evidence for an energy field other than the electric fields produced by chemical processes and the streaming process of coronal discharges. +The coronal discharges identified as Kirlian auras are the result of stochastic electric ionization processes and are greatly affected by many factors, including the voltage and frequency of the stimulus, the pressure with which a person or object touches the imaging surface, the local humidity around the object being imaged, how well grounded the person or object is, and other local factors affecting the conductivity of the person or object being imaged. Oils, sweat, bacteria, and other ionizing contaminants found on living tissues can also affect the resulting images. + +==== Qi ==== +Scientists such as Beverly Rubik have explored the idea of a human biofield using Kirlian photography research, attempting to explain the Chinese discipline of Qigong. Qigong teaches that there is a vitalistic energy called qi (or chi) that permeates all living things. +Rubik's experiments relied on Konstantin Korotkov's GDV device to produce images, which were thought to visualize these qi biofields in chronically ill patients. Rubik acknowledges that the small sample size in her experiments "was too small to permit a meaningful statistical analysis". Claims that these energies can be captured by special photographic equipment are criticized by skeptics. + +== In popular culture == +Kirlian photography has appeared as a fictional element in numerous books, films, television series, and media productions, including the 1975 film The Kirlian Force, re-released under the more sensational title Psychic Killer. Kirlian photographs have been used as visual components in various media, such as the sleeve of George Harrison's 1973 album Living in the Material World, which features Kirlian photographs of his hand holding a Hindu medallion on the front sleeve and American coins on the back, shot at Thelma Moss's UCLA parapsychology laboratory. +"Multiplanar Kirlian emanations" are referenced in the 1989 film Ghostbusters II, during a scene where Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler are conducting a spectral analysis of photographs taken of a portrait painting, which is possessed by the malevolent spirit of medieval tyrant Vigo the Carpathian. +The artwork of David Bowie's 1997 album Earthling has reproductions of Kirlian photographs taken by Bowie. The photographs, which show a crucifix Bowie wore around his neck and the imprint of his "forefinger" tip, date to April 1975 when Bowie was living in Los Angeles and fascinated with the paranormal. The photographs were taken before consuming cocaine and 30 minutes afterwards. The after photograph apparently shows a substantial increase in the "aura" around the crucifix and forefinger. +The Cluster novels by science fiction author Piers Anthony uses the concept of the Kirlian Aura as a way to transfer a person's personality into another body, even an alien body, across light years. The book The Anarchistic Colossus (1977) by A. E. van Vogt involves an anarchistic society controlled by ‘Kirlian computers’. +The opening credits during the first seven seasons of the television series The X-Files shows a Kirlian image of a left human hand. The image appears as the 11th clip in the introductory video montage and is formed by a bluish coronal discharge as the primary outline, with only the proximal phalange of the index finger shown cryptically in red. A human silhouette, in white, seemingly falls towards the hand. +The Italian electronic darkwave band Kirlian Camera was named after the device used for Kirlian photography. +British industrial band Cabaret Voltaire's first album Mix-Up features a track called Kirlian Photograph. + +== See also == +Aura (paranormal) § Aura photography +Bioelectromagnetism +Cherenkov radiation § Medical imaging of radioisotopes and external beam radiotherapy +L-field +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience +Magnetic particle inspection (Magnaflux) +Thoughtography +Timeline of Russian innovation + +== Notes == + +== References == + +== Further reading == +Becker, Robert; Selden, Gary (1985). The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life. Quill/Williams Morrow. +Iovine, John (1993). Kirlian Photography: A Hands on Guide. McGraw-Hill. +Krippner, S.; Rubin, D. (1973). Galaxies of Life. Gordon and Breach. + +== External links == + +Kirlian Photography and the "Aura", Dr. Rory Coker, Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin +Bioenergetic Fields at the Wayback Machine (archived May 8, 2016), Victor J. Stenger, University of Hawaii at Manoa \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundali_(astrology)-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundali_(astrology)-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..83ae97c65 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundali_(astrology)-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +--- +title: "Kundali (astrology)" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundali_(astrology)" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:07.479275+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Kuṇḍali (also called janmapatra) is the Indian term for the astrological chart or diagram representing the positions of the navagraha-s of Indian astrology at a particular moment like the moment of the birth of a child. The navagraha-s are the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and the two nodes of the Moon. The nodes of the Moon are the points on the celestial sphere where the orbit of the Moon intersects the orbit of the Sun. At a particular moment the navagraha-s will be at different points in the sky and they will be located in one of the 12 zodiacal signs (rāśi-s in Indian astrology), namely: + +1. Meṣa (Aries), 2. Vṛṣabha (Taurus), 3.Mithuna (Gemini), 4. Karka (Cancer), 5. Siṃha (Leo), 6. Kanyā (Virgo), 7. Tulā (Libra), 8. Vṛścika (Scorpio), 9. Dhanuṣa (Sagittarius), 10. Makara (Capricornus), 11. Kumbha (Aquarius), 12. Mīna (Pisces) +A kuṇḍali will show diagrammatically which one of the navagraha-s are located in which one of the rāśi-s at a particular moment. A kuṇḍali has twelve cells to represent the 12 zodiacal signs. Practitioners of astrology in different parts of India follow different conventions regarding the exact form in which the kuṇḍali is constructed. Essentially there are three different ways in which these cells are represented in a kuṇḍali, the one followed by people of South India, the one followed by people of North India and the one followed by people of Eastern India (West Bengal and Odisha). + +The practice of constructing a kuṇḍali per se is not unscientific or pseudo-science as the kuṇḍali is only a diagram depicting the positions in the zodiac of the nine entities called the navagraha-s at a particular moment of time, and the navagraha-s are associated with true astronomical entities. But, the practice of "reading" a kuṇḍali and interpreting or using it to predict the future events or the personality traits of individuals, has no scientific basis and is a pseudo-science. +At the same time, some traditional practices also consider palmistry (the study of hand lines) as a complementary way to understand an individual’s tendencies and life patterns. While a kuṇḍali reflects planetary positions at birth, hand lines are believed to change over time, symbolically representing personal growth, choices, and experiences, offering another perspective alongside astrology. + + +== The different types of kuṇḍali-s == +In astrology, the ascendant, lagna or rising sign at a specified moment (like the moment of birth of a child) is the rāśi on the eastern horizon at that particular moment. The ascendant is specific to a particular time and place. The kuṇḍali format followed in northern India is ascendant-centric in the sense that it gives primacy to the ascendant and assigns a fixed location to the ascendant. But, the kuṇḍali format followed in the southern and eastern India are rāśi-centric in the sense that they give primacy to the rāśi-s. In these formats, the various rāśi-s occupy fixed positions whereas the position of the ascendant changes depending on time and place. + + +=== The kuṇḍali in southern India === + +The kuṇḍali format followed in southern India is essentially a depiction of the zodiac exactly as it is laid out in the sky. The only difference is that instead of a circle a square is used and twelve smaller squares or cells are drawn inside the square to represent the rāśi-s. The earth may be imagined as situated at the center of the larger square. The rāśi-s are always in the same boxes. The Meṣa rāśi is in the second cell from the left in the top row of the diagram (marked 1 in the figure). The remaining rāśi-s are the remaining cells in the successive cells in the clockwise direction (marked 2, 3, 4, etc.). +The South Indian kuṇḍali is a rāśi-centric format. The navagraha-s are placed in the boxes corresponding to the rāśi-s in which they are located. The ascendant is marked in the appropriate box. It is denoted either by a diagonal line or by writing Lagna in the appropriate box. +One advantage of this chart format is that it more closely resembles the actual astronomy of the sky. Another advantage is that, since each rāśi has been allotted the same area in the chart, this chart is much easier to populate with names of the navagraha-s. As in the kuṇḍali formats of the other regions, there are no odd-shaped smaller sections that one has to squeeze the navagraha-s into. + + +=== The kuṇḍali in eastern India === + +The kuṇḍali format followed in eastern India is depicted in the attached figure. The format is sometimes drawn with a square showing the outer boundary (in the attached figure, the square drawn using dashed lines segments). As in the format followed in southern India, this format is also rāśi-centric. The first rāśi, Meṣa occupies the central cell in the top row of the diagram (the cell marked 1). The other rāśi-s are represented by the remaining cells selected in the anti-clockwise direction. In the format followed in southern India, the cells are assigned rāśi-s in the clockwise direction. This format has the same advantages as the format followed in southern India. + + +=== The kuṇḍali in northern India === + +The kuṇḍali format followed in northern India is bhāva-centric (or, house-centric). In traditional practice, each rāśi is a house or bhāva. The beginning of each house is the 0th degrees of the rāśi and the end is the 30th degree of the rāśi. What varies from is the enumeration of these bhāva-s, i.e., which rāśi is the first bhāva, which is the second, and so forth. This is determined by the position of the Lagna (the Ascendant) The house in which the Lagna falls is usually the first bhāva, and the other bhāva-s follow it, counter-clockwise, in the sequence of the zodiac. In the kuṇḍali format followed in northern India, the first bhāva is always in the topmost middle diamond. In this format, the bhāva that each section denotes is static. The rāśi-s assigned to the sections change. This format is more of an astrological perspective than an astronomical one. The format is meaningless without numbering as the rāśi of each house cannot be determined without numbers. The rāśi-s are numbered as follows: 1. Meṣa (Aries), 2. Vṛṣabha (Taurus), 3.Mithuna (Gemini), 4. Karka (Cancer), 5. Siṃha (Leo), 6. Kanyā (Virgo), 7. Tulā (Libra), 8. Vṛścika (Scorpio), 9. Dhanuṣa (Sagittarius), 10. Makara (Caprocornus), 11. Kumbha (Aquarius), 12. Mīna (Pisces). + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_chemicals_conspiracy_theory-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_chemicals_conspiracy_theory-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..30503be3f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_chemicals_conspiracy_theory-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +title: "LGBTQ chemicals conspiracy theory" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_chemicals_conspiracy_theory" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:21.699910+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Conspiracy theories emerged in the 2010s alleging that governments were introducing endocrine disrupting chemicals into the water supply to increase the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ) population. The claim was popularized by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who cited studies on the herbicide atrazine, known to induce spontaneous sex reversal or hermaphroditism in certain frog species, to assert that the U.S. government was 'putting chemicals in the water that turn the "friggin’ frogs gay" as part of a "chemical warfare operation"'. Spontaneous sex change is a naturally occurring phenomenon in some frog species even in unpolluted environments. +In animal studies, exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals during gestation can interfere with prenatal hormones and consequently sex differentiation of the brain. This has led some scientists to speculate about the impact of endocrine disruptor exposure during human pregnancy on later sexual orientation or gender identity, though evidence is currently lacking. + + +== History == +Animal testing in the 2000s suggested that the herbicide atrazine, an endocrine disruptor, may have a feminizing effect on male frogs causing them to become hermaphrodites. Other research failed to reproduce these results in frogs, though reports of reproductive impact has been reported for other animals, and a meta-analysis conducted in 2010 on selected amphibians and freshwater fish showed sublethal reproductive effects at ecologically relevant concentrations. Reviewing 19 studies in total, the United States Environmental Protection Agency concluded in 2013 that atrazine has no consistent effects on development in amphibians. +According to Lambert and Packer: + +A direct link between EDCs and sex-reversed frogs has been observed only in the laboratory, not in the wild. What’s causing sex reversal in these wild frog populations is not yet clear, but our latest data suggest that natural temperature variation, occurring independently of urbanization or climate change, may be a catalyst. + +In 2015, American conspiracy theorist and radio personality Alex Jones claimed that atrazine had caused a majority of frogs in the US to become homosexual, and that the US government was waging a "chemical warfare operation" to increase rates of homosexuality and decrease birth rates. This claim goes far beyond what was reported in the scientific literature. A quote from Jones's monologue, "I don't like 'em putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frogs gay!" subsequently became an internet meme. +The idea of a link between atrazine and sexual development was later revived by American environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., during his 2024 presidential campaign. In various podcast appearances, Kennedy claimed that atrazine contamination was causing widespread delayed puberty or precocious puberty in the Midwest, and speculated that it was causing "sexual confusion" and "gender confusion" in children. Kennedy's theory was criticized in various popular media outlets. +A 2016 review in Psychological Science in the Public Interest argues that there is "no persuasive evidence that the rate of same-sex attraction has varied much across time or place". In contrast to claims about chemicals in the water, the effects of hormones on sexual orientation appear to occur at the prenatal stage, during organization of the brain. Endocrine disruptor exposure during fetal development has been shown to affect sexual differentiation of the brain in animals, however any effect on human sexual orientation or gender identity requires further research. + + +== See also == + + +== References == + + +== External links == +"'They're Turning the Frogs Gay': the Psychology Behind Internet Conspiracy Theories – New Statesman +Weed Killer Makes Male Frogs Lay Eggs - National Geographic \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..26416458b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +--- +title: "Language secessionism" +chunk: 1/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:09.851113+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Language secessionism (also known as linguistic secessionism or linguistic separatism) is an attitude supporting the separation of a language variety from the language to which it has hitherto been considered to belong, in order for this variety to be considered a distinct language. This attitude was first analyzed in Catalan sociolinguistics but it is attested in other parts of the world. + +== In Arabic == + +=== Sociolinguistic background === +The Arab world is characterized by diglossia: local dialects dominate the sphere of daily communication, while Standard Arabic carries high prestige and is used in formal writing and speaking. +This situation has important political and social implications. Modern Standard Arabic is the official language of all Arab countries, and enjoys the status of a global language. Standard Arabic is also the lingua sacra of Islam, which further increases its importance. However, a claim could be made that it is no one's first language, since Arab children acquire their local dialect in the natural process of generational language transmission, and learn Standard Arabic later, when they begin formal education. Proficiency in Standard Arabic provides insight into a vast literary tradition spanning over 1,500 years. However, proponents of recognizing local Arabic dialects as official languages claim that the discrepancy between spoken vernaculars and Standard Arabic is just too wide, rendering proficiency in Standard Arabic unattainable for most. + +=== In Egyptian Arabic === +Egyptian linguistic separatism is the most well-developed linguistic separatism in the Arab World. The most popular platform diffusing the idea of the Modern Egyptian Language (rather than the Egyptian dialect) is the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia also known as Wikipedia Masry or Maṣrī. It was the first Wikipedia written in one of the many Arabic dialects. Importantly, the idea of Egyptian linguistic separatism goes further back, to thinkers such as Salama Musa, Bayyūmī Qandīl, Muḥsin Luṭfī as-Sayyid, and the Liberal Egyptian Party. +Egyptian linguistic separatism does not simply claim that Egyptian Arabic should become the official language of Egypt, which in and of itself is a matter decided by politicians, not linguists. However, proponents of Egyptian linguistic separatism, such as Bayyūmī Qandīl, substantiate their political demands with pseudoscientific claims. +Linguistic separatism remains a fringe movement within Egyptian society. The idea remains particularly attractive to Coptic Christians and liberals, who see Egyptian nationalism as an alternative to Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism. + +== In Catalan and Occitan == + +=== Common characteristics === +In the Occitano-Romance languages, language secessionism is a quite recent phenomenon that has developed only since the 1970s. Language secessionism affects both Occitan and Catalan languages with the following common features: + +A breakaway from the tradition of Occitan and Catalan 19th century revivalist movements, which usually support the internal unity of each of these languages. +An often deliberate ignorance of the tradition of Romance linguistics. +An exacerbation of the cultural identity linked to dialects, which secessionism considers as separate languages. +A lack of success (or a very marginal position) in linguistic scientific research. +An active lobbying in regional political circles. +The support of a writing system or of any prescription, which breaks up linguistic unity and exaggerates dialectal particular features. + +=== In Catalan === +In Catalan, there are three cases: + +Valencian language secessionism, or blaverism, appeared during the democratic transition of 1975–1981, after the fall of Francoism. It is supported by some conservative circles of Valencian society, who are branded "post-Francoist" by their rivals who consider Valencian and Catalan one and the same language. It has a variable impact on the population: Valencian people usually call their language "Valencian" but are divided about the unity of Catalan: some people agree that "Valencian" is just the regional name for "Catalan" but others consider "Valencian" a distinct language from "Catalan". Blaverism has very little impact in the linguistic community. Valencian institutions and Valencian partisans of Catalan unity use the official norm of Catalan (as codified by Institut d'Estudis Catalans and Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua), while "Blavers" (partisans of blaverism) mostly write Valencian using an alternative standard called "Normes del Puig" (codified by the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture). +Balearic language secessionism vis-à-vis Catalan is quite marginal and is supported by a few cultural groups. It has very little impact on the population. It is included in a wider (but unorganized) tendency called "gonellisme", which struggles against the standardization of Catalan. +In Franja de Ponent (a Catalan-speaking strip in eastern Aragon), language secessionism is quite marginal. It appeared during the 2000s. It is supported only by a fraction of the already minority pro-Aragonese movements, who overstate a so-called Aragonese ancestry in the Catalan spoken in Aragon. + +=== In Occitan === +There are three cases in Occitan: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d2f1f1dbb --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Language secessionism" +chunk: 2/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:09.851113+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In the Auvernhat dialect, language secessionism has been supported since the 1970s by Pierre Bonnaud, who founded the Bonnaudian norm, the group Cercle Terre d'Auvergne and the review Bïzà Neirà. It has negligible impact in the population, where knowledge of the language is in any case at best residual. Auvernhat cultural circles are divided between the unitary vision of Occitan (associated with the Occitan classical norm) and secessionism (associated with Bonnaudian norm). +In the Provençal dialect, language secessionism appeared during the 1970s with Louis Bayle and has been reactivated since the 1990s by Philippe Blanchet and groups like "Union Provençale" and "Collectif Provence". This secessionism supports the Mistralian norm (but it does not represent all Mistralian norm users, since some of them claim traditionally the unity of Occitan). It has little impact in the population, whose knowledge of the language is anyway residual. Provençal cultural circles are divided between the unitary vision (supported by users of both Mistralian norm and classical norm) and the secessionist vision (supported by some users of the Mistralian norm). The Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur voted a resolution on 5 December 2003 that approved the principle of the unity of "Occitan or Langue d'Oc" and the fact that Provençal is a part of it. +In the Gascon dialect, language secessionism is claimed since the 1990s by Jean Lafitte, who created during the 2000s a group called "Institut Béarnais et Gascon". It has negligible impact in the population. Lafitte's secessionism supports two original writing systems: one is a nonstandard spin-off from the classical norm and the other one is a nonstandard spin-off from the Mistralian norm. Gascon cultural circles almost unanimously support the unitary vision of the Occitan language. In Aran Valley (a little Gascon Occitan-speaking area in Spain), Aranese, the local variety of Gascon, is officially recognized as a part of the Occitan language. The status of semi-autonomy of Aran Valley (1990) presents Gascon Aranese as "Aranese, the variety of the Occitan language peculiar to Aran ("Er aranés, varietat dera lengua occitana e pròpia d'Aran"). Similarly, the status of autonomy of Catalonia, as reformed in 2006, confirms it with the following expression: "The Occitan language, which is named Aranese in Aran" ("Era lengua occitana, denominada aranés en Aran"). + +== In Spanish == + +In Andalusia, there is a fringe movement aimed at promoting the Andalusian dialect as a separate language from Spanish. + +== In Hindi and Urdu == + +The national language of Pakistan and official languages in many parts of India, the Delhi dialect has become the basis of Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu. Grammatically, Hindi and Urdu are the same language, Hindustani, but they differ in their literary and academic vocabulary. Hindi tends to adopt Sanskrit words and purges literary words borrowed from Persian, while Urdu does the opposite. In essence, apart from their scripts, the lexicon is what distinguishes Urdu and Hindi. There are additional Indo-Aryan languages that are counted as Hindi but are not the same as Hindustani. They are considered Hindi languages but may not be close to the Delhi dialect. + +== In Romanian == + +The official standard language of Moldova is identical to Romanian. However, Vasile Stati, a local linguist and politician, has asserted his opinion that Moldovan is a separate language in his Dicționar moldovenesc-românesc (Moldovan–Romanian dictionary). +During the Soviet era, the USSR authorities officially recognized and promoted Moldovans and Moldovan as a distinct ethnicity and language from Romanians. A Cyrillic alphabet was introduced in the Moldavian ASSR and SSR to reinforce this claim. Since 1989, the official language switched to the Latin script and underwent several of the language reforms of Romanian. +Nowadays, the Cyrillic alphabet remains in official use only on the territories controlled by the breakaway authorities of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (most commonly known as Transnistria), where it is named "Moldovan", as opposed to the Latin script version used elsewhere, which the local authorities call "Romanian". + +== In Serbo-Croatian == + +Serbo-Croatian, as a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, has a strong structural unity, according to the vast majority of linguists who specialize in Slavic languages. However, the language is spoken by populations that have strong, different, ethnic consciousnesses: Bosniaks, Croats, Montenegrins, and Serbs. +Since the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbo-Croatian has lost its unitary codification and its official unitary status. It is now divided into four official languages which follow separate codifications: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian. This process has been accused of being grounded on pseudoscientific claims fueled by political agendas. +Indeed, linguists and sociolinguists have not ceased to speak of a common Serbo-Croatian. It is a pluricentric language being cultivated through four voluntarily diverging normative varieties, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian, which are sometimes considered Ausbau languages. However, Ausbau languages must have different dialect basis, whereas standardized Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian have the same supradialect basis (Shtokavian with regional differences). + +The problems of the so-called Ausbau-languages in Heinz Kloss's terminology are similar, but by no means identical to the problems of variants. In Ausbau-languages we have pairs of standard languages built on the basis of different dialects [...]. The difference between these paired Ausbau-languages and standard language variants lies in the fact that the variants have a nearly identical material (dialectal) basis and the difference is only in the development of the standardisation process, while paired standard languages have a more or less distinct dialect base. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2e5d545b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +--- +title: "Language secessionism" +chunk: 3/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:09.851113+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Kloss contrasts Ausbau languages not only with Abstand languages but also with polycentric standard languages, i.e. two variants of the same standard, such as Serbo-Croatian, Moldavian and Rumanian, and Portuguese in Brazil and Portugal. In contrast, pairs such as Czech and Slovak, Bulgarian and Macedonian, and Danish and Swedish, are instances of literary standards based on different dialects which, at a pre-literate stage, would have been regarded by linguists as dialects of the same language. +On the contrary, the Serbo-Croatian kind of language secessionism is now a strongly consensual and institutional majority phenomenon. Still, this does not make it legitimate to say that such secessionism has led to "Ausbau languages" in the cases of Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian, because such diversion has not taken place: + +The intercomprehension between these standards exceeds that between the standard variants of English, French, German, or Spanish. + +The four varieties - Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian - are all totally mutually comprehensible [...] What there is, is a common, polycentric standard language - just like, say, French, which has Belgian, Swiss, French, and Canadian variants but is definitely not four different languages. [...] Linguistic scientists are agreed that BCSM is essentially a single language with four different standard variants bearing different names. + +== In Galician-Portuguese == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ddf04c2f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +--- +title: "Language secessionism" +chunk: 4/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:09.851113+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Portugal, a former southern county split from the Kingdom of Galicia and fief of the Kingdom of León, was created by Afonso I of Portugal in 1126 and expanded towards the Islamic south, like its neighbouring kingdoms. That part of Galicia, named Portugal, became independent while the northern part of the country remained under the Kingdom of León during the 12th century and early 13th century. Northern Galicia would later be ruled by the Kingdom of Castile, which would become the core and ethnic base for the future Spain; but the culture was the same on both sides of the political border. Galician-Portuguese culture attained great prestige during the Low Middle Ages. In the late 15th century, Castilian domination became more severe, banishing their language in all official uses, including the church. +Galician-Portuguese survived diglossically for the following centuries among the peasant population, but it experienced a strong Spanish influence and had a different evolution. Meanwhile, the same language (by the reintegrationist view) remained fully official in Portugal and was carried across the world by Portuguese explorers, soldiers and colonists. +During the 19th century a revival movement arose. This movement defended the Galician language, and created a provisional norm, with a Castilian orthography and many loanwords. When autonomy was granted, a norm and orthography (based in rexurdimento writers) (Galician literature) for a Galician language was created. This norm is taught and used in schools and universities of Galicia. But most writers (Castelao, Risco, Otero Pedrayo) did not support the traditional Galician forms; some of them based on Spanish orthography even if they recognized the essential linguistic unity, saying that the priority was achieving political autonomy and being read by the population. Other writers wrote with a Portuguese-like orthography (e.g. Guerra da Cal and Carvalho Calero). +Reintegrationists claim that the official norm (released in 1982) was imposed by the Spanish government, with the covert intent of severing Galician from Portuguese. But this idea is rejected by the Real Academia Galega, which supports the official norm. +Reintegrationist and Lusist groups are protesting against this so-called language secessionism, which they call Castrapism (from castrapo, something like "patois") or Isolationism. Unlike in the case of Valencian Blaverism, isolationism has no impact in the scientific community of linguists, and it is supported by a small number of them but still has clear political support. +Galician-Portuguese linguistic unity until the 16th century seems to be consensus, as does both Galician and European Portuguese being closer to each other, and also closer in the 19th century than in the 20th century and now. In this period, while Galician for the most part lost vowel reduction, velarization of /l/ and nasal vowels, and some speech registers of it adhered to yeísmo, all making it phonologically closer to Spanish. For example, European Portuguese had splits that created two new vowel phonemes, one of them usually an allophone only in the case of vowel reduction and the other phonetically absent in any other variant. Some dialects had a merger of three of its oral diphthongs and another three of its nasal vowels, and together with Brazilian Portuguese absorbed more than 5000 loanwords from French as well as 1500 from English. +It seems that the debate for a greater integration among Portuguese-speaking countries had the result of a single writing standard (1990 Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement), often shunned by some segments of Portuguese media and population but long waited and cheered by Brazilians despite occasional criticism to some aspects and that changed the spelling of between 0.5% and 1% of the words in both former varieties, with minor respect to major dialect phonological differences. The other debate, whether Galician should use the same standard of Portuguese (Lusism), a standard with minor differences (Reintegrationism), a re-approximation of both through another Lusophone spelling agreement that would give particular regional differences such as that of Galician as well as major diverging dialects of Portuguese (especially in South America) more room (Reintegrationism), or the present standard based on the Spanish orthography, still did not cast official attention of government authorities in any of the involved countries, even if Lusophone support is expected to be strong in any of the first three cases. +A point often held by minorities among both Reintegrationists/Lusists and Lusophonists is that Portuguese should have a more conservative and uniform international speech standard that at the same time respects minor phonological differences between its variants (such as a free choice between the various allophones of the rhotic consonant /ʁ/, [a ~ ɐ ~ ɜ ~ ə] for /a ~ ɐ/ or [s ~ s̻ʲ ~ ʃ ~ ɕ] for the voiceless allophone of /S/) that would further strengthen Lusophone integration, but this is not especially welcomed by any party in Europe. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..577785d5b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Language secessionism" +chunk: 5/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_secessionism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:09.851113+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== In Tagalog == +Republic Act No. 7104, approved on August 14, 1991, created the Commission on the Filipino Language, reporting directly to the President and tasked to undertake, coordinate and promote researches for the development, propagation and preservation of Filipino and other Philippine languages. On May 13, 1992, the commission issued Resolution 92-1, specifying that Filipino is the...indigenous written and spoken language of Metro Manila and other urban centers in the Philippines used as the language of communication of ethnic groups. +Though the Commission on the Filipino Language recognizes that a lot of the vocabulary of Filipino is based on Tagalog, the latest definition given to the national language tries to evade the use of the term Tagalog. +According to some Filipinologists (people who specialize in the study of Filipino as a language), the main reason that Filipino is distinct from Tagalog is that in Filipino, there is a presence of vocabulary coming from other Philippine languages, such as Cebuano (such as bana – husband), Hiligaynon (such as buang – insane) and Ilocano (such as ading – little brother). They also maintain that the term Tagalog is the language of the Tagalog region and puristic in a sense. It lacks certain phonemes like /f/ and /v/, which makes it incapable of producing some indigenous proper nouns Ifugao and Ivatan. Curiously, proponents of language secessionism are unable to account for the glaring absence of long vowel, phonemic in Tausug, in Filipino phonology or for the absence of a schwa. Arguments for secessionism generally ignore the fact that the various languages of the Philippines have divergent phonologies. + +== In Chinese == + +=== Mandarin versus other Chinese varieties === +Among Chinese speakers, Yue Chinese (Cantonese), Hokkien and other varieties of Chinese are often referred to as dialects (Chinese: 方言), instead of languages (simplified Chinese: 语言; traditional Chinese: 語言), despite the fact that those varieties are not mutually intelligible with Mandarin, spoken by the majority of Chinese. However, the languages are reportedly significantly more mutually intelligible in written form as all varieties continue to use the same set of Hanzi (Chinese characters); i.e. Yue and Mandarin differ primarily in tonal differences and different pronunciations of various sounds which would be largely negated in writing. + +=== In Hokkien === +In the Hokkien topolect (Chinese: 閩南語), which is widely used in Fujian, Taiwan, and in the Chinese diaspora, it is debated that whether Taiwanese dialects (Chinese: 臺灣閩南語) should be separated from the Hokkien language as the Taiwanese language (Chinese: 臺灣話 or 臺語), although people from Fujian and Taiwan can communicate with each other despite some differences in vocabulary. Such debates may be associated with politics of Taiwan. +In Taiwan, there is a common perception that Hokkien preserves more archaic features from Classical Chinese than Mandarin, thus allowing poetry from the Tang dynasty to rhyme better. Amongst Hokkien nationalists in Taiwan, this perception is sometimes elevated into stronger claims about the identity of Hokkien and Mandarin. One common name for Taiwanese Hokkien in Taiwan, especially among elderly speakers, is Chinese: 河洛話; pinyin: Héluòhuà, derived from a folk etymological reading of Hok-ló, Ho̍h-ló, or Hô-ló. The character reading is interpreted to be a reference to the Yellow River Map and the Lo Shu Square and taken as evidence that the ancestors of Hokkien-speaking people came from the Central Plain, and in preserving their identity over the centuries, Hokkien speakers have also better preserved their language. Some fringe scholars claim that modern Hokkien is a faithfully preserved archaic variety of Chinese once used in the imperial courts dating back as early as the Shang dynasty. Another claim based on folk etymology is that the word Mandarin is based on the Mandarin pronunciation of the Chinese phrase Chinese: 滿大人; pinyin: Mǎndàrén; lit. 'important Manchu person or Manchu official'. This is taken as evidence that Mandarin has been corrupted by foreign influence from Manchu, Mongolian, etc. and is thus not fit to be the official language of a Chinese-speaking country. This is in contrast to more mainstream views that Taiwanese Hokkien, as a variety of Southern Min, is a descendant of Proto-Min, a language that split from late Old Chinese, and Mandarin descended from Middle Chinese, and that it is not meaningful to say that one modern language is older than another. + +== See also == + +== Notes == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_ball-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_ball-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f7f215253 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_ball-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +--- +title: "Laundry ball" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_ball" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:11.012124+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +A laundry ball or washing ball is a product made of solid, insoluble material promoted as a substitute for laundry detergent. Producers of laundry balls often make pseudoscientific claims about their mechanisms of action and exaggerate the extent of their benefits. +Washing with laundry balls is as effective or less effective than washing without detergent. Their observed cleaning effects can largely be attributed to the mechanical interactions with the laundry or to using hot water instead of cold. For mechanical agitation, no evidence exists that using a specialized laundry ball is superior to using a different, cheaper solid object, such as a golf ball. +The Federal Trade Commission has taken action against manufacturers for making misleading claims, while customer protection organizations have recommended against buying this type of product. + +== Types == +Laundry balls come in several shapes: disks, spheres and toruses (doughnut shapes). Some contain ceramic pieces, magnetic material, or coloured liquid claimed to be "activated water", none of which have been demonstrated to improve effectiveness. Some balls can be refilled with pellets of detergent or other ingredients. +In the United States, laundry balls have been sold on home shopping channels or by participants in multilevel marketing. They can also be found in retail stores with an ecological or environmental focus. During the initial marketing boom, balls were manufactured for other market niches, like washing cars. For the purpose of washing a car, a normal cloth or sponge will have the same effect of mechanical removal of dirt and grime. + +== Claimed mechanisms of action == +Manufacturers rarely agree on why their laundry balls work, which suggests that each manufacturer makes these claims up. Some claims are not backed by science, while others are an exaggeration of benefits. Balls that contain detergents may offer more cleaning power than water alone because their ingredients are comparable to normal washing powder, but in smaller quantities. +The effect of the laundry balls may be explained by simple mechanical action and by the usage of hotter water. Some manufacturers claim that their products reduce energy consumption, but their pamphlets recommend using hot water. Hot water will clean some types of spots better than cold water, and mechanical agitation by any solid object can assist in cleaning, leading some people to conclude that the balls worked. +Although laundry balls are marketed as economical, environmentally friendly alternatives that can reduce water and energy consumption, they have not been demonstrated to be more effective than washing without detergent. Their observed cleaning effects can largely be attributed to the mechanical interactions with the laundry or to using hot water instead of cold. The mechanical action of the laundry balls can help clean some types of spots, but a golf ball will achieve the same effect for much less money. +Apart from issues with effectiveness, there is also a risk of the balls breaking open during washing, which could damage the machinery of the washing machine. + +=== Infrared === +Some manufacturers claim that the components inside their balls emit far infrared rays, which are claimed to reduce the surface tension of water and facilitate washing. All materials emit thermal radiation, and at room temperature or washing machine temperature, this is in the far infrared range. It is also true that heating reduces the surface tension of water, but this energy comes from the water heater; otherwise, it would violate the law of conservation of energy. + +=== Magnetic properties === + +Magnetic water softeners claim that their magnetic fields can help remove scale from the washing machine and pipes and prevent new limescale from adhering. Some companies claim to remove hardness ions from hard water or to precipitate the molecules in the water so they will not "stick" to the pipes or to reduce the surface tension of water. The claims are dubious, the scientific basis is unclear, the working mechanism is vaguely defined and understudied, and high-quality studies report negative results. The reputation of these products is further damaged by the pseudoscientific explanations that promoters keep putting forward. +A laundry ball containing magnets could be used in niche applications for the removal of magnetic material, such as iron filings on a steel worker's clothing, in which case the benefit would be clearly visible in the form of collected iron filings. For the typical consumer, however, there would be no benefit, and such a device may get stuck on a washing machine with a steel drum, disrupting its engineered balance and increasing vibration, decreasing the machine's lifespan. + +=== Changes to water structure === +Some magnetic products claim that they "change the molecular structure of water", a pseudoscientific claim with zero scientific basis. There is no such thing as "magnetized water". Water is not paramagnetic, so its water molecules do not align in the presence of a magnetic field. Water is weakly diamagnetic (so it is repelled by magnets), but only to an extent so small that it is undetectable to most instruments. + +=== Special detergent === +Some balls are refillable with small pellets of detergent which are sold only by the manufacturer of the ball. Critics question whether the amount and type of detergent released by these balls is sufficient to generate significant cleaning effects. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_ball-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_ball-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..9c74ffa33 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_ball-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +--- +title: "Laundry ball" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_ball" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:11.012124+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Customer protection == +In 1997, Amway offered a ceramic washing disk on its catalog but removed it after concluding that it had "no measurable impact on overall cleaning." +In 1997, Trade-Net sold a laundry ball product (the Blue Laundry Ball) in various states. Trade-Net claimed that the blue liquid inside their balls was structured water "that emits a negative charge through the walls of the container into your laundry water." "This causes the water molecule cluster to disassociate, allowing much smaller individual water molecules to penetrate the innermost part of the fabric." Dennis Barnum, a professor of inorganic chemistry at Portland State University, said that the liquid was just water with a blue dye and could not possibly have the effect claimed by the manufacturer. Barnum also said that the claims were "gibberish" and used scientific terms in ways that sounded educated to the layman but did not make any real sense. The Oregonian tested the balls and found they washed marginally better than hot water with no detergent and worse than using detergent. +After complaints, Trade-Net's claims were investigated by customer protection departments in Utah, Oregon, and Florida, among others, and the company was prohibited from making certain claims, including that "such product cleans as well as conventional laundry detergent". Trade-Net offered a 'new' laundry ball product after this, but were forced to pay fines, including $190,000 to Oregon's Department of Justice, $10,000 to Utah and then in April 1999, $155,000 to the states of New York, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma and the FTC. The company disappeared shortly thereafter. The Federal Trade Commission has levied fines against other companies for similar fraudulent claims. However, other companies kept selling similar products over the Internet. +The judge ruling against Trade-Net, issued in April 1999, said the manufacturers failed to substantiate their claims and hadn't informed consumers about reports showing that the claims were incorrect. +The Australian Consumers' Association published a report in the April 1998 issue of its magazine Choice. It concluded that laundry balls were no better than cold water. +The US Federal Trade Commission published in 1999 about laundry balls, rings, and discs: "Tests show that these gadgets do little more than clean out your wallet. At best, they’re marginally better than washing clothes in hot water alone and not as effective as washing them with laundry detergent. At worst, the products are completely useless." +In 2000 the magazine Good Housekeeping tested several laundry balls sold in the US and concluded that "these gizmos do little more than clean out your wallet." +In April 2009 the Italian consumer association Altroconsumo carried a small test and concluded that laundry balls didn't wash better than plain water. +In 2009 the Spanish customer protection organization OCU studied ecobolas (a type of laundry ball marketed in Spain). It compared the efficacy of the laundry ball, normal detergent, and no detergent at all. It concluded that laundry balls were no better than using just water, and it recommended that consumers simply use a minimum amount of detergent. +In November 2011, the Hong Kong Consumer Council published a report on the effect of using washing liquid, washing powder, and washing balls. The former two were effective in removing stains, while the washing balls were not more effective than plain water. +Some organizations recommending against their use are Consumers Union, International Fabricare Institute (now called Drycleaning and Laundry Institute), Maytag, Soap and Detergent Association, and Spanish OCU. +In February 2011, the Spanish National Institute of Consume (Instituto Nacional del Consumo INC) ordered 14 manufacturers to cease their deceptive advertising after testing the wash balls and concluding that they are only as effective, or even less effective, than washing with water alone. +In August 2012, the Portuguese Consumer Rights Council requested a ban on the washing balls because none of the advantages advertised were proven in tests. +The Australian customer advocacy group Choice Australia gave a "Shonky Award" to Nanosmart Laundry Balls in October 2015, stating that they "don't work" and that they should be renamed "Nano-not-so-smart" after testing the balls against plain water and finding they had no effect and that their scientific claims were simply untrue. Choice Australia states that they will refer the product to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for investigation over Nanosmart's misleading claims. +By making very vague claims, marketers can continue to sell laundry balls without running afoul of customer protection laws that require veracity in advertisement. + +== See also == +Dryer ball +Stainless steel soap +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience + +== References == + +== External links == +Do laundry balls really work?, July 25, 1997, The Straight Dope +The ABI Laundry Ball and The Laundry Solution and The Laundry Clean Disk & about twenty others just like them!, an entry in The Skeptic's Dictionary +Laundry Discs Aired on Market Place, November 17, 1998, CBC News, Marketplace program on scams section. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_gut_syndrome-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_gut_syndrome-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..270f564a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_gut_syndrome-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: "Leaky gut syndrome" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_gut_syndrome" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:12.197286+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Leaky gut syndrome is a hypothetical and medically unrecognized condition that is distinct from the scientific phenomenon of increased intestinal permeability commonly known as "leaky gut". Claims for the existence of "leaky gut syndrome" as a distinct medical condition come mostly from nutritionists and practitioners of alternative medicine. Proponents claim that a "leaky gut" causes chronic inflammation throughout the body that results in a wide range of conditions, including myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, migraines, multiple sclerosis, and autism. There is little evidence to support this hypothesis. +Stephen Barrett has described "leaky gut syndrome" as a fad diagnosis and says that its proponents use the alleged condition as an opportunity to sell a number of alternative-health remedies – including diets, herbal preparations, and dietary supplements. Promoters of pseudoscience have claimed that the passage of proteins through a "leaky" gut is the cause of autism. Evidence for claims that a leaky gut causes autism is weak and conflicting. +Advocates tout various treatments for "leaky gut syndrome", such as dietary supplements, probiotics, herbal remedies, gluten-free foods, and low-FODMAP, low-sugar, and/or antifungal diets, but there is little evidence that the treatments offered are of benefit. +None have been adequately tested to determine whether they are safe and effective for this purpose. The UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) does not recommend the use of any special diets to manage the main symptoms of autism or leaky gut syndrome. + + +== See also == +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_pyramid-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_pyramid-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b3b92177f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_pyramid-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Learning pyramid" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_pyramid" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:13.417113+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The learning pyramid (also known as “the cone of learning”, “the learning cone”, “the cone of retention”, “the pyramid of learning”, or “the pyramid of retention”) is a pseudoscientific group of ineffective learning models and representations relating different degrees of retention induced from various types of learning. + + +== Description == +The earliest such representation is believed to originate in a 1954 book called Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching. +A pyramid model was supposedly developed by the National Training Laboratories Institute in the early 1960s, on its main campus in Bethel, Maine, for which the original, internal research is said to have been lost. Despite this, NTL's learning pyramid model became a central representation of this concept with a large number of models drawing from it. NTL's model generally used the following divisions: + + +== Criticisms == +Criticism emerged on early versions of the model such as Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience. Critics reported inconsistencies between the pyramid of learning and research. The NTL learning pyramid study being lost, the field largely stands on an unknown methodology of unknown quality, with unknown mitigation of influential parameters such as time, population tested, etc., making the original study's results untrustworthy. + + +== See also == +Educational aims and objectives + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectin-free_diet-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectin-free_diet-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2b0a25957 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectin-free_diet-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +--- +title: "Lectin-free diet" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectin-free_diet" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:14.566275+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Lectin-free diet (also known as the Plant Paradox diet) is a fad diet promoted with the false claim that avoiding all foods that contain high amounts of lectins will prevent and cure disease. There is no clinical evidence the lectin-free diet is effective to treat any disease and its claims have been criticized as pseudoscientific. + + +== Overview == + +The lectin-free diet forbids all foods that are high in lectins including legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils, peas), grains, fruit, nightshade vegetables (tomatoes and potatoes), nuts, seeds and many others. The first writer to advocate a lectin-free diet was Peter J. D'Adamo, a naturopathic physician best known for promoting the blood type diet. D'Adamo has argued that lectins may damage people's blood type by interfering with digestion, food metabolism, hormones and insulin production so should be avoided. +The lectin-free diet has been popularized by cardiologist and former professor of surgery and pediatrics Steven Gundry, who wrote the book called The Plant Paradox. Gundry claims he has discovered that lectins cause most human diseases, and erroneously claims that his diet will prevent and cure them. His book argues that eating tomatoes incites "a kind of chemical warfare in our bodies, causing inflammatory reactions that can lead to weight gain and serious health conditions." When questioned about the high consumption of beans and grains amongst long-lived people in the blue zones, Gundry says that such lectin foods are countered by their large intake of olive oil polyphenols, fish and red wine. Gundry has stated that his lectin-free diet consists of a "cornucopia of vegetables, like kale, spinach, broccoli and sprouts, avocados, limited amounts of high-quality protein sources, and some dairy products and olive oil." He says that "arthritis, most coronary artery disease, acne, eczema, and the autoimmune diseases are all caused or worsened by lectins." +Gundry has a conflict of interest, because he sells supplements that purportedly protect against effects of lectins. In one infomercial that lasted almost an hour, he pronounced that supplies are running low, and told viewers to act immediately and order as much as they could store. The necessity of supplements is similarly the crucial argument of his book, in which he writes "getting all of the nutrients you need simply cannot be done without supplements." Gundry sells a "lectin shield" that is "designed to neutralize the effects of lectins" for $79.99. + + +== Reception == +For Science-Based Medicine, Harriet Hall said that Gundry's diet was not science-based and that following it risked dietary deficiencies. +Preliminary studies have revealed health benefits from lectin consumption and minute evidence of harm. Foods high in lectins such as beans and grains are soaked and boiled to significantly reduce their lectin content. Megan Rossi, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association has commented that lectins are relatively easy to remove by cooking and preparing in the right way so are not a concern for most people. She also noted that studies have shown that lectins possess "potential anti-cancerous effects". +A 2019 article in the World Journal of Gastroenterology suggested that lectin-restricted dieting could become a "big food fad". + + +== See also == +Antinutrient +Quackery + + +== References == + + +== External links == +New Food Fad: Lectin-Free Diet Archived 2021-08-25 at the Wayback Machine \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let's_trim_our_hair_in_accordance_with_the_socialist_lifestyle-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let's_trim_our_hair_in_accordance_with_the_socialist_lifestyle-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..94eab4eee --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let's_trim_our_hair_in_accordance_with_the_socialist_lifestyle-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Let's trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let's_trim_our_hair_in_accordance_with_the_socialist_lifestyle" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:15.751081+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Let's trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle (Korean: 사회주의적생활양식에 맞게 머리단장을 하자; alternatively translated as Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle) was a television program broadcast on state-run Korean Central Television in North Korea between 2004 and 2005 as part of a longstanding government propaganda against haircuts and fashions deemed at odds with "socialist values". The program claimed that long hair could adversely affect human intelligence. + + +== North Korea's fashion restrictions == +Such dress and hair standards have long been a fixture of North Korean society. Kim Jong Il was known for his "Speed Battle Cut" crew cut when he first came to prominence in the early 1980s, though he later reverted to the short sided bouffant favored by his father. After Kim Jong Il succeeded his father, some of the state's restrictions on Western fashion were relaxed. Women were allowed permanent waves, men could grow slightly longer hair, and public dancing was allowed. Despite such slight concessions during the early years of Kim Jong Il's rule, obvious emblems of Western fashion such as jeans are occasionally banned, and long hair on men could lead to arrest and forced haircuts. +According to the North Korean daily Rodong Sinmun (Worker's Newspaper), the leadership was fighting a guerrilla war against the possible incursion of capitalism into the sphere of personal appearance. Along with long hair, untidy shoes were identified as the epitome of Western culture which, by imitation, would lead the country to ruin. + + +== Television series == + +The series began in 2004 as part of the regular television program Common Sense. In the autumn of that year, a larger media campaign (print and radio as well as television) began promoting proper attire and neat appearances for men. The show encouraged short hairstyles, such as the flat-top crew cut, middle hairstyle, low hairstyle, and high hairstyle. It said that hair should be kept between 1 and 5 cm (0.4 and 2.0 in) in length, and recommended haircuts for men every 15 days. The country's official hairstyles did allow men over 50 years old to grow their upper hair up to 7 cm (2.8 in) long, to disguise balding. +An initial five-part series of the show featured officially endorsed haircut styles, while a later series went a step further by showing certain men as examples of how not to trim one's hair. With each example, the show conveyed the person's name and where they lived (or worked) via subtitles and/or voice. For example, in one episode (shown in January 2005) a North Korean citizen named Mr. Ko Gwang-hyun, whose unkempt hair covered his ears, was shown as a negative role model, with the voiceover commentary: "We cannot help questioning the cultural taste of this comrade, who is incapable of feeling ashamed of his hair style. Can we expect a man with this disheveled mind-set to perform his duty well?" +In the North Korean capital city of Pyongyang, hidden cameras were placed to catch citizens with improper hairstyles. This was part of a television programme broadcast at the same time as Let's Trim Our Hair in Accordance with the Socialist Lifestyle. The offenders would then be interviewed by the presenter and asked to explain themselves. Their name, address and workplace would be announced to embarrass them in the hopes that fear of such social ostracism would influence others' behavior. + + +== See also == + +Propaganda in North Korea +Beard and haircut laws by country + + +== References == + + +== External links == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_Three_Hundred-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_Three_Hundred-0.md index 71475434d..71e3d0464 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_Three_Hundred-0.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_Three_Hundred-0.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_Three_Hundred" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:04:09.766319+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:16.967037+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..9361d4d9a --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: "Leuchter report" +chunk: 1/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:18.136628+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Leuchter report is a pseudoscientific document authored by American execution technician Fred A. Leuchter, who was commissioned by Ernst Zündel to defend him at his trial in Canada for distributing Holocaust denial material. Leuchter compiled the report in 1988 with the intention of investigating the feasibility of mass homicidal gassings at Nazi extermination camps, specifically at Auschwitz. He traveled to the camp, collected multiple pieces of brick from the remains of the crematoria and gas chambers (without the camp's permission), brought them back to the United States, and submitted them for chemical analysis. At the trial, Leuchter was called upon to defend the report in the capacity of an expert witness; however, during the trial, the court ruled that he had neither the qualifications nor experience to act as such. +Leuchter cited the absence of Prussian blue in the homicidal gas chambers to support his view that they could not have been used to gas people. However, residual iron-based cyanide compounds are not a categorical consequence of cyanide exposure. In addition, the walls and ceilings of the gas chambers were covered with plaster. The Prussian blue would have remained on the surface of the plaster and would not have left a substantial presence on the bricks, mortar, or cement beneath. By the time Leuchter arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau to take these samples, the plaster had long since disappeared due to aging and exposure. By not discriminating against that, Leuchter introduced an unreliable factor into his experiment, and his findings were seriously flawed as a result. In contrast, tests conducted by Polish forensic scientists (who discriminated against iron-based compounds) confirmed the presence of cyanide in the locations, in accordance with where and how it was used in the Holocaust. In addition, the report was criticized as Leuchter had overlooked critical evidence, such as documents in the SS architectural office which recorded the mechanical operation of the gas chambers and others which verified the rate at which the Nazis could burn the bodies of those gassed. + +== Background == +In 1985, Ernst Zündel, a German pamphleteer and publisher living in Canada, was put on trial for publishing Richard Verrall's Holocaust denial pamphlet Did Six Million Really Die?, which was deemed to violate Canadian laws against distributing false news. Zündel was found guilty, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. This led to a second prosecution. +Zündel and his lawyers were joined by Robert Faurisson, a French academic of literature and Holocaust denier, who came to Toronto to advise the defense, having previously testified as expert witness at the first trial. He was joined by David Irving, an English writer and Holocaust denier, who was to assist the defense and testify on Zündel's behalf. Faurisson claimed that it was technically and physically impossible for the gas chambers at Auschwitz to have functioned as extermination facilities, based on comparisons with American execution gas chambers; he therefore suggested getting an American prison warden who had participated in executions by gas to testify. Irving and Faurisson therefore invited Bill Armontrout, warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary, who agreed to testify and suggested they contact Fred A. Leuchter, a Bostonian execution equipment designer. Faurisson reported that Leuchter initially accepted the mainstream account of the Holocaust, but after two days of discussion with him, he stated that Leuchter was convinced that homicidal gassings never occurred. After having met Zündel in Toronto and agreeing to serve as an expert witness for his defense, Leuchter traveled with them to spend a week in Poland. He was accompanied by his draftsman, a cinematographer supplied by Zündel, a translator fluent in German and Polish, and his wife. Although Zündel and Faurisson did not accompany them, Leuchter said that they were with them "every step of the way" in spirit. +After arriving in Poland the group spent three days at the former Auschwitz concentration camp site, and another at the former Majdanek concentration camp. At these, they filmed Leuchter illicitly collecting what he regarded to be forensic quality samples of materialsfrom the wreckage of the former gas extermination facilities, while his wife and the translator acted as lookouts. Drawings of where the samples were taken from, the film footage of their physical collection and Leuchter's notebook detailing the work were surrendered to the trial court as evidence. Leuchter claimed that his conclusions were based on his expert knowledge of gas chamber operation, his visual inspection of what remained of the structures at Auschwitz, and original drawings and blueprints of some of the facilities. He said that the blueprints had been given to him by Auschwitz Museum officials. + +== Report == +The compiled report was published in Canada as The Leuchter Report: An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Majdanek, Poland, by Zündel's Samisdat Publications, and in England as Auschwitz: The End of the Line. The Leuchter Report: The First Forensic Examination of Auschwitz by Focal Point Publications, David Irving's publishing house. However, the court accepted the report only as evidentiary display and not as direct evidence; Leuchter was therefore required to explain it and testify to its veracity in the trial. +Before Leuchter could do this, he was examined by the court. He admitted that he was not a toxicologist and dismissed the need for having a degree in engineering: + +THE COURT: How do you function as an engineer if you don't have an engineering degree? +THE WITNESS: Well, I would question, Your Honour, what an engineering degree is. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree and I have the required background training both on the college level and in the field to perform my function as an engineer. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a2f2e972c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Leuchter report" +chunk: 2/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:18.136628+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +THE COURT: Who determines that? You? +Leuchter admitted under oath that he only had a Bachelor of Arts degree and implicitly suggested that an engineering degree was unavailable to him by saying that his college did not offer an engineering degree during his studies. Boston University actually offered three different kinds of such qualification when he was a student there. When asked by the court if the B.A. he obtained was in a field that entitled him to operate as an engineer, he confirmed that this was so, even though his degree was in history. Similarly, Leuchter claimed that he obtained most of his research material on the camps (including original crematoria blueprints) from the Auschwitz and Majdanek camps' archives, and testified that these documents had a far more important role in shaping his conclusions than the physical samples he collected, yet after the trial the director of the Auschwitz museum denied that Leuchter had received any plans or blueprints from them. +Judge Ronald Thomas began to label Leuchter's methodology as "ridiculous" and "preposterous", dismissing many of the report's conclusions on the basis that they were based on "second-hand information", and refused to allow him to testify on the effect of Zyklon B on humans because he had never worked with the substance, and was neither a toxicologist nor a chemist. Judge Thomas dismissed Leuchter's opinion because it was of "no greater value than that of an ordinary tourist", and in regards to Leuchter's opinion said: + +His opinion on this report is that there were never any gassings or there was never any exterminations carried on in this facility. As far as I am concerned, from what I've heard, he is not capable of giving that opinion....He is not in a position to say, as he said so sweepingly in this report, what could not have been carried on in these facilities. +When questioned on the functioning of the crematoria, the judge also prevented Leuchter from testifying because "he hasn't any expertise". Leuchter also claimed that consultation relating to sodium cyanide and hydrogen cyanide with DuPont was "an on-going thing". DuPont, the largest American manufacturer of hydrogen cyanide, stated that it had "never provided any information on cyanides to persons representing themselves as Holocaust deniers, including Fred Leuchter", and had "never provided any information regarding the use of cyanide at Auschwitz, Birkenau or Majdanek." + +== Claims and criticism == +The contents of the report, in particular Leuchter's methodology, are heavily criticized. James Roth, the manager of the lab that carried out the analysis on the samples Leuchter collected, swore under oath to the results at the trial. Roth did not learn what the trial was about until he got off the stand. He later stated that cyanide would have only penetrated to a depth of around 10 micrometers, a tenth of the thickness of a human hair. The samples of brick, mortar and concrete that Leuchter took were of indeterminate thickness: not being aware of this, the lab ground the samples to a fine powder which thus severely diluted the cyanide-containing layer of each sample with an indeterminate amount of brick, varying for each sample. A more accurate analysis would have been obtained by analyzing the surface of the samples Leuchter collected. Roth offered the analogy that the investigation was like analyzing paint on a wall by analyzing the timber behind it. + +=== Prussian blue === +Leuchter's opposition to the possibility of homicidal gassings at Auschwitz relies on residual cyanide remains found in the homicidal gas chambers and delousing chambers at Auschwitz. While both facilities were exposed to the same substance (Zyklon B), many of the delousing chambers are stained with an iron-based compound known as Prussian blue, which is not apparent in the homicidal gas chambers. It is not only this disparity that Leuchter cites, but accordingly from his samples (which included measurements of it) that he claims he measured much more cyanide in the delousing chambers than in the gas chambers, which he argues is inconsistent between the amounts necessary to kill human beings and lice. This argument is often cited by Holocaust deniers, and similar claims are also made by Germar Rudolf. +According to Richard J. Green: + +In order for Leuchter or Rudolf to demonstrate the significance of their findings, it is necessary for them to prove the necessity of Prussian blue formation under the conditions that the homicidal gas chambers were operated. Showing that the delousing chambers have Prussian blue and that the homicidal gas chambers do not, proves nothing, if it cannot be shown that conditions in the gas chambers were such as to produce Prussian blue. +In other words, Green states that Leuchter failed to show that Prussian Blue would have been produced in the homicidal gas chambers in the first place—meaning its absence is not in itself proof that no homicidal gassings took place. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..010f72a8f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Leuchter report" +chunk: 3/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:18.136628+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The problem with Prussian blue is that it is by no means a categorical sign of cyanide exposure. One factor necessary in its formation is a very high concentration of cyanide. In terms of the difference between amounts measured in the delousing chambers and homicidal gas chambers, critics explain that the exact opposite of what deniers claim is true. Insects have a far higher resistance to cyanide than humans, with concentration levels up to 16,000 ppm (parts per million) and an exposure time of more than 20 hours (sometimes as long as 72 hours) being necessary for them to succumb. In contrast, a cyanide concentration of only 300 ppm is fatal to humans in a matter of minutes. This difference is one of the reasons behind the concentration disparity. Another exceedingly sensitive factor by which very small deviances could determine whether Prussian blue may form is pH. pH could be affected by the presence of human beings. Also, while the delousing chambers were left intact, the ruins of the crematoria at Birkenau had been exposed to the elements for over forty years by the time Leuchter collected his samples. This would have severely affected his results, because unlike Prussian blue and other iron-based cyanides, cyanide salts are highly soluble in water. +Since the formation of Prussian blue is not an unconditional outcome of exposure to cyanide, it is not a reliable indicator. Leuchter and Rudolf claim to have measured much more cyanide in the delousing chambers than in the homicidal gas chambers, but since they did not discriminate against an unreliable factor, Green maintains that instant bias is introduced into their experiments. Similarly, Rudolf acknowledges that Prussian blue does not always form upon exposure to cyanide and is thus not a reliable marker, yet continues to include the iron compounds in his analysis. Green describe this as "disingenuous". Since a building that contains Prussian blue staining would exhibit much higher levels of detectable cyanides than one without any, Green writes that Leuchter's and Rudolf's measurements reveal nothing more than what is already visible to the naked eye. + +==== Polish follow-up investigation ==== +In February 1990, Professor Jan Markiewicz, director of The Institute for Forensic Research (IFRC) in Kraków conducted an experiment where iron compounds were excluded. Given that the ruins of the gas chambers at Birkenau have been exposed to a cumulative 35 meters of precipitation based on climatological records since 1945, Markiewicz and his team were not optimistic at being able to detect cyanides so many years later; nevertheless, having the legal permission to obtain samples, they collected some from areas as sheltered from the elements as possible. +Leuchter's report stated that the small amounts of cyanide he detected in the ruins of the crematoria are merely the result of fumigation. However the IFRC points out that the control samples they took from living areas which may have been fumigated only once as part of the 1942 typhus epidemic tested negative for cyanide, and that the typhus epidemic occurred before the crematoria at Birkenau even existed. + +Accordingly, the IFRC demonstrated that cyanides were present in all of the facilities where it is claimed that they were exposed, i.e. all five crematoria, the cellars of Block 11 and the delousing facilities. Critics state that any attempt to demonstrate that the crematoria could not have functioned as homicidal gas chambers on the basis that they were not exposed to cyanide is unsuccessful, given that its presence in what remains of these facilities is incontrovertible, and write that all of the gas chambers were exposed to cyanide at levels higher than background levels elsewhere in the camp, such as living areas, where no cyanides at all were detected. In addition, tests conducted at Auschwitz in 1945 revealed the presence of cyanides on ventilation grilles found in the ruins of Crematorium II (thus also demonstrating that the Leuchter report was not the first forensic examination of the camp as purported in the title of the London edition). The historian Richard J. Evans argued that due to Leuchter's ignorance of the large disparity between the amounts of cyanide necessary to kill humans and lice, instead of disproving the homicidal use of gas chambers, the small amounts of cyanide which Leuchter detected actually tended to confirm it. + +=== Other criticisms === +By order of Heinrich Himmler, the crematoria and gas chambers at Birkenau were destroyed by the SS in order to hide evidence of genocide. Nothing more than the bases of Crematoria IV and V can be seen: the floor plans of both facilities are indicated by bricks laid out across the concrete foundations, and Crematoria II and III are in ruins. Professor Robert Jan van Pelt labels Leuchter's comment that the facilities have not changed at all since 1942 or 1941 as "nonsense". + +==== Zyklon B ==== +Because hydrogen cyanide is explosive, Leuchter maintained that the gas chambers could never have been operated due to their proximity to the ovens of the crematoria. It is correct that hydrogen cyanide is explosive, but only at concentrations of 56,000 ppm and above – over 186 times more than the lethal dose of 300 ppm. Critics estimate conservatively that within 5 to 15 minutes, gas chamber victims were exposed to 450 – 1810 ppmv – again considerably lower than the lower explosion limit. + +==== Gas chamber ventilation ==== +If Leuchter had gone to the archives, if he had spent time in the archives, he would've found evidence about ventilation systems, evidence about ways to introduce Zyklon B into these buildings, evidence of gas chambers, undressing rooms. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1bd11d2ed --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: "Leuchter report" +chunk: 4/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuchter_report" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:18.136628+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Leuchter incorrectly assumed that the gas chambers were not ventilated. The basement gas chambers of Crematoria II and III were mechanically ventilated via motors in the roof space of the main crematorium structure capable of extracting the remaining gas and renewing the air every three to four minutes. +When ventilation was not used such as in Crematoria IV and V (although a ventilation system was later installed in Crematorium V in May 1944), Sonderkommando prisoners wore gas masks when removing the bodies. When presented in court with a document by the chief Auschwitz architect SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bischoff, Leuchter misconstrued aeration (Belüftung) and ventilation (Entlüftung) as part of the furnace blower systems, when they were actually in reference to the ventilation channels in the walls that straddle the gas chambers. These are visible on blueprints, and can still partly be seen in the ruined east wall of the Crematorium III gas chamber. + +==== Body disposal ==== + +Leuchter was also prepared to act as expert witness regarding crematoria ovens despite admitting during cross examination that he had no expert knowledge. Leuchter presented his own estimate of 156 corpses as the total daily incineration capacity of the installations at Auschwitz. During cross-examination, he was presented with a letter written by the Auschwitz Central Construction Office (Auschwitz Zentralbauleitung) of June 28, 1943, from SS-Sturmbannführer Jahrling to SS-Brigadeführer Hans Kammler stating that the five crematoria installations had a collective daily capacity of 4,756 corpses. Leuchter conceded that this was quite different from his own figure, and that he had never seen the document in question before. +A patent application by the makers of the ovens, (both of which were made during the war) and two independent testimonies confirmed the capacity of the crematoria. The 4,756 figure is evidence of the Nazis equipping a camp of a maximum of 125,000 prisoners with the facility to cremate 140,000 of them per month. Critics of Leuchter explain that this reveals extermination was the true purpose of Auschwitz: a camp with the capacity to reduce its entire population to ash on a monthly basis was not merely a benign internment camp. +At various times (such as in the summer of 1944 when the crematoria couldn't keep up with the extermination rate), bodies were burnt in open-air pits. Accordingly, the capacity of the crematoria was never a limiting factor, and the pits yielded practically no limit to the number of corpses that could be burnt. + +== See also == +Jean-Claude Pressac +Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. + +== References == + +== Bibliography == +Lipstadt, Deborah. Denying the Holocaust – The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. Free Press, 1993, ISBN 0-02-919235-8 + +== External links == +The Leuchter Report by Fred Leuchter +Rebuttal of The Leuchter Report at the Nizkor Project \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..686918395 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +title: "Levashovism" +chunk: 1/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:19.278735+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Levashovism is a doctrine and healing system of Rodnovery (Slavic neopaganism) that emerged in Russia, formulated by the physics theorist, occultist and psychic healer Nikolay Viktorovich Levashov (1961–2012), one of the most prominent leaders of Slavic Neopaganism after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The movement was incorporated in 2007 as the Russian Public Movement of Renaissance–Golden Age (Russian: Русское Общественное Движение "Возрождение. Золотой Век"; acronym: РОД ВЗВ, ROD VZV). Levashovite doctrine is based on a mathematical cosmology, a melting of science and spirituality which has been compared to a "Pythagorean" worldview, and is pronouncedly eschatological. Levashovism is influenced by Ynglism, especially sharing the latter's historiosophical narrative about the Slavic Aryan past of the Russians, and like Ynglism it has been formally rejected by mainstream Russian Rodnover organisations. The movement is present in many regions of Russia, as well as in Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Moldova and Finland. + +== Overview == + +Nikolay V. Levashov was educated in advanced physics and quantum mechanics. He began to practise psychic healing in Russia in the 1980s, and in 1990–1991 he held seminars on the subject. In 1991 he moved to California, in the United States, where he lived until 2006 and where he wrote his main books. In 2006 he returned to Russia where in 2007 he founded the Russian Public Movement of Renaissance–Golden Age, formally incorporating the movement of his followers. A few months before dying, Levashov ran for the 2012 Russian presidential election. +Levashov claimed to be a bearer of genuine "Vedic" sacred knowledge of the "Slavic Aryans", and called on his followers to live in rational harmony with nature following the path of evolution represented by ancient Vedic culture. Levashovism is based on the Book of Veles and on the Slavo-Aryan Vedas first popularised by the Ynglist Church in the 1990s; Levashov reworked the teachings of these books into original publications, including some—such as The Tale of the Bright Falcon—presenting such teachings in the style of the Russian fairy tale. Levashov referred to the Slavo-Aryan Vedas as carriers of the "innermost knowledge of the first ancestors". +The Levashovite worldview has been likened to Pythagoreanism by Barbara G. Koopman and Richard A. Blasband, for its being "a rare meld of science and spirituality". However, Levashovism, together with Ynglism, was condemned in a joint statement issued in 2009 by the major Russian organisations of mainstream Rodnovery, which deemed it a non-genuine doctrine detrimental to the whole Rodnover movement. + +== Beliefs == + +=== Cosmology of Svarog === + +According to Levashovite doctrine, all the universe is living matter in quantised space. The universe, all universal creation itself, is the visible manifestation of the absolute God, Rod (Род); this visible manifestation is Svarog (Сварог), the supernal God in the heights of Heaven—Svarga—, the abode of the gods—Asgard—, and the Slavic Aryan paradise—Iriy—, which correspond to the north celestial pole and its circumpolar stars, especially the seven-starred constellations of the Bear or Chariot (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Great Chariot and the Small Chariot) at the centre of the zodiac. Svarog and the universal process of creation are represented by the swastika. The universe has three dimensions, Prav, Yav and Nav: Prav, meaning "Right", is the abode of the gods itself, from which all the right laws of nature come from; Yav is the "manifested" world of the living; while Nav is the "unmanifested" world where the dead go before being born again in Yav. +Quantised space is the cradle of all creation and is anisotropic, that is to say non-uniform or non-homogeneous in its architecture, characterised by different qualities and properties in different directions, in which matter interacts in different ways taking different shapes. Qualities and properties of space in its different regions are constantly changing. This view is strongly supported in astrophysics, and is opposed to the classical view according to which the universal space is isotropic, that is to say uniform in its qualities and properties in all directions, in which matter manifests itself in similar ways. +In the Levashovite worldview, anisotropy has a central role in all creation, both microcosmic and macrocosmic; the process of creation unfolds through the eternal interplay, or "cosmic dance", between matter and the anisotropic space, governed by quantifiable parameters. The architectural patterns of any of the regions of space are quantised, and therefore expressible in numerical values. These architectural patterns "actually define and impose the limits within which its chaotically moving matter may exist and the degree of stability it may maintain". The architectures of quantised space, expressible in numerical parameters, are continuously changing, or fluctuating, due to perturbations exerted by electromagnetic waves, both in the microcosmic world of atoms and in the macrocosmic world of stars, and their fluctuations are "responsible for every expression of nature that happens in the universe". Levashov left a mathematical formulation for the representation of the architectural patterns of space. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..13aa4e9f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: "Levashovism" +chunk: 2/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:19.278735+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +==== Seven primary matters ==== +Based on the presumed ancient Vedic knowledge of the Slavic Aryans, Levashov theorised that matter itself is differentiated into seven types, or "building blocks" of creation, which he called the "seven primary matters" or "seven primordial matters" (семь первичных материй, sem' pervichnykh materiy), conventionally identified by the letters A, B, C, D, E, F and G, and by the seven colours, respectively red, violet, blue, azure, green, yellow and orange. The seven primary matters are nonphysical, or subtle matter, that is to say not perceivable to the ordinary human state of consciousness. Primordially, they move chaotically in space, "ignoring" each other, but each of them has its own distinctive properties or qualities and a specific energetic potential that allow them to respond to the ever-changing patterns of space. Red matter A is the most important, functioning as a structural and energetic foundation for all the other matters when they coalesce to form entities. +Local areas of anisotropy are created by fluctuations in the architectural patterns of space—likened to a stone tossed into water creating ripple effects—and these fluctuations influence the relationship between space itself and the seven primary matters. When the latter find themselves in a given region of space in proportions that match the numerical parameters of that given region of space, the seven building blocks become empowered to interact and coalesce with other blocks of compatible quality and energetic potential to form structures of hybrid matter, providing endless opportunities for cosmic creation. While the fluctuations of space mould the otherwise free-flowing matter within it, simultaneously matter itself generates further fluctuations, engaging in a continuous "cosmic dance" until this dance reaches an equilibrium and creates a stable system. +In other words, when the quantity of change in spatial parameters becomes critical, a quality emerges, as matter coalesces and stable manifestations of reality are created, such as the planet Earth, also called Midgard in Levashovism, borrowing the concept from Germanic Heathenism. Contrariwise, when the balance between the architectural parameters of the surrounding space and the qualities and energetic potential of the seven primary matters within it is broken, the structures of hybrid matter that were formed lose stability and disintegrate, returning to be chaotic matter. + +==== Sevenfold bodies ==== + +According to Levashovite cosmology, when they are organised, the seven primary matters constitute seven "layers" of reality. Each layer is composed of different hybrids of the seven primary matters and they are separated from each other by almost unpenetrable qualitative barriers; for instance, the planet Earth has its physical body—its innermost sphere—, and six other interdigitating nonphysical (invisible) spherical bodies. Any entity and the human being itself is constituted by seven interpenetrating bodies, including the innermost densest physical body and six other bodies of subtler matter, referred to as the "subtle bodies" or "spiritual bodies". +The seven bodies are, from the densest to the subtlest, the physical body, the ethereal body, the astral body, the mental body, and three supramental bodies. Each of them is constituted by different combinations of the seven primary matters, though with a different one of them being dominant in each body, each of them expressing distinctive qualities and characteristics and representing a stair of spiritual evolution; together, they constitute the spirit, or higher consciousness, of an entity. The physical body is constituted by a balance, grounded on red matter A, of all the other matters; the ethereal body is entirely of orange matter G; the astral body is dominated by yellow matter F prevailing on G; the mental body is dominated by green matter E prevailing on F and G; the first supramental body is dominated by azure matter D prevailing on E, F and G; the second supramental body is dominated by blue matter C prevailing on D, E, F and G; and the third supramental body is dominated by violet matter B prevailing on C, D, E, F and G. Orange matter G is present on all levels, as the ethereal body is the first and lowest stage in the evolution of living, conscious entities: the animal consciousness. Each one of the subtle bodies is structurally a copy of the physical body on the corresponding subtle body of the planet Earth. They all possess the same structure—cells, organs, organic systems—corresponding to that of the physical body. Most humans have developed, in addition to the physical body, only the first two subtle bodies, while all the other four are rudimentary and inactive. A human has to develop all the seven bodies to complete the cycle of evolution and break out of the reincarnation cycle on the Earth. +In the Levashovite system, the seven matters dominating in each one of the seven bodies are associated to seven energetic centres in the body—chakras in Hindu terminology—functioning as antennas which convey the associated matter. The coccyx is the centre associated with red matter A, is the fundamental one, and red matter A corresponds to the Kundalini in the Hindu system, the fundamental cosmic force of all creation represented by the snake, which is necessary to awaken and steer for ascending towards the higher levels; the sexual organ is associated with orange matter G; the navel is associated with yellow matter F; the heart is associated with green matter E; the throat is associated with azure matter D; the forehead is associated with blue matter C; and the crown is associated with violet matter B. Levashov's seven matters and seven bodies have been compared to William A. Tiller's cosmological model, itself telling about seven levels of substances interpenetrating each other with minimal interaction until triggered by the mind; Tiller's cosmology itself was inspired by the Hindu system of the seven chakras. + +=== Twofold time cycle === + +==== Bright Forces and Dark Forces ==== \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..95d23be2c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Levashovism" +chunk: 3/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:19.278735+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Levashovite doctrine tells that reality is orchestrated by gods, cosmic forces which can be either creative and life-giving "Bright Forces" (Светлые Силы, Svetlye Sily) or destructive and life-sucking "Dark Forces" (Темные Силы, Temnye Sily). The influence of either Bright Forces or Dark Forces and the behaviour of people, and the manifestation in them of certain qualities and emotions, depend on which one of the seven primary matters prevails in a given configuration of space–matter. +Wherever and whenever—in a given region of space and in the cycle of time—primary matter E dominates, there is a "Day of Svarog" (День Сварога, Den' Svaroga), characterised by the complete development of the third and fourth subtle bodies (the astral and the mental body) of the human being, with the development of consciousness and of high spiritual and moral qualities. Conversely, wherever and whenever primary matter G dominates there is a "Night of Svarog" (Ночь Сварога, Noch' Svaroga), characterised by the hypertrophied development of the second and incomplete third subtle bodies (the ethereal and the lower astral body) of the human being, with a regression of consciousness and the expression of low destructive qualities in human beings (such as aggressiveness, cruelty, greed and envy). During the Nights of Svarog, the Dark Forces get the opportunity to influence people of G quality and through them influence all the Midgard. +While mankind and the Midgard would be fundamentally the expression of the Bright Forces, which are best expressed in history by the Russians or Aryans, some parts of humanity, notably the Jews and the Christians would be, instead, mostly—though unconsciously—prey to the Dark Forces and agents of their will. + +==== Eschatology ==== +In Levashovite eschatology, the "driving forces of the Apocalypse are rooted in the depths of natural being" itself. Time is a cycle alternating Days of Svarog and Nights of Svarog, depending on the movement of the Solar System in the Milky Way galaxy; the duration of each Day of Svarog and Night of Svarog is uneven, due to the uneven concentrations of the seven primary matters in different regions of the universal space. Levashovite historiosophy fixes the beginning of the latest Night of Svarog in 988 CE, with the official Christianisation of Kievan Rus' orchestrated by Vladimir Sviatoslavich. Otherwise, among Levashovite followers there is no consensus about the dating of the end of the latest Night of Svarog: according to some it ended in the mid or late 1990s, according to others it ended in 2012, and yet others consider the shift from the latest Night of Svarog to the new Day of Svarog to be a gradual transition. +The Russians are called to be the first to wake up, to free themselves from the slavery of the Dark Forces, contributing to the beginning of the new Day of Svarog and to the construction of a new spiritual civilisation different from both Western materialism and Eastern uncritical religiosity. Russia is explained in Levashovite historiosophy as the "Land of the Holy Race" of an ancient "Slavic Aryan Empire", which is said to have only fallen with Pugachev's Rebellion: + +The name of the country—Russia, arose from another word—Rasseia, which, in turn, was formed from the name of Rassenia. Rassenia was the name of a part of the ancient Slavic Aryan Empire which lay west of the Riphean Mountains (the Urals). The lands east of the Urals to the Pacific Ocean and further from the Lukomorye (Russian North) to Central India were called the Land of the Holy Race. Foreigners called this country differently. One of the last names known in Europe until the end of the eighteenth century was the Great Tartary. + +== Healing practice == + +=== Healer training === +According to the Levashovites, as fluctuations in the architectural patterns of space dictate everything that happens in the cosmos, from the creation and decay of atoms to the creation and decay of stars, also the entire biogenesis on the Midgard and the development of conscious humanity is determined by them. A Levashovite healer must master the Levashovite cosmological theory, "tune in to the eternal interplay between matter and spatial architecture", be able to "mentally navigate" the seven levels of reality, to "do what nature does": to "orchestrate the creation and dissolution of matter", "choreograph the regeneration and ablation of living matter", for healing purposes all "in accordance with natural law". +To do this, it is necessary that a Levashovite healer has activated their higher subtle bodies and has fully awoken their consciousness; however, in an ordinary person's life it is difficult for this to happen, if unaided, and it is generally a slow and unpredictable process. When this happens, there is a quantum leap in brain potential and psychic ability, and the acquisition of a new thought style free from linear and binary modes, opening to a broader perspective on reality. Sensitivity to the necessary spiritual transformation for becoming a healer varies from person to person; there are those who by genetic endowment are able to evolve almost instantaneously, and those for whom it requires years of preparatory work. +Levashov devised a technique to train would-be healers, providing them with the mental "apparatus" to develop their subtle bodies, increasing their energetic potential, thus becoming able to access and sustain a high state of consciousness and work with the seven primary matters. He created a body of disciples practising and spreading his technique to other neophyte healers. One of the biggest hurdles for the spiritual evolution of a healer is narcissism; if the would-be healer is motivated by a desire of power and self-aggrandisement, the path turns counter-evolutionary and leads to spiritual downfall. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5845bff09 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Levashovism" +chunk: 4/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:19.278735+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Healing treatment === +Any mental or strictly physical illness is due to a disruption of the harmony between the seven bodies, and the latter may be due to genetic defects, infections, karma and environmental factors. To support their healing purpose, the Levashovite healer has to mobilise the appropriate quantity of energetic potential and the correct quality of primary matter, and influence the architectural patterns of the treated subject's microcosm. The healing work should take place first on the six subtle bodies, in order to influence and transform the denser physical body, since the primary matters from the subtle bodies flow down to the physical level and the structures of the subtle bodies are the architectural templates for the physical body. Healing conducted merely on the physical body may afford palliation but not a complete relief, as pathological organisations remain in place on the subtle levels and eventually reassert themselves on the physical level. +The healing procedure comprises a phase of scanning and detoxification, in which the healer inspects the treated subject, finds the causes of the problem and cleanses the subject's body from the symptoms of the problem. This is followed by a phase of disintegration and regeneration, in which the healer decomposes the sick structure in the subject's subtle bodies into the constituent seven primary matters, and re-sets the numerical parameters of the target's microspace, causing a regeneration of the structure in a healthy form. Finally, the healer restores the homeostasis of the organism, that is to say the harmonious working of all its parts in unison, or the "thermostat" of the energy flow between the brain, the nervous system and the organs, which was disrupted by the illness. + +== Symbolism == + +A symbol used by the Levashovite movement is the swastika, especially in the guise with dragons at the ends of its prongs, which was put on display many times by Nikolay Levashov himself during his conferences, and which he reclaimed as a symbol which gave him the right to discuss about the Slavic Aryan past. According to Levashovite worldview, the swastika—or kolovrat in Slavic language—represents Svarog, the supreme north pole of the sky with its circumpolar stars. +Another symbol used by Levashovites is the representation of a warrior riding a horse while slaying a dragon, featured in the coat of arms of the Renaissance–Golden Age organisation, that is a refashioning of the symbol of Saint George and the Dragon representing, in the reinterpretation given by the Levashovites, the Aryan champion of the Bright Forces triumphing over the Dark Forces. In the coat of arms of the organisation, the warrior slaying the dragon is drawn over a trefoil or fleur-de-lys, which according to Levashov represents the "fighting symbol of the Slavic Aryans", with the three petals representing Prav, Yav and Nav. + +== Sociology == + +=== Relations with other religions === +Levashovism strongly refutes the Abrahamic religions and Christianity in particular, deeming its official adoption in Kievan Rus' in 988 CE as the beginning of the latest Night of Svarog of Levashovite cyclical eschatology. Christians are deemed responsible for the destruction of ancient chronicles about the true history of the Russians. The writings of Levashov also contain more general antisemitic theories. According to Levashovite doctrine, the world is dominated by Bright Forces and Dark Forces; the Jews, the Christians—especially ministers of the churches—, some politicians, and any other entity exerting some kind of control on the populations, would be unconsciously slaves of the Dark Forces and vehicle for the latter's will to dominate all Midgard. +In turn, Levashovism is rejected by other movements of Rodnovery; in 2009, two among the largest Russian Rodnover organisations, namely the Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities and the Circle of Pagan Tradition, issued a joint statement which deemed Levashovite doctrines as "pseudo-Pagan teachings, pseudo-linguistics, pseudo-science, and outright speculations" harmful to the development of the mainstream movement of Rodnovery. + +=== Organisation and controversies === +The organisation of the Russian Public Movement of Renaissance–Golden Age was described by Natalya V. Prokopyuk as having a "wide public life", producing films, holding meetings, courses and seminars, holding conferences in schools and colleges, and printing newspapers including VeRa and RuAN. The purposes of the organisation, as expressed in its official documents, are: + +Awakening the genetic memory of the Russian people and of the other indigenous peoples living in the territory of modern Russia; +Restoring the truth about the glorious past of these peoples, and about their role in the creation of a highly developed earthly civilisation; +Showing to these peoples the way of evolution out of the dead-end to which they were led by the Dark Forces; +Saving civilisation, the planet Earth, and the universe. +Two among the books written by Nikolay Levashov have been banned as extremist in some regions of Russia: Russia in Distorted Mirrors (Россия в Кривых Зеркалах) was banned in 2010 by the Obninsk City Court, while the collection of articles Abilities of Mind (Возможности Разума) was banned in 2013 by the Omsk District Court, a decision later appealed but upheld in 2014 by the Omsk Regional Court. In 2014, a Levashovite follower in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, in the Sakhalin Oblast of the Russian Far East, opened fire on the parishioners of the city's Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, after which six people were wounded and two were killed—a nun and a local parishioner. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7c1f42896 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ +--- +title: "Levashovism" +chunk: 5/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashovism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:19.278735+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Levashovite texts == +1. The Final Appeal to Mankind (Последнее Обращение к Человечеству), 1994 +2. The Anisotropic Universe (Неоднородная Вселенная), 2002 +3. Spirit and Mind. Volume 1 (Сущность и Разум. Том 1), 1999 +4. Spirit and Mind. Volume 2 (Сущность и Разум. Том 2), 2003 +5. Abilities of Mind (Возможности Разума), 2006 +6. Russian History Viewed through Distorted Mirrors (Россия в Кривых Зеркалах), 2007 +7. The Mirror of my Soul. Volume 1 (Зеркало моей Души. Том 1), 2006 +8. The Mirror of my Soul. Volume 2 (Зеркало моей Души. Том 2), 2008 +9. The Tale of the Bright Falcon (Сказ о Ясном Соколе), 2011 +10. Revelation (Откровение), 2010, by Levashov's wife Svetlana Levashova + +== See also == +Rodnovery +Anastasianism +Ivanovism +Russian Authentism +Ynglism +Germanic Heathenry +Shamanism + +== References == + +=== Citations === + +=== Sources === + +==== Secondary sources ==== +Golikov, I. A. (2019). "О реконструкции летосчисления российского славянского неоязычества" [About the reconstruction of chronology in Russian Slavic Neopaganism] (PDF). Pivovarov Readings (in Russian). Yekaterinburg: Ural Federal University. pp. 181–182. ISBN 9785886872514. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 March 2021. +Kondrakov, Igor Mikhaylovich (2015). Учимся познавать мир (20 уроков познания) [Learning to know the world (20 lessons of knowledge)] (PDF) (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Mineralnye Vody, Russian Scientific-Technical Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 October 2021. +Koopman, Barbara G.; Blasband, Richard A. (2003). "Psychic Healing and the Anisotropic Universe". Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine. 14 (2). ISSSEEM, Holos University: 103–133. Archived from the original on 31 July 2019. +Popov, Igor (2016). Справочник всех религиозных течений и объединений в России [The Reference Book on All Religious Branches and Communities in Russia] (in Russian). Archived from the original on 22 March 2020. +Prokopyuk, Natalya Valeryevna (2017). Неоязычество в современной России [Neopaganism in modern Russia] (Thesis) (in Russian). Tomsk: Tomsk State University. +Shtyrkov, Sergey (2016). "'The Fight between Ases and Devas Runs through Our Whole Existence': The Conspirological Imaginary of North Ossetian Intellectuals and the Search for Meaning in National History" (PDF). Forum for Anthropology and Culture (12). Saint Petersburg: Kunstkamera, European University at Saint Petersburg: 230–252. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 March 2021. +Yakovlev, Aleksandr Vasilyevich (2018). "О мерности, как основном критерии в 'системе' Н. В. Левашова" [About dimensionality as the main criterion in the 'system' of N. V. Levashov] (in Russian). Russian Scientific-Technical Society. Parts: n. 1 Archived 2021-11-01 at the Wayback Machine (arch.), n. 2 Archived 2021-11-01 at the Wayback Machine (arch.), n. 3 Archived 2021-11-01 at the Wayback Machine (arch.), n. 4 Archived 2021-11-01 at the Wayback Machine (arch.), n. 5 Archived 2021-11-01 at the Wayback Machine (arch.). +Yashin, Vladimir Borisovich (2016). "Эсхатологические мотивы в современном русском неоязычестве" [Eschatological motifs in modern Russian Neopaganism]. Colloquium Heptaplomeres (in Russian). III. Nizhny Novgorod: Minin University: 36–42. ISSN 2312-1696. + +==== Primary sources ==== +Levashov, Nikolay V. (2012). "О Трилистнике" [About the Trefoil]. ROD VZV. +Levashov, Nikolay V. (2006). "Последняя Ночь Сварога" [The Last Night of Svarog]. Translated by Elena Lyubimova, Kelly McMullen. ROD VZV. + +== External links == +ROD VZV official website +RuAN – Russian News Agency +Nikolay V. Levashov official website +Levashov Healing USA \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0affdae12 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +title: "Ley line" +chunk: 1/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:20.506063+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Ley lines ( or ) are straight alignments drawn between various historic structures, prehistoric sites, and prominent landmarks. The idea was developed in early 20th-century Europe, with ley line believers arguing that these alignments were recognised by ancient societies that deliberately erected structures along them. Since the 1960s, members of the Earth Mysteries movement and other esoteric traditions have commonly believed that such ley lines demarcate "earth energies" and serve as guides for alien spacecraft. Archaeologists and scientists regard ley lines as an example of pseudoarchaeology and pseudoscience. +The idea of "leys" as straight tracks across the landscape was put forward by the English antiquarian Alfred Watkins in the 1920s, particularly in his book The Old Straight Track. He argued that straight lines could be drawn between various historic structures and that these represented trade routes created by ancient British societies. Although he gained a small following, Watkins' ideas were never accepted by the British archaeological establishment, a fact that frustrated him. His critics noted that his ideas relied on drawing lines between sites established at different periods of the past. They also argued that in prehistory, as in the present, it was impractical to travel in a straight line across hilly or mountainous areas of Britain, rendering his leys unlikely as trade routes. Independently of Watkins' ideas, a similar notion—that of Heilige Linien ('holy lines')—was raised in Germany in the 1920s. +During the 1960s, Watkins' ideas were revived in altered form by British proponents of the countercultural Earth Mysteries movement. In 1961, Tony Wedd put forward the belief that leys were established by prehistoric communities to guide alien spacecraft. This view was promoted to a wider audience in the books of John Michell, particularly his 1969 work The View Over Atlantis. Michell's publications were accompanied by the launch of the Ley Hunter magazine and the appearance of a ley hunter community keen to identify ley lines across the British landscape. Ley hunters often combined their search for ley lines with other esoteric practices like dowsing and numerology and with a belief in a forthcoming Age of Aquarius that would transform human society. Although often hostile to archaeologists, some ley hunters attempted to ascertain scientific evidence for their belief in earth energies at prehistoric sites, evidence they could not obtain. Following sustained archaeological criticism, the ley hunter community dissipated in the 1990s, with several of its key proponents abandoning the idea and moving into the study of landscape archaeology and folkloristics. Belief in ley lines nevertheless remains common among some esoteric religious groups, such as forms of modern Paganism, in both Europe and North America. +Archaeologists note that there is no evidence that ley lines were a recognised phenomenon among ancient European societies and that attempts to draw them typically rely on linking together structures that were built in different historical periods. Archaeologists and statisticians have demonstrated that a random distribution of a sufficient number of points on a plane will inevitably create alignments of random points purely by chance. Skeptics have also stressed that the esoteric idea of earth energies running through ley lines has not been scientifically verified, remaining an article of faith for its believers. + +== History == + +=== Early prototypes === +The idea that ancient sacred sites might have been constructed in alignment with one another was proposed in 1846 by the Reverend Edward Duke, who observed that some prehistoric monuments and medieval churches aligned with each other. +In 1909, the idea was advanced in Germany. There, Wilhelm Teudt had argued for the presence of linear alignments connecting various sites but suggested that they had a religious and astronomical function. +In Germany, the idea was referred to as Heilige Linien ('holy lines'), an idea adopted by some proponents of Nazism. + +=== Alfred Watkins and The Old Straight Track === + +The idea of "leys" as paths traversing the British landscape was developed by Alfred Watkins, a wealthy businessman and antiquarian who lived in Hereford. According to his account, he was driving across the hills near Blackwardine, Herefordshire, when he looked across the landscape and observed the way that several features lined up together. He subsequently began drawing lines across his Ordnance Survey maps, developing the view that ancient British people had tended to travel in straight lines, using "mark points" along the landscape to guide them. +He put forward his idea of ley lines in the 1922 book Early British Trackways and then again, in greater depth, in the 1925 book The Old Straight Track. He proposed the existence of a network of completely straight roads that cut through a range of prehistoric, Roman, and medieval structures. In his view, these straight tracks were ancient trade routes. Watkins had drawn upon earlier research; he cited the work of the English astronomer Norman Lockyer, who had argued that ancient alignments might be oriented to sunrise and sunset at solstices. +His work referred to G. H. Piper's paper presented to the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club in 1882, which noted that: "A line drawn from the Skirrid-fawr mountain northwards to Arthur's Stone would pass over the camp and southernmost point of Hatterall Hill, Oldcastle, Longtown Castle, and Urishay and Snodhill castles." +Watkins referred to these lines as "leys" although had reservations about doing so. The term ley derived from the Old English term for a cleared space, with Watkins adopting it for his lines because he found it to be part of the place-names of various settlements that were along the lines he traced. He also observed the recurrence of "cole" and "dod" in English place-names, thus suggesting that the individuals who established these lines were referred to as a "coleman" or "dodman". He proposed that the Long Man of Wilmington chalk geoglyph in Sussex was a depiction of such an individual with their measuring equipment. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a21a5d0e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +title: "Ley line" +chunk: 2/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:20.506063+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +His ideas were rejected by most experts on British prehistory at the time, including both the small number of recognised archaeological scholars and local enthusiasts. His critics noted that the straight lines he proposed would have been highly impractical means of crossing hilly or mountainous terrain, and that many of the sites he selected as evidence for the leys were of disparate historical origins. Some of Watkins' other ideas, such as his belief that widespread forest clearance took place in prehistory rather than later, would nevertheless later be recognised by archaeologists. Part of archaeologists' objections was their belief that prehistoric Britons would not have been sophisticated enough to produce such accurate measurements across the landscape. British archaeologists were then overwhelmingly committed to ideas of cultural diffusionism, and thus unwelcoming to ideas about ley lines being an independent British development. +In 1926, advocates of Watkins' beliefs established the Straight Track Club. To assist this growing body of enthusiasts who were looking for their own ley lines in the landscape, in 1927, Watkins published The Ley Hunter's Manual. +Proponents of Watkins' ideas sent in letters to the archaeologist O. G. S. Crawford, then editor of the Antiquity journal. Crawford filed these letters under a section of his archive titled "Crankeries" and was annoyed that educated people believed such ideas when they were demonstrably incorrect. He refused to publish an advert for The Old Straight Track in Antiquity, at which Watkins became very bitter towards him. +Watkins' last book, Archaic Tracks Around Cambridge, was published in 1932. Watkins died on 7 April 1935. The Club survived him, although it became largely inactive at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and formally disbanded in 1948. The archaeoastronomer Clive Ruggles noted that after the 1920s, "ley lines soon faded into obscurity". The historian Ronald Hutton similarly noted that there had been a "virtual demise" in the idea by the 1950s, in part due to "a natural weariness with a spent enthusiasm". +There was academic work in the following period by e.g. Oxford engineer Alexander Thom that worked on the engineering feasibility of ancient metrology and archeo-astronomy. Thom lent the idea of leys some support; in 1971 he stated the view that Neolithic British engineers would have been capable of surveying a straight line between two points that were otherwise not visible from each other. + +=== Earth Mysteries movement === + +From the 1940s through to the 1960s, the archaeological establishment blossomed in Britain due to the formation of various university courses on the subject. This helped to professionalise the discipline, and meant that it was no longer an amateur-dominated field of research. It was in the latter decade of this period that a belief in ley lines was taken up by members of the counterculture, where—in the words of the archaeologist Matthew Johnson—they were attributed with "sacred significance or mystical power". Ruggles noted that in this period, ley lines came to be conceived as "lines of power, the paths of some form of spiritual force or energy accessible to our ancient ancestors but now lost to narrow-minded twentieth-century scientific thought". +In his 1961 book Skyways and Landmarks, Tony Wedd published his idea that Watkins' leys were both real and served as ancient markers to guide alien spacecraft that were visiting Earth. He came to this conclusion after comparing Watkins' ideas with those of the French ufologist Aimé Michel, who argued for the existence of "orthotenies", lines along which alien spacecraft travelled. Wedd suggested that either spacecraft were following the prehistoric landmarks for guidance or that both the leys and the spacecraft were following a "magnetic current" flowing across the Earth. +Wedd's ideas were taken up by the writer John Michell, who promoted them to a wider audience in his 1967 book The Flying Saucer Vision. In this book, Michell promoted the ancient astronaut belief that extraterrestrials had assisted humanity during prehistory, when humans had worshipped these entities as gods, but that the aliens left when humanity became too materialistic and technology-focused. He also argued that humanity's materialism was driving it to self-destruction, but that this could be prevented by re-activating the ancient centres which would facilitate renewed contact with the aliens. +Michell repeated his beliefs in his 1969 book The View Over Atlantis. Hutton described it as "almost the founding document of the modern earth mysteries movement". Here he interpreted ley lines by reference to the Chinese concept of geomantic energy lines which he transliterated as "lung mei", i.e., "dragon veins" (龙脉; 龍脈; lóngmài; lung2-mai4). He proposed that an advanced ancient society that had once covered much of the world had established ley lines across the landscape to harness this lung mei energy. Translating the term "lung mei" as "dragon paths", he reinterpreted tales from English mythology and folklore in which heroes killed dragons so that the dragon-slayers became the villains. Hutton later noted that Michell's ideas "embodied a fervent religious feeling, which though not Christian was heavily influenced by Christian models", adopting an "evangelical and apocalyptic tone" that announced the coming of an Age of Aquarius in which ancient wisdom would be restored. Michell invented various claims about archaeological evidence to suit his purpose. He viewed archaeologists as antagonists, seeing them as the personification of the modern materialism he was railing against. +In the mid-1970s Michell then published a detailed case study of the West Penwith district of Cornwall, laying out what he believed to be the ley lines in the area. He presented this as a challenge to archaeologists, urging them to examine his ideas in detail and stating that he would donate a large sum of money to charity if they could disprove them. Hutton noted that it represented "the finest piece of surveying work" then undertaken by a pseudo-archaeologists in Britain. However Michell had included natural rock outcrops as well as medieval crosses in his list of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f0b09b35a --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: "Ley line" +chunk: 3/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:20.506063+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +==== The ley hunting community ==== +In 1962, a group of ufologists established the Ley Hunter's Club. Michell's publication was followed by an upsurge in ley hunting as enthusiasts travelled around the British landscape seeking to identify what they believed to be ley lines connecting various historic structures. Parish churches were particularly favoured by the ley hunters, who often worked on the assumption that such churches had almost always been built atop pre-Christian sacred sites. The 1970s and 1980s also saw the increase in publications on the topic of ley lines. One ley lines enthusiast, Philip Heselton, established the Ley Hunter magazine, which was launched in 1965. It was later edited by Paul Screeton, who also wrote the book Quicksilver Heritage, in which he argued that the Neolithic period had seen an idyllic society devoted to spirituality but that this was brought to an end through the introduction of metal technologies in the Bronze Age. He argued that this golden age could nevertheless be restored. Another key book produced among the ley hunting community was Mysterious Britain, written by Janet and Colin Bord. + +Part of the popularity of ley hunting was that individuals without any form of professional training in archaeology could take part and feel that they could rediscover "the magical landscapes of the past". Ley hunting welcomed those who had "a strong interest in the past but feel excluded from the narrow confines of orthodox academia". The ley hunting movement often blended their activities with other esoteric practices, such as numerology and dowsing. The movement had a diverse base, consisting of individuals from different classes and of different political opinions: it contained adherents of both radical left and radical right ideologies. Ley hunters often differed on how they understood the ley lines; some believed that leys only marked a pre-existing energy current, whereas others thought that the leys helped to control and direct this energy. They were nevertheless generally in agreement that the ley lines were laid out between 5000 BCE and 2600 BCE, after the introduction of agriculture but before the introduction of metal in Britain. For many ley hunters, this Neolithic period was seen as a golden age in which Britons lived in harmony with the natural environment. +Attitudes to the archaeological establishment varied among ley hunters, with some of the latter wanting to convert archaeologists to their beliefs and others believing that that was an impossible task. Ley hunters nevertheless often took an interest in the work of archaeo-astronomers like Alexander Thom and Euan Mackie, being attracted to their arguments about the existence of sophisticated astronomer-priests in British prehistory. In suggesting that prehistoric Britons were far more advanced in mathematics and astronomy than archaeologists had previously accepted, Thom's work was seen as giving additional credibility to the beliefs of ley hunters. +Paul Devereux succeeded Screeton as the editor of the Ley Hunter. He was more concerned than many other ley hunters with finding objective evidence for the idea that unusual forms of energy could be measured at places where prehistoric communities had erected structures. He was one of the founding members of the Dragon Project, launched in London in 1977 with the purpose of conducting radioactivity and ultrasonic tests at prehistoric sites, particularly the stone circles created in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. The Dragon Project continued its research throughout the 1980s, finding that certain prehistoric sites did show higher or lower than average rates of radiation but that others did not and that there was no consistent pattern. Professional archaeologists, whose view of the ley hunters was largely negative, took little interest in such research. +It was only in the 1980s that professional archaeologists in Britain began to engage with the ley hunting movement. In 1983, Ley Lines in Question, a book written by the archaeologists Tom Williamson and Liz Bellamy, was published. In this work, Williamson and Bellamy considered and tackled the evidence that ley lines proponents had amassed in support of their beliefs. As part of their book, they examined the example of the West Penwith district that Michell had set out as a challenge to archaeologists during the previous decade. They highlighted that the British landscape was so highly covered in historic monuments that it was statistically unlikely that any straight line could be drawn across the landscape without passing through several such sites. They also demonstrated that ley hunters had often said that certain markers were Neolithic, and thus roughly contemporary with each other, when often they were of widely different dates, such as being Iron Age or medieval. The overall message of Williamson and Bellamy's book was that the idea of leys, as it was being presented by Earth Mysteries proponents, had no basis in empirical reality. Looking back on the book's reception in 2000, Williamson noted that "archaeologists weren't particularly interested, and ley-line people were hostile". + +==== Schism in the community ==== \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..de679feb1 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: "Ley line" +chunk: 4/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:20.506063+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Williamson and Bellamy's book brought two different responses from the ley hunter community. Some maintained that even if the presence of earth energies running through ley lines could not be demonstrated with empirical evidence and rational argumentation, this did not matter; for them, a belief in ley lines was an act of faith, and in their view archaeologists were too narrow-minded to comprehend this reality. The other approach was to further engage archaeologists by seeking out new data and arguments to bolster their beliefs in ley lines. Hutton noted that this pulled along "a potential fissure between rationalism and mysticism which had always been inherent in the movement". +In 1989, a book that Devereux had co-written with Nigel Pennick, Lines on the Landscape, was published. It laid aside ideas of leys representing channels for earth energy, noting that this was beyond the realm of scientific verification, and instead focused on trying to build a case for ley lines that archaeologists could engage with. In particular, it drew attention to ethnographically recorded beliefs in the importance of lines running through the landscape in various communities around the world, proposing these as ethnographic comparisons for what might have occurred in prehistoric Britain. Hutton called the book "an important development", for it was "by far the most well-researched, intelligently written and beautifully produced work yet published on leys". Devereux pursued this approach in a series of further books. +Reflecting his move towards archaeology, in 1991, Devereux published an article on sightlines from the prehistoric site of Silbury Hill, Wiltshire in Antiquity. By the 1990s, British archaeology had become more open to ideas about language and cognition, topics that Earth Mysteries enthusiasts had long been interested in. A prominent example of this was the work of Christopher Tilley, who devised the idea of phenomenology, or using human senses to experience a landscape as a means of trying to ascertain how past societies would have done the same. +The Ley Hunter magazine ceased publication in 1999. Its last editor, Danny Sullivan, stated that the idea of leys was "dead". Hutton suggested that some of the enthusiasm formerly directed toward leys was instead directed toward archaeo-astronomy. He also noted that the ley hunting community had "functioned as an indispensable training ground for a small but important group of non-academic scholars who have made a genuine contribution to the study of folklore and mythology." Pennick for instance went on to write a range of short books and pamphlets on European folklore. Another prominent ley hunter, Bob Trubshaw, also wrote several books on these subjects and served as a publisher for others. Jeremy Harte, editor of Wessex Earth Mysteries, subsequently produced several books on folklore; his book on British fairy lore later won the Folklore Society's annual prize. + +==== Continuing belief ==== + +In 2005, Ruggles noted that "for the most part, ley lines represent an unhappy episode now consigned to history". However belief in ley lines persists among various esoteric groups, having become an "enduring feature of some brands of esotericism". As Hutton observed, beliefs in "ancient earth energies have passed so far into the religious experience of the 'New Age' counter-culture of Europe and America that it is unlikely that any tests of evidence would bring about an end to belief in them." During the 1970s and 1980s, a belief in ley lines fed into the modern Pagan community. Research that took place in 2014 for instance found that various modern Druids and other Pagans believed that there were ley lines focusing on the Early Neolithic site of Coldrum Long Barrow in Kent, southeast England. +In the US city of Seattle a dowsing organisation called the Geo Group plotted what they believed were the ley lines across the city. They stated that their "project made Seattle the first city on Earth to balance and tune its ley-line system". The Seattle Arts Commission contributed $5,000 to the project, bringing criticisms from members of the public who regarded it as a waste of money. + +== Scientific views == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..bf12dca82 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +--- +title: "Ley line" +chunk: 5/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_line" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:20.506063+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Ley lines have been characterised as a form of pseudoscience. On The Skeptic's Dictionary, the American philosopher and skeptic Robert Todd Carroll noted that none of the statements about magnetic forces underpinning putative ley lines has been scientifically verified. +Williamson and Bellamy characterised ley lines as "one of the biggest red herrings in the history of popular thought". One criticism of Watkins' ley line theory states that given the high density of historic and prehistoric sites in Britain and other parts of Europe, finding straight lines that "connect" sites is trivial and ascribable to coincidence. Johnson stated that "ley lines do not exist". He cited Williamson and Bellamy's work in demonstrating this, noting that their research showed how "the density of archaeological sites in the British landscape is so great that a line drawn through virtually anywhere will 'clip' a number of sites". +Other statistical significance tests have shown that supposed ley-line alignments are no more significant than random occurrences and/or have been generated by selection effects. The paper by statistician Simon Broadbent is one such example and the discussion after the article involving a large number of other statisticians demonstrates the high level of agreement that alignments have no significance compared to the null hypothesis of random locations. +A study by David George Kendall used the techniques of shape analysis to examine the triangles formed by standing stones to deduce if these were often arranged in straight lines. The shape of a triangle can be represented as a point on the sphere, and the distribution of all shapes can be thought of as a distribution over the sphere. The sample distribution from the standing stones was compared with the theoretical distribution to show that the occurrence of straight lines was no more than average. +The archaeologist Richard Atkinson once demonstrated this by taking the positions of telephone booths and pointing out the existence of "telephone box leys". This, he argued, showed that the mere existence of such lines in a set of points does not prove that the lines are deliberate artefacts, especially since it is known that telephone boxes were not laid out in any such manner or with any such intention. +In 2004, John Bruno Hare wrote: + +Watkins never attributed any supernatural significance to leys; he believed that they were simply pathways that had been used for trade or ceremonial purposes, very ancient in origin, possibly dating back to the Neolithic, certainly pre-Roman. His obsession with leys was a natural outgrowth of his interest in landscape photography and love of the British countryside. He was an intensely rational person with an active intellect, and I think he would be a bit disappointed with some of the fringe aspects of ley lines today. + +== See also == +Apophenia – Tendency to perceive connections between unrelated things +Archaeoastronomy – Interdisciplinary study of astronomies in cultures +Cursus – Neolithic earthwork +Earth mysteries – Range of beliefs regarding earthly supernatural phenomena +Feng shui – Chinese traditional practice +Dragon vein (a.k.a. dragon's line/track, 龍脈/龍脉) +Geoglyph – Motif produced on the ground; observable only from a height +Geomancy – Method of divination that interprets markings on the ground +Huaca – Pre-Columbian South American spiritual markers +Mandala – Spiritual and ritual symbol in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism +Pareidolia – Perception of meaningful patterns or images in random or vague stimuli +Psychogeography – Creative view of the built environment that emphasizes playfulness and dérive +Songline – Aboriginal Australian belief and practice +Telluric current – Natural electric current in the Earth's crust +Tunnels in popular culture – Appearance of tunnels in media +Worship of heavenly bodies – Worship of stars and other heavenly bodies as deities + +== References == + +=== Citations === + +=== Works cited === + +== Further reading == +Charlesworth, Michael (2010). "Photography, the Index, and the Nonexistent: Alfred Watkins' Discovery (or Invention) of the Notorious Ley-lines of British Archaeology". Visual Resources. 26 (2): 131–145. doi:10.1080/01973761003750666. S2CID 194018024. +Devereux, Paul. "The Ley Story". The New Ley Hunter's Guide. Archived from the original on 9 August 2007. +Hutton, Ronald (2009). "Modern Druidry and Earth Mysteries". Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture. 2 (3): 313–331. doi:10.2752/175169609X12464529903137. S2CID 143506407. +Marcus, Clare Cooper (1987). "Alternative Landscapes: Ley-Lines, Feng-Shui and the Gaia Hypothesis". Landscape. 29 (3): 1–10. +Thurgill, James (2015). "A Strange Cartography: Leylines, Landscape and "Deep Mapping" in the Works of Alfred Watkins". Humanities. 4 (4): 637–652. doi:10.3390/h4040637. S2CID 16166594. + +== External links == + +Ley-lines. article by Alex Whitaker +Moonraking: What does it all mean? \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_imprint-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_imprint-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4c418a86f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_imprint-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Limbic imprint" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_imprint" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:22.836153+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In psychology, limbic imprint refers to the process by which prenatal, perinatal and post-natal experiences imprint upon the limbic system, causing lifelong effects. The term is used to explain how early care of a fetus and newborn is important to lifelong psychological development and has been used as an argument for alternative birthing methods, and against circumcision. Some also refer to the concept as the human emotional map, deep-seated beliefs, and values that are stored in the brain's limbic system. When a fetus or newborn experiences trauma, the brain will register trauma as normal affecting the newborn into adulthood. However, when a fetus or newborn does not experience trauma, the brain will develop healthy coping mechanisms that work effectively into adulthood. +This phenomenon, since experienced during prenatal, perinatal and postnatal stages, generally affects children. Different types of perinatal and childhood experiences shape the future experiences of adults. This means that if a child is born under traumatic circumstances, then, as an adult, trauma will register as normal in the brain. Trauma will become expected and because of this early imprinting, adults may be more susceptible to dangerous or abusive situations. This also depends on the circumstance in which they were born and can negatively impact the adult through their lifespan. +Prenatal psychologists have suggested that it is possible to “reverse” the effects of negative imprinting. To improve their future experiences, individuals that have been negatively impacted, need to recognize, accept, and change their perspectives on their past experiences. However, there are not currently any cures or much research done for correcting a negative imprint. There are such therapies as re-coding meditation, which seeks to reset the imprints that were made upon an individual during gestation and shortly after. Many of these therapies can be done individually or within a group setting. Some individuals experience lifelong prognoses such as lowered depressive symptoms or a happier psyche in general. More recently experimentation on psychedelic assisted therapy seems to offer a technique to address these issues. + +== Limbic system == +Limbic imprint is a psychological concept associated with the limbic system. The limbic system includes the structures of the brain that control emotions, memories, and arousal. Through the prefrontal cortex, the system plays a role in the expression of moods and emotional feelings. The structures most involved with Limbic Imprint are known as the hippocampus and amygdala. The hippocampus is majorly associated with memory. The process of imprinting emotional and physical experiences into the brain utilizes memory functions. While the emotional regulation and responses of these experiences are majorly associated with and controlled by the amygdala. The system's connections with the cerebral cortex allow an individual to experience negative or positive feeling through his perceptions and he remembers such event with accompanying feeling. +It is said that male and female limbic systems are different. The use of the limbic system also differs in the sense that women use its more recently evolved part while the more ancient part showed more activity in men. These explain why women are more capable of remembering emotions and memories than men. Women are also more likely influenced by emotional attachments in their decision making. + +== Incidence == +As opposed to other psychological concepts, the limbic imprint is not specific to or more common in one group of people but is applicable to everyone. All human beings are affected, in some way, by their experiences in utero, their experiences during birth, and their first experiences after birth. + +== Causes == +Trauma is a form of damage to either the mind or body that results from a distressing event. Traumatic experiences can occur in utero, during birth, and/or after birth. Trauma experienced in utero includes maternal smoking, alcohol or drug use during pregnancy; exposure to toxins such as methylmercury; and even exposure to maternal psycho-social stress. Trauma in utero increases the risk of neurodevelopmental delays and disorders causing a long-term effect on limbic imprinting such as difficulty regulating and processing emotions. Trauma experienced during birth includes the use of interventions during labor such as obstetrical forceps or vacuum extraction, cesarean section, or exposure to medicines used to relieve maternal pain or induce labor. These experiences can cause both physical and psychological harm to the baby that also affects the limbic imprinting process. Finally, trauma experienced after birth can include malnutrition; neglect, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; and lack of a safe or healthy environment. Traumatic experiences after birth also have long-term effects on limbic imprinting. + +== Effects == +Stress and trauma experienced as a baby in the womb will turn into a normal expectation when born. As Freud has identified, infant development is affected severely by negative limbic imprints on the brain because at this stage, the "Ego" is vulnerable and susceptible adverse effects. This is in part due to an infant's brain being in a state of rapid development. Other effects include difficulty maintaining interpersonal relationships, dealing with overstimulation, and emotional regulation. On the other hand, a baby that is nurtured in hormones like Oxytocin will develop well physically. +There are four stops in the trauma loop of the Limbic System in the brain that occurs when an individual is experiencing a negative imprint effect. The brain moves in the first stage called "Hyper alert to danger". This is when the individual is highly sensitive to the stimulus. The Limbic System then moves into the "Normal Cue or Danger Cue" comes in. This lets the individual know whether the situation is dangerous or if it is a safe condition. Thirdly, the brain experiences a "Fight or Flight Freeze" and the individual cannot process how to react to the situation or stimulus presenting itself. Lastly, the limbic system reaches a point where the brain cannot take in information to understand the cues that it is receiving. This cycle continues and can continually put an individual at an increased risk for traumatic experiences to reoccur. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_imprint-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_imprint-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..802a88b45 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_imprint-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: "Limbic imprint" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_imprint" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:22.836153+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Treatment == +There are therapists who recognize that body and emotions - facilitated by experiences - leave imprints in deep neuronal circuits of the limbic brain and use such position to devise psychological interventions such as the therapy within a group setting. Some therapists suggest a course of "limbic repatterning" to consciously rewrite bad limbic imprints and thus improve the patient's overall psychological health. +Another suggested therapy is called "Limbic System Therapy". In this therapy, the patients participate in physical experiences that contradict the limbic imprint. For example, an individual that has low self-esteem may be given an activity to deliberately make them feel good about themselves like positive affirmation exercises. The more the patient participates in this "re-wiring" the better they will feel about themselves and thus correcting a negative imprint. +According to psychologists, there are many more ways to help with re-coding a negative imprint. These strategies include things such as journaling, talking and sharing feelings, and participating in body therapies like a body massage. Other strategies psychologists suggest are spending time with loved ones, positive thinking, breathing awareness, body awareness, relaxation, meditation, and/or prayer. Regular exercise and warm baths are also suggested by professionals. + +== Criticisms == +The major problem with limbic imprint is that there is very little scientific research done specifically on the concept. There is plenty of research on trauma and how it affects people as they develop which is useful to explain limbic imprint. However, standing alone, limbic imprint is fairly new and more common in pop-culture psychology than in research/scientific psychology. + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_oxygen_supplement-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_oxygen_supplement-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..cd30c0472 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_oxygen_supplement-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Liquid oxygen supplement" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_oxygen_supplement" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:24.005085+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Liquid oxygen supplements are products that claim to add extra oxygen to the human body, most often through a chemical process in the digestive system, like the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide or magnesium peroxide. While the FDA describes these products as being inert, and has penalized some producers who made explicit medical claims, it has not prohibited their sale. + + +== Liquid oxygen == +Liquid oxygen is the name of a product that is a solution of hydrogen peroxide and other compounds including sodium chloride (common salt) that claims to help with "jet lag, fatigue, altitude sickness, headaches, hangovers, youthful skin, energy, and insomnia". +Professor Ken Harvey, a member of the World Health Organization team that formulated criteria for the promotion of medicinal drugs and a member of Auspharm Consumer Health Watch, states that the product is "no more than salty water", and that most forms of water carry some dissolved oxygen. The Federal Trade Commission has prosecuted some makers of such products for making "blatantly false and unsubstantiated health claims", although it has not banned the sale of such products. +The product claims to have an effect through increasing the amount of oxygen in the body but this is unnecessary as oxygen is absorbed by the lungs via breathing. Among the ingredients sometimes listed by makers are magnesium peroxide, or "deionized water and sodium chloride [salt]". It cannot contain simple liquid oxygen, which would boil at −183 °C (−297.4 °F; 90.1 K) at normal pressure, but ostensibly contains oxygen in some other form, like hydrogen peroxide, that will be released after consumption. + + +== Vitamin O == +Vitamin O is a dietary supplement marketed and sold by Rose Creek Health Products and its sister company The Staff of Life (doing business as R-Garden) since 1998. Despite its name, the product is not recognized by nutritional science as a vitamin. In 1999, the Federal Trade Commission fined the manufacturer for making false statements claiming health benefits resulting from the use of the product. The manufacturer had claimed that taking the supplement had beneficial effects on a wide variety of ailments, including angina, anaemia, and various forms of cancer, and that it also increased vigor and provided for a more positive state of mind. The company states that Vitamin O is "a special supplemented oxygen taken in liquid form and produced through electrical-activation with a saline solution from the ocean," and that the substance increases the amount of oxygen present in the blood. +While Rose Creek Health Products complied with the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 in that the product was sold without approval by the Food and Drug Administration because no claims about its medical efficacy were made by its producers, Rose Creek collected statements from users who attributed wide-ranging benefits to taking their supplement. However, subsequent ads also ran statements allegedly coming from experts and which provided anecdotal evidence from small-scale clinical trials showing positive results in several patients. Because of this, the Federal Trade Commission filed an injunction in March 1999 against Rose Creek Health Products Inc., stating that the ads being run in both print and online sources, including USA Today, were "blatantly false". Studies run on Vitamin O showed it to be composed largely of salt water as well as a small quantity of germanium, which would provide no benefits not attributable to the placebo effect. +On April 28, 2000, Rose Creek Health Products Inc., agreed to pay a cash settlement of $375,000 for consumer redress, and to abstain from making claims as to the health benefits attributed to the supplement, or promoting its efficacy in treating illnesses. However, in 2005, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter to R-Garden, indicating that its product labeling, website, and literature that the company distributed with shipped product were promoting Vitamin O as drugs — i.e., agents intended for use in the cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease. These included testimonial claims that a person unable to walk because of congestive heart failure had been able to walk again and ceased taking "heart pills or pain pills" after a three-month course of the product, and that another was able to breathe very easily again despite chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and repeated prior bouts of chronic bronchitis and pneumonia thanks to the product. As of 2010, the product contains a disclaimer stating "This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease". + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acupuncture_points-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acupuncture_points-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5bb22e3f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acupuncture_points-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,92 @@ +--- +title: "List of acupuncture points" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acupuncture_points" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:25.378000+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +This article provides a comprehensive list of acupuncture points, locations on the body used in acupuncture, acupressure, and other treatment systems based on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). + + +== Locations and basis == + +More than four hundred acupuncture points have been described, with the majority located on one of the twenty main cutaneous and subcutaneous meridians, pathways which run throughout the body and according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) transport qi. Twelve of these major meridians, commonly referred to as "the primary meridians", are bilateral and practitioners associate them with internal organs. The remaining eight meridians are designated as "extraordinary", and are also bilateral except for three, one that encircles the body near the waist, and two that run along the midline of the body. Only those two extraordinary meridians that run along the midline contain their own points, the remaining six comprise points from the aforementioned twelve primary meridians. There are also points that are not located on the fourteen major meridians but do lie in the complete nexus referred to as Jīngluò (經絡). Such outliers are often referred to as "extra points". +There is no anatomical and physiological basis for acupuncture points and meridians. In practice, acupuncture points are located by a combination of anatomical landmarks, palpation, and feedback from the patient. + + +=== Twelve Primary Meridians === + + +=== Eight Extraordinary Meridians === +The eight extraordinary meridians (simplified Chinese: 奇经八脉; traditional Chinese: 奇經八脈; pinyin: qí jīng bā mài) are of pivotal importance in the study of qigong, tai chi, and Chinese alchemy. Though many are listed, only the Governing Vessel and the Conception Vessel meridians have points not associated with the previous 12 meridians. + + +== Nomenclature == +Some acupuncture points have several traditional names, for example tài yuān (太渊) and gui xin (鬼心) are two names used for the 9th acupuncture point on the lung meridian. The World Health Organization (WHO) published A Proposed Standard International Acupuncture Nomenclature Report in 1991 and 2014, listing 361 classical acupuncture points organized according to the fourteen meridians, eight extra meridians, 48 extra points, and scalp acupuncture points, and published Standard Acupuncture Nomenclature in 1993, focused on the 361 classical acupuncture points. Each acupuncture point is identified by the meridian on which it is located and its number in the point sequence on that channel. For example, Lu-9 identifies the 9th acupuncture point on the lung meridian. The only ambiguity with this unique systemized method is on the urinary bladder meridian, where the outer line of 14 points found on the back near the spine are inserted in one of two ways; following the last point of the inner line along the spine (會陽) and resuming with the point found in the crease of the buttocks (承扶), or following the point in the center of the crease of the knee (委中) and resuming with the point just below that (合陽), found in the bifurcation of the gastrocnemius muscle. Although classification of the extra points often tries to utilize a similar shortcut method, where a numbered sequence along an assigned body part is used, there is no commonly agreed-upon system and therefore universal identification of these points relies on the original naming system of traditional Chinese characters. +The tables in this article follow the WHO numbering scheme to identify the acupuncture points of the main channels. For extra points the tables follow the numbering scheme found in A Manual of Acupuncture. + + +== Lung meridian == +Abbreviated as LU, named 手太阴肺经穴; 手太陰肺經 "The Lung channel of Hand, Greater Yin". This refers to the meridian starting in the arm, the lung's association with yin, and that it is considered more easy to find. + + +== Large intestine meridian == +Abbreviated as LI or CO (colon), named 手阳明大肠经穴; 手陽明大腸經 "The Large Intestine channel of Hand, Yang Bright". + + +== Stomach meridian == +Abbreviated as ST, named 足阳明胃经穴; 足陽明胃經 "The Stomach channel of Foot, Yang Bright". + + +== Spleen meridian == +Abbreviated as SP, named 足太阴睥经穴; 足太陰脾經 "The Spleen channel of Foot, Greater Yin". + + +== Heart meridian == +Abbreviated as HE, HT or H, named 手少阴心经穴; 手少陰心經 "The Heart channel of Hand, Lesser Yin". + + +== Small intestine meridian == +Abbreviated as SI, named 手太阳小肠经穴; 手太陽小腸經 "The Small Intestine channel of Hand, Greater Yang". + + +== Bladder meridian == +Abbreviated as BL or UB (urinary bladder), described in Chinese as 足太阳膀胱经穴; 足太陽膀胱經 "The Bladder channel of Foot, Greater Yang". +An alternative numbering scheme for the "appended part" (beginning with Bl-41 in the list below), which places the outer line along the spine after Bl-35 (會陽) instead of Bl-40 (委中), will be noted in the Alternative names column. + + +== Kidney meridian == +Abbreviated as KI or K, described in Chinese as 足少阴肾经穴 or 足少陰腎經 "The Kidney channel of Foot, Lesser Yin". + + +== Pericardium meridian == +Abbreviated as PC or P, named 手厥阴心包经穴; 手厥陰心包經 "The Pericardium channel of Hand, Faint Yin". + + +== Triple burner meridian == +Also known as San Jiao, triple-heater, triple-warmer or triple-energizer, abbreviated as TB or SJ or TE and named 手少阳三焦经穴; 手少陽三焦經 "The Sanjiao channel of Hand, Lesser Yang". + + +== Gallbladder meridian == +Abbreviated as GB, this meridian is named 足少阳胆经穴; 足少陽膽經 "The Gallbladder channel of Foot, Lesser Yang". + + +== Liver meridian == +Abbreviated as LR or LV, named 足厥阴肝经穴; 足厥陰肝經 "The Liver channel of Foot, Faint Yin". + + +== Governing vessel == +Also known as Du, abbreviated as GV and named 督脉穴; 督脈 "The Governing Vessel". + + +== Conception vessel == +Also known as Ren, Directing Vessel, abbreviated as CV and named 任脉穴; 任脈 "The Conception Vessel". + + +== Notes == + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_blood_analysis-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_blood_analysis-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c7d0876c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_blood_analysis-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Live blood analysis" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_blood_analysis" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:26.561564+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Live blood analysis (LBA), live cell analysis, Hemaview or nutritional blood analysis is the use of high-resolution dark field microscopy to observe live blood cells. Live blood analysis is promoted by some alternative medicine practitioners, who assert that it can diagnose a range of diseases. It has its origins in the now-discarded theories of pleomorphism promoted by Günther Enderlein, notably in his 1925 book Bakterien-Cyklogenie. +There is no scientific evidence that live blood analysis is reliable or effective, and it has been described as a fraudulent means of convincing people that they are ill and should purchase dietary supplements. It is not accepted in laboratory practice and its validity as a laboratory test has not been established. Its practice has been described as a pseudoscientific, bogus and fraudulent, and the medical profession has dismissed it as quackery. The field of live blood microscopy is unregulated; there is no training requirement or recognised qualification for practitioners and no recognised medical validity to the results. Proponents have made false claims about both medical blood pathology testing and their own services, which some have refused to amend when instructed by the Advertising Standards Authority. +In January 2014, prominent live blood proponent and teacher Robert O. Young was arrested and charged for practising medicine without a license. In March 2014, Errol Denton, a former student of his and a UK live blood practitioner, was convicted on nine counts in a rare prosecution under the Cancer Act 1939, followed in May 2014 by another former student, Stephen Ferguson. + +== Overview == +Proponents claim that live blood analysis provides information "about the state of the immune system, possible vitamin deficiencies, amount of toxicity, pH and mineral imbalance, areas of concern and weaknesses, fungus and yeast." Some even claim it can "spot cancer and other degenerative immune system diseases up to two years before they would otherwise be detectable" or say they can diagnose "lack of oxygen in the blood, low trace minerals, lack of exercise, too much alcohol or yeast, weak kidneys, bladder or spleen." Practitioners include alternative medicine providers such as nutritionists, herbologists, naturopaths, and chiropractors. +Dark field microscopy is useful to enhance contrast in unstained samples, but live blood analysis is not proven to be useful for any of its claimed indications. Two journal articles published in the alternative medical literature found that darkfield microscopy seemed unable to detect cancer, and that live blood analysis lacked reliability, reproducibility, and sensitivity and specificity. Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter and University of Plymouth, notes: "No credible scientific studies have demonstrated the reliability of LBA for detecting any of the above conditions." Ernst describes live blood analysis as a "fraudulent" means of convincing patients to buy dietary supplements. +Quackwatch has been critical of live blood analysis, noting dishonesty in the claims brought forward by its proponents. The alternative medicine popularizer Andrew Weil dismissed live blood analysis as "completely bogus", writing: "Dark-field microscopy combined with live blood analysis may sound like cutting-edge science, but it's old-fashioned hokum. Don't buy into it." + +== Common diagnoses == +There are several common diagnoses by LBA practitioners that are actually based on observation of artifacts normally found in microscopy, and ignorance of basic biological science: +Acid in the blood: When the red blood cells stack on top of one another and appear like stacks of coins, it is called 'rouleaux' formation. By observation of the rouleaux, the LBA practitioners diagnose 'acid in the blood', while other practitioners suggest a weak pancreas. Rouleaux of red blood cells under the microscope is an artifact which occurs when the blood sample at the edge of the coverslip starts to dry out; where a large number of red blood cells clump together; or when the blood starts to clot when contacted with the glass. These artifacts are observed in only small, selected areas on the slide, while near the center of the slide the red blood cells are free floating. Blood acidosis is a severe illness and can not be diagnosed by observation of blood, nor treated by dietary supplements. + +Uric acid crystals and/or cholesterol plaques: Microscopic splinters of glass are often present when the slide is not cleaned thoroughly. Observation of such shards is claimed by the LBA practitioners to be uric acid crystals or cholesterol plaques, and thus to be indicative of 'acid imbalance, stress or poor lymphatic circulation' among other vague ailments. Uric acid crystals and cholesterol plaques, if present, are not visible in the blood samples. +Parasites: Particles of dirt and debris, commonly found on glass slides not cleaned thoroughly, or slightly deformed red blood cells are mistaken to be parasites. Patients with parasites in the blood stream would be very sick and in need of immediate medical care, not by nutritional or herbal supplements or life style change as often recommended by LBA practitioners. +Bacteria and yeast: LBA practitioners observe small irregular shape on the red blood cell membrane, a common artifact, and claim it represents bacteria or yeasts budding off the edge of the cell membrane. This claim violates the basic principle of biology that each living organism is unique and can not be transformed from one into another. Presence of bacteria or yeasts in the blood indicates the patient is in danger of developing sepsis, a life-threatening condition. +Fermentations: Light spots on some red blood cells are identified by LBA practitioners as fermentations caused by high sugar content in the blood. Fermentation is a chemical reaction of breaking down sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide catalyzed by enzymes produced in yeast. The red blood cells are not yeasts and cannot ferment sugar.  \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_blood_analysis-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_blood_analysis-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1b098e133 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_blood_analysis-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +title: "Live blood analysis" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_blood_analysis" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:26.561564+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Regulatory issues == +In 1996, the Pennsylvania Department of Laboratories informed three Pennsylvania chiropractors that Infinity2's "Nutritional Blood Analysis" could not be used for diagnostic purposes unless they maintain a laboratory that has both state and federal certification for complex testing. +In 2001, the Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General issued a report on regulation of "unestablished laboratory tests" that focused on live blood cell analysis and the difficulty of regulating unestablished tests and laboratories. +In 2002, an Australian naturopath was convicted and fined for falsely claiming that he could diagnose illness using live blood analysis after the death of a patient. He was acquitted of manslaughter. He subsequently changed his name and was later banned from practice for life. +In 2005, the Rhode Island Department of Health ordered a chiropractor to stop performing live blood analysis. An attorney for the State Board of Examiners in Chiropractic Medicine described the test as "useless" and a "money-making scheme... The point of it all is apparently to sell nutritional supplements." A state medical board official said that live blood analysis has no discernible value, and that the public "should be very suspicious of any practitioner who offers this test." +In 2011, the UK General Medical Council suspended a doctor's licence to practise after he used live blood analysis to diagnose patients with Lyme disease. The doctor accepted he had been practising "bad medicine". +In 2013, following several Advertising Standards Authority adjudications against claims made by LBA practitioners, the Committee of Advertising Practice added new guidelines to their AdviceOnline database advising what LBA marketers may claim in their advertising material. These state that "CAP is yet to see any evidence for the efficacy of this therapy which, without rigorous evidence to support it, should be advertised on an availability-only platform." +One of these practitioners, Errol Denton, who practised out of a serviced office in Harley Street, was prosecuted in December 2013 under the Cancer Act 1939, and chose to use a Freeman on the Land defence. On March 20, 2014, he was convicted on nine counts under the Cancer Act 1939 and fined £9,000 plus around £10,000 in costs. In April 2018, Denton was further convicted of two counts of "engaging in unfair commercial practice" and one of "selling food not of the quality demanded", for selling a bottle of colloidal silver drink to an undercover trading standards officer in February 2016, after examining a drop of her blood and claiming that it indicated that she had dislocated her shoulder. He was made the subject of a Criminal Behaviour Order, fined £2,250, and ordered pay £15,000 in costs. + +== See also == +List of ineffective cancer treatments + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_locator-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_locator-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b8688ace6 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_locator-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +--- +title: "Long-range locator" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_locator" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:28.988177+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +A long-range locator is a class of fraudulent devices purported to be a type of metal detector, supposedly able to detect a variety of substances, including gold, drugs and explosives; most are said to operate on a principle of resonance with the material being detected. + + +== Theory of operation == +Skeptics have examined the internals of many such devices and found those that have been examined to be incapable of operating as advertised, and have dismissed them as overpriced dowsing rods or similarly useless devices. Virtually all such devices claim to operate on a resonant frequency principle where the device is said to emit an electromagnetic signal, either through an antenna or a probe, that will respond to a specific substance such as gold, silver, or sometimes even paper money, and that the device will indicate the presence of such material by indicating a change in direction relative to the operator. +This theory of operation is not supported by scientific theory; the devices have not been shown to work in blind testing, and the resonance principle invoked has not been shown to work in laboratories (and is not consistently employed by LRL manufacturers). In addition, the Inverse-Square Law limits the effective possible signal strength of any putative LRL; moreover, not only does this attenuation apply to the supposed emissions from the LRL devices, but the return signals from the sought-after targets are further attenuated by the same constraints. Since most of these LRL devices are powered by low voltage, low current AA, AAA or 9v cells, the resultant power available for emissions is quite minuscule at best, and the return signal would suffer even greater attenuation. Examples exist of LRL devices having no internal power source at all, and these are advertised as being self-powered or powered by ambient static electricity; these are indistinguishable from dowsing rods. + + +== Scientific evaluation == +Many such devices contain non-functional circuitry or naively constructed approximations of radio transmitters. A few do have functional circuitry, putting out a weak signal with a function generator or a simple timer circuit, but are still largely useless in comparison with a coil-based metal detector; others have been found to contain intentionally obfuscated or completely superfluous components (from individual components such as inductors or ribbon cables up to, in some cases, pocket calculators), often indicative of intentional fraud, incompetence, or both, by the designer. Such functioning circuitry as exists in such devices usually has no obvious way (motor, solenoid, etc.) to connect to any rotating joint in the device either, meaning the devices are often entirely dependent on the ideomotor effect to function. + + +== Media exposure and controversy == +Author Tom Clancy came under fire for including the DKL Lifeguard, a long-range locator purported to be useful for detecting people, in critical passages of his novel Rainbow Six. A study by Sandia National Laboratories proved the Lifeguard to be completely useless, and other designs by the Lifeguard's creator Thomas Afilani have been shown to contain numerous dummy components with no clear function. +Accusing the manufacturers of fraud, the UK banned export of the GT 200, used by the government of Thailand, and the ADE 651, used by the government of Iraq, in January 2010. + + +== See also == +ADE 651 +Alpha 6 (device) +GT200 +Quadro Tracker +Sniffex +TR Araña + + +== References == + + +== External links == +Carl Moreland's skeptical website—dissects numerous models of LRL +Dowsing for Dollars—Robert Todd Carroll's dissection of the LRL industry, with special emphasis on DKL +Long-range locator Forward Gauss VR-1000B-II Exposing it as fraudulent dowsing device in Tanzania +Long-range locator Is Fraudulent Long Range Locator is a Fraudulent in Pakistan \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_Medium-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_Medium-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d2e8755e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_Medium-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@ +--- +title: "Long Island Medium" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_Medium" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:27.796196+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Long Island Medium is an American reality television series starring Theresa Caputo, a self-professed medium who claims she can communicate with the dead. Much of the program, which premiered on September 25, 2011, takes place in Hicksville, New York, though it often follows Caputo as she meets with clients in other areas. +Scientific skeptics say mediumship performances are a con, and Caputo's specific claims have been deemed fictitious by critics, including magician James Randi, Inside Edition, and Jezebel. + + +== Synopsis == +Each episode focuses on Caputo as she conducts private and group readings with both believers and skeptics. Her husband Larry and two children, Victoria and Larry Jr., have learned to live with her mediumship. In a 2011 interview, Caputo claimed she could communicate with dead people: "Things are just there. When I was younger I used to actually see images and hear things. As I got older and shut down, it has changed. Because it was frightening to see people standing there who actually weren't there." + + +== Reception == +Scientific skeptics say mediumship performances are a con, and that Caputo's seemingly paranormal performances are simply the result of well-known exploits like the Forer effect, cold reading, selective editing of the show, and her subjects' eagerness to believe. +In 2012, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) awarded Caputo its Pigasus Award for being, in its view, the "psychic" performer who fooled the greatest number of people with the least effort in the preceding year. A Pigasus award was also given to TLC for continuing to air the show. In an article published by Wired Magazine the organization's founder James Randi explained why he believed shows like Long Island Medium were deceptive and potentially harmful to its participants: + +Why do these pseudo-psychic spectacles bother those of us at the James Randi Educational Foundation? First, and foremost: They are not true. [...] But much more importantly to us, such performances seem to prey on people at their most vulnerable moments — those who have suffered the loss of loved ones — and these mediums use such grief to make a buck. Psychologists tell us this keeps the grieving stuck in their grief, rather than going through the natural stages of acceptance that are healthy. +In June of that year, Caputo appeared in a commercial for Priceline.com in which she portrayed herself "connecting" with the late Priceline Negotiator character previously played by William Shatner. JREF President DJ Grothe issued a statement asking Priceline.com to prove that Caputo has the abilities that she claims to possess. +Inside Edition examined Caputo's claims of being able to talk to the dead and found them lacking as she performed live, saying they "watched her strike out time and again." Mark Edward, who used to portray himself as a medium, gave his opinion that Caputo does not have supernatural powers and explained several common techniques she could be using to pretend to have such abilities. She responded in a statement: "I respect and understand skeptics. I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone, that's not why I do what I do. I feel, and have been told by my clients, that my gift has really helped them, and that's all that matters to me." +Ron Tebo, proprietor of the YouTube debunking channel SciFake, has argued that Caputo engages in several forms of deception, including sending staff members to interview audience members in advance to acquire knowledge to claim communication with the dead. +In March 2018, skeptical activist Susan Gerbic published an article in Skeptical Inquirer summarizing several techniques that she says are used by psychics such as Caputo to achieve their effects. +While noting that Caputo's claim of special powers "has been questioned", Variety's Gregg Goldstein described her in generally positive terms in a 2012 article, writing, "In an era of hit reality shows about families and denizens of New Jersey, the series' equally big selling point is the dynamic with her husband and two wisecracking teenagers, making it play like a combination of Real Housewives of New Jersey and Bewitched – particularly when their frustrations surface over her random communications with what she calls 'Spirit.'" +In a 2019 segment of Last Week Tonight, which featured Caputo as well as other prominent TV psychics, John Oliver criticized the media for producing shows such as this because they convince viewers that psychic powers are real, and so enable neighborhood psychics to prey on grieving families. Oliver said, "...when psychic abilities are presented as authentic, it emboldens a vast underworld of unscrupulous vultures, more than happy to make money by offering an open line to the afterlife, as well as many other bullshit services." + + +== Cast == +Main + +Theresa Caputo +Recurring + +Larry Caputo Jr. +Victoria Caputo +Larry Caputo + + +== Episodes == + + +=== Series overview === + + +=== Season 1 (2011) === + + +=== Season 2 (2012) === + + +=== Season 3 (2012) === + + +=== Season 4 (2013) === + + +=== Season 5 (2013) === + + +=== Season 6 (2014) === + + +=== Season 7 (2014) === + + +=== Season 8 (2015) === + + +=== Season 9 (2015–16) === + + +=== Season 10 (2017) === + + +=== Season 11 (2017) === + + +=== Season 12 (2018) === + + +=== Season 13 (2018) === + + +=== Season 14 (2019) === + + +== See also == + + +== References == + + +== External links == +Official website +Long Island Medium at IMDb +Theresa Caputo's site \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..380b8f858 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Lunar effect" +chunk: 1/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:30.169912+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The lunar effect is a link between different stages of the 29.5-day lunar cycle and the behavior and physiology of various species, purportedly including humans. The changing phase and position of the Moon in its orbit impacts night lighting and ocean tides on Earth. Various organisms have adapted to this repeating cycle. +A considerable number of studies have examined the effect on humans. By the late 1980s, there were at least 40 published studies on the purported lunar-lunacy connection, and at least 20 published studies on the purported lunar-birthrate connection. Literature reviews and metanalyses have found no correlation between the lunar cycle and human biology or behavior. In cases such as the approximately monthly cycle of menstruation in humans (but not other mammals), the coincidence in timing reflects no known lunar influence. The widespread and persistent beliefs about the influence of the Moon may depend on illusory correlation – the perception of an association that does not in fact exist. +In a number of marine animals, there is strong evidence for the effects of lunar cycles. Observed effects relating to reproductive synchrony may depend on external cues relating to the presence or amount of moonlight. Corals contain light-sensitive cryptochromes, proteins that are sensitive to different levels of light. Coral species such as Dipsastraea speciosa tend to synchronize spawning in the evening or night, around the last quarter moon of the lunar cycle. In Dipsastraea speciosa, a period of darkness between sunset and moonrise appears to be a trigger for synchronized spawning. Another marine animal, the bristle worm Platynereis dumerilii, spawns a few days after a full moon. It contains a protein with light-absorbing flavin structures that differentially detect moonlight and sunlight. It is used as a model for studying the biological mechanisms of marine lunar cycles. + +== Human contexts == +Claims of a lunar connection have appeared in the following contexts: + +=== Fertility === + +It is widely believed that the Moon has a relationship with fertility due to the corresponding human menstrual cycle, which averages 28 days. However, no connection between lunar rhythms and menstrual onset has been conclusively shown to exist, and the similarity in length between the two cycles is most likely coincidental. + +=== Birth rate === +Multiple studies have found no connection between birth rate and lunar phases. A 1957 analysis of 9,551 births in Danville, Pennsylvania, found no correlation between birth rate and the phase of the Moon. Records of 11,961 live births and 8,142 natural births (not induced by drugs or cesarean section) over a 4-year period (1974–1978) at the UCLA hospital did not correlate in any way with the cycle of lunar phases. Analysis of 3,706 spontaneous births (excluding births resulting from induced labor) in 1994 showed no correlation with lunar phase. The distribution of 167,956 spontaneous vaginal deliveries, at 37 to 40 weeks gestation, in Phoenix, Arizona, between 1995 and 2000, showed no relationship with lunar phase. Analysis of 564,039 births (1997 to 2001) in North Carolina showed no predictable influence of the lunar cycle on deliveries or complications. Analysis of 6,725 deliveries (2000 to 2006) in Hannover revealed no significant correlation of birth rate to lunar phases. A 2001 analysis of 70,000,000 birth records from the National Center for Health Statistics revealed no correlation between birth rate and lunar phase. An extensive review of 21 studies from seven different countries showed that the majority of studies reported no relationship to lunar phase, and that the positive studies were inconsistent with each other. A review of six additional studies from five different countries similarly showed no evidence of relationship between birth rate and lunar phase. +In 2021, an analysis of 38.7 million births in France over 50 years, with a detailed correction for birth variations linked to holidays, and robust statistical methods to avoid false detections linked to multiple tests, found a very small (+0.4%) but statistically significant surplus of births on the full moon day, and to a lesser extent the following day. The probability of this excess being due to chance is very low, of the order of one chance in 100,000 (p-value = 1.5 x 10-5). The belief that there is a large surplus of births on full moon days is incorrect, and it is completely impossible for an observer to detect the small increase of +0.4% in a maternity hospital, even on a long time scale. + +=== Blood loss === +It is sometimes claimed that surgeons used to refuse to operate during the full Moon because of the increased risk of death of the patient through blood loss. One team, in Barcelona, Spain, reported a weak correlation between lunar phase and hospital admissions due to gastrointestinal bleeding, but only when comparing full Moon days to all non-full Moon days lumped together. This methodology has been criticized, and the statistical significance of the results disappears if one compares day 29 of the lunar cycle (full Moon) to days 9, 12, 13, or 27 of the lunar cycle, which all have an almost equal number of hospital admissions. The Spanish team acknowledged that the wide variation in the number of admissions throughout the lunar cycle limited the interpretation of the results. +In October 2009, British politician David Tredinnick asserted that during a full Moon "[s]urgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective and the police have to put more people on the street.". A spokesman for the Royal College of Surgeons said they would "laugh their heads off" at the suggestion they could not operate on the full Moon. + +=== Human behavior === + +==== Epilepsy ==== +A study into epilepsy found a significant negative correlation between the mean number of epileptic seizures per day and the fraction of the Moon that is illuminated, but the effect resulted from the overall brightness of the night, rather than from the moon phase per se. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a79aa9d70 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: "Lunar effect" +chunk: 2/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:30.169912+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +==== Law and order ==== +Senior police officers in Brighton, UK, announced in June 2007 that they were planning to deploy more officers over the summer to counter trouble they believe is linked to the lunar cycle. This followed research by the Sussex Police force that concluded there was a rise in violent crime when the Moon was full. A spokeswoman for the police force said "research carried out by us has shown a correlation between violent incidents and full moons". A police officer responsible for the research told the BBC that "From my experience of 19 years of being a police officer, undoubtedly on full moons we do seem to get people with sort of strange behavior – more fractious, argumentative." +Police in Ohio and Kentucky have blamed temporary rises in crime on the full Moon. +In January 2008, New Zealand's Justice Minister Annette King suggested that a spate of stabbings in the country could have been caused by the lunar cycle. +A reported correlation between Moon phase and the number of homicides in Miami-Dade County was found, through later analysis, not to be supported by the data and to have been the result of inappropriate and misleading statistical procedures. +A 2009 study of over 23,000 aggravated assaults in Germany between 1999 and 2005 found no correlation with lunar phases. A 2016 study comparing indoor and outdoor crime in the District of Columbia found that the intensity of moonlight had no effect on indoor crime, but a positive effect on outdoor criminal activity. The study's authors speculated that the effect may be due to criminals being better able to assess potential victims and unsecured properties, and there being more such victims out on the street on lighter nights. + +==== Motorcycle fatalities ==== +A study of 13,029 motorcyclists killed in nighttime crashes found that there were 5.3% more fatalities on nights with a full moon compared to other nights. The authors speculate that the increase might be due to visual distractions created by the moon, especially when it is near the horizon and appears abruptly between trees, around turns, etc. + +==== Stock market ==== +Several studies have argued that the stock market's average returns are much higher during the half of the month closest to the new moon than the half closest to the full moon. The reasons for this have not been studied, but the authors suggest this may be due to lunar influences on mood. Another study has found contradictory results and questioned these claims. + +==== Meta-analyses ==== +A meta-analysis of thirty-seven studies that examined relationships between the Moon's four phases and human behavior revealed no significant correlation. The authors found that, of twenty-three studies that had claimed to show correlation, nearly half contained at least one statistical error. Similarly, in a review of twenty studies examining correlations between Moon phase and suicides, most of the twenty studies found no correlation, and the ones that did report positive results were inconsistent with each other. A 1978 review of the literature also found that lunar phases and human behavior are not related. + +=== Sleep quality === +A 2013 study by Christian Cajochen and collaborators at the University of Basel suggested a correlation between the full Moon and human sleep quality. However, the validity of these results may be limited because of a relatively small (n=33) sample size and inappropriate controls for age and sex. A 2014 study with larger sample sizes (n1=366, n2=29, n3=870) and better experimental controls found no effect of the lunar phase on sleep quality metrics. A 2015 study of 795 children found a three-minute increase in sleep duration near the full moon, but a 2016 study of 5,812 children found a five-minute decrease in sleep duration near the full moon. No other modification in activity behaviors were reported, and the lead scientist concluded: "Our study provides compelling evidence that the moon does not seem to influence people's behavior." A study published in 2021 by researchers from the University of Washington, Yale University, and the National University of Quilmes showed a correlation between lunar cycles and sleep cycles. During the days preceding a full moon, people went to bed later and slept for shorter periods (in some cases with differences of up to 90 minutes), even in locations with full access to electric light. Finally, a Swedish study including one-night at-home sleep recordings from 492 women and 360 men found that men whose sleep was recorded during nights in the waxing period of the lunar cycle exhibited lower sleep efficiency and increased time awake after sleep onset compared to men whose sleep was measured during nights in the waning period. In contrast, the sleep of women remained largely unaffected by the lunar cycle. These results were robust to adjustment for chronic sleep problems and obstructive sleep apnea severity. +As for how the belief started in the first place, a 1999 study conjectures that the alleged connection of moon to lunacy might be a 'cultural fossil' from a time before the advent of outdoor lighting, when the bright light of the full moon might have induced sleep deprivation in people living outside, thereby triggering erratic behaviour in predisposed people with mental conditions such as bipolar disorder. + +== Other organisms == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3e65c94b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Lunar effect" +chunk: 3/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:30.169912+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== In animals === +Many animals use moonlight for navigation and to time behavior. As an example of lunar navigation, numerous insect species, such as moths, use moonlight to stabilize their flight paths and maintain consistent trajectories. +Corals contain light-sensitive cryptochromes, proteins that are sensitive to different levels of light. Corals at the Great Barrier Reef release their eggs and sperm simultaneously, always after full moon between October and December. Also, the Barau's petrel is known to time their mating season with the full moon. +Spawning of coral Platygyra lamellina occurs at night during the summer on a date determined by the phase of the Moon; in the Red Sea, this is the three- to five-day period around the new Moon in July and the similar period in August. Acropora coral time their simultaneous release of sperm and eggs to just one or two days a year, after sundown with a full moon. +Dipsastraea speciosa tends to synchronize spawning in the evening or night, around the last quarter moon of the lunar cycle. +Another marine animal, the bristle worm Platynereis dumerilii, also spawns a few days after a full moon. It is used as a model for studying cryptochromes and photoreduction in proteins. The L-Cry protein can distinguish between sunlight and moonlight through the differential activity of two protein strands that contain light-absorbing structures called flavins. Another molecule, called r-Opsin, may act as a moonrise sensor. Exactly how different biological signals are transmitted within the worm is not yet known. +Correlation between hormonal changes in the testis and lunar periodicity was found in streamlined spinefoot (a type of fish), which spawns synchronously around the last Moon quarter. In orange-spotted spinefoot, lunar phases affect the levels of melatonin in the blood. +California grunion fish have an unusual mating and spawning ritual during the spring and summer months. The egg laying takes place on four consecutive nights, beginning on the nights of the full and new Moons, when tides are highest. This well understood reproductive strategy is related to tides, which are highest when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned, i.e., at new Moon or full Moon. +The rising and falling of tides creates the Intertidal zone. Intertidal organisms experience a highly variable and often hostile environment, and have adapted to cope with and even exploit these conditions. One example are Fiddler crabs, which stay in their burrows during high tide and venture out to feed during low tide. Fiddler crabs also take advantage of tides for reproduction, and release their fertilized eggs into the receding tide. +In insects, the lunar cycle may affect hormonal changes. The body weight of honeybees peaks during new Moon. The midge Clunio marinus has a biological clock synchronized with the Moon. +Evidence for lunar effect in reptiles, birds and mammals is scant, but among reptiles marine iguanas (which live in the Galápagos Islands) time their trips to the sea in order to arrive at low tide. +A relationship between the Moon and the birth rate of cows was reported in a 2016 study. +In 2000, a retrospective study in the United Kingdom reported an association between the full moon and significant increases in animal bites to humans. The study reported that patients presenting to the A&E with injuries stemming from bites from an animal rose significantly at the time of a full moon in the period 1997–1999. The study concluded that animals have an increased inclination to bite a human during a full moon period. It did not address the question of how humans came into contact with the animals, and whether this was more likely to happen during the full moon. + +=== In plants === +Serious doubts have been raised about the claim that a species of Ephedra synchronizes its pollination peak to the full moon in July. Reviewers conclude that more research is needed to answer this question. +A growth component of the genus Sphagnum has been correlated to the lunar cycle, with accelerated growth during the new Moon. Increased cloud cover appears to disrupt this influence. +The reproduction timing of various green (Chlorophyta) and brown (Phaeophyceae) seaweed species are influenced by the lunar cycles. + +== See also == + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..97269f246 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Lunar effect" +chunk: 4/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_effect" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:30.169912+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Bibliography == +Abell, George (1979). Review of the book The Alleged Lunar Effect by Arnold Lieber, Skeptical Inquirer, Spring 1979, 68–73. Reprinted in Science Confronts the Paranormal, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-314-5. +Abell, George and Barry Singer (1981). Science and the Paranormal – probing the existence of the supernatural, Charles Scribner's Sons, chapter 5, ISBN 0-684-17820-6. +Berman, Bob (2003). Fooled by the Full Moon – Scientists search for the sober truth behind some loony ideas, Discover, September 2003, page 30. +Caton, Dan (2001). Natality and the Moon Revisited: Do Birth Rates Depend on the Phase of the Moon?, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol 33, No. 4, 2001, p. 1371. A summary of the results of the paper. +Diefendorf, David (2007), Amazing... But false! Hundreds of "facts" you thought were true, but aren't, Sterling Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4027-3791-6 +Foster, Russell G.; Roenneberg, Till (2008). "Human Responses to the Geophysical Daily, Annual and Lunar Cycles". Current Biology. 18 (17): R784–R794. Bibcode:2008CBio...18.R784F. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.07.003. PMID 18786384. S2CID 15429616. Lunar cycles had, and continue to have, an influence upon human culture, though despite a persistent belief that our mental health and other behaviours are modulated by the phase of the moon, there is no solid evidence that human biology is in any way regulated by the lunar cycle +Packer, C.; Swanson, A.; Ikanda, D.; Kushnir, H. (2011). "Fear of Darkness, the Full Moon and the Nocturnal Ecology of African Lions". PLOS ONE. 6 (7) 22285. Bibcode:2011PLoSO...622285P. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022285. PMC 3140494. PMID 21799812. +Palmer, JD; Udry, JR; Morris, NM (1982). "Diurnal and weekly, but no lunar rhythms in humans copulation". Human Biology; an International Record of Research. 54 (1): 111–121. PMID 7200945. +Sanduleak, Nicholas (1985). The Moon is Acquitted of Murder in Cleveland, Skeptical Inquirer, Spring 1985, 236–242. Reprinted in Science Confronts the Paranormal, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-314-5. +Zimecki, Michał (2006). "The lunar cycle: effects on human and animal behavior and physiology". Postepy Higieny I Medycyny Doswiadczalnej. 60: 1–7. PMID 16407788. Archived from the original on 26 June 2017. Retrieved 25 July 2015. In fish the lunar clock influences reproduction and involves the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis. In birds, the daily variations in melatonin and corticosterone disappear during full-moon days. The lunar cycle also exerts effects on laboratory rats with regard to taste sensitivity and the ultrastructure of pineal gland cells. Cyclic variations related to the moon's phases in the magnitude of the humoral immune response of mice to polivinylpyrrolidone and sheep erythrocytes were also described. It is suggested that melatonin and endogenous steroids may mediate the described cyclic alterations of physiological processes. The release of neurohormones may be triggered by the electromagnetic radiation and/or the gravitational pull of the moon + +== External links == +The Skeptic's Dictionary on the lunar effect +McGowan, Iain; Owens, Mark (2006). "Madness & The Moon: The Lunar Cycle & Psychopathology". German Journal of Psychiatry. 9 (1): 123–127. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.511.5967. +McDowall, R. M. (December 1969). "Lunar Rhythms in Aquatic Animals: A General Review". Tuatara. 17 (3): 133–143. +Linley, G. D.; Pauligk, Y.; Marneweck, C.; Ritchie, E. G. (2021). "Moon phase and nocturnal activity of native Australian mammals". Australian Mammalogy. 43 (2): 190. doi:10.1071/AM19070. S2CID 219918342. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_(Chinese_medicine)-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_(Chinese_medicine)-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3d23e1f87 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_(Chinese_medicine)-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +--- +title: "Lung (Chinese medicine)" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_(Chinese_medicine)" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:31.305799+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The lungs (Chinese: 肺; pinyin: fèi) is one of the zang organs described in traditional Chinese medicine. It is a functionally defined entity and not equivalent to the anatomical organ of the same name. + + +== In the context of the zang-fu organs == +The Lung is a zang organ meaning it is a yin organ. Situated in the thorax, it communicates with the throat and opens into the nose. It occupies the uppermost position among the zang-fu organs, and is known as the "canopy" of the zang-fu organs. Due to the lung's position in the body, toward the back of the chest and in the upper half of the abdomen, it has yin within yang qualities and is more yang than other zang organs besides the heart. Each zang organ is paired with a fu organ, the lung's paired organ is the large intestine. Its meridians connects with the large intestine, with which makes it internally related. The lung and large intestine are connected by two meridians, Yangming large intestine meridian of hand and the Taiyin lung meridian of hand. The Lung and its paired organ are associated with the element of metal and the emotion of grief. Each of the Five Elements have a color associated with them. Due to its association with metal, the lungs are associated with the color white. The peak time for the Lungs according to the Chinese Horary body clock is from 3–5 am. Illnesses that are rooted in the lung are most commonly due to weakness of wei qi or water regulation. Common symptoms indicating lung disease are coughing, weak voice, asthma, and fish smelling mucus or saliva. + + +== Lung functions == +The Lung has five principle functions: + +governing qi and controlling respiration. They take in clear and expel turbid Natural Air Qi (Kong Qi) +controlling disseminating and descending +regulating the water passages +controlling the skin and body hair +opening into the nose +housing the Po + + +=== Dominating qi and controlling respiration === +Dominating qi has two aspects: dominating the qi of respiration and dominating the qi of the entire body. Dominating the qi of respiration means the lung is a respiratory organ through which the qi of the exterior and the qi from the interior are able to mingle. Via the lung, the body inhales clear qi from the natural environment and exhales waste qi from the interior of the body. Dominating qi of the entire body means that the function of the lung in respiration greatly influences the functional activities of the body, and is closely related to the formation of pectoral qi, which is formed from the combination of the essential qi of water and food, and the clear qi inhaled by the lung. When the lung's function of dominating qi is normal, the passage of qi will be unobstructed and respiration will be normal and smooth. Deficiency of lung qi may lead to general fatigue, feeble speech, weak respiration, shortness of breath and excessive perspiration. + + +=== Dominating descending and regulating the water passages === +As a general rule, the upper zang-fu organs have the function of descending, and the lower zang-fu organs the function of ascending. Since the lung is the uppermost zang organ, its qi descends to promote the circulation of qi and body fluid through the body and to conduct them downwards. Dysfunction of the lung in descending may lead to upward perversion of lung qi with symptoms such as cough and shortness of breath. +Regulating the water passages means to regulate the pathways for the circulation and excretion of water. Circulation of body fluids is a function of many organs working together as a team, including the lungs. The role of the lung in promoting and maintaining water metabolism depends on the descending function of lung qi. Under normal circumstances, the lungs are capable of sending fluids downwards to the kidneys, which pass the fluids to the bladder for excretion. Dysfunction may result in dysuria, oliguria, and oedema. + + +== Notes == + + +== Bibliography == +Cheng, X.-n., Deng, L., & Cheng, Y. (Eds.). (1987). Chinese Acupuncture And Moxibustion. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press +Lu, Henry C. (1994). “Chinese Natural Cures” New York, NY: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishing +Maciocia, G. (2005). The Foundations Of Chinese Medicine: A Comprehensive Text For Acupuncturists And Herbalists. Philadelphia, MA: Elseverier Churchill Livingstone. +Zhiya, Z., Yanchi, L., Ruifu, Z. & Dong, L. (1995). Advanced Textbook On Traditional Chinese Medicine And Pharmacology (Vol. I) . Beijing: New World Press. +Yin, H.-h., & Shuai, H.-c. (1992). Fundamentals Of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Beijing, China: Foreign Languages Press. +Li, Zhongzi; (2010). Huangdi Neijing : a synopsis with commentaries. Y.C. Kong. Hong Kong. +Pachuta, Donald M., (1991). Chinese Medicine: The Law of Five Elements. New Delhi, India: India International Centre. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-0.md index 42941be6c..2a1219f4c 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-0.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-0.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/5 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:04:13.510646+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:32.570224+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-1.md index 86bdbd946..a0910b665 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-1.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-1.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 2/5 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:04:13.510646+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:32.570224+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-2.md index e5ab427a1..6473d6b0d 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-2.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-2.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 3/5 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:04:13.510646+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:32.570224+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-3.md index 74130c31c..09a3ef4be 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-3.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-3.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 4/5 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:04:13.510646+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:32.570224+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-4.md index 4b552df4b..f93ac7738 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-4.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism-4.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 5/5 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:04:13.510646+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:32.570224+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV-media-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV-media-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f95d7f1bc --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV-media-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: "MV-media" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV-media" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:03.400794+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +MV-media, also known as MV??!!, formerly Mitä Vittua? ("What the Fuck?") and MV-lehti, is a Finnish fake news website founded by Ilja Janitskin. The website publishes disinformation and conspiracy theories with a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-vaccine, pro-Russian and Eurosceptic agenda. The site has links to the far-right anti-immigrant group Soldiers of Odin. As of 2022, the publication is based in Russian-occupied Eastern Ukraine and regularly shares Russian state propaganda. +By March 2015, MV-lehti was the target of five police reports regarding defamation. In January 2016, nine student and youth groups called for advertisers to boycott the site due to "hate speech and repeated lies". Janitskin was suspected of several crimes, including incitement to ethnic or racial hatred, libel and copyright infringement, and was taken into custody by the Andorran police in August 2017. He had several previous convictions for violent crimes between 2000 and 2011. He was later extradited to Finland, and in October 2018, Janitskin was convicted of 16 offences and given a 22-month prison sentence. According to the court, Janitskin was the chief editor and owner of MV-lehti, and as such he was responsible for its content. Among the convictions were defamation of the journalist Jessikka Aro and two other women. Janitskin was likely to be spared from any more prison time, however, as he had been in custody and in home arrest for almost a year, and as a first-timer he would have been released after completing half of his sentence. +In January 2018, Janitskin left MV-media. The new owner, Juha Korhonen, said he would turn the website into a "cleaner" version. Since 2019 the editor in chief has been Janus Putkonen. Janitskin died of cancer in February 2020 at the age of 42. He had been appealing his convictions. + + +== See also == +List of fake news websites +Magneettimedia + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..939605c1c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +--- +title: "Macrobiotic diet" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:33.731810+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +A macrobiotic diet (or macrobiotics) is a restrictive dietary regime based on ideas about types of food drawn from Zen Buddhism. The diet tries to balance the food elements classified as yin and yang, a practice that also extends to cookware. Major principles of macrobiotic diets are to reduce animal products, eat locally grown foods that are in season, and consume meals in moderation. +There is no high-quality clinical evidence that a macrobiotic diet is helpful for people with cancer or other diseases, and it may be harmful. Neither the American Cancer Society nor Cancer Research UK recommends adopting the diet. Deaths have been reported from malnutrition on strict macrobiotic diets. + +== Conceptual basis == + +The macrobiotic diet is associated with Zen Buddhism and is based on the idea of balancing yin and yang. The diet proposes ten plans which are followed to reach a supposedly ideal yin:yang ratio of 5:1. The diet was popularized by George Ohsawa in the 1930s and subsequently elaborated on by his disciple Michio Kushi. Medical historian Barbara Clow writes that, in common with many other types of quackery, macrobiotics takes a view of illness and of therapy which conflicts with mainstream medicine. +Macrobiotics emphasizes locally grown whole grain cereals, pulses (legumes), vegetables, edible seaweed, fermented soy products, and fruit combined into meals according to the ancient Chinese principle of balance known as yin and yang. Some macrobiotic proponents stress that yin and yang are relative qualities that can only be determined in a comparison. All food is considered to have both properties, with one dominating. Foods with yang qualities are considered compact, dense, heavy, and hot, whereas those with yin qualities are considered expansive, light, cold, and diffuse. However, these terms are relative; "yangness" or "yinness" is only discussed in relation to other foods. +Brown rice and other whole grains such as barley, millet, oats, quinoa, spelt, rye, and teff are considered by macrobiotics to be the foods in which yin and yang are closest to being in balance. Therefore, lists of macrobiotic foods that determine a food as yin or yang generally compare them to whole grains. +Nightshade vegetables (including tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant), spinach, beets, and avocados are not recommended or are used sparingly in macrobiotic cooking, as they are considered extremely yin. Some macrobiotic practitioners also discourage the use of nightshades because of the alkaloid solanine which is thought to affect calcium balance. Some proponents of a macrobiotic diet believe that nightshade vegetables can cause inflammation and osteoporosis. + +=== History === +Macrobiotics was founded by George Ohsawa and popularized in the United States by his disciple Michio Kushi. In the 1960s, the earliest and most strict variant of the diet was termed the "Zen macrobiotic diet" which claimed to cure cancer, epilepsy, gonorrhea, leprosy, syphilis and many other diseases. Ohsawa wrote that dandruff is "the first step toward mental disease". Ohsawa wrote about the diet in his 1965 book Zen Macrobiotics. The Zen macrobiotic diet involved 10 restrictive stages with the highest stage eliminating all foods in the diet apart from whole grains. Fluid intake was discouraged at all stages. +In 1965, a young follower of the macrobiotic diet died from malnutrition. George Ohsawa was sued for malpractice and the Ohsawa Foundation in New York was closed after a raid by the Food and Drug Administration. In 1966, a Grand Jury who reviewed several cases of death from malnutrition among macrobiotic proponents concluded that the diet "constitutes a public health hazard". In 1967, the first case report of scurvy on the macrobiotic diet was reported. In 1971, the American Medical Association's Council on Foods and Nutrition commented that followers of the diet were in "great danger" of malnutrition. Their report concluded that "when a diet has been shown to cause irreversible damage to health and ultimately lead to death, it should be roundly condemned as a threat to human health". +After the Ohsawa Foundation in New York was closed, Michio Kushi shifted operations to Boston, where he opened two macrobiotic restaurants. In the 1970s, Kushi established the East West Journal, the East West Foundation and the Kushi Institute. In 1981, the Kushi Foundation was formed as a parent organization for the institute and magazine. The Kushi Institute was located on a large site in Becket, Massachusetts where it hosted macrobiotic conferences, lectures and seminars. Kushi combined macrobiotics with numerous paranormal and pseudoscientific ideas including auras, astrology, chakras, oriental physiognomy, palmistry and extra-terrestrial encounters. The Kushi Institute closed in 2017. + +== Practices == + +=== Food === + +The macrobiotic diet is considered an unconventional or fad diet. Some general guidelines for the macrobiotic diet are the following. + +Whole cereal grains, especially brown rice: 50–60% +Vegetables: 20–30% +Beans and sea vegetables : 5–10% +Small amounts of white fish and fruit may be eaten if desired. Nuts and seeds are not often consumed but are permitted as occasional snacks if they are lightly roasted. Beverages include herbal teas, cereal-grain coffee and roasted-barley tea. + +=== Kitchenware === +Cooking utensils should be made from certain materials such as wood or glass, while some materials including plastic, copper, and non-stick coatings are to be avoided. Electric ovens should not be used. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..9b535964e --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Macrobiotic diet" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:33.731810+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Cancer == +The macrobiotic diet has been advertised as an alternative cancer treatment but is ineffective to treat any type of cancer. Macrobiotics author Michio Kushi argued that conventional cancer treatments are "violent and artificial" and the macrobiotic diet should not be combined with conventional treatment. There is no clinical evidence to support the cancer claims of macrobiotic proponents. The American Cancer Society who reviewed 11 scientific data bases found no peer-reviewed evidence that the macrobiotic diet is effective for treating any type of cancer. The Office of Technology Assessment, examining both published and unpublished macrobiotic literature, failed to verify any claims of cancer cure. +The American Cancer Society recommends "low-fat, high-fiber diets that consist mainly of plant products"; however, they urge people with cancer not to rely on a dietary program as an exclusive or primary means of treatment. Cancer Research UK states, "some people think living a macrobiotic lifestyle may help them to fight their cancer and lead to a cure. But there is no scientific evidence to prove this." + +== Safety == + +=== Regulation === +Macrobiotic practitioners are not regulated, and need not have any qualification or training in the United Kingdom. + +=== Complications === +One of the earlier versions of the macrobiotic diet that involved eating only brown rice and water has been linked to severe nutritional deficiencies and even death. Strict macrobiotic diets that include no animal products may result in nutritional deficiencies unless they are carefully planned. The danger may be worse for people with cancer, who may have to contend with unwanted weight loss and often have increased nutritional and caloric requirements. Relying on this type of treatment alone and avoiding or delaying conventional medical care for cancer may have serious health consequences. +Cases of vitamin B12 and iron-deficiency anemias have been reported as a result of the diet. + +=== Children === +Children may also be particularly prone to nutritional deficiencies resulting from a macrobiotic diet. A macrobiotic diet does not contain the nutrients needed by growing children. + +=== Pregnancy === +Macrobiotic diets have not been tested in women who are pregnant or breast-feeding, and the most extreme versions may not include enough of certain nutrients for normal fetal growth. + +== See also == + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrophagic_myofasciitis-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrophagic_myofasciitis-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5c8e9c5e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrophagic_myofasciitis-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: "Macrophagic myofasciitis" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrophagic_myofasciitis" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:34.928224+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) is a histopathological finding involving inflammatory microphage formations with aluminium-containing crystal inclusions and associated microscopic muscle necrosis in biopsy samples of the deltoid muscle. Based on the presence of aluminium and the common practice of administering vaccines into the deltoid, it has been proposed that the abnormalities are a result of immunisation with aluminium adjuvant-containing vaccines. The findings were observed in a minority of persons being evaluated for "diffuse myalgias, arthralgias or muscle weakness" who underwent deltoid muscle biopsies. The individuals had a history of receiving aluminium-containing vaccines, administered months to several years prior to observation of MMF histopathology. +It has been subsequently proposed that macrophagic myofasciitis is in fact a systemic disorder where various diseases develop in association and as consequence of vaccination with aluminium-containing vaccines in susceptible individuals, however, the World Health Organization has concluded that "[t]here is no evidence to suggest that MMF is a specific illness", and that "[t]he current evidence neither establishes nor excludes a generalized disorder affecting other organs." + + +== Description == +According to the WHO, "There is no evidence to suggest that MMF is a specific illness. MMF is a lesion containing aluminium salts, identified by histopathological examination, found at the site of previous vaccination with an aluminium-containing vaccine". + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_motor-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_motor-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..9163bf7de --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_motor-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: "Magnet motor" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_motor" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:37.263393+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +A magnet motor or magnetic motor is a type of perpetual motion machine, which is intended to generate a rotation by means of permanent magnets in stator and rotor without external energy supply. Such a motor is theoretically as well as practically not realizable. The idea of functioning magnetic motors has been promoted by various hobbyists. It can be regarded as pseudoscience. There are frequent references to free energy and sometimes even links to esotericism. +Magnet motors are not to be confused with the commonly used permanent magnet motors, which are powered from an external electrical energy supply. + + +== Working principle == + +A hypothetical magnet motor works with permanent magnets in stator and rotor. By a special arrangement of the attracting and repelling poles, a rotational movement of the rotor is supposedly permanently maintained. Practical implementations fail because there is no substantial energy in magnets that could be employed for propulsion or to compensate for energy losses. The force between permanent magnets is conservative as the magnetic field follows a potential, so that there is no work done over a closed cycle. After a short amount of time, such a motor will stop moving and assume an equilibrium position. +Rationalizations of proponents about the nature of the energy source vary. Some argue with magnetic force only, leaving questions of conservation of energy aside. Some argue that permanent magnets contain stored magnetic energy, which will be consumed by the motor. Such energy that exists is limited to the energy spent during the production of the magnet, which is rather small. Also, this would lead to a rapid reduction of the magnetization over time, which is not observed. Other rationalizations include references to so-called free energy and zero-point energy, without explaining how these energies are liberated. Others claim that their motors could possibly convert heat energy from the environment to mechanical motion (perpetual motion machine of the second kind). + + +== History == + +First ideas of a magnetic motor were put forward by Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt in 1269, who imagined a toothed wheel that is continually moving by the force of magnets. A popular example of a magnet motor, although without rotating axis, was put forward by John Wilkins in 1670: A ramp with a magnet at the top, which pulled a metal ball up the ramp. Near the magnet was a small hole that was supposed to allow the ball to drop under the ramp and return to the bottom, where a flap allowed it to return to the top again. This device was later called the “Simple Magnetic Overunity Toy”. The complete theory of electromagnetism was only formulated by James Clerk Maxwell in 1865, and has been found valid up until today. + +Since the middle of the 20th century, a number of inventors claimed to have constructed various magnet motors. In 1954, German mechanical engineer Friedrich Lüling claimed to have realized a motor which could run with its permanent magnets for 10 to 20 years without interruption. On 8 February 1966, the UFA-Wochenschau reported on the invention. American engineer Howard Johnson filed the U.S. patent 4,151,431 on a permanent magnet motor in 1973, which was granted in 1979. A prototype of his motor was presented in 1980 in the popular scientific Science & Mechanics Magazine. Further magnet motors were designed by the Japanese entertainer Kohei Minato, who applied for patents in 1988, 1997 and 2005. +The European Patent Office has not recognized a patent application for a magnet motor. Starting in 2006, “inventor” Mike Brady and his company Perendev-Group marketed such a motor and was charged with serious fraud in 2010 and sentenced to 5 years and 9 months imprisonment. +In para-scientific circles, the magnet motor is still propagated and construction manuals are still distributed despite the lacking proof of function. In the beginning of the 21st century, the idea of a magnet motor has been increasingly propagated on the internet and a number of fake videos showing pretended running magnet motors have appeared on online video-sharing platforms. Addressing the question, why the magnet motor is still not adopted by the industry, despite its supposedly great potential, conspiracy theories are put forward: Magnet motors would provide free energy for everyone, harm the existing energy industry, and would thus be suppressed. + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_therapy-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_therapy-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1a7d78943 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_therapy-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,57 @@ +--- +title: "Magnet therapy" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_therapy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:38.416476+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Magnetic therapy is a pseudoscientific alternative medicine practice involving the weak static magnetic field produced by a permanent magnet which is placed on the body. It is similar to the alternative medicine practice of electromagnetic therapy, which uses a magnetic field generated by an electrically powered device. Magnet therapy products may include wristbands, jewelry, blankets, and wraps that have magnets incorporated into them. +Practitioners claim that subjecting certain parts of the body to weak electric or magnetic fields has beneficial health effects. These physical and biological claims are unproven and no effects on health or healing have been established. Although hemoglobin, the blood protein that carries oxygen, is weakly diamagnetic (when oxygenated) or paramagnetic (when deoxygenated), the magnets used in magnetic therapy are many orders of magnitude too weak to have any measurable effect on blood flow. +This is not to be confused with transcranial magnetic stimulation, a scientifically valid form of therapy, or with pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. + + +== Methods of application == + +Magnet therapy involves applying the weak magnetic field of permanent magnets to the body, for purported health benefits. Different effects are assigned to different orientations of the magnet. +Products include magnetic bracelets and jewelry; magnetic straps for wrists, ankles, knees, and back; shoe insoles; mattresses; magnetic blankets (blankets with magnets woven into the material); magnetic creams; magnetic supplements; plasters/patches and water that has been "magnetized". These products generally use neodymium and ferrite magnets and the application is usually performed by the patient. +It is similar to the alternative medicine practice of electromagnetic therapy, which uses the weak electric or magnetic fields as well, but generated by electrically powered devices. + + +== Suggested mechanisms of action == +Perhaps the most common suggested mechanism is that magnets might improve blood flow in underlying tissues. The field surrounding magnet therapy devices is far too weak and falls off with distance far too quickly to appreciably affect hemoglobin, other blood components, muscle tissue, bones, blood vessels, or organs. A 1991 study on humans of static field strengths up to 1 T found no effect on local blood flow. Tissue oxygenation is similarly unaffected. Some practitioners claim that the magnets can restore the body's hypothetical "electromagnetic energy balance", but no such balance is medically recognized. Even in the magnetic fields used in magnetic resonance imaging, which are many times stronger, none of the claimed effects are observed. If the body were meaningfully affected by the weak magnets used in magnet therapy, MRI would be impractical. + + +== Efficacy == +Several studies have been conducted in recent years to investigate what role, if any, static magnetic fields may play in health and healing. Unbiased studies of magnetic therapy are problematic, since magnetisation can be easily detected, for instance, by the attraction forces on ferrous (iron-containing) objects; because of this, effective blinding of studies (where neither patients nor assessors know who is receiving treatment versus placebo) is difficult. Incomplete or insufficient blinding tends to exaggerate treatment effects, particularly where any such effects are small. Health claims regarding longevity and cancer treatment are implausible and unsupported by any research. More mundane health claims, most commonly about anecdotal pain relief, also lack any credible proposed mechanism and clinical research is not promising. +The American Cancer Society states that "available scientific evidence does not support these claims". According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, studies of magnetic jewelry have not shown demonstrable effects on pain, nerve function, cell growth or blood flow. +A 2008 systematic review of magnet therapy for all indications found insufficient evidence to determine whether magnet therapy is effective for pain relief, as did 2012 reviews focused on osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. These reviews found that the data was either inconclusive or did not support a significant effect of magnet therapy. They also raised concerns about allocation concealment, small sample sizes, inadequate blinding, and heterogeneity of results, some of which may have biased results. + + +== Safety == +These devices are generally considered safe in themselves, though there can be significant financial and opportunity costs to magnet therapy, especially when treatment or diagnosis are avoided or delayed. Use is not recommended with pacemakers, insulin pumps, and other devices that may be negatively affected by magnetic fields. + + +== Reception == +The worldwide magnet therapy industry totals sales of over a billion dollars per year, including $300 million per year in the United States alone. +A 2002 U.S. National Science Foundation report on public attitudes and understanding of science noted that magnet therapy is "not at all scientific." A number of vendors make unsupported claims about magnet therapy by using pseudoscientific and new-age language. Such claims are unsupported by the results of scientific and clinical studies. + + +=== Legal regulations === +Marketing of any therapy as effective treatment for any condition is heavily restricted by law in many jurisdictions unless all such claims are scientifically validated. In the United States, for example, U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations prohibit marketing any magnet therapy product using medical claims, as such claims are unfounded. + + +== See also == + + +== References == + + +== External links == +Magnetic Therapy: Can magnets alleviate pain? by Cecil Adams — The Straight Dope +Magnetic Therapy: Plausible Attraction? by James D. Livingston — Skeptical Inquirer +Magnet therapy in the Skeptic's Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll +Magnet therapy — editorial in the British Medical Journal +Magnet Therapy: A Skeptical View by Stephen Barrett — Quackwatch \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_water_treatment-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_water_treatment-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..010d6a2b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_water_treatment-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +--- +title: "Magnetic water treatment" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_water_treatment" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:39.552197+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Magnetic water treatment (also known as anti-scale magnetic treatment or AMT) is a disproven method of reducing the effects of hard water by passing it through a magnetic field as a non-chemical alternative to water softening. A 1996 study by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory found no significant effect of magnetic water treatment on the formation of scale. As magnets affect water to a small degree, and water containing ions is more conductive than purer water, magnetic water treatment is an example of a valid scientific hypothesis that failed experimental testing and is thus disproven. Any products claiming to utilize magnetic water treatment are absolutely fraudulent. +Vendors of magnetic water treatment devices frequently use photos and testimonials to support their claims, but omit quantitative detail and well-controlled studies. Advertisements and promotions generally omit system variables, such as corrosion or system mass balance analyticals, as well as measurements of post-treatment water such as concentration of hardness ions or the distribution, structure, and morphology of suspended particles. + + +== See also == +Fouling +Laundry ball +Magnet therapy +Pulsed-power water treatment + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b007744b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: "Male hysteria" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:40.728766+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, hysteria was a common psychiatric diagnosis made primarily in women. The existence and nature of a purported male hysteria (hysteria masculina) was a debated topic around the turn of the century. It was originally believed that men could not suffer from hysteria because of their lack of uterus. This belief was discarded in the 17th century when discourse identified the brain or mind, and not reproductive organs, as the root cause of hysteria. During World War I, hysterical men were diagnosed with shell shock or war neurosis, which later went on to shape modern theories on PTSD. The notion of male hysteria was initially connected to the post-traumatic disorder known as railway spine; later, it became associated with war neurosis. + +== History == +In the second half of the nineteenth century, hysteria was well-established as a diagnosis for certain psychiatric disorders. Although the original anatomical explanation of hysteria, the so-called wandering womb, was by this point abandoned, the diagnoses remained associated with (gender stereotypes of) females and female sexuality in the minds of physicians. Hysteria was joined in 1866 by a diagnosis for a very similar set of symptoms: railway spine, a nervous disorder caused by witnessing the accidents that the dangerous railways of the time generated in large numbers. John Eric Erichsen, who first diagnosed railway spine, explicitly rejected the hysteria diagnosis for his patients. He argued that diagnosing men with hysteria was unreasonable, "this term [being] employed merely to cloak a want of precise knowledge as to the real pathological state". Herbert Page, by contrast, argued for the hysteria label, finding what Erichsen called railway spine a functional disorder that was too similar to hysteria to warrant a separate diagnosis. +The situation gradually began to change: in 1859, Paul Briquet remarked that "we saw little hysteria in men because we did not want to see it", and between 1875 and 1902, some three hundred medical articles were devoted to the topic of male hysteria, as well as dozens of dissertations. + +Statistical work in the 1880s finally turned the conception of hysteria on its head. In 1882, Jean-Martin Charcot had made a "radical" move by citing Briquet's estimate of hysteria having a 1:20 ratio of incidence in males compared to females, and added a section for male sufferers of hysteria to his Paris hospital, the Salpetrière. +A subsequent German study came up with a 1:10 ratio, Georges Gilles de la Tourette then published a 1:2 or 1:3 estimate, and finally Charcot and his student Pierre Marie did a study of 704 cases of patients displaying symptoms of hysteria, finding that 525 of them were males. Before long, the French army became interested in the diagnosis and the nervous condition of its soldiers. Despite the notion of hysterical soldiers clashing with nationalist and revanchist ideas of the time, diagnoses of hysteria were soon made by military medical personnel. Male "traumatic hysteria", as defined by Charcot, was a distinct disease from female hysteria in that it was linked to traumatic shock rather than sexuality or emotional distress, so the gendered stereotyping was still at work to an extent in Charcot's thinking. This new category subsumed what British and American physicians had understood as railway spine. +From Paris, Charcot's theories traveled east, carried by visitors to Charcot's hospital: the Germans Max Nonne and Hermann Oppenheim, and the Austrian Sigmund Freud. Nonne was originally skeptical, but ultimately became a proponent of the male hysteria diagnosis when dealing with the neurotics produced by the First World War. Oppenheim, on the other hand, was critical of Charcot's theories and sought to distinguish "traumatic hysteria" from "traumatic neurosis"; he and his colleague Thomsen found that the symptoms in their cases of railway spine were different enough from what was regarded as the symptoms of hysteria, at least in severity. +Freud, in 1886, gave a paper about the topic of male hysteria to the Imperial Society of Physicians in Vienna. By this point, the incidence of "classical" hysteria in males was accepted by Freud's audience, but Charcot's traumatic variant was still controversial and evoked discussion among the present medical doctors. In later works, Freud would reject Charcot's distinction between the two types of hysteria, arguing that trauma is the cause of hysteria in both men and women, though he broadened the definition of trauma to include repressed memories of sexual experiences, and believed that recalling traumatic memories could cure hysteria. Freud even diagnosed himself and his brother with hysteria, recounting how he faced opposition (and, supposedly, ostracization) from Vienna's doctors, that followed a gendered view of hysteria, mostly based on etymologism. His followers would exhibit a gendered view of hysteria, associating it with latent homosexuality and the Oedipus complex. +In Britain, Charcot's theories took on a different guise when it was suggested that hysteria in men was a disease of the "Latin races", to which Anglo-Saxon men were virtually immune. In Germany, too, a majority of the medical profession rejected Charcot's ideas, and medical journals circulated papers that labeled French men as more prone to hysteria than Teutons – "which, in the context of the time, meant that they were weaker, less virile, and more susceptible to degeneration". An 1889 case study of hysteria in a German soldier gave the French doctors the ammunition they needed for a counterattack. Aside from French and Germans, indigenous inhabitants of various remote regions, colonial populations, Jews and (retroactively) pre-Civil War American slaves were charged with high incidence rates of hysteria by European and white American doctors and anthropologists. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..077a879ac --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +--- +title: "Male hysteria" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:40.728766+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Toward the end of the century, female hysteria became increasingly an anti-suffragist label in the popular press and came under attack from rising feminism, while the wars of the early twentieth century brought new attention to the male variant. The Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War produced hysterical symptoms in veterans in large enough numbers that in 1907 the label "war neurosis" was introduced to describe their specific condition. For the disorders seen in World War I veterans, additional terms such as shell-shock (coined by Charles Samuel Myers), and (in France) pthiatiques and simulateurs were invented to prevent labeling soldiers with the "feminizing" label of hysteria. Charcot's earlier work, meanwhile, was ignored, and shell-shock sufferers were regarded by their physicians as displaying the symptoms of "womanish, homosexual or childish impulses". + +== Shell shock and war neurosis == +Shell shock or war neurosis are forms of hysteria that manifested in soldiers during war time, especially World War I. Symptoms that were previously considered somatic were reconsidered in a new light; trembling, paralysis, nightmares, mutism and apathy were grouped together in a broad spectrum psychological disorder known as "war neurosis". +By 1916 40% of casualties in fighting areas were diagnosed with shell shock. As a consequence twenty more military hospitals were established specifically to treat these sufferers. The physical and emotional symptoms of war neurosis varies based on the military rank of the sufferer. However, sexual impotence stemming from a sense of powerlessness was common to all. Some of the physical symptoms displayed by low ranking officers were: + +paralyses and limps +blindness +deafness +mutism (most common) +limb contractures +vomiting +The symptoms displaying by ranking officers were more emotional/psychological in comparison to their soldiers: + +nightmares +insomnia +fatigue +dizziness and disorientation +anxiety attacks +World War I was the first instance in which a war neurosis and mental trauma was rampant and affected soldiers considerably. This could be attributed to the particular form of fighting – trench warfare – which was impersonal and constantly kept the soldier on edge for the next attack. Eric Leed writes that war neurosis was a result of the breakdown of the previously personal relationship of the soldier and his means of fighting. Rivers considered the idea that the traumatized men resorted to neurotic behavior because of a loss of their usual defense mechanism – physical hand-to-hand combat. +It was especially difficult for officers to maintain British ideals of masculinity. They were expected to be perfectly dressed, always motivated, and have a hunger for enemy blood, even though they were just as afraid and disillusioned as their soldiers. It does not come as surprise that war neurosis occurred four times more in officers than ordinary soldiers. Showalter argues that mental breakdowns of soldiers during the war was a form of protest against pre-conceived notions of Edwardian manliness that demand unifying patriotism and stoic lack of emotion. +Treatment also depended on rank. Soldiers had to undergo disciplinary, quick treatments while officers had the luxury of psychotherapy. + +== Important physicians == + +=== Jean-Martin Charcot === +Charcot was born in 1825 and received his M.D. from the University of Paris in 1853. He was appointed as associate professor of medicine in 1860, followed by a position of Head of Hospital Service at Salpêtrière in 1862. Charcot published over sixty case reports of hysteria in boys and young men between 1878 and 1893. He was dedicated to breaking the stereotype that hysteria manifested in wealthy or homosexual men, and insisted that it occurred in manual laborers as well. He was of the belief that the physical signs and symptoms of hysteria were identical in both sexes but claimed that the condition presented itself differently in the minds of men and women. Most noticeable was that he did not attribute sexual factors to the conditions of his male patients. He was thus able to diagnose men with hysteria because he kept away from theoretically controversial issues such as sexuality. + +=== W.H.R. Rivers === +Rivers was a Royal Army Military Corps physician who was the first Englishman to support Sigmund Freud's work in psychoanalytic theory, and went on to pioneer the British Psychoanalytic Society after the war. He was a supporter of the "talking cure". Rivers' treatment drew heavily from Freud's 'talking cure', because he focused primarily on discussing hidden memories of trauma and dissecting war nightmares. Siegfried Sassoon records that he would record his dreams to be dissected by Rivers. Both Freud and Rivers were united in their conviction that addressing traumatic memories was the only way to give full recovery. + +==== Relationship with Siegfried Sassoon ==== +Sassoon was diagnosed with war neurosis by the military review board following a dramatic anti-war declaration in May 1917. He was ordered to receive treatment at Craiglockheart War Hospital headed by Rivers. It is difficult to tell of Sassoon was truly suffering from war neurosis. Rivers diagnosed him as having a "strong anti-war complex", and thus Rivers set about trying to convince Sassoon to rejoin battle by hinting that pacifism was unpatriotic. Sassoon's interactions with Rivers along with his poetry hinted at a possible homoerotic element in the physician-patient relationship. + +==== Craiglockheart War Hospital ==== +Craiglockheart was the birthplace of innovation in psychoanalytic therapy as evidenced by Rivers' work. Unlike other shell shock hospitals of the time, Craiglockheart allowed officers to engage in therapeutic hobbies such as writing, sports and photography. The hospital magazine, Hydra was a wonderful insight into the minds of lower-ranked officers, physicians and nurses alike – "Within its pages are a series of fascinating and revealing cartoons depicting, among other things, the traumatic nightmares most of those at the hydro suffered, Rivers' mystical reputation, and the often mixed feelings of soldiers on leaving the place". The most famous anti-war poem, Dulce et decorum est, was written at the hospital in 1917 by a renowned poet and war neurosis sufferer, Wilfred Owen. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6a3232541 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Male hysteria" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_hysteria" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:40.728766+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Lewis Yealland === +A Canadian-born medic, Yealland was an aggressive supporter of disciplinary treatment for war neurosis. He worked in Queen's Square during the war and to has been established that he and other medics tortured patients into recovery. He was among the first British physicians to use electric shock treatment and has been criticized heavily for doing so. In Yealland's view, patients were more amenable to the suggestion that they suffered from a physiological disturbance that could be potentially remedied by a physical treatment such as faradism. + +== Representations in popular culture == + +=== Regeneration by Pat Barker === +Regeneration (1991) is the first of a series of novels that deals with the psychological trauma caused by World War I on English officers who fought on the front lines. The plot revolves around the character of Siegfried Sassoon, a decorated officer who is sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh because he is said to be suffering from "Shell Shock". + +=== Redeployment by Phil Klay === +Phil Klay is a graduate of Dartmouth College and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He served in Iraq's Anbar Province from January 2007 to February 2008 as a Public Affairs Officer. Redeployment (2014) is a collection of short stories that transports the readers into the minds of the soldiers in Afghanistan as well as those who have recently returned from the frontline. The book shows the struggle of its characters as they grapple with guilt, hopeless and fear as they try to rationalize life on the front lines and back home. + +== See also == +Female hysteria +Histrionic personality disorder +Vapours (disease) + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f0cf4922e --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +--- +title: "Mars effect" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:41.924157+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Mars effect is a purported statistical correlation between athletic eminence and the position of the planet Mars relative to the horizon at time and place of birth. This controversial finding was first reported by the French psychologist and "neo-astrologer" Michel Gauquelin. In his book L'influence des astres ("The Influence of the Stars", 1955), Gauquelin suggested that a statistically significant number of sports champions were born just after the planet Mars rises or culminates. He also divided the plane of the ecliptic into twelve sectors, identifying two "key" sectors of statistical significance. +Gauquelin's work was accepted by the psychologist Hans Eysenck among others but later attempts to validate the data and replicate the effect have produced uneven results, chiefly owing to disagreements over the selection and analysis of the data set. Since the phenomenon in question depends upon the daily rotation of the Earth, the availability and accuracy of time and place of birth data is crucial to such studies, as is the criterion of "eminence". Later research claims to explain the Mars effect by selection bias, favouring champions who were born in a key sector of Mars and rejecting those who were not from the sample. + +== Reception and replication == +Gauquelin's work was not limited to the Mars effect: his calculations led him first to reject most of the conventions of natal astrology as it is practised in the modern west but he singled out "highly significant statistical correlations between planetary positions and the birth times of eminently successful people." This claim concerned not only Mars but five planets, correlated with eminence in fields broadly compatible with the traditional "planetary rulerships" of astrology. However, partly because eminence in sport is more quantifiable, later research, publicity and controversy has tended to single out the "Mars effect". + +=== Belgian athletes – the Comité Para === +In 1956 Gauquelin invited the Belgian Comité Para to review his findings but it was not until 1962 that Jean Dath corroborated the statistics Gauquelin had presented and suggested an attempt at duplication using Belgian athletes. By this time Gauquelin had published Les Hommes et Les Astres (Men and the Stars, 1960), offering further data. The Comité Para tested the Mars effect in 1967 and replicated it, though most of the data (473 of 535) were still collected by Gauquelin himself. The committee, suspecting that the results might have been an artifact, withheld its findings for a further eight years, then cited unspecified “demographic errors” in its findings. Unpublished internal analyses contradicted this and one committee member, Luc de Marré, resigned in protest. In 1983 Abell, Kurtz and Zelen (see below) published a reappraisal, rejecting the idea of demographic errors, saying, “Gauquelin adequately allowed for demographic and astronomical factors in predicting the expected distribution of Mars sectors for birth times in the general population.” \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0c70307b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +title: "Mars effect" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:41.924157+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== The Zelen test === +In 1975 Paul Kurtz's journal The Humanist published an article on astrology criticizing Gauquelin, to which the latter and his wife Françoise responded. Then Professor Marvin Zelen, a statistician and associate of the recently founded Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP, now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI)), proposed in a 1976 article in the same periodical that, in order to eliminate any demographic anomaly, Gauquelin randomly pick 100 athletes from his data-set of 2,088 and check the birth/planet correlations of a sample of babies born at the same times and places in order to establish a control group, giving the base-rate (chance) expectation for comparison (The 100 random athletes later expanded into a subsample of 303 athletes). +In April 1977 CSICOP researcher George O. Abell wrote to Kurtz stating that Zelen's test had come out in the Gauquelins' favour. The Gauquelins also performed the test that Professor Zelen had proposed and carried out and found that the chance Mars-in-key-sector expectation for the general population (i.e., non-champions) was about 17%, significantly less than the 22% observed for athletic champions. However the subsequent article by Zelen, Abell and Kurtz did not clearly state this outcome but rather questioned the original data. In a rebuttal of the Gauquelins' published conclusion, Marvin Zelen analysed the composition, not of the 17,000 non-champions of the control group, but of the 303 champions, splitting this secondary subsample (which was already nearly too small to test 22% vs 17%) by eliminating female athletes, a subgroup that gave the results most favourable to Gauquelin, and dividing the remaining athletes into city/rural sections and Parisian/non-Parisian sections. +Before and after publication of Zelen's results astronomer and charter CSICOP member Dennis Rawlins, the CSICOP Council's only astronomer at the time, repeatedly objected to the procedure and to CSICOP's subsequent reporting of it. Rawlins privately urged that the Gauquelins' results were valid and the “Zelen test” could only uphold this and that Zelen had diverted from the original purpose of the control test, which was to check the base rate of births with Mars in the "key" sectors. It appeared to him that the test had minimised the significance of the Mars/key-sector correlations with athletes by splitting the sample of athletes and that the experimenters, who were supposed to be upholding scientific standards, were actually distorting and manipulating evidence to conceal the result of an ill-considered test. +The Kurtz-Zelen-Abell analysis had split the sample primarily to examine the randomness of the 303 selected champions, the non-randomness of which Rawlins demonstrated in 1975 and 1977. Zelen's 1976 "Challenge to Gauquelin" had stated: "We now have an objective way for unambiguous corroboration or disconfirmation ... to settle this question", whereas this aim was now disputed. Rawlins made procedural objections, stating; "... we find an inverse correlation between size and deviation in the Mars-athletes subsamples (that is, the smaller the subsample, the larger the success) – which is what one would expect if bias had infected the blocking off of the sizes of the subsamples". +CSICOP also contended, after reviewing the results, that the Gauquelins had not chosen randomly. They had had difficulty finding sufficient same-week and same-village births to compare with champions born in rural areas and so had chosen only champions born in larger cities. The Gauquelins' original total list of about 2,088 champions had included 42 Parisians and their subsample of 303 athletes also included 42 Parisians. Further, Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements, different economic classes and ethnic groups typically inhabiting different arrondissements. The Gauquelins had compared the 42 Parisian champions (who had been born throughout Paris) to non-champions of only one arrondissement. If the 22% correlation was an artifact partly based on factors such as rural recordkeeping, economic, class or ethnic differences in birth patterns, this fact would be blurred by this non-random selection. + +=== U.S. athletes – CSICOP === +At the same time CSICOP began a study of U.S. athletes in consultation with Zelen, Abell and Rawlins. The results, published in 1979 showed a negative result. Gauquelin contended the KZA group demonstrated an overall preference for mediocre athletes and ignored his criteria of eminence and that they included basketball players and people born after 1950. + +=== CFEPP test === +In 1994 the results of a major study undertaken by the Committee for the Study of Paranormal Phenomena (Comité pour l’Étude des Phénomènes Paranormaux, or CFEPP) in France found no evidence whatsoever of a "Mars Effect" in the births of athletes. The study had been proposed in 1982 and the committee had agreed in advance to use the protocol upon which Gauquelin insisted. The CFEPP report was “leaked” to the Dutch newspaper Trouw. +In 1990 the CFEPP had issued a preliminary report on the study, which used 1,066 French sports champions, giving full data for the 1,066 as well as the names of 373 who fit the criteria but for whom birth times were unavailable, discussing methodology and listing data-selection criteria. In 1996 the report, with a commentary by J. W. Nienhuys and several letters from Gauquelin to the committee, was published in book form as The Mars Effect – A French Test of Over 1,000 Sports Champions. The CFEPP stated that its experiment showed no effect and concluded that the effect was attributable to bias in Gauquelin's data selection, pointing to the suggestions made by Gauquelin to the committee for changes in their list of athletes. The CFEPP report was criticized by Suitbert Ertel on similar grounds as the American study – for including too many mediocre athletes – and also for using a too high chance-expectancy level. According to Ertel, a Mars effect could be detected by dividing the athletes into groups of eminence grading. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..cfddea532 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +title: "Mars effect" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_effect" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:41.924157+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Statistical explanation === +Some researchers argued that Gauquelin did not adjust the statistical significance of the Mars Effect for multiple comparisons and did not address the issue in his publications. Simplified and illustrative showcase argument is explained here: There are 10 celestial bodies and 12 sectors for them to be in. Furthermore, there are 132 combinations of sector pairs and thus 1320 different combinations of a planet with two sectors. There is about a 25% chance to find at least one such combination (of one planet and two sectors) for a random dataset of the same size as Gauquelin's that would yield a result with apparent statistical significance like the one obtained by Gauquelin. This implies that after adjusting for multiple comparisons, the Mars effect is no longer statistically significant even at the modest significance level of 0.05 and is probably a false positive. But the multiple comparisons argument is countered or weakened if it is proven that an effect shows up in more than one study. Some argue that the latter is the case. +Geoffrey Dean has suggested that the effect may be caused by self-reporting of birth dates by parents rather than any issue with the study by Gauquelin. Gauquelin had failed to find the Mars effect in populations after 1950. Dean has put forward the idea that this may be due to increases in doctors reporting the time of birth rather than parents. Information about misreporting was unavailable to Gauquelin at the time. Dean had said that misreporting by 3% of the sample would explain the result. + +== See also == +Scientific skepticism +Outliers: The Story of Success - offers a simple explanation to a specific known relationship between season of birth and success in Canadian hockey leagues + +== References == + +== Further reading == +George O. Abell, Paul Kurtz, and Marvin Zelen (1983). The Abell-Kurtz-Zelen "Mars Effect" Experiments: A Reappraisal, Skeptical Inquirer Vol 7 #3, Fall 1983, 77–82. +Michel Gauquelin (1969). The Scientific Basis for Astrology. Stein and Day Publishers. New York, 1969. Paperback version: Natl Book Network, 1970 ISBN 0-8128-1350-2. +Paul Kurtz, Marvin Zelen, and George O. Abell (1979). Response to the Gauquelins, Skeptical Inquirer, Vol 4 #2, Winter 1979–80, 44–63. +de Jager, C (1990), "Science Fringe Science and Pseudo-Science", R.A.S. Quarterly Journal, 31 (1/MAR): 40–43, Bibcode:1990QJRAS..31...31D \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_astrology-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_astrology-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..28f621c29 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_astrology-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: "Medical astrology" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_astrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:43.106242+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Medical astrology or astrological medicine (traditionally known as iatromathematics) is an ancient applied branch of astrology based mostly on melothesia (Gr. μελοθεσία), the association of various parts of the body, diseases, and drugs with the nature of the sun, moon, planets, and the twelve astrological signs. The underlying basis for medical astrology is considered to be a pseudoscience as there is no scientific basis for its core beliefs. +Hippocratic Greek medical training included a doctrine of dies decretorii ("critical days"). Galen believed that heavenly bodies influenced human life but he had his misgivings about the predictions made by "horoscope-casters" (genethliakoi). Astrology was however considered as a foundation for medical practice in ancient Greece and Arabia. In Italy astrological studies as part of a training for medicine was routine in Bologna. The training was not that strong in England but in medical practice astrological circumstances were claimed in cases to absolve surgeons of any blame. In England, Robert Fludd in his Medicina Catholica (Frankfort, 1629) noted that medicine, theology, and astrology formed a single unified discipline. Astrological medicine declined after the 17th century but there were calls for its renewal in 1928 by Rudyard Kipling who considered modern medicine too narrow. + + +== List of works == +Medical astrology was mentioned by Marcus Manilius (1st century AD) in his epic poem (8000 verses) Astronomica. +Ficino, Marsilio, Three Books on Life (1489) [De vita libri tre] translated by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton and The Rneaissance Society of America (1989.) ISBN 0-86698-041-5 +Lilly, William, Christian Astrology (1647) +Culpepper, Nicholas, Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick (1655) ISBN 1-5381-0113-0 +Saunders, Richard, The Astrological Judgment and Practice of Physick (1677) ISBN 1-161-41322-7 +Cornell, H.L., M.D., The Encyclopaedia of Medical Astrology (1933), Astrology Classics [Abington, MD, 2010.] + + +== References == + + +=== Bibliography === +Greenbaum, Dorian Gieseler (2015). "Astronomy, Astrology, and Medicine". Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy. pp. 117–132. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_19. ISBN 978-1-4614-6140-1. This chapter covers the topic of astronomy, astrology, and medicine from the Old Babylonian period to the Enlightenment. +Harrison, Mark (2000). "From medical astrology to medical astronomy: Sol-lunar and planetary theories of disease in British medicine, c. 1700–1850". The British Journal for the History of Science. 33 (116 Pt 1): 25–48. doi:10.1017/S0007087499003854. PMID 11624340. S2CID 22247498. +Resor, C. W. (June 3, 2020). "The Zodiac Man: How Astrology Guided Health Care". Primary Source Bazaar. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_intuitive-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_intuitive-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3ea812cde --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_intuitive-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: "Medical intuitive" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_intuitive" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:44.275517+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +A medical intuitive is an alternative medicine practitioner who is purported to be able to use their intuitive abilities to find the cause of a physical or emotional condition through the use of insight rather than modern medicine. Other terms for such a person include medical clairvoyant or medical psychic. + + +== History == +The practice of claiming to use intuition or clairvoyance for medical information dates back to Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866), whose intuitive healing practice began in 1854. Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) was known as one of the most well known medical clairvoyants. William M. Branham, the father of the Pentecostal Latter Rain Movement, was said by his followers to be able to discern the health condition of people that attended his services, and in many cases heal them of their affliction. + + +== Reception == +Making a formal medical diagnosis is not a practice for many medical intuitives. In a few cases medical intuitives have been hired by hospitals, clinics and medical offices, particularly in California. Many medical professionals and psychologists attribute perceived anecdotal successes by medical intuitives to a combination of wishful thinking, confirmation bias, the placebo effect, and regression fallacy associated with self-limiting conditions. +A few educational institutions offer graduate degrees that include "research-based training" and certifications for medical intuitives. Other medical intuitives may be licensed medical professionals and their ability to accurately diagnose diseases and heal may not be supported by scientific evidence. +In 2009 Steven Novella, writing on Science Based Medicine, calls medical intuitive diagnosis as "purely magical thinking" and refers to a Huffington Post article about it as "a promotion of a dubious pseudoscientific medical claim". + + +== See also == +Energy medicine +Faith healing +Psychic + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e529c836d --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 1/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spirit channelling, including séance tables, trance, and ouija. The practice is associated with spiritualism and spiritism. A similar New Age practice is known as channeling. +Belief in psychic ability is widespread despite the absence of empirical evidence for its existence. Scientific researchers have attempted to ascertain the validity of claims of mediumship for more than one hundred years and have consistently failed to confirm them. As late as 2005, an experiment undertaken by the British Psychological Society reaffirmed that test subjects who self-identified as mediums demonstrated no mediumistic ability. +Mediumship gained popularity during the nineteenth century when ouija boards were used as a source of entertainment. Investigations during this period revealed widespread fraud—with some practitioners employing techniques used by stage magicians—and the practice began to lose credibility. Fraud is still rife in the medium or psychic industry, with cases of deception and trickery being discovered to this day. +Several different variants of mediumship have been described; arguably the best-known forms involve a spirit purportedly taking control of a medium's voice and using it to relay a message, or where the medium simply "hears" the message and passes it on. Other forms involve materializations of the spirit or the presence of a voice, and telekinetic activity. + +== Concept == + +In Spiritism and Spiritualism the medium has the role of an intermediary between the world of the living and the world of spirit. Mediums say that they can listen to and relay messages from spirits, or that they can allow a spirit to control their body and speak through it directly or by using automatic writing or drawing. +Spiritualists classify types of mediumship into two main categories: "mental" and "physical": + +Mental mediums purportedly "tune in" to the spirit world by listening, sensing, or seeing spirits or symbols. +Physical mediums are believed to produce the materialization of spirits, apports of objects, and other effects such as knocking, rapping, bell-ringing, etc. by using "ectoplasm" created from the cells of their bodies and those of séance attendees. +During seances, mediums are said to go into trances, varying from light to deep, that permit spirits to control their minds. +Channeling can be seen as the modern form of the old mediumship, where the "channel" (or channeller) purportedly receives messages from "teaching-spirit", an "Ascended master", from God, or from an angelic entity, but essentially through the filter of his own waking consciousness (or "Higher Self"). + +== History == +Attempts to communicate with the dead and other living human beings, aka spirits, have been documented back to early human history, such as the Biblical account of the Witch of Endor. +Mediumship became quite popular in the 19th-century United States and the United Kingdom after the rise of Spiritualism as a religious movement. Modern Spiritualism is said to date from practices and lectures of the Fox sisters in New York State in 1848. The trance mediums Paschal Beverly Randolph and Emma Hardinge Britten were among the most celebrated lecturers and authors on the subject in the mid-19th century. Allan Kardec coined the term Spiritism around 1860. Kardec wrote that conversations with spirits by selected mediums were the basis of his The Spirits' Book and later, his five-book collection, Spiritist Codification. +Some scientists of the period who investigated Spiritualism also became converts. They included chemist Robert Hare, physicist William Crookes (1832–1919) and evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913). Nobel laureate Pierre Curie took a very serious scientific interest in the work of medium Eusapia Palladino. Other prominent adherents included journalist and pacifist William T. Stead (1849–1912) and physician and author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930). +After the exposure of the fraudulent use of stage magic tricks by physical mediums such as the Davenport Brothers and the Bangs Sisters, mediumship fell into disrepute. However, the religion and its beliefs continue in spite of this, with physical mediumship and seances falling out of practice and platform mediumship coming to the fore. +In the late 1920s and early 1930s there were around one quarter of a million practising Spiritualists and some two thousand Spiritualist societies in the UK in addition to flourishing microcultures of platform mediumship and 'home circles'. Spiritualism continues to be practised, primarily through various denominational Spiritualist churches in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, over 340 Spiritualist churches and centres open their doors to the public and free demonstrations of mediumship are regularly performed. + +== Terminology == + +=== Spirit guide === + +In 1958, American Spiritualist C. Dorreen Phillips wrote of her experiences with a medium at Camp Chesterfield, Indiana: "In Rev. James Laughton's séances there are many Indians. They are very noisy and appear to have great power. [...] The little guides, or doorkeepers, are usually Indian boys and girls [who act] as messengers who help to locate the spirit friends who wish to speak with you." + +=== Spirit operator === +A spirit who uses a medium to manipulate psychic "energy" or "energy systems." + +=== Demonstrations of mediumship === + +In old-line Spiritualism, a portion of the services, generally toward the end, is given over to demonstrations of mediumship through purported contact with the spirits of the dead. A typical example of this way of describing a mediumistic church service is found in the 1958 autobiography of C. Dorreen Phillips. She writes of the worship services at the Spiritualist Camp Chesterfield in Chesterfield, Indiana: "Services are held each afternoon, consisting of hymns, a lecture on philosophy, and demonstrations of mediumship." +Today "demonstration of mediumship" is part of the church service at all churches affiliated with the National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC) and the Spiritualists' National Union (SNU). Demonstration links to NSAC's Declaration of Principal #9. "We affirm that the precepts of Prophecy and Healing are Divine attributes proven through Mediumship." \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..815c29242 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 2/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Mental mediumship === +"Mental mediumship" is communication of spirits with a medium by telepathy. The medium mentally "hears" (clairaudience), "sees" (clairvoyance), and/or feels (clairsentience) messages from spirits. Directly or with the help of a spirit guide, the medium passes the information on to the message's recipient(s). When a medium is doing a "reading" for a particular person, that person is known as the "sitter". + +=== Trance mediumship === +In the 1860s and 1870s, trance mediums, also known as trance speakers, were very popular; this allowed female adherents, many who had strong interests in social justice, to speak in public in an era where doing so went against existing social norms. Many trance mediums delivered passionate speeches on abolitionism, temperance, and women's suffrage. Scholars have described Leonora Piper as one of the most famous trance mediums in the history of Spiritualism. +Trance speakers believed that entering a trance gave them access to the spirits and, through them, to knowledge inaccessible in the waking world. Sometimes an assistant would write down the medium's words, such as in the early 20th century collaboration between the trance medium Mrs. Cecil M. Cook of the William T. Stead Memorial Center in Chicago (a religious body incorporated under the statutes of the State of Illinois) and the journalist Lloyd Kenyon Jones. The latter was a non-medium Spiritualist who transcribed Cook's messages in shorthand. He edited them for publication in book and pamphlet form. + +Castillo (1995) states, Trance phenomena result from the behavior of intense focusing of attention, which is the key psychological mechanism of trance induction. Adaptive responses, including institutionalized forms of trance, are 'tuned' into neural networks in the brain. + +=== Physical mediumship === + +Physical mediumship is defined as manipulation of energies and energy systems by spirits. This type of mediumship is said to involve perceptible manifestations, such as loud raps and noises, voices, materialized objects, apports, materialized spirit bodies, or body parts such as hands, legs and feet. The medium is used as a source of power for such spirit manifestations. By some accounts, this was achieved by using the energy or ectoplasm released by a medium, see spirit photography. The last physical medium to be tested by a committee from Scientific American was Mina Crandon in 1924. +Most physical mediumship is presented in a darkened or dimly lit room. Most physical mediums make use of a traditional array of tools and appurtenances, including spirit trumpets, spirit cabinets, and levitation tables. + +=== Direct voice === +Direct voice communication refers to the hypothesis that spirits speak independently of the medium, who facilitates the phenomenon rather than produces it. The role of the medium is to make the connection between the physical and spirit worlds. Trumpets are often utilised to amplify the signal, and directed voice mediums are sometimes known as "trumpet mediums". This form of mediumship also permits the medium to participate in the discourse during séances, since the medium's voice is not required by the spirit to communicate. Leslie Flint was one of the best known exponents of this form of mediumship. + +== Psychic senses == + +Senses used by mental mediums are sometimes defined differently from in other paranormal fields. A medium is said to have psychic abilities but not all psychics function as mediums. The term clairvoyance, for instance, may include seeing spirit and visions instilled by the spirit world. The Parapsychological Association defines "clairvoyance" as information derived directly from an external physical source. + +Clairvoyance or "clear seeing", is the ability to see anything that is not physically present, such as objects, animals or people. This sight occurs "in the mind's eye". Some mediums say that this is their normal vision state. Others say that they must train their minds with such practices as meditation in order to achieve this ability, and that assistance from spiritual helpers is often necessary. Some clairvoyant mediums can see a spirit as though the spirit has a physical body. They see the bodily form as if it were physically present. Other mediums see the spirit in their mind's eye, or it appears as a movie or a television programme or a still picture like a photograph in their mind. +Clairaudience or "clear hearing", is usually defined as the ability to hear the voices or thoughts of spirits. Some mediums hear as though they are listening to a person talking to them on the outside of their head, as though the Spirit is next to or near to the medium, and other mediums hear the voices in their minds as a verbal thought. +Clairsentience or "clear sensing", is the ability to have an impression of what a spirit wants to communicate, or to feel sensations instilled by a spirit. +Clairsentinence or "clear feeling" is a condition in which the medium takes on the ailments of a spirit, feeling the same physical problem which the spirit person had before death. +Clairalience or "clear smelling" is the ability to smell a spirit. For example, a medium may smell the pipe tobacco of a person who smoked during life. +Clairgustance or "clear tasting" is the ability to receive taste impressions from a spirit. +Claircognizance or "clear knowing", is the ability to know something without receiving it through normal or psychic senses. It is a feeling of "just knowing". Often, a medium will say that they have a feeling that a message or situation is "right" or "wrong." + +== Explanations == + +=== Paranormal belief === +Spiritualists believe that phenomena produced by mediums (both mental and physical mediumship) are the result of external spirit agencies. The psychical researcher Thomson Jay Hudson in The Law of Psychic Phenomena (1892) and Théodore Flournoy in his book Spiritism and Psychology (1911) wrote that all kinds of mediumship could be explained by suggestion and telepathy from the medium and that there was no evidence for the spirit hypothesis. The idea of mediumship being explained by telepathy was later merged into the "super-ESP" hypothesis of mediumship which is currently advocated by some parapsychologists. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-10.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-10.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b91457258 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-10.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 11/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The British journalist Ruth Brandon published the book The Spiritualists (1983) which exposed the fraud of the Victorian mediums. The book received positive reviews and has been influential to skeptics of spiritualism. The British apport medium Paul McElhoney was exposed as a fraud during a séance in Osset, Yorkshire in 1983. The tape recorder that McElhoney took to his séances was investigated and a black tape was discovered bound around the battery compartment and inside carnation flowers were found as well as a key-ring torch and other objects. +In 1988, the magician Bob Couttie criticized the paranormal author Brian Inglis for deliberately ignoring evidence of fraud in mediumship. Couttie wrote Inglis had not familiarized himself with magician techniques. In 1990 the researcher Gordon Stein discovered that the levitation photograph of the medium Carmine Mirabelli was fraudulent. The photograph was a trick as there were signs of chemical retouching under Mirabelli's feet. The retouching showed that Mirabelli was not levitating but was standing on a ladder which was erased from the photograph. +In 1991, Wendy Grossman in the New Scientist criticized the parapsychologist Stephen E. Braude for ignoring evidence of fraud in mediumship. According to Grossman "[Braude] accuses sceptics of ignoring the evidence he believes is solid, but himself ignores evidence that does not suit him. If a medium was caught cheating on some occasions, he says, the rest of that medium's phenomena were still genuine." Grossman came to the conclusion that Braude did not do proper research on the subject and should study "the art of conjuring." +In 1992, Richard Wiseman analyzed the Feilding report of Eusapia Palladino and argued that she employed a secret accomplice that could enter the room by a fake door panel positioned near the séance cabinet. Wiseman discovered this trick was already mentioned in a book from 1851, he also visited a carpenter and skilled magician who constructed a door within an hour with a false panel. The accomplice was suspected to be her second husband, who insisted on bringing Palladino to the hotel where the séances took place. Massimo Polidoro and Gian Marco Rinaldi also analyzed the Feilding report but came to the conclusion no secret accomplice was needed as Palladino during the 1908 Naples séances could have produced the phenomena by using her foot. +Colin Fry was exposed in 1992 when during a séance the lights were unexpectedly turned on and he was seen holding a spirit trumpet in the air, which the audience had been led to believe was being levitated by spiritual energy. In 1997, Massimo Polidoro and Luigi Garlaschelli produced wax-moulds directly from one's hand which were exactly the same copies as Gustav Geley obtained from Franek Kluski, which are kept at the Institute Metapsychique International. + +A series of mediumistic séances known as the Scole Experiment took place between 1993 and 1998 in the presence of the researchers David Fontana, Arthur Ellison and Montague Keen. This has produced photographs, audio recordings and physical objects which appeared in the dark séance room (known as apports). A criticism of the experiment was that it was flawed because it did not rule out the possibility of fraud. The skeptical investigator Brian Dunning wrote the Scole experiments fail in many ways. The séances were held in the basement of two of the mediums, only total darkness was allowed with no night vision apparatus as it might "frighten the spirits away". The box containing the film was not examined and could easily have been accessible to fraud. And finally, even though many years have passed, there has been no follow-up, no further research by any credible agency or published accounts. + +=== Recent === + +The VERITAS Research Program of the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona, run by the parapsychologist Gary Schwartz, was created primarily to test the hypothesis that the consciousness (or identity) of a person survives physical death. Schwartz claimed his experiments were indicative of survival, but do not yet provide conclusive proof. The experiments described by Schwartz have received criticism from the scientific community for being inadequately designed and using poor controls. +Ray Hyman discovered many methodological errors with Schwartz's research including; "Inappropriate control comparisons", "Failure to use double-blind procedures", "Creating non-falsifiable outcomes by reinterpreting failures as successes" and "Failure to independently check on facts the sitters endorsed as true". Hyman wrote "Even if the research program were not compromised by these defects, the claims being made would require replication by independent investigators." Hyman criticizes Schwartz's decision to publish his results without gathering "evidence for their hypothesis that would meet generally accepted scientific criteria... they have lost credibility." +In 2003, skeptic investigator Massimo Polidoro in his book Secrets of the Psychics documented the history of fraud in mediumship and spiritualistic practices as well as the psychology of psychic deception. Terence Hines in his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003) has written: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-11.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-11.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..252765559 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-11.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 12/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Modern spiritualists and psychics keep detailed files on their victims. As might be expected, these files can be very valuable and are often passed on from one medium or psychic to another when one retires or dies. Even if a psychic doesn't use a private detective or have immediate access to driver's license records and such, there is still a very powerful technique that will allow the psychic to convince people that the psychic knows all about them, their problems, and their deep personal secrets, fears, and desires. The technique is called cold reading and is probably as old as charlatanism itself... If John Edward (or any of the other self-proclaimed speakers with the dead) really could communicate with the dead, it would be a trivial matter to prove it. All that would be necessary would be for him to contact any of the thousands of missing persons who are presumed dead—famous (e.g., Jimmy Hoffa, Judge Crater) or otherwise—and correctly report where the body is. Of course, this is never done. All we get, instead, are platitudes to the effect that Aunt Millie, who liked green plates, is happy on the other side. +An experiment conducted by the British Psychological Society in 2005 suggests that under the controlled condition of the experiment, people who claimed to be professional mediums do not demonstrate the mediumistic ability. In the experiment, mediums were assigned to work the participants chosen to be "sitters." The mediums claimed to contact the deceased who were related to the sitters. The research gather the numbers of the statements made and have the sitters rate the accuracy of the statements. The readings that were considered to be somewhat accurate by the sitters were very generalized, and the ones that were considered inaccurate were the ones that were very specific. +On Fox News on the Geraldo at Large show, October 6, 2007, Geraldo Rivera and other investigators accused Schwartz of being a fraud as he had overstepped his position as a university researcher by requesting over three million dollars from a bereaved father who had lost his son. Schwartz claimed to have contacted the spirit of a 25-year-old man in the bathroom of his parents house and it is alleged he attempted to charge the family 3.5 million dollars for his mediumship services. Schwartz responded saying that the allegations were set up to destroy his science credibility. +In 2013 Rose Marks and members of her family were convicted of fraud for a series of crimes spanning 20 years entailing between $20 and $45 million. They told vulnerable clients that to solve their problems they had to give the purported psychics money and valuables. Marks and family promised to return the cash and goods after "cleansing" them. Prosecutors established they had no intent to return the property. +The exposures of fraudulent activity led to a rapid decline in ectoplasm and materialization séances. Investigator Joe Nickell has written that modern self-proclaimed mediums like John Edward, Sylvia Browne, Rosemary Altea and James Van Praagh are avoiding the Victorian tradition of dark rooms, spirit handwriting and flying tambourines as these methods risk exposure. They instead use "mental mediumship" tactics like cold reading or gleaning information from sitters beforehand (hot reading). Group readings also improve hits by making general statements with conviction, which will fit at least one person in the audience. Shows are carefully edited before airing to show only what appears to be hits and removing anything that does not reflect well on the medium. +Michael Shermer criticized mediums in Scientific American, saying, "mediums are unethical and dangerous: they prey on the emotions of the grieving. As grief counselors know, death is best faced head-on as a part of life." Shermer wrote that the human urge to seek connections between events that may form patterns meaningful for survival is a function of natural evolution, and called the alleged ability of mediums to talk to the dead "a well-known illusion of a meaningful pattern." +According to James Randi, a skeptic who has debunked many claims of psychic ability and uncovered fraudulent practices, mediums who do cold readings "fish, suggest possibilities, make educated guesses and give options." Randi offered $1 million US dollars for anyone who could demonstrate psychic ability under controlled conditions. Most prominent psychics and mediums did not take up his offer. +The key role in mediumship of this sort is played by "effect of subjective confirmation" (see Barnum effect)—people are predisposed to consider reliable that information which though is casual coincidence or a guess, however it seems to them personally important and significant and answers their personal belief. +The article about this phenomenon in Encyclopædia Britannica places emphasis that "... one by one spiritual mediums were convicted of fraud, sometimes using the tricks borrowed from scenic "magicians" to convince their paranormal abilities". In the article it is also noted that "... the opening of the wide ranging fraud happening on spiritualistic sessions caused serious damage to reputation of the movement of a Spiritualism and in the USA pushed it on the public periphery". +In March 2017, medium Thomas John was targeted in a sting operation and caught doing a hot reading. The sting was planned and implemented by skeptical activist Susan Gerbic and mentalist Mark Edward. The unmarried couple attended John's show using aliases, and were "read" as a married couple Susanna and Mark Wilson by John. During the entire reading, John failed to determine the actual identities of Gerbic and Edward, or that they were being deceptive during his reading. All personal information he gave them matched what was on their falsified Facebook accounts, rather than being about their actual lives, and John pretended he was getting this information from Gerbic and Edward's supposedly dead—but actually nonexistent—relatives. +As Jack Hitt reported in The New York Times: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-12.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-12.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ccbb956d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-12.md @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 13/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +"Over the course of the reading, John comfortably laid down the specifics of Susanna Wilson’s life — he named “Andy” and amazingly knew him to be her twin. He knew that she and her brother grew up in Michigan and that his girlfriend was Maria. He knew about Susanna’s father-in-law and how he died." +These details were from the falsified Facebook accounts for the pair which were prepared by a group of skeptics in advance of the reading, and Gerbic and Edward were not aware of the specific information in these accounts. This blinding was done in order to avoid John later being able to claim he obtained the false information by reading Gerbic and Edward's minds. In her report, Gerbic also revealed that during an after-show private event, John disclosed in a group setting that at least one of the people in the audience which he did a reading about was actually his own student. +The same week that the Thomas John sting revelation was made in The New York Times, John's claimed mediumship abilities portrayed in the Lifetime reality TV show called Seatbelt Psychic were challenged by Gerbic in an article published by Skeptical Inquirer. In the show, John is a ride-share driver who surprises "unsuspecting" passengers when he delivers messages from their deceased relatives. Gerbic investigated and revealed that John's passengers are actually actors, several of which are documented in IMDb. Gerbic concluded that the riders were likely hired to ride with John, but were probably not acting when talking with him. She concluded that the details about their lives mentioned by John were easily found on social media sources, and likely fed to John, making the readings actually hot readings. One rider, Wendy Westmoreland, played a character on Stalked by a Doctor, a TV show also produced by Lifetime. + +== See also == +Automatic writing +Faith healing +List of channelers +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience +Séance +Spirit possession +Spiritualism + +== References == + +== Further reading == +Edward Clodd. (1917). The Question: A Brief History and Examination of Modern Spiritualism. Grant Richards, London. +Stuart Cumberland. (1919). Spiritualism: The Inside Truth. London: Odhams. +Joseph Dunninger. (1935). Inside the Medium's Cabinet. New York, D. Kemp and Company. +Willis Dutcher. (1922). On the Other Side of the Footlights: An Expose of Routines, Apparatus and Deceptions Resorted to by Mediums, Clairvoyants, Fortune Tellers and Crystal Gazers in Deluding the Public. Berlin, WI: Heaney Magic. +Walter Mann. (1919). The Follies and Frauds of Spiritualism. Rationalist Association. London: Watts & Co. +Joseph McCabe. (1920). Scientific Men and Spiritualism: A Skeptic's Analysis. The Living Age. June 12. pp. 652–57. A skeptical look at SPR members who had supported Spiritualism, concludes they were duped by fraudulent mediums. +Joseph McCabe. (1920). Is Spiritualism Based On Fraud? The Evidence Given By Sir A. C. Doyle and Others Drastically Examined. London: Watts & Co. +Georgess McHargue. (1972). Facts, Frauds, and Phantasms: A Survey of the Spiritualist Movement. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-05305-1 +Alex Owen. (2004). The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-64205-5 +Frank Podmore. (1911). The Newer Spiritualism. Henry Holt and Company. +Massimo Polidoro. (2003). Secrets of the Psychics: Investigating Paranormal Claims. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-59102-086-8 +Harry Price and Eric Dingwall. (1975). Revelations of a Spirit Medium. Arno Press. Reprint of 1891 edition by Charles F. Pidgeon. This rare, overlooked, and forgotten, book gives the "insider's knowledge" of 19th century deceptions. +Joseph Rinn. (1950). Sixty Years Of Psychical Research: Houdini And I Among The Spiritualists. Truth Seeker. +Chung Ling Soo. (1898). Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena. Munn & Company. +Richard Wiseman. (1997). Deception & Self-Deception: Investigating Psychics. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-57392-121-3 + +== External links == +Houdini v. The Blond Witch of Lime Street: A Historical Lesson in Skepticism – Massimo Polidoro +How to Have a Séance: Tricks of the Fraudulent Mediums Archived 2012-06-23 at the Wayback Machine +John Edward: Hustling the Bereaved – Joe Nickell +Mediumship – Skeptic's Dictionary +The 'Medium' Is Not the Messenger – James Randi +Tricks of Fake Mediums – Harry Houdini +Psychic Methods Exposed - Cold Reading Tricks +Psychics: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d4814b4fa --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 3/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Scientific skepticism === +In their book How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age, authors Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn have noted that the spiritualist and ESP hypothesis of mediumship "has yielded no novel predictions, assumes unknown entities or forces, and conflicts with available scientific evidence." +Scientists who study anomalistic psychology consider mediumship to be the result of fraud and psychological factors. Research from psychology for over a hundred years suggests that where there is not fraud, mediumship and Spiritualist practices can be explained by hypnotism, magical thinking and suggestion. Trance mediumship, which according to Spiritualists is caused by discarnate spirits speaking through the medium, can be explained by dissociative identity disorder. +Illusionists, such as Joseph Rinn have staged fake séances in which the sitters have claimed to have observed genuine supernatural phenomena. Albert Moll studied the psychology of séance sitters. According to (Wolffram, 2012) "[Moll] argued that the hypnotic atmosphere of the darkened séance room and the suggestive effect of the experimenters' social and scientific prestige could be used to explain why seemingly rational people vouchsafed occult phenomena." The psychologists Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones in their book Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking (1989) wrote that spirits controls are the "products of the medium's own psychological dynamics." +A fraudulent medium may obtain information about their sitters by secretly eavesdropping on sitter's conversations or searching telephone directories, the internet and newspapers before the sittings. A technique called cold reading can also be used to obtain information from the sitter's behavior, clothing, posture, and jewellery. +The psychologist Richard Wiseman has written: + +Cold reading also explains why psychics have consistently failed scientific tests of their powers. By isolating them from their clients, psychics are unable to pick up information from the way those clients dress or behave. By presenting all of the volunteers involved in the test with all of the readings, they are prevented from attributing meaning to their own reading, and therefore can't identify it from readings made for others. As a result, the type of highly successful hit rate that psychics enjoy on a daily basis comes crashing down and the truth emerges—their success depends on a fascinating application of psychology and not the existence of paranormal abilities. +In a series of experiments holding fake séances, (Wiseman et al. 2003) paranormal believers and disbelievers were suggested by an actor that a table was levitating when, in fact, it remained stationary. After the seance, approximately one third of the participants incorrectly reported that the table had moved. The results showed a greater percentage of believers reporting that the table had moved. In another experiment the believers had also reported that a handbell had moved when it had remained stationary and expressed their belief that the fake séances contained genuine paranormal phenomena. The experiments strongly supported the notion that in the séance room, believers are more suggestible than disbelievers for suggestions that are consistent with their belief in paranormal phenomena. +In a 2019 television segment on Last Week Tonight featuring prominent purported mediums including Theresa Caputo, John Edward, Tyler Henry, and Sylvia Browne, John Oliver criticized the media for promoting mediums because this exposure convinces viewers that such powers are real, and so enable neighborhood mediums to prey on grieving families. Oliver said "...when psychic abilities are presented as authentic, it emboldens a vast underworld of unscrupulous vultures, more than happy to make money by offering an open line to the afterlife, as well as many other bullshit services." + +== Fraud == + +From its earliest beginnings to contemporary times, mediumship practices have had many instances of fraud and trickery. Séances take place in darkness so the poor lighting conditions can become an easy opportunity for fraud. Physical mediumship that has been investigated by scientists has been discovered to be the result of deception and trickery. Ectoplasm, a supposed paranormal substance, was revealed to have been made from cheesecloth, butter, muslin, and cloth. Mediums would also stick cut-out faces from magazines and newspapers onto cloth or on other props and use plastic dolls in their séances to pretend to their audiences spirits were contacting them. Lewis Spence in his book An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1960) wrote: + +A very large part is played by fraud in spiritualistic practices, both in the physical and psychical, or automatic, phenomena, but especially in the former. The frequency with which mediums have been convicted of fraud has, indeed, induced many people to abandon the study of psychical research, judging the whole bulk of the phenomena to be fraudulently produced. + +In Britain, the Society for Psychical Research has investigated mediumship phenomena. Critical SPR investigations into purported mediums and the exposure of fake mediums has led to a number of resignations by Spiritualist members. On the subject of fraud in mediumship Paul Kurtz wrote: + +No doubt a great importance in the paranormal field is the problem of fraud. The field of psychic research and spiritualism has been so notoriously full of charlatans, such as the Fox sisters and Eusapia Palladino–individuals who claim to have special power and gifts but who are actually conjurers who have hoodwinked scientists and the public as well–that we have to be especially cautious about claims made on their behalf. +Magicians have a long history of exposing the fraudulent methods of mediumship. Early debunkers included Chung Ling Soo, Henry Evans and Julien Proskauer. Later magicians to reveal fraud were Joseph Dunninger, Harry Houdini and Joseph Rinn. Rose Mackenberg, a private investigator who worked with Houdini during the 1920s, was among the most prominent debunkers of psychic fraud during the mid-20th century. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ea90893a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 4/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== 1800s === +Many 19th century mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud. While advocates of mediumship claim that their experiences are genuine, the Encyclopædia Britannica article on spiritualism notes in reference to a case in the 19th century that "...one by one, the Spiritualist mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud, sometimes employing the techniques of stage magicians in their attempts to convince people of their clairvoyant powers." The article also notes that "the exposure of widespread fraud within the spiritualist movement severely damaged its reputation and pushed it to the fringes of society in the United States." +At a séance in the house of the solicitor John Snaith Rymer in Ealing in July 1855, a sitter Frederick Merrifield observed that a "spirit-hand" was a false limb attached on the end of the medium Daniel Dunglas Home's arm. Merrifield also claimed to have observed Home use his foot in the séance room. +The poet Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth attended a séance on July 23, 1855, in Ealing with the Rymers. During the séance a spirit face materialized which Home claimed was the son of Browning who had died in infancy. Browning seized the "materialization" and discovered it to be the bare foot of Home. To make the deception worse, Browning had never lost a son in infancy. Browning's son Robert in a letter to The Times, December 5, 1902, referred to the incident "Home was detected in a vulgar fraud." The researchers Joseph McCabe and Trevor H. Hall exposed the "levitation" of Home as nothing more than his moving across a connecting ledge between two iron balconies. +The psychologist and psychical researcher Stanley LeFevre Krebs had exposed the Bangs Sisters as frauds. During a séance he employed a hidden mirror and caught them tampering with a letter in an envelope and writing a reply in it under the table which they would pretend a spirit had written. The British materialization medium Rosina Mary Showers was caught in many fraudulent séances throughout her career. In 1874 during a séance with Edward William Cox a sitter looked into the cabinet and seized the spirit, the headdress fell off and was revealed to be Showers. +In a series of experiments in London at the house of William Crookes in February 1875, the medium Anna Eva Fay managed to fool Crookes into believing she had genuine psychic powers. Fay later confessed to her fraud and revealed the tricks she had used. Frank Herne a British medium who formed a partnership with the medium Charles Williams was repeatedly exposed in fraudulent materialization séances. In 1875, he was caught pretending to be a spirit during a séance in Liverpool and was found "clothed in about two yards of stiffened muslin, wound round his head and hanging down as far as his thigh." Florence Cook had been "trained in the arts of the séance" by Herne and was repeatedly exposed as a fraudulent medium. +The medium Henry Slade was caught in fraud many times throughout his career. In a séance in 1876 in London Ray Lankester and Bryan Donkin snatched his slate before the "spirit" message was supposed to be written, and found the writing already there. Slade also played an accordion with one hand under the table and claimed spirits would play it. The magician Chung Ling Soo revealed how Slade had performed the trick. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d8748c56d --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 5/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The British medium Francis Ward Monck was investigated by psychical researchers and discovered to be a fraud. On November 3, 1876, during the séance a sitter demanded that Monck be searched. Monck ran from the room, locked himself in another room and escaped out of a window. A pair of stuffed gloves was found in his room, as well as cheesecloth, reaching rods and other fraudulent devices in his luggage. After a trial Monck was convicted for his fraudulent mediumship and was sentenced to three months in prison. +In 1876, William Eglinton was exposed as a fraud when the psychical researcher Thomas Colley seized a "spirit" materialization in his séance and cut off a portion of its cloak. It was discovered that the cut piece matched a cloth found in Eglinton's suitcase. Colley also pulled the beard off the materialization and it was revealed to be a fake, the same as another one found in the suitcase of Eglinton. In 1880 in a séance a spirit named "Yohlande" materialized, a sitter grabbed it and was revealed to be the medium Mme. d'Esperance herself. +In September 1878 the British medium Charles Williams and his fellow-medium at the time, A. Rita, were detected in trickery at Amsterdam. During the séance a materialized spirit was seized and found to be Rita and a bottle of phosphorus oil, muslin and a false beard were found amongst the two mediums. +In 1880 the American stage mentalist Washington Irving Bishop published a book revealing how mediums would use secret codes as the trick for their clairvoyant readings. The Seybert Commission was a group of faculty at the University of Pennsylvania who in 1884–1887 exposed fraudulent mediums such as Pierre L. O. A. Keeler and Henry Slade. The Fox sisters confessed to fraud in 1888. Margaret Fox revealed that she and her sister had produced the "spirit" rappings by cracking their toe joints. +In 1882 C. E. Wood was exposed at a séance in Peterborough. While manifesting her Indian spirit control "Pocha" she was seized by a guest and revealed to be wrapped in muslin cloth. Wood never escaped the stigma and died two years later while touring Australia. +In 1891 at a public séance with twenty sitters the medium Cecil Husk was caught leaning over a table pretending to be a spirit by covering his face with phosphor material. The magician Will Goldston also exposed the fraud mediumship of Husk. In a séance Goldston attended a pale face materialization appeared in the room. Goldston wrote "I saw at once that it was a gauze mask, and that the moustache attached to it was loose at one side through lack of gum. I pulled at the mask. It came away, revealing the face of Husk." The British materialization medium Annie Fairlamb Mellon was exposed as a fraud on October 12, 1894. During the séance a sitter seized the materialized spirit, and found it to be the Mellon on her knees with white muslin on her head and shoulders. +The magician Samri Baldwin exposed the tricks of the Davenport brothers in his book The Secrets of Mahatma Land Explained (1895). The medium Swami Laura Horos was convicted of fraud several times and was tried for rape and fraud in London in 1901. She was described by the magician Harry Houdini as "one of the most extraordinary fake mediums and mystery swindlers the world has ever known". +In the late 19th century, the fraudulent methods of spirit photographers such as David Duguid and Edward Wyllie were revealed by psychical researchers. Hereward Carrington documented various methods (with diagrams) how the medium would manipulate the plates before, during, and after the séance to produce spirit forms. The ectoplasm materializations of the French medium Eva Carrière were exposed as fraudulent. The fake ectoplasm of Carrière was made of cut-out paper faces from newspapers and magazines on which fold marks could sometimes be seen from the photographs. Cut out faces that she used included Woodrow Wilson, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, French president Raymond Poincaré and the actress Mona Delza. +The séance trick of the Eddy Brothers was revealed by the magician Chung Ling Soo in 1898. The brothers utilized a fake hand made of lead, and with their hands free from control would play musical instruments and move objects in the séance room. The physiologist Ivor Lloyd Tuckett examined a case of spirit photography that W. T. Stead had claimed was genuine. Stead visited a photographer who had produced a photograph of him with deceased soldier known as "Piet Botha". Stead claimed that the photographer could not have come across any information about Piet Botha, however, Tuckett discovered that an article in 1899 had been published on Pietrus Botha in a weekly magazine with a portrait and personal details. +The trance medium Leonora Piper was investigated by psychical researchers and psychologists in the late 19th and early 20th century. In an experiment to test if Piper's "spirit" controls were purely fictitious the psychologist G. Stanley Hall invented a niece called Bessie Beals and asked Piper's 'control' to get in touch with it. Bessie appeared, answered questions and accepted Hall as her uncle. The psychologist Joseph Jastrow wrote that Piper pretended to be controlled by spirits and fell into simple and logical traps from her comments. Science writer Martin Gardner concluded Piper was a cold reader that would "fish" for information from her séance sitters. The physiologist Ivor Lloyd Tuckett who examined Piper's mediumship in detail wrote it could be explained by "muscle-reading, fishing, guessing, hints obtained in the sitting, knowledge surreptitiously obtained, knowledge acquired in the interval between sittings and lastly, facts already within Mrs. Piper's knowledge." \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..813f08be7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 6/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== 1900s === +In March 1902 in Berlin, police officers interrupted a séance of the German apport medium Frau Anna Rothe. Her hands were grabbed and she was wrestled to the ground. A female police assistant physically examined Rothe and discovered 157 flowers as well as oranges and lemons hidden in her petticoat. She was arrested and charged with fraud. Another apport medium Hilda Lewis known as the "flower medium" confessed to fraud. +The psychical researchers W. W. Baggally and Everard Feilding exposed the British materialization medium Christopher Chambers as a fraud in 1905. A false moustache was discovered in the séance room which he used to fabricate the spirit materializations. The British medium Charles Eldred was exposed as a fraud in 1906. Eldred would sit in a chair in a curtained off area in the room known as a "séance cabinet". Various spirit figures would emerge from the cabinet and move around the séance room, however, it was discovered that the chair had a secret compartment that contained beards, cloths, masks, and wigs that Eldred would dress up in to pretend to be spirits. +The spirit photographer William Hope tricked William Crookes with a fake spirit photograph of his wife in 1906. Oliver Lodge revealed there had been obvious signs of double exposure, the picture of Lady Crookes had been copied from a wedding anniversary photograph, however, Crookes was a convinced spiritualist and claimed it was genuine evidence for spirit photography. +In 1907, Hereward Carrington exposed the tricks of fraudulent mediums such as those used in slate-writing, table-turning, trumpet mediumship, materializations, sealed-letter reading and spirit photography. between 1908 and 1914 the Italian medium Francesco Carancini was investigated by psychical researchers and they discovered that he used phosphorus matches to produce "spirit lights" and with a freed hand would move objects in the séance room. +In 1908 at a hotel in Naples, the psychical researchers W. W. Baggally, Hereward Carrington and Everard Feilding attended a series of séances with Eusapia Palladino. In a report they claimed that genuine supernatural activity had occurred in the séances, this report became known as the Feilding report. In 1910, Feilding returned to Naples, but this time accompanied with the magician William S. Marriott. Unlike the 1908 sittings, Feilding and Marriott detected her cheating, just as she had done in America. Her deceptions were obvious. Palladino evaded control and was caught moving objects with her foot, shaking the curtain with her hands, moving the cabinet table with her elbow and touching the séance sitters. Milbourne Christopher wrote regarding the exposure "when one knows how a feat can be done and what to look for, only the most skillful performer can maintain the illusion in the face of such informed scrutiny." \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-6.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-6.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b5dea9754 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-6.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 7/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In 1910 at a séance in Grenoble, France the apport medium Charles Bailey produced two live birds in the séance room. Bailey was unaware that the dealer he had bought the birds from was present in the séance and he was exposed as a fraud. The psychical researcher Eric Dingwall observed the medium Bert Reese in New York and claimed to have discovered his billet reading tricks. The most detailed account at exposing his tricks (with diagrams) was by the magician Theodore Annemann. +The Polish medium Stanisława Tomczyk's levitation of a glass beaker was exposed and replicated in 1910 by the magician William S. Marriott by means of a hidden thread. The Italian medium Lucia Sordi was exposed in 1911, she was bound to a chair by psychical researchers but would free herself during her séances. The tricks of another Italian medium Linda Gazzera were revealed in the same year, she would release her hands and feet from control in her séances and use them. Gazzera would not permit anyone to search her before a séance sitting, as she concealed muslin and other objects in her hair. +In 1917, Edward Clodd analyzed the mediumship of the trance medium Gladys Osborne Leonard and came to the conclusion that Leonard had known her séance sitters before she had held the séances, and could have easily obtained such information by natural means. The British psychiatrist Charles Arthur Mercier wrote in his book Spiritualism and Sir Oliver Lodge (1917) that Oliver Lodge had been duped into believing mediumship by trickery and his spiritualist views were based on assumptions and not scientific evidence. +In 1918, Joseph Jastrow wrote about the tricks of Eusapia Palladino who was an expert at freeing her hands and feet from the control in the séance room. In the séance room Palladino would move curtains from a distance by releasing a jet of air from a rubber bulb that she had in her hand. According to the psychical researcher Harry Price "Her tricks were usually childish: long hairs attached to small objects in order to produce 'telekinetic movements'; the gradual substitution of one hand for two when being controlled by sitters; the production of 'phenomena' with a foot which had been surreptitiously removed from its shoe and so on." +In the 1920s the British medium Charles Albert Beare duped the Spiritualist organization the Temple of Light into believing he had genuine mediumship powers. In 1931 Beare published a confession in the newspaper Daily Express. In the confession he stated "I have deceived hundreds of people.... I have been guilty of fraud and deception in spiritualistic practices by pretending that I was controlled by a spirit guide.... I am frankly and whole-heartedly sorry that I have allowed myself to deceive people." Due to the exposure of William Hope and other fraudulent spiritualists, Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1920s led a mass resignation of eighty-four members of the Society for Psychical Research, as they believed the Society was opposed to spiritualism. +Between November 8 and December 31, 1920, Gustav Geley of the Institute Metapsychique International attended fourteen séances with the medium Franek Kluski in Paris. A bowl of hot paraffin was placed in the room and according to Kluski spirits dipped their limbs into the paraffin and then into a bath of water to materialize. Three other series of séances were held in Warsaw in Kluski's own apartment, these took place over a period of three years. Kluski was not searched in any of the séances. Photographs of the molds were obtained during the four series of experiments and were published by Geley in 1924. Harry Houdini replicated the Kluski materialization moulds by using his hands and a bowl of hot paraffin. +The British direct-voice medium Frederick Tansley Munnings was exposed as a fraud when one of his séance sitters turned the lights on which revealed him to be holding a trumpet by means of a telescopic extension piece and using an angle piece to change the auditory effect of his voice. Richard Hodgson held six sittings with the medium Rosina Thompson and came to the conclusion she was a fraud as he discovered Thompson had access to documents and information about her séance sitters. +On February 4, 1922, Harry Price with James Seymour, Eric Dingwall and William S. Marriott had proven the spirit photographer William Hope was a fraud during tests at the British College of Psychic Science. Price wrote in his SPR report "William Hope has been found guilty of deliberately substituting his own plates for those of a sitter... It implies that the medium brings to the sitting a duplicate slide and faked plates for fraudulent purposes." The medium Kathleen Goligher was investigated by the physicist Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe. On July 22, 1921, in a séance he observed Goligher holding the table up with her foot. He also discovered that her ectoplasm was made of muslin. During a séance d'Albe observed white muslin between Goligher's feet. +The Danish medium Einer Nielsen was investigated by a committee from the Kristiania University in Norway, 1922 and discovered in a séance that his ectoplasm was fake. In 1923 the Polish medium Jan Guzyk was exposed as a fraud in a series of séances in Sorbonne in Paris. Guzyk would use his elbows and legs to move objects around the room and touch the sitters. According to Max Dessoir the trick of Guzyk was to use his "foot for psychic touches and sounds". +The psychical researchers Eric Dingwall and Harry Price re-published an anonymous work written by a former medium entitled Revelations of a Spirit Medium (1922) which exposed the tricks of mediumship and the fraudulent methods of producing "spirit hands". Originally all the copies of the book were bought up by spiritualists and deliberately destroyed. In 1923, the magician Carlos María de Heredia revealed how fake spirit hands could be made by using a rubber glove, paraffin and a jar of cold water. +The Hungarian medium Ladislas Lasslo confessed that all of his spirit materializations were fraudulent in 1924. A séance sitter was also found to be working as a confederate for Lasslo. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-7.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-7.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..96ada6de3 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-7.md @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 8/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Austrian medium Rudi Schneider was investigated in 1924 by the physicists Stefan Meyer and Karl Przibram. They caught Rudi freeing his arm in a series of séances. Rudi claimed he could levitate objects but according to Harry Price a photograph taken on April 28, 1932, showed that Rudi had managed to free his arm to move a handkerchief from the table. According to Warren Jay Vinton, Schneider was an expert at freeing himself from control in the séance room. Oliver Gatty and Theodore Besterman who tested Schneider concluded that in their tests there was "no good evidence that Rudi Schneider possesses supernormal powers." +The spiritualists Arthur Conan Doyle and W. T. Stead were duped into believing Julius and Agnes Zancig had genuine psychic powers. Both Doyle and Stead wrote that the Zancigs performed telepathy. In 1924 Julius and Agnes Zancig confessed that their mind reading act was a trick and published the secret code and all the details of the trick method they had used under the title of Our Secrets!! in a London Newspaper. +In 1925, Samuel Soal claimed to have taken part in a series of séances with the medium Blanche Cooper who contacted the spirit of a soldier Gordon Davis and revealed the house that he had lived in. Researchers later discovered fraud as the séances had taken place in 1922, not 1925. The magician and paranormal investigator Bob Couttie revealed that Davis was alive, Soal lived close to him and had altered the records of the sittings after checking out the house. Soal's co-workers knew that he had fiddled the results but were kept quiet with threats of libel suits. +Mina Crandon claimed to materialize a "spirit hand", but when examined by biologists the hand was discovered to be made from a piece of carved animal liver. The German apport medium Heinrich Melzer was discovered to be a fraud in 1926. In a séance psychical researchers found that Melzer had small stones attached to the back of his ears by flesh coloured tape. Psychical researchers who investigated the mediumship of Maria Silbert revealed that she used her feet and toes to move objects in the séance room. +In 1930 the Polish medium Stanisława P. was tested at the Institut Metapsychique in Paris. French psychical researcher Eugéne Osty suspected in the séance that Stanislawa had freed her hand from control. Secret flashlight photographs that were taken revealed that her hand was free and she had moved objects on the séance table. It was claimed by spiritualists that during a series of séances in 1930 the medium Eileen J. Garrett channeled secret information from the spirit of the Lieutenant Herbert Carmichael Irwin who had died in the R101 crash a few days before the séance. Researcher Melvin Harris who studied the case wrote that the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobblede-gook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-8.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-8.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..66b22e9fb --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-8.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 9/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In the 1930s Harry Price (director of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research) had investigated the medium Helen Duncan and had her perform a number of test séances. She was suspected of swallowing cheesecloth which was then regurgitated as "ectoplasm". Price had proven through analysis of a sample of ectoplasm produced by Duncan, that it was made of cheesecloth. Helen Duncan would also use a doll made of a painted papier-mâché mask draped in an old sheet which she pretended to her sitters was a spirit. The photographs taken by Thomas Glendenning Hamilton in the 1930s of ectoplasm reveal the substance to be made of tissue paper and magazine cut-outs of people. The famous photograph taken by Hamilton of the medium Mary Ann Marshall depicts tissue paper with a cut out of Arthur Conan Doyle's head from a newspaper. Skeptics have suspected that Hamilton may have been behind the hoax. +Psychologists and researchers who studied Pearl Curran's automatic writings in the 1930s came to the conclusion Patience Worth was a fictitious creation of Curran. In 1931 George Valiantine was exposed as a fraud in the séance room as it was discovered that he produced fraudulent "spirit" fingerprints in wax. The "spirit" thumbprint that Valiantine claimed belonged to Arthur Conan Doyle was revealed to be the print of his big toe on his right foot. It was also revealed that Valiantine made some of the prints with his elbow. +The medium Frank Decker was exposed as a fraud in 1932. A magician and séance sitter who called himself M. Taylor presented a mail bag and Decker agreed to lock himself inside it. During the séance objects were moved around the room and it was claimed spirits had released Decker from the bag. It was later discovered to have been a trick as Martin Sunshine, a magic dealer admitted that he sold Decker a trick mail bag, such as stage escapologists use, and had acted as the medium's confederate by pretending to be M. Taylor, a magician. The British medium Estelle Roberts claimed to materialize an Indian spirit guide called "Red Cloud". Researcher Melvin Harris who examined some photographs of Red Cloud wrote the face was the same as Roberts and she had dressed up in a feathered war-bonnet. +In 1936, the psychical researcher Nandor Fodor tested the Hungarian apport medium Lajos Pap in London and during the séance a dead snake appeared. Pap was searched and was found to be wearing a device under his robe, where he had hidden the snake. A photograph taken at a séance in 1937 in London shows the medium Colin Evans "levitating" in mid air. He claimed that spirits had lifted him. Evans was later discovered to be a fraud as a cord leading from a device in his hand has indicated that it was himself who triggered the flash-photograph and that all he had done was jump from his chair into the air and pretend he had levitated. +According to the magician John Booth the stage mentalist David Devant managed to fool a number of people into believing he had genuine psychic ability who did not realize that his feats were magic tricks. At St. George's Hall, London he performed a fake "clairvoyant" act where he would read a message sealed inside an envelope. The spiritualist Oliver Lodge who was present in the audience was duped by the trick and claimed that Devant had used psychic powers. In 1936 Devant in his book Secrets of My Magic revealed the trick method he had used. +The physicist Kristian Birkeland exposed the fraud of the direct voice medium Etta Wriedt. Birkeland turned on the lights during a séance, snatched her trumpets and discovered that the "spirit" noises were caused by chemical explosions induced by potassium and water and in other cases by lycopodium powder. The British medium Isa Northage claimed to materialize the spirit of a surgeon known as Dr. Reynolds. When photographs taken of Reynolds were analyzed by researchers they discovered that Northage looked like Reynolds with a glued stage beard. +The magician Julien Proskauer revealed that the levitating trumpet of Jack Webber was a trick. Close examination of photographs reveal Webber to be holding a telescopic reaching rod attached to the trumpet, and sitters in his séances only believed it to have levitated because the room was so dark they could not see the rod. Webber would cover the rod with crepe paper to disguise its real construction. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-9.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-9.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..58d1e1e86 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship-9.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: "Mediumship" +chunk: 10/13 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:45.598694+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In 1954, the psychical researcher Rudolf Lambert published a report revealing details about a case of fraud that was covered up by many early members of the Institute Metapsychique International (IMI). Lambert who had studied Gustav Geley's files on the medium Eva Carrière discovered photographs depicting fraudulent ectoplasm taken by her companion Juliette Bisson. Various "materializations" were artificially attached to Eva's hair by wires. The discovery was never published by Geley. Eugéne Osty (the director of the institute) and members Jean Meyer, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing and Charles Richet all knew about the fraudulent photographs but were firm believers in mediumship phenomena so demanded the scandal be kept secret. +The fraudulent medium Ronald Edwin confessed he had duped his séance sitters and revealed the fraudulent methods he had used in his book Clock Without Hands (1955). The psychical researcher Tony Cornell investigated the mediumship of Alec Harris in 1955. During the séance "spirit" materializations emerged from a cabinet and walked around the room. Cornell wrote that a stomach rumble, nicotine smelling breath and a pulse gave it away that all the spirit figures were in fact Harris and that he had dressed up as each one behind the cabinet. +The British medium William Roy earned over £50,000 from his séance sitters. He confessed to fraud in 1958 revealing the microphone and trick-apparatus that he had used. The automatic writings of the Irish medium Geraldine Cummins were analyzed by psychical researchers in the 1960s and they revealed that she worked as a cataloguer at the National Library of Ireland and took information from various books that would appear in her automatic writings about ancient history. +In 1960, psychic investigator Andrija Puharich and Tom O'Neill, publisher of the Spiritualist magazine Psychic Observer, arranged to film two seances at Camp Chesterfield, Indiana, using infrared film, intending to procure scientific proof of spirit materializations. The medium was shown the camera beforehand, and was aware that she was being filmed. However, the film revealed obvious fraud on the part of the medium and her cabinet assistant. The exposé was published in the July 10, 1960 issue of the Psychic Observer. +In 1966 the son of Bishop Pike committed suicide. After his death, Pike contacted the British medium Ena Twigg for a series of séances and she claimed to have communicated with his son. Although Twigg denied formerly knowing anything about Pike and his son, the magician John Booth discovered that Twigg had already known information about the Pike family before the séances. Twigg had belonged to the same denomination of Bishop Pike, he had preached at a cathedral in Kent and she had known information about him and his deceased son from newspapers. +In 1970 two psychical researchers investigated the direct-voice medium Leslie Flint and found that all the "spirit" voices in his séance sounded exactly like himself and attributed his mediumship to "second-rate ventriloquism". The medium Arthur Ford died leaving specific instructions that all of his files should be burned. In 1971 after his death, psychical researchers discovered his files but instead of burning them they were examined and discovered to be filled with obituaries, newspaper articles and other information, which enabled Ford to research his séance sitters backgrounds. +Ronald Pearsall in his book Table-rappers: The Victorians and the Occult (1972) documented how every Victorian medium investigated had been exposed as using trickery, in the book he revealed how mediums would even use acrobatic techniques during séances to convince audiences of spirit presences. +In 1976, M. Lamar Keene, a medium in Florida and at the Spiritualist Camp Chesterfield in Indiana, confessed to defrauding the public in his book The Psychic Mafia. Keene detailed a multitude of common stage magic techniques utilized by mediums which are supposed to give an appearance of paranormal powers or supernatural involvement. +After her death in the 1980s the medium Doris Stokes was accused of fraud, by author and investigator Ian Wilson. Wilson stated that Mrs Stokes planted specific people in her audience and did prior research into her sitters. Rita Goold a physical medium during the 1980s was accused of fraud, by the psychical researcher Tony Cornell. He claimed she would dress up as the spirits in her séances and would play music during them which provided cover for her to change clothes. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin_theory-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin_theory-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8ef312869 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin_theory-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: "Melanin theory" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin_theory" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:46.789800+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Melanin theory is a set of pseudoscientific claims made by some proponents of Afrocentrism, which holds that black people, including ancient Egyptians, have superior mental, physical, and paranormal powers because they have higher levels of melanin, the primary skin pigment in humans. + + +== Claims == +Melanin theory posits that individuals' responses to social stimuli are determined by the prevalence of the skin pigment melanin. Historian Stephen Ferguson describes melanin theory as a component of "strong" Afrocentrism, which assigns biological causes to social phenomena such as white supremacy. Proponents of melanin theory ("melanists") argue that insecurity among European males leads to efforts to socially dominate and emasculate African males, taking the form of unemployment, incarceration, and political and social marginalization. +Some black supremacists, including professor of black studies Leonard Jeffries and psychologist Frances Cress Welsing, argue without evidence that higher levels of melanin give black people inherently superior qualities to white people, including supernatural abilities such as extrasensory perception. According to Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, "the alleged properties of melanin, mostly unsupported, irrelevant, or distortions of the scientific literature, are [...] used to justify Afrocentric assertions. One of the most common is that humans evolved as blacks in Africa, and that whites are mutants (albinos, or melanin recessives)". Ortiz de Montellano wrote in 1993 that melanin theory as an ideological movement would increase scientific illiteracy and would contribute to "widening the gap between the races". +Welsing states that Africans possess dominant genes in comparison to the recessive genes of Europeans, which, she posits, leads to a struggle by Europeans to maintain their genetic distinctness. Welsing derived her hypothesis partly through a neo-Freudian analysis of cultural symbols rather than scientific evidence, arguing that the motivation for white supremacy is an unconscious response to white genetic and sexual inferiority. Ferguson equates this argument with "white male penis envy" toward black men. + + +== In popular culture == +In 2006, the views of adherents and critics of melanin theory were dramatized in Cassandra Medley's play Relativity. + + +== See also == +The Bell Curve +Race and intelligence +Scientific racism +Skin colour § Genetics + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3c4b238f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +--- +title: "Menstruation hut" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:47.976858+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +A menstruation hut is a place of seclusion or isolation used by certain cultures with strong menstrual taboos. The same or a similar structure may be used for childbirth and postpartum confinement, based on beliefs around ritual impurity. These huts are usually built near the family home, have small doors, and are often dilapidated, with poor sanitation and ventilation, and no windows. The Nepali version, the Chhaupadi, is probably the best-known example, but cultural attitudes towards menstruation around the world mean that these huts exist, or existed until recently, in other places as well. The use of menstrual huts continues to be a cause of death, from exposure, dehydration, snake bite, smoke inhalation, and so on. The use of these huts is illegal in some places. + +== Cultures == + +=== Use in Ethiopia among Jewish women === +In Ethiopia's Jewish community, when a woman becomes niddah (impure during menstruation), she may remain in a niddah hut for some of the time. These huts are absent in Israel, but exist in the Ethiopian highlands, known to the Ethiopian Jewish community as margam gojos. The women must stay in the hut, usually located on the margins of the village, for seven days. Women there report negative as well as positive views on the practice. Some describe fear, cold, and lack of food, while others enjoy the social interaction, relaxation, and rest. While in these huts, the women can not cook, apart from coffee and the roasting of grain. Others may bring food to them, but while doing so they take care in avoiding physical contact. +Within the margam gojos, there are few utensils, some pieces of equipment, and some basic furniture. Stones are placed in a circular shape around the menstruation hut at a radius of one and a half meters to help distinguish between perceived impure and pure spaces. If anyone were to come into contact with the woman during their menstruation, they too would have to stay in the hut. To avoid contact, the families of the women in the margam gojos leave food outside the door. +To avoid ritually contaminating their food or drink with blood, which would render it unfit to consume, women wear leather belts under their shirts with fabric tied to them designed to stem the flow of blood. During menstruation, a woman is not allowed to go in or across rivers, as her menstrual blood would render it ritually impure. Once a woman has finished menstruating, another woman will watch her immerse in a river. There, the woman who has just finished menstruating will wash herself and the clothes she wore in the margam gojo. After she and her clothes are clean, she will change into pure clothes that have been retrieved from her home. The only time that a Jewish woman ceases going to the margam gojo is when she starts menopause, as it puts an end to the impurity. + +=== Chhaupadi in Nepal === + +According to the tradition of chhaupadi, Hindu women in western Nepal reside in a small hut, called a Chhau Goth, for 5 days during menstruation. However, the tradition requires those menstruating for the first time to stay in the hut for at least 14 days. In some communities, these huts may also be used by pregnant women to deliver babies. The huts may be made of mud and stones and may have roofs made of grass. Normally, they do not have windows, and the women sleep on straw on the floor covering themselves with a thin blanket. In a Nepali survey around 2017, one district with around 49,000 households had over 500 of these huts. Although the practice of using menstruation huts was made illegal in 2005 by Nepal's supreme court, the first arrest under this legislation did not take place until 2019. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8ca4cb32d --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +--- +title: "Menstruation hut" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:47.976858+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== India === +In many Indian states, the practice of banishing women and girls is common. It is mostly prevalent among the Gonds which are the largest tribal group in Central India and hail from the states of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa as well as Madiya ethnic groups. These shacks, known locally as "kurma ghar" or "gaokar," lack basic amenities like proper beds, clean water and functional washrooms. Since menstruating women are not permitted to cook, Gaokors lack a kitchen. Those staying inside rely on family members to bring them food and other supplies. The accountability of maintaining such huts lies on no one since they are considered as public property. These shacks are usually located on the outskirts of the village or near a forest. The unsanitary conditions coupled with unhygienic menstrual practices — many women use strips made from mahua leaves covered with paddy chaff as pads, often lead to infections, illnesses, and sometimes even death. The decrepit shacks provide little protection against wild creatures. +According to a representative of from a local NGO Sparsh, at least eight women have died in Gadchiroli alone since 2011 as a result of this forced seclusion. Some have died due to pneumonia, while others were bitten by snakes. Jayanti Baburao Gawade, a 47-year-old was made to go to the menstrual hut while she had fever and high blood pressure and was discovered dead the next morning by her family in Ettapalli, Gadchiroli district, in November 2017. During cyclone Gaja in Thanjavur district in Tamil Nadu, a 14-year-old girl who was compelled to stay in a hut outside her home because she was menstruating, was killed when a coconut tree fell on it. +In 2015, India's National Human Rights Commission called the practice as "a violation of human rights" and ordered Maharashtra to take action to end the practice. Religion and tradition are often cited as main reasons for justifying restrictions. It is believed by the people that the tradition could not be changed because "it's been decreed by our gods" and if they defied tradition, they would face the wrath of gods and invite illness and death in the family. +Many girls are forced to remain absent from school due to this practice. An estimated 23% of girls in India drop out of school when they start menstruating. This custom frequently prevents girls from taking their exams while they are menstruating. It denotes that only a few girls from regions where this practice is prevalent continue their education past matriculation. +To challenge the stigma and taboos around menstruation, various social media campaigns have been launched. The #periodforchange campaign, started by the Kachra Project, encouraged discussion on the topic. #Happytobleed is another counter-campaign to combat the sexism that women experience as a result of taboos associated with menstruation. It recognizes menstruation as a normal occurrence which doesn't need curtains to hide behind. + +=== Indonesian Cultures === +The Huaulu have strict ideas about menstruation huts. The huts are made from sago wood and sago leaf thatch. Only women can build these huts because men are not allowed near them under death penalty. The huts are built facing away from the village and there are no windows facing the village either. The huts are used for menstruation, all births, and some females and young children are allowed as well. The women often share a hut so there are usually several people in one hut at a time. Men are never welcome, but younger boys below the age of puberty are allowed, and they cannot even look in the windows. +The women must stay outside the village during menstruation, but they are free to wander the forest and surrounding areas. They cannot meet or help their husbands in any way, but they may gather their own food and amuse themselves as they please with music and stories in the hut. +During menstruation, the women are considered unclean and impure so they cannot interact with the men or be in the village. They see themselves as the saviors of men because they are able to handle their menstruation and keep the men safe and clean. The menstruating women are required to bathe in a special fountain where men were not allowed. +The Kodi keep their menstruation a secret by hiding it and not telling anyone so that they can use it as a source of female manipulation and witchcraft or natural medicine. The women are allowed to take care of all their duties during menstruation. Other women are the caretakers of those in menstruation, and they have many symbolisms, taboos, and beliefs around it involving dyes, tattoos, and rituals. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..65269e702 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +title: "Menstruation hut" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_hut" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:47.976858+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Others === +In Yap (part of Micronesia), after giving birth, women and their newborn babies spend time in a menstruation hut while the father has a holiday. The Yapese women have many taboos and secrets around menstruation. They use the menstrual huts to hide themselves so that they do not embarrass themselves in front of the men. Menstrual huts were also used for childbirth and after childbirth care. The older women teach the younger women and girls skills and practices about health, especially menstruation and childbirth, as well as the other tasks which the Yapese women are required to do. +The Yurok women of California lived in menstruation huts built near the main house. The Yurok women were required to stay in a menstruation hut a short way away from the village. There is much taboo and power associated with menstruation in this culture. Those menstruating must remain in the hut and abide by certain rules or there will be consequences for her, the other women, and even the village because she holds so much power. The women are thought by many to be unclean, and anything they use is made unclean as well, but the women believe themselves to be very powerful in this time and they should not waste time on trivial tasks during menstruation. +The Páez people of the southwestern highlands of Colombia previously used menstruation huts. + +== See also == +Menarche +Culture and menstruation +Seclusion of girls at puberty +The Red Tent (Diamant novel) + +== References == + +== External links == + Media related to Menstruation huts at Wikimedia Commons \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_(Chinese_medicine)-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_(Chinese_medicine)-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..feb2846e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_(Chinese_medicine)-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +--- +title: "Meridian (Chinese medicine)" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_(Chinese_medicine)" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:49.179404+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The meridian system (simplified Chinese: 经络; traditional Chinese: 經絡; pinyin: jīngluò; lit. 'meridian and collaterals'), also called channel network, is a pseudoscientific concept from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) that alleges meridians are paths through which the life-energy known as "qi" (ch'i) flows. +Scientists have found no evidence that supports their existence. One historian of medicine in China says that the term is "completely unsuitable and misguided, but nonetheless it has become a standard translation". Major proponents of their existence have not come to any consensus as to how they might work or be tested in a scientific context. + + +== History == + +The concept of meridians are first attested in two works recovered from the Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan tombs of the Han-era Changsha Kingdom, the Cauterization Canon of the Eleven Foot and Arm Channels (足臂十一脈灸經, Zúbì Shíyī Mài Jiǔjīng) and the Cauterization Canon of the Eleven Yin and Yang Channels (陰陽十一脈灸經, Yīnyáng Shíyī Mài Jiǔjīng). In the texts, the meridians are referenced as mài (脈) rather than jīngmài. + + +== Main concepts == +The meridian network is typically divided into two categories, the jingmai (經脈) or meridian channels and the luomai (絡脈) or associated vessels (sometimes called "collaterals"). The jingmai contain the 12 tendinomuscular meridians, the 12 divergent meridians, the 12 principal meridians, the eight extraordinary vessels as well as the Huato channel, a set of bilateral points on the lower back whose discovery is attributed to the ancient physician Hua Tuo. The collaterals contain 15 major arteries that connect the 12 principal meridians in various ways, in addition to the interaction with their associated internal Zung Fu (臟腑) organs and other related internal structures. The collateral system also incorporates a branching expanse of capillary-like vessels which spread throughout the body, namely in the 12 cutaneous regions as well as emanating from each point on the principal meridians. If one counts the number of unique points on each meridian, the total comes to 361, which matches the number of days in a year, in the moon calendar system. Note that this method ignores the fact that the bulk of acupoints are bilateral, making the actual total 670. +There are about 400 acupuncture points (not counting bilateral points twice) most of which are situated along the major 20 pathways (i.e. 12 primary and eight extraordinary channels). However, by the second Century AD, 649 acupuncture points were recognized in China (reckoned by counting bilateral points twice). There are "12 Principal Meridians" where each meridian corresponds to either a hollow or solid organ; interacting with it and extending along a particular extremity (i.e. arm or leg). There are also "Eight Extraordinary Channels", two of which have their own sets of points, and the remaining ones connecting points on other channels. + + +=== 12 standard meridians === +The 12 standard meridians, also called Principal Meridians, are divided into Yin and Yang groups. The Yin meridians of the arm are the Lung, Heart, and Pericardium. The Yang meridians of the arm are the Large Intestine, Small Intestine, and Triple Burner. The Yin Meridians of the leg are the Spleen, Kidney, and Liver. The Yang meridians of the leg are Stomach, Bladder, and Gall Bladder. +The table below gives a more systematic list of the 12 standard meridians: + + +=== Eight extraordinary meridians === +The eight extraordinary meridians are of pivotal importance to the study of Traditional Chinese medicine that incorporates the modalities and practices of Qigong, Taijiquan and Chinese alchemy. These eight extra meridians differ from the standard twelve organ meridians in that they are considered to be storage vessels likened to oceans, fields, or reservoirs of energy that are not associated directly with the Zang Fu, i.e. internal organs but have a general influence upon them. Within Traditional Chinese medicine they are thought to bring about large functional and physiological changes within clinical practice. These channels were studied in the "Spiritual Axis" chapters 17, 21 and 62, the "Classic of Difficulties" chapters 27, 28 and 29 and the "Study of the 8 Extraordinary vessels" (Qi Jing Ba Mai Kao), written in 1578. +The eight extraordinary vessels are (奇經八脈; qí jīng bā mài): + +Conception Vessel (Ren Mai) – 任脈; rèn mài +Governing Vessel (Du Mai) – 督脈; dū mài +Penetrating Vessel (Chong Mai) – 衝脈; chōng mài +Girdle Vessel (Dai Mai) – 帶脈; dài mài +Yin Linking Vessel (Yin Wei Mai) – 陰維脈; yīn wéi mài +Yang Linking Vessel (Yang Wei Mai) – 陽維脈; yáng wéi mài +Yin Heel Vessel (Yin Qiao Mai) – 陰蹻脈; yīn qiāo mài +Yang Heel Vessel (Yang Qiao Mai) – 陽蹻脈; yáng qiāo mài + + +== Scientific view of meridian theory == +Scientists have found no evidence that supports their existence. The historian of medicine in China Paul U. Unschuld adds that there "is no evidence of a concept of 'energy' – either in the strictly physical sense or even in the more colloquial sense – anywhere in Chinese medical theory." +Some advocates of traditional Chinese medicine believe that meridians function as electrical conduits based on observations that the electrical impedance of a current through meridians is lower than other areas of the body. A 2008 review of studies found that the studies were of poor quality and could not support the claims. +Some proponents of the primo-vascular system propose that the putative primo vessels, very thin (less than 30 μm wide) conduits found in many mammals, may be a factor explaining some of the suggested effects of the meridian system. +According to Steven Novella, a neurologist involved in the skeptical movement, "there is no evidence that the meridians actually exist. At the risk of sounding redundant, they are as made up and fictional as the ether, phlogiston, Bigfoot, and unicorns." +The National Council Against Health Fraud concluded that "the meridians are imaginary; their locations do not relate to internal organs, and therefore do not relate to human anatomy." + + +== See also == + +Acupuncture point +Aura +Chakra +Glossary of alternative medicine +Illusory body +List of acupuncture points +Marma adi +Nadi (yoga) +Prana +Pressure points +Subtle body + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesotherapy-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesotherapy-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..320023b5a --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesotherapy-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,49 @@ +--- +title: "Mesotherapy" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesotherapy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:50.370602+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Mesotherapy (from Greek mesos, "middle", and therapy from Greek therapeia) is a form of alternative medicine which involves intradermal or subcutaneous injections of pharmaceutical preparations, enzymes, hormones, plant extracts, vitamins, and/or other ingredients such as hyaluronic acid. It has no proven clinical efficacy and poor scientific backing. Mesotherapy injections allegedly target adipose fat cells, apparently by inducing lipolysis, rupture and cell death among adipocytes. The stated aim of mesotherapy is to provide the skin with essential nutrients, hydration, and other beneficial compounds to rejuvenate and revitalize its appearance. +The effects of the treatment may vary depending on the individual. +Pressurized mesotherapy is a needle-free method that uses an accelerated jet of air to insert the ingredients into the skin tissue. A study on the effect of using a lipolytic substance inserted with needles compared to pressurized injection showed significant fat layer reduction for both methods but even better results with the pressurized injection system. + + +== Usage == +In the United States, deoxycholic acid, under the brand name Kybella, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for reducing moderate-to-severe fat below the chin. When injected into submental fat, deoxycholic acid helps destroy adipocytes (fat cells), which are metabolized by the body over the course of several months. Deoxycholic acid has not been approved for injection elsewhere in the body. +There is no conclusive research proof that any chemical compounds work to target adipose (fat cells) specifically. Cell lysis, resulting from the detergent action of deoxycholic acid, may account for any clinical effect. + + +== History == +Michel Pistor (1924–2003) performed clinical research and founded the field of mesotherapy. +The French press coined the term mesotherapy in 1958. The French Académie Nationale de Médecine recognized mesotherapy as a specialty of medicine in 1987. The French Society of Mesotherapy recognizes its use as treatment for various conditions but makes no mention of its use in plastic surgery. Popular throughout European countries and South America, mesotherapy is practiced by approximately 18,000 physicians worldwide. + + +== Criticism == +Physicians have expressed concern over the efficacy of mesotherapy, arguing that the treatment hasn't been studied enough to make a determination. Mesotherapy for the treatment of cosmetic conditions hasn't been the subject of standard clinical trials; however, the procedure has been studied for pain relief for several ailments, such as tendonitis, tendon calcification, dental procedures, cancer, cervicobrachialgia, arthritis, lymphedema, and venous stasis. +Despite the lack of clinical trials, there have been case studies and medical papers written on mesotherapy as a cosmetic treatment. +Rod Rohrich, M.D., chairman of the Department of Plastic Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center is quoted as saying: "There is simply no data, no science and no information, to my knowledge, that mesotherapy works." The American Society of Plastic Surgeons issued a position statement not endorsing mesotherapy. +In the United States, the FDA cannot control the act of practitioners injecting various mixtures into patient's bodies, because this practice falls under the jurisdiction of state medical boards. +Robin Ashinoff, speaking for the American Academy of Dermatology, wrote "A simple injection is giving people false hope. Everybody's looking for a quick fix. But there is no quick fix for fat or fat deposits or for cellulite." The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery informed its members in February 2005 that "further study is warranted before this technique can be endorsed." +"No one says exactly what they put into the (syringe)," said Naomi Lawrence, a derma-surgeon at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. "One drug they often use, phosphatidylcholine, is unpredictable and causes extreme inflammation and swelling where injected. It is not a benign drug." +Mesotherapy is currently banned in a number of South American countries. Even Brazil, which tends to be less strict than the US in drug approvals, has banned the drug for these purposes. +In Australia, an alternative therapy salon was investigated by the Health Department after several clients developed skin abscesses on the calves, buttocks, thighs, abdomen, shoulders, face and neck after undergoing mesotherapy, with one patient also developing a mycobacterial infection. +Following undesirable effects observed on several patients of a French practitioner, an official ratification was published in France in April 2011 to ban mesotherapy as a method for removing fat deposits. This ban was canceled in June 2011 by the French Council of State because the investigation proved that these undesirable effects weren't due to mesotherapy itself, but were due to unhygienic conditions. + + +== Clinical studies == +In a prospective study, 10 patients underwent four sessions of facial mesotherapy using multivitamins at monthly intervals. This study found that there was no clinically relevant benefit for skin rejuvenation. +Deoxycholic acid received FDA approval as an injectable to dissolve submental fat June 2015. This was based on the results of a phase III randomized trial of 2600 patients in which 68.2% of patients showed a response by measurement of the fat deposit; 81% had mild temporary adverse reactions of bruising, swelling, pain, numbness, erythema, and firmness around the treated area. + + +== References == + + +== External links == +American Board of Aesthetic Mesotherapy +French Society of Mesotherapy +Professional Board of Mesotherapy Atlanta Archived 2016-03-25 at the Wayback Machine \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_typing-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_typing-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..561b9431b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_typing-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +--- +title: "Metabolic typing" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_typing" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:51.564087+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Metabolic typing is a pseudoscience whose proponents believe that each person has a unique metabolism, and that the proportion of macromolecules (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) which are optimal for one person may not be for a second, and could even be detrimental to them. +Metabolic typing uses common visible symptoms related to the skin, eyes, and other parts of the body to assess different aspects of a person's metabolism and categorize them into broad metabolic types. In addition, some proponents of metabolic typing use tests such as hair analysis to determine a person's metabolic type. +A number of somewhat different metabolic typing diet plans are currently marketed, though the validity and effectiveness of metabolic typing have yet to be established. + + +== Background == +Metabolic typing was introduced by William Donald Kelley, a dentist, in the 1960s. Kelley advocated basing dietary choices on the activity of one's sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. In 1970, Kelley was convicted of practicing medicine without a license, as he had diagnosed a patient with lung cancer based on a fingerstick blood test and prescribed nutritional therapy. He continued to promote a metabolic typing diet through the 1980s. The practice has been further developed by others including Harold J. Kristal and William Wolcott. + + +== Effectiveness == +Some metabolic typing companies use a battery of blood and urine tests performed by reputable laboratories, but interpret the results in an unconventional and medically questionable fashion. During a 1985 investigation into one such firm, an investigator sent two separate samples of his own blood and urine for analysis. He received two drastically different "metabolic typing" reports and dietary plans. Both plans involved the purchase of dietary supplements costing several dollars per day. + + +== Metabolic therapies == +"Metabolic therapy", including administration of laetrile, was promoted for cancer patients by John Richardson in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s, until his arrest for violating the California Cancer Law and revocation of his license by the California Board of Medical Quality Assurance. +The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) website describes metabolic therapies as "strict dietary and detoxification regimens touted to prevent and treat cancer and degenerative diseases", a term and definition different from that used for metabolic typing in this Wikipedia article. The MSKCC website notes, in relation to three such anti-cancer therapies, that "...retrospective reviews of the Gerson, Kelley, and Contreras metabolic therapies show no evidence of efficacy." + + +== Metabolic diet == +William Donald Kelley, in his book , classified Metabolism into three categories: fast, slow, and mixed oxidizers. Based on the rate of oxidization, an individual's diet varies. Fast oxidizers, who process food quickly, are advised to rely more on a fat- and protein-efficient diet to better manage hunger. Slow oxidizers are recommended a carbohydrate-efficient diet, as eating too much protein or fat can cause Abdominal pain. Mixed oxidizers follow a combination of fat- and protein-efficient diets. + + +== See also == +List of ineffective cancer treatments + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mewing_(orthotropics)-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mewing_(orthotropics)-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c83f086ac --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mewing_(orthotropics)-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +--- +title: "Mewing (orthotropics)" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mewing_(orthotropics)" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:54.028020+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Mewing is an unproven form of oral posture training purported to improve jaw and facial structure. It was named after British orthodontist John Mew, who created the technique as a part of a practice called "orthotropics", together with his son Mike. It involves placing one's tongue at the roof of the mouth and applying pressure, purportedly to modify the structure of the jaws. +No credible scientific research has ever proven the efficacy of orthotropics, and most orthodontists do not view mewing as a viable alternative treatment to orthognathic surgery. Mike Mew was expelled from the British Orthodontic Society and faced a misconduct hearing for posing harm to child patients who underwent his treatments. In 2024, Mew was struck from the dental register in the United Kingdom. +Since 2019, mewing has received widespread media coverage due to its virality on social media, especially in incel and looksmaxxing subcultures, and has been associated with "brain rot". Data from Google Trends indicates that interest in "mewing" began to rise in January 2019. Its popularity has reportedly also affected school students, with some apparently mewing in class to avoid answering questions when prompted by teachers. + + +== See also == + +Facial toning +The Rizzler + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midbrain_activation-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midbrain_activation-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..50fe9f7f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midbrain_activation-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +--- +title: "Midbrain activation" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midbrain_activation" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:55.188990+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Midbrain activation is a pseudoscientific training method claiming to allow the development of blind vision and to improve memory and concentration. The trick often works by training participants to see through blindfolds to give the illusion that they are reading objects without being able to see. + + +== Controversy == +The training programs run by the franchise organisations have generated criticism from rationalists, most notably Narendra Nayak, president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations (FIRA). + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d66c9e5ea --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,14 @@ +--- +title: "Miracle Mineral Supplement" +chunk: 1/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:56.438172+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Miracle Mineral Supplement, often referred to as Miracle Mineral Solution, Master Mineral Solution, MMS or the CD protocol, is a branded name for an aqueous solution of chlorine dioxide, an industrial bleaching agent, that has been falsely promoted as a cure for illnesses including HIV, cancer and the common cold. It is made by mixing aqueous sodium chlorite with an acid (such as the juices of citrus fruits or vinegar). This produces chlorine dioxide, a toxic chemical that can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and life-threatening low blood pressure due to dehydration. +Sodium chlorite, the main precursor to chlorine dioxide, is itself toxic if ingested. It causes acute kidney failure in high doses. Lower doses (~1 gram) can be expected to cause nausea, vomiting, inflammation of the intestines (producing so-called "rope worms") and even life-threatening reactions in persons with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. +The United States Environmental Protection Agency has set a maximum level of 0.8 mg/L for chlorine dioxide in drinking water. Naren Gunja, director of the New South Wales, Australia Poisons Information Centre, has stated that using the product is "a bit like drinking concentrated bleach" and that users have displayed symptoms consistent with corrosive injuries, such as vomiting, stomach pains, and diarrhea. +The name was coined by former Scientologist Jim Humble in his 2006 self-published book, The Miracle Mineral Solution of the 21st Century. Humble claims that the chemical can cure HIV, malaria, hepatitis viruses, the H1N1 flu virus, common colds, autism, acne, cancer and other illnesses. There have been no clinical trials to test these claims, and they come only from anecdotal reports and Humble's book. In January 2010, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that one vendor admitted that they do not repeat any of Humble's claims in writing to circumvent regulations against using it as a medicine. Sellers sometimes describe MMS as a water purifier to circumvent medical regulations. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies rejected "in the strongest terms" reports by promoters of MMS that they had used the product to fight malaria. In 2016, Humble said that MMS "cures nothing". In August 2019, the Food and Drug Administration repeated a 2010 warning against using MMS products, describing it as "the same as drinking bleach". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b4f779465 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: "Miracle Mineral Supplement" +chunk: 2/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:56.438172+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Safety and legal issues == +The Guardian described MMS as "extremely nasty stuff, and the medical advice given is that anyone who has this product should stop using it immediately and throw it away. In Canada it was banned after causing a life-threatening reaction." In August 2009, a Mexican woman travelling with her American husband on a yacht in Vanuatu took MMS to supposedly prevent malaria. She fell ill within 15 minutes, and died within 12 hours. The island nation's public prosecutor, Kayleen Tavoa, did not press any charges as there were no specific laws banning the importation of MMS, but advised, "While every case is assessed on its own merits, I advise that any person who misuses MMS in Vanuatu in the future would be likely to face prosecution for potentially serious criminal offences. No person should ever give MMS to another person to drink without advising them of what it is they are drinking and of the serious risks to health that may arise if they decide to drink the mixture." +In 2008, a 60-year-old Canadian man was hospitalized after a life-threatening response to MMS. Following a May 2010 advisory which indicated that MMS exceeds tolerable levels of sodium chlorite by a factor of 200, a Calgary-based supplier briefly stopped distribution. A February 2012 warning, which resulted in one website shutting down, advised: "There are no therapeutic products containing sodium chlorite authorized for oral consumption by humans in Canada." In the UK, the Food Standards Agency released a warning, following the initial warnings from Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, stating that "MMS is a 28% sodium chlorite solution which is equivalent to industrial-strength bleach. When taken as directed it could cause severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, potentially leading to dehydration and reduced blood pressure. If the solution is diluted less than instructed, it could cause damage to the gut and red blood cells, potentially resulting in respiratory failure." More dilute versions have potential to do harm, although it is less likely. The Food Standards Agency has since reiterated their warning on MMS and extended it to include CDS. +Sellers attribute the vomiting, nausea, and diarrhea to the product working, but it is actually the product's toxicity. +In December 2009, an alert was issued by the Belgian Poison Control Centre to the European Association of Poisons Centres and Clinical Toxicologists. In response, an evaluation was performed by the French Comité de Coordination de Toxicovigilance in March 2010, warning about dose-dependent irritation and possible toxic effects. They also warned that patients affected by serious diseases could be tempted to stop their treatments in favour of this fraudulent treatment. +A similar notice was released in July 2010 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warning that MMS, which is prepared by mixing sodium chlorite solution with an acid (such as the juice of citrus fruits), produces chlorine dioxide, "a potent bleach used for stripping textiles and industrial water treatment." Because of reports including severe nausea, vomiting, and dangerously low blood pressure as a result of dehydration following consuming MMS, the FDA has advised consumers to stop using the product and dispose of it immediately. The FDA released another warning in August 2019, saying that it has continued to receive reports of illness caused by consuming MMS. +MMS is not approved for the treatment of any disease and, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, chronic exposure to small doses of chlorine dioxide could cause reproductive and neurodevelopmental damage. While studies of chlorine dioxide effects in humans are rare, studies on animal subjects are more common; chlorine dioxide has been shown to impair thyroid function and reduce CD4+ helper T cell count in grivet monkeys after 6 months. A study found reduced red blood cell count in rats exposed to 100 mg/L of chlorine dioxide concentration in their drinking water, after 3 months. The United States Department of Labor restricts occupational exposure through inhalation of chlorine dioxide to 0.1 ppm since concentrations at 10 ppm resulted in death in rats after 10 days, and a worker accidentally exposed to 19 ppm died. According to the same organization, "chlorine dioxide is a severe respiratory and eye irritant in humans". + +=== COVID-19 === + +During the COVID-19 pandemic many previous promoters of MMS for other diseases, such as QAnon proponent Jordan Sather and the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, began touting it as a cure for COVID-19. However, the claim that MMS can cure COVID-19, or any other disease, is not based on any scientific evidence. The office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida filed for and received a preliminary injunction against its sale by another branch of the church which was using anonymous testimonials and appealing to conspiracy theories to explicitly market MMS as a cure for COVID-19. That July, the court issued orders to shut down all websites selling MMS, to prevent the church from creating new websites, and to confiscate all materials used to make MMS. Multiple agencies were involved in the seizure of 50 gallons of muriatic (hydrochloric) acid, 8,300 pounds of sodium chlorite, and 22 gallons of finished product. The church was also instructed to notify customers that the product distribution had been illegal. Mark Grenon and his sons, Jonathan Grenon, Jordan Grenon, and Joseph Grenon were charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to violate the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and criminal contempt. Mark and Joseph Grenon were arrested in Colombia in August 2020 and were extradited to the United States. On 21 July 2023, they were found guilty of defrauding the United States, distributing an unapproved drug, and distributing a misbranded drug. In October 2023, Mark and Joseph Grenon received sentences of 60 months, and Jonathan and Jordan Grenon were also convicted of contempt of court and received 151 months. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8cdf0419f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +--- +title: "Miracle Mineral Supplement" +chunk: 3/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:56.438172+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +==== Bolivia ==== +In Bolivia, officials in Cochabamba promoted MMS as a cure for COVID-19 and the Congress passed a bill to authorise the "manufacture, marketing, supply and use of chlorine dioxide solution for the prevention and treatment of coronavirus". At least 15 people were poisoned as a result. + +== Investigations == +In 2015, BBC London conducted an undercover investigation into MMS, with a reporter posing as a family member of a person with autism. The BBC reporter was sold two bottles containing sodium chlorite and hydrochloric acid by a self-styled "reverend" Leon Edwards linked to the Genesis II Church in the United States. Edwards told the reporter that the solutions would cure nearly all illnesses and conditions, including cancer, HIV, malaria, autism and Alzheimer's disease. He recommended 27 drops per day for a baby. Laboratory analysis later showed that the concentration of both bottled solutions was far stronger than advertised. Edwards told the reporter: + +I put it in my eyes, my nose, my ears, bathe in it, drunk it, breathed it in my lungs. I got injected in my butt with it. +ABC News and KABC-TV investigated the MMS phenomenon in 2016, and uncovered an "underground network" centered around southern California which was promoting the substance as a cure for conditions including cancer, Parkinson's disease and childhood autism. +It was reported in January 2018 that at least six police forces had investigated the use of MMS in the UK, where it continues to be available. Spokespersons for the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the Food Standards Agency repeatedly warned of the dangers of using such a product. +As reported in The Guardian in 2019, Uganda's government is investigating the administration of MMS in the country. +In 2019, Spain's Attorney General started an investigation in which German citizen Andreas Kalcker was charged for crimes against public health, having as its origin a complaint filed in October 2018 by the Ministry of Health, which warned of the "publication and sale" through the Internet of sodium chlorite. +In the summer of 2019, the "Genesis II Church of Health and Healing" held seminars to promote MMS in Chile, Ecuador, South Africa and New Zealand. Another one was scheduled for New York State in the United States, coming a week after the FDA warned the population about the product. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..bdc1b447b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +title: "Miracle Mineral Supplement" +chunk: 4/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:56.438172+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Judgments == +Former Chicagoan Kerri Rivera, who now resides in Mexico, was required by the Illinois Attorney General to sign a document stating that she would no longer promote the use of toxic chlorine dioxide, or "CD", in the state of Illinois. The agreement, which Rivera signed, says, "Respondent [Rivera] makes unsubstantiated health and medical claims regarding the use of chlorine dioxide in the treatment of autism. In truth and fact, Respondent lacks competent and reliable scientific evidence to support her claims that chlorine dioxide can treat autism. Respondent's act of promoting unsubstantiated health and medical claims regarding the use of chlorine dioxide in the treatment of autism constitutes a violation of Section 2 of the Consumer Fraud Act." The agreement continued to bar Rivera from speaking at seminars and selling chlorine dioxide or similar substances for the treatment of autism. However, Rivera publicizes from a website promoting dangerous MMS enemas as an autism treatment, and claiming that the intestinal lining of children expels parasites ("rope worms") – a false concept. Attorney General Lisa Madigan described the case by saying, "You have a situation where there are people, complete quacks, that are out there promoting a very dangerous chemical being given to young children... Ingesting what amounts to a toxic chemical—bleach—is not going to cure your child." Rivera advocates treating infants and toddlers, as well as older children, with chlorine dioxide enemas, requiring that children also drink the solution and bathe in it. From Germany, Rivera promoted MMS to treat COVID-19. +MMS was a cure touted by an Australian couple targeting the Seattle area. They ran websites using fake testimonials, photographs, and Seattle addresses, to promote downloadable books touted as containing secret cures as well as selling bottles labeled "water purification drops" with a brand name of "MMS Professional". The Washington State Attorney General's Office filed suit, and in conjunction with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), secured a settlement of more than US$40,000, roughly $25,000 for state legal fees and $14,000 to be divided among 200 consumers. In the ACCC legal action, the presiding judge described the cures as quackery and found the claims on the websites "false, misleading, or deceptive". +A woman from the city of Mackay in Australia, without qualifications to practice, charged up to A$2,000 to inject patients with MMS in her garage, which lacked proper facilities for sterilization, and went as far as advising a person to avoid chemotherapy while "dishonestly promoting its benefits with no scientific basis for her claims". The Queensland Office of Fair Trading handed down a court order prohibiting her from "making any claims she is able to treat, cure, or benefit any person suffering from cancer" and she was charged court costs of A$12,000. +On 28 May 2015, a US federal jury found Louis Daniel Smith guilty of conspiracy, smuggling, selling misbranded drugs, and defrauding the United States in relation to the sale of MMS. According to the evidence presented at trial, Smith created phony "water purification" and "wastewater treatment" businesses in order to obtain sodium chlorite and ship Miracle Mineral Supplement without being detected by the government. On 28 October 2015, Smith was sentenced to serve four years and three months in federal prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. Despite Smith's sentence, the Genesis II Church of Health & Healing continue to promote the sale and use of MMS in many countries including the US. In a Washington Post article Floyd Jerred, a bishop in the Genesis II Church of Health & Healing, was quoted as saying of MMS, "As long as I'm just telling you about it, it's just education," and of Smith's conviction, "And if they do lock me up, I know how to do out-of-body travel. I can go anywhere, see anything I want to see anyway." +In Ireland in 2016, Patrick Merlehan, listed as "bishop" on the Genesis II Church website, was convicted on two charges fined €4,000 in relation to manufacturing and supplying of MMS as an unauthorized medicine. His appeal was denied in 2018. +After a guilty plea to 17 of 29 counts related to the sale of MMS, a British Columbia court sentenced Stanley Nowak to six months' house arrest, followed by eighteen months' curfew, then two years' probation in 2018. It was the first conviction in Canada. +In May 2020, Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration fined MMS Australia, a chapter of the Genesis II Church, A$151,000 for over multiple advertising offenses. + +== Usage in Cameroon and Uganda == + +=== Cameroon === +A since-retracted 2018 study by Enno Freye of the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, claimed that chlorine dioxide was tested on 500 malarial patients in Cameroon, and asserted that it was "a promising new approach in malaria treatment". As reported in May 2019, The Guardian newspaper contacted the university, and was told that the study had been reviewed and found to be "scientifically worthless, contradictory, and in part ethically problematic"; Freye was stripped of his title of Apl-Professor of the faculty on grounds that he had "severely damaged the respectability and trust this title requires", and was terminated from the university. In August 2019 the study was retracted by the journal which had published it because the editors concluded after a complaint and investigation revealed that the study had never actually been conducted. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1f4f05f9f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +title: "Miracle Mineral Supplement" +chunk: 5/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:56.438172+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Uganda === +In May 2019, The Guardian reported that American pastor Robert Baldwin had "trained" around 1,200 clerics in Uganda to distribute MMS as a "miracle cure". Each cleric is estimated to administer MMS to around 50 churchgoers. Baldwin, aged 52 from New Jersey, has been importing in bulk sodium chlorite and citric acid, which are the components of MMS. Baldwin operates under 'Global Healing', the ministry he founded, which uses "the power of Almighty God ... to greatly reduce the loss of life". Baldwin offers smartphones to clerics as an incentive to spread the "miracle cure". The Guardian contacted Baldwin, who said: "We use natural healing therapies to help people—that's something Christians do." Baldwin hung up after The Guardian asked about the dosage of bleach being administered in Africa. +Fiona O'Leary, a campaigner against fake medicine, provided The Guardian with a purported call recording of Robert Baldwin where he said: "When you draw attention to MMS you run the risk of getting in trouble with the government or drug companies. You have to do it low key. That's why I set it up through the church ... America and Europe have much stricter laws so you are not as free to treat people because it is so controlled by the [American] FDA. That's why I work in developing countries ... Those people in poor countries they don't have the options that we have in the richer countries—they are much more open to receiving the blessings that God has given them." Additionally, Baldwin allegedly said: "I don't call it 'MMS', I call it 'healing water', to protect myself ... Facebook has algorithms that can recognize 'MMS'." +Sam Little partially funded Baldwin's network, telling The Guardian that MMS was "helping" the people of Uganda: "We've cured loads of people not just for malaria, cancer, HIV, all sorts of things." Little said that his interest in MMS came about when a family member of his was "cured of cancer with MMS ... I started researching online and saw more and more videos of people being cured. That's when I decided to test it myself on malaria and travelled to Africa." However, he also said: "It's not using people as guinea pigs for trials". +American conservative political activist Alan Keyes has actively promoted the use of MMS in Uganda. + +== Argentina == +MMS has also been promoted in the Spanish language. In 2019, Andreas Kalcker gave presentations in two hotels in Buenos Aires promoting a cure he calls "CDS" that is identical to MMS. The product was promoted in the Spanish language on social media platforms like Facebook, and was also sold online. +In August 2020, a five-year-old boy died in Argentina, "of multiple organ failure consistent with chlorine dioxide poisoning." The boy's parents believed that the treatment had the power to ward off COVID-19. An investigation was opened into the death of the child as well as additional deaths associated with the treatment. In March 2021, police conducted a raid into places where the chemical was being manufactured and sold, as well as additional raids in September. +In January 2021, a 92-year-old coronavirus patient died after a judge ordered a clinic to give the patient chlorine dioxide at the request of his family. + +== See also == +List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments +List of unproven methods against COVID-19 +Patent medicine +Rhys Morgan, teenage blogger whose actions helped clamp down on illegal distribution + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moerman_Therapy-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moerman_Therapy-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..70897aec4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moerman_Therapy-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +title: "Moerman Therapy" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moerman_Therapy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:57.598611+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Moerman Therapy, also called Moerman Method or Moerman Diet is an alternative cancer treatment from the Dutch practitioner Cornelis Moerman (1893–1988). There is no clinical evidence that it is effective as a cancer treatment. Moerman therapy has been criticized for unsubstantiated health claims and is considered quackery by medical experts. + + +== History == +Moerman who experimented with pigeons in the 1930s argued that he had identified "mysterious suppressors" of the cancer cell and there are "eight +essential substances" that maintain human health. He claimed that deficiency of these substances leads to metabolic disturbances and anomalies of regeneration tissue that enable microorganisms which he termed "symbionts" to convert healthy cells into cancer cells. The eight substances he identified were vitamins A, B, E, citric acid, iron, iodine and sulphur. He later added Vitamin C. He argued that a high oxidation capacity in pigeons was what protected the birds from getting cancer. Moerman stated that cancer was not a local disease but was a disturbed oxidation from the result of inadequate nutrition which led to loss of "fermentation processes" and vitality in the cell. +According to Quackwatch the Moerman diet is a vegetarian diet that "prohibited all meats, all fish and shellfish, alcohol, animal fats, artificial colorings, beans, peas, lentils, mushrooms, potatoes, red cabbage, saurkraut [sic], cheeses with high fat and salt content, margerine [sic] and other hydrogenated oils, coffee, cocoa or caffeine containing [sic] teas, egg whites, sugar, salt, white flour, and tobacco." The alleged "symbionts" that Moerman proposed have never been shown to exist. +Moerman began putting his diet therapy into practice in the 1940s. His vegetarian diet consisted of fresh vegetables (also as juice), fresh fruit, whole grains with dairy products and egg yolks. In the 1940s, four medical journals rejected Moerman's submissions due to lack of scientific quality. +Moerman admitted that he had never read a medical journal after graduating. He assessed his patients by sitting opposite them and smoking a cigar. He hardly examined his patients and did not consult with other physicians. He also treated patients without meeting them. In 1958, Moerman authored his first book The Solution to the Cancer Problem. Supporters of Moerman noted the similarity of his diet to the Gerson diet. In 1978, he authored his second book on cancer and diet therapy which went through 11 editions. +Moerman died of a brain haemorrhage in 1988. He never married. + + +== Investigations == +In 1949, Moerman self-published his first paper and sent it to senior officials in the Public Health sector and Willem Drees. There was an investigation into Moerman's therapy and a report published in 1950. It stated that "Moerman is a man with a serious lack of critical faculty and the treatment results obtained do not support Moerman's claims of recovery". +In the 1955, Moerman reported successful cancer cures with his therapy that were advertised in the De Typhoon newspaper. In response, a 1956 medical team known as the Delprat committee was established to investigate these claims. In 1958, the committee published their report which found that no case had extended the lifespan of any cancer patient by Moerman therapy alone. Moerman took issue with all the committee members and filed a complaint against them with the medical disciplinary board. The complaint was rejected and he was fined a thousand guilders by the disciplinary board for "undermining confidence in the medical profession" and "criticizing the generally accepted procedure in the Netherlands in front of patients". +In 1991, a Retrospective Research on Moerman Therapy (ROM) group was established. The ROM report found that out of an estimated 100,000 patients only 384 patients had reported to have been cured by it over a period of nearly 50 years. On further investigation of these only 21 cases could be attributed with certainty to the Moerman therapy but even many of these cases were of dubious grounds as it was not clear in all cases whether the diagnosis of cancer was correct. It was noted that this number is smaller than the number of cases of the rare spontaneous regression of cancer that could be expected. +In 2000, Moerman's invention of the diet earned him a place at the head of "a list of the twenty biggest quacks of the twentieth century" as decided by the Dutch Association Against Quackery. + + +== See also == +List of ineffective cancer treatments + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1c4224dd8 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Mongoloid" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:58.765074+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Mongoloid () is an obsolete racial grouping of various peoples indigenous to large parts of Asia, the Americas, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race. In the past, other terms such as "Mongolian race", "yellow", "Asiatic" and "Oriental" have been used as synonyms. +The concept of dividing humans into the Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and Negroid races was introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history. It was further developed by Western scholars in the context of racist ideologies during the age of colonialism. With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past." +The term Mongoloid has had a second usage referencing people with Down syndrome, now generally regarded as highly offensive. Those affected were often referred to as "Mongoloids" or in terms of "Mongolian idiocy" or "Mongolian imbecility". + +== History of the concept == + +=== Origins === +Mongolian as a term for race was first introduced in 1785 by Christoph Meiners, a scholar at the then modern Göttingen University. Meiners divided humanity into two races he labeled "Tartar-Caucasians" and "Mongolians", believing the former to be beautiful, the latter to be "weak in body and spirit, bad, and lacking in virtue". +His more influential Göttingen colleague Johann Friedrich Blumenbach borrowed the term Mongolian for his division of humanity into five races in the revised 1795 edition of his De generis humani varietate nativa (On the Natural Variety of Mankind). Although Blumenbach's concept of five races later gave rise to scientific racism, his arguments were basically anti-racist, since he underlined that humankind as a whole forms one single species, and points out that the transition from one race to another is so gradual that the distinctions between the races presented by him are "very arbitrary". In Blumenbach's concept, the Mongolian race comprises the peoples living in Asia east of the Ob River, the Caspian Sea and the Ganges River, with the exception of the Malays, who are considered to be transitional between Caucasian and Ethiopian. Of peoples living outside Asia, he includes the "Eskimos" in northern America and the European Finns, among whom he includes the "Lapps". + +=== In the context of scientific racism === + +Discussions on race among Western scholars during the 19th century took place against the background of the debate between monogenists and polygenists, the former arguing for a single origin of all humankind, the latter holding that each human race had a specific origin. Monogenists based their arguments either on a literal interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve or on secular research. Since polygenism stressed the perceived differences, it was popular among white supremacists, especially slaveholders in the US. +British biologist Thomas Huxley, a strong advocate of Darwinism and a monogenist, presented the views of polygenists in 1865: "[S]ome imagine their assumed species of mankind were created where we find them... the Mongolians from the Orangs". +During the 19th century, diverging opinions were pronounced whether Native Americans or Malays should be included in the grouping which was sometimes called "Mongolian" and sometimes "Mongoloid". For example, D. M. Warren in 1856 used a narrow definition which did not include either the "Malay" or the "American" races, while Huxley (1870) and Alexander Winchell (1881) included both Malays and indigenous Americans. In 1861, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire added the Australian as a secondary race (subrace) of the principal race of Mongolian. +In his Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines (Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, published 1853–55), which would later influence Adolf Hitler, the French aristocrat Arthur de Gobineau defined three races which he called "white", "black", and "yellow". His "yellow race", corresponding to other writers' "Mongoloid race", consisted of "the Altaic, Mongol, Finnish and Tartar branches". While he saw the "white race" as superior, he claimed that the "yellow race" was physically and intellectually mediocre but had an extremely strong materialism that allowed them to achieve certain results. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c650aa077 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +--- +title: "Mongoloid" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:58.765074+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +According to the Meyers Konversations-Lexikon (1885–90), peoples included in the Mongoloid race are North Mongol, Chinese and Indochinese, Japanese and Korean, Tibetan and Burmese, Malay, Polynesian, Maori, Micronesian, Eskimo, and Native American. +In 1909, a map published based on racial classifications in South Asia conceived by Herbert Hope Risley classified inhabitants of Bengal and parts of Odisha as Mongolo-Dravidians, people of mixed Mongoloid and Dravidian origin. Similarly in 1904, Ponnambalam Arunachalam claimed the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka were a people of mixed Mongolian and Malay racial origins as well as Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and Vedda origins. Howard S. Stoudt in The Physical Anthropology of Ceylon (1961) and Carleton S. Coon in The Living Races of Man (1966) classified the Sinhalese as partly Mongoloid. +German physical anthropologist Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt, an influential proponent of Rassenkunde (racial studies) in Nazi Germany, classified people from Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, East India, parts of Northeast India, western Myanmar and Sri Lanka as East Brachid, referring to people of mixed Indid and South Mongolid origins. Eickstedt also classified the people of central Myanmar, Yunnan, southern Tibet, Thailand and parts of India as Palaungid deriving from the name of the Palaung people of Myanmar. He also classified the Burmese, Karen, Kachin, Shan, Sri Lankans, Tai, South Chinese, Munda and Juang, and others as having "mixed" with the Palaungid phenotype. +Commenting on the situation of the United States in the early 20th century, Leonard Lieberman said that the notion of the whole world being composed of three distinct races, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid, seemed credible because of the history of immigration to the United States with most immigrants coming from three areas, Southeast China, Northwest Europe, and West Africa. This made the point of view of three races appear to be "true, natural, and inescapable". +In 1950, UNESCO published their statement The Race Question. It condemned all forms of racism, naming "the doctrine of inequality of men and races" among the causes of World War II and proposing to replace the term "race" with "ethnic groups" because "serious errors ... are habitually committed when the term 'race' is used in popular parlance". + +==== Subraces according to Kroeber ==== +Alfred L. Kroeber (1948), Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, referring to the racial classification of humankind on the basis of physical features, said that there are basically "three grand divisions." Kroeber indicated that, within the three-part classification, the Mongoloid, the Negroid, and the Caucasian are the three "primary racial stocks of mankind." Kroeber said that the following are the divisions of the Mongoloid stock: the "Mongolian proper of East Asia," the "Malaysian of the East Indies," and the "American Indian." Kroeber alternatively referred to the divisions of the Mongoloid stock as the following: "Asiatic Mongoloids," "Oceanic Mongoloids," and "American Mongoloids." Kroeber said that the differences among the three divisions of the Mongoloid stock are not very large. Kroeber said that the Malaysian and the American Indian are generalized type peoples while the Mongolian proper is the most extreme or pronounced form. Kroeber said that the original Mongoloid stock must be regarded as being more like the current Malaysians, the current American Indians, or an intermediate type between these two. Kroeber said that it is from these generalized type peoples, who kept more nearly the ancient type, that peoples such as the Chinese gradually diverged, who added the oblique eye, and a "certain generic refinement of physique." Kroeber said that, according to most anthropometrists, the Eskimo is the most particularized sub-variety out of the American Mongoloids. Kroeber said that in the East Indies, and in particular the Philippines, there can at times be distinguished a less specifically Mongoloid strain, which has been called the "Proto-Malaysian," and a more specifically Mongoloid strain, which has been called the "Deutero-Malaysian." Kroeber said that Polynesians appear to have primary Mongoloid connections by way of the Malaysians. Kroeber said that the Mongoloid element of Polynesians is not a specialized Mongoloid. Kroeber said that the Mongoloid element in Polynesians appears to be larger than the definite Caucasian strain in Polynesians. Speaking of Polynesians, Kroeber said that there are locally possible minor Negroid absorptions, as the ancestral Polynesians had to pass by or through archipelagoes which are presently Papuo-Melanesian Negroid to get to the central Pacific. + +=== Coon's Origin of Races === +American anthropologist Carleton S. Coon published his much debated Origin of Races in 1962. Coon divided the species Homo sapiens into five groups: Besides the Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Australoid races, he posited two races among the indigenous populations of sub-Saharan Africa: the Capoid race in the south and the Congoid race. +Coon's thesis was that Homo erectus had already been divided into five different races or subspecies. "Homo Erectus then evolved into Homo Sapiens not once but five times, as each subspecies, living in its own territory, passed a critical threshold from a more brutal to a more sapient state." +Since Coon followed the traditional methods of physical anthropology, relying on morphological characteristics, and not on the emerging genetics to classify humans, the debate over Origin of Races has been "viewed as the last gasp of an outdated scientific methodology that was soon to be supplanted." + +=== Disproof by modern genetics === +The fact that there are no sharp distinctions between the supposed racial groups had been observed by Blumenbach and later by Charles Darwin. +With the availability of new data due to the development of modern genetics, the concept of races in a biological sense has become untenable. Problems of the concept include: It "is not useful or necessary in research", scientists are not able to agree on the definition of a certain proposed race, and they do not even agree on the number of races, with some proponents of the concept suggesting 300 or even more "races". Also, data are not reconcilable with the concept of a treelike evolution nor with the concept of "biologically discrete, isolated, or static" populations. + +=== Current scientific consensus === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e9804e23c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +--- +title: "Mongoloid" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:58.765074+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +After discussing various criteria used in biology to define subspecies or races, Alan R. Templeton concludes in 2016: "[T]he answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no." + +== Features == + +=== General appearance === +The last edition of the German encyclopedia Meyers Konversations-Lexikon (1971–79, 25 volumes) lists the following characteristics of the "Mongoloid" populations of Asia: "Flat face with a low nasal root, accentuated zygomatic arches, flat-lying eyelids (which are often slanting), thick, tight, dark hair, dark eyes, yellow-brownish skin, usually short, stocky build." + +=== Skull === +In 2004, British anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson gave a description of "Mongoloid" skulls in her book on forensic facial reconstruction: "The Mongoloid skull shows a round head shape with a medium-width nasal aperture, rounded orbital margins, massive cheekbones, weak or absent canine fossae, moderate prognathism, absent brow ridges, simple cranial sutures, prominent zygomatic bones, broad, flat, tented nasal root, short nasal spine, shovel-shaped upper incisor teeth (scooped out behind), straight nasal profile, moderately wide palate shape, arched sagittal contour, wide facial breadth and a flatter face." + +=== Cold adaptation === +In 1950, Carleton S. Coon, Stanley M. Garn, and Joseph B. Birdsell proposed that the relative flatness of "Mongoloid" faces was caused by adaption to the extreme cold of subarctic and arctic conditions. They supposed that "Mongoloid" eye sockets have been extended vertically to make room for adipose tissue around the eyeballs, and that the "reduced" brow ridges decrease the size of the air spaces inside of the brow ridges known as the frontal sinuses which are "vulnerable" to the cold. They also supposed that "Mongoloid" facial features reduce the surface area of the nose by having nasal bones that are flat against the face and having enlarged cheekbones that project forward which effectively reduce the external projection of the nose. +Still, in 1965 a study by A. T. Steegmann showed that the so-called cold-adapted Mongoloid face provided no greater protection against frostbite than the facial structure of Europeans. + +== Use in United States law == + +In 1858, the California State Legislature enacted the first bill of several that prohibited the attendance of "Negroes, Mongolians and Indians" from public schools, amending its code in 1885 to make separate schools for "children of Mongoloid or Chinese descent." By 1911, the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization was using the term "Mongolic grand division," not only to include Mongols, but "in the widest sense of all," to include Malays, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and "East Indians," a term which included the peoples of "India, Farther India, and Malaysia". A 1987 report to the National Institute of Justice indicated that the following skeletal collections were of the "Mongoloid" ethnic group: Arctic Eskimo, Prehistoric North American Indian, Japanese, and Chinese. +In 1985, Michael P. Malone of the FBI Laboratory said that the FBI Laboratory is in a good position for the examination of Mongoloid hairs, because it does most of the examinations for Alaska, which has a large Mongoloid population, and it conducts examinations for the majority of Indian reservations in the United States. A 2005 article in a journal by the FBI Laboratory defined the term "Mongoloid" for its use in forensic hair examinations as, "an anthropological term designating one of the major groups of human beings originating from Asia, excluding the Indian subcontinent and including Native American Indians." + +== Use as a term for Down syndrome == + +"Mongoloid" has had a second usage, now generally avoided as highly offensive: until the late 20th century, people with Down syndrome were often referred to as "Mongoloids", or in terms of "Mongolian idiocy" or "Mongolian imbecility". The term was motivated by the observation that people with Down syndrome often have epicanthic folds. +Coined in 1908, the term remained in medical usage until the 1950s. In 1961, its use was deprecated by a group of genetic experts in an article in The Lancet due to its "misleading connotations". The term continued to be used as a pejorative in the second half of the 20th century, with shortened versions such as mong in slang usage. +In the 21st century, this usage of the term is deemed "unacceptable" in the English-speaking world and has fallen out of common use because of its offensive and misleading implications. The terminology change was brought about both by scientific and medical experts as well as people of Asian ancestry, including those from Mongolia. + +== See also == +Craniofacial anthropometry +Orientalism +Proto-Mongoloid +Race (human categorization) +Race and genetics + +== References == + +== External links == + The dictionary definition of mongoloid at Wiktionary \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montpellier_vitalism-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montpellier_vitalism-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..aab96c239 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montpellier_vitalism-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +--- +title: "Montpellier vitalism" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montpellier_vitalism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:59.950300+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The vitalism of the Montpellier medical school, more succinctly called "Montpellier vitalism", is a medical and philosophical school of thought. + + +== History == +It emerged in France in the second half of the 18th century under the influence of physicians and philosophers shaped by the intellectual context of the time. Disease was interpreted in an original way as a dysfunction of the entire organism, compromising its integrity. This medical philosophy persisted for over a century and found fertile ground at the University of Montpellier, an institution renowned for its openness to philosophical ideas. +The term "vitalism" arose in the wake of the Montpellier school of medicine, in the south of France, and was notably introduced by Charles-Louis Dumas, dean of the city's Faculty of Medicine, in his Principes de Physiologie in 1800. The vitalism of this school viewed living organisms as indivisible units animated by a "vital principle" that could not be reduced to the physical activity of organs, though it was also distinct from the thinking soul. It positioned itself as an intermediate stance between the mechanistic perspective of the early 18th century and the animist vitalism attributed to Stahl, as well as between materialism and spiritualism. +By the late 18th century, the Montpellier school enjoyed significant prestige in France and entered into rivalry with the Paris school, which was more materialist and advocated an "organicist" approach to medicine, focused on the study of organs. + + +== See also == +Vitalism +University of Montpellier +Paul Joseph Barthez +Théophile de Bordeu +Xavier Bichat + + +== References == + + +== Sources == +Le Blanc, Guillaume (2004). "Le vitalisme (École de Montpellier)", in D. Lecourt (dir.), Dictionnaire de la pensée médicale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, pp. 1208–1211 (in French). +Malaterre, Christophe (2007). "Le "néo-vitalisme" au XIXe siècle : une seconde école française de l'émergence". Bulletin d'histoire et d'épistémologie des sciences de la vie. 14: 25–45. Full text (in French). +Rey, Roselyne (2000). Naissance et développement du vitalisme en France de la fin du XVIIe siècle à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Oxford: University of Oxford, Voltaire Foundation (in French, first ed. 1987). +Williams, Elisabeth Ann (2003). A Cultural History of Medical Vitalism in Enlightenment Montpellier. Farnham: Ashgat. + + +== External links == +Philippe Huneman (2008), "Montpellier vitalism and the emergence of alienism in France (1750-1800): the case of passions". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2bdef1891 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: "Morgellons" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:01.062151+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Morgellons () is the informal name of a self-diagnosed, scientifically unsubstantiated skin condition in which individuals have sores that they believe contain fibrous material. Morgellons is not well understood, but the general medical consensus is that it is a form of delusional parasitosis, on the psychiatric spectrum. The sores are typically the result of compulsive scratching, and the fibers, when analysed, are consistently found to have originated from cotton and other textiles. +The condition was named in 2002 by Mary Leitao, a mother who rejected the medical diagnosis of her son's delusional parasitosis. She chose the name from a letter written by a mid-17th-century physician. Leitao and others involved in her Morgellons Research Foundation successfully lobbied members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate the condition in 2006. CDC researchers issued the results of their multi-year study in January 2012, indicating that no disease organisms were present in the samples from the individuals examined and that the fibers found were likely cotton. The researchers concluded that the condition was "similar to more commonly recognized conditions such as delusional infestation". + +== Medical description == +Morgellons is poorly understood but the general medical consensus is that it is a form of delusional parasitosis in which individuals have some form of skin condition with sores that they believe contain fibers. Its presentation is very similar to delusional parasitosis, with the addition that people with the condition believe there are inanimate objects in their skin lesions. An active online community supports the notion that it is an infectious disease, disputes that it is psychological, and proposes an association with Lyme disease. Controversy has resulted; publications "largely from a single group of investigators" describe findings of spirochetes, keratin and collagen in skin samples in small numbers of patients; these findings are contradicted by much larger studies conducted by the CDC, which found skin samples mostly contained cellulose that came from cotton, with no evidence of infection or other causes. + +== Society and culture == + +=== Mary Leitao === +In 2001, according to Leitao, her then-two-year-old son developed sores under his lip and began to complain of bugs. Leitao says she examined the sores with her son's toy microscope and discovered red, blue, black, and white fibers. She states that she took her son to see at least eight different doctors who were unable to find any disease, allergy, or anything unusual about her son's described symptoms. Fred Heldrich, a Johns Hopkins pediatrician with a reputation "for solving mystery cases", examined Leitao's son. Heldrich found nothing abnormal about the boy's skin, and wrote to the referring physician that "Leitao would benefit from a psychiatric evaluation and support", and registered his worry about Leitao's "use" of her son. Leitao last consulted an unnamed Johns Hopkins infectious disease specialist who refused to see her son after reviewing his records, and suggested Leitao herself might have "Munchausen's by proxy, a psychiatric syndrome in which a parent pretends a child is sick or makes him sick to get attention from the medical system". According to Leitao, several medical professionals she sought out shared this opinion of a potential psychological disorder: + +[Leitao] said she long ago grew accustomed to being doubted by doctors whenever she sought help for her son, who is now seven and still suffering from recurring lesions. "They suggested that maybe I was neurotic," Leitao said. "They said they were not interested in seeing him because I had Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy." +Leitao says that her son developed more sores, and more fibers continued to poke out of them. She and her husband, Edward Leitao, an internist, felt their son had "something unknown". + +=== Morgellons named === +Leitao chose the name Morgellons disease (with a hard g) from a description of an illness in the medical case-history essay, A Letter to a Friend (c. 1656, pub. 1690) by Sir Thomas Browne, where the physician describes several medical conditions in his experience, including "that endemial distemper of children in Languedoc, called the morgellons, wherein they critically break out with harsh hairs on their backs". + +=== Morgellons Research Foundation === +Leitao started the Morgellons Research Foundation (MRF) informally in 2002 and as an official non-profit in 2004. The MRF website states that its purpose is to raise awareness and funding for research into the proposed condition, described by the organization as a "poorly understood illness, which can be disfiguring and disabling". Leitao stated that she initially hoped to receive information from scientists or physicians who might understand the problem, but instead, thousands of others contacted her describing their sores and fibers, as well as neurological symptoms, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, and other symptoms. The MRF claimed to have received self-identified reports of Morgellons from all 50 U.S. states and 15 other countries, including Canada, the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands. It also claimed that it had been contacted by over 12,000 families. +In 2012, the Morgellons Research Foundation closed down and directed future inquiries to the Oklahoma State University. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..aa4844048 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +--- +title: "Morgellons" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:01.062151+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Media coverage === +In May 2006, a CBS news segment on Morgellons aired in Southern California. The same day, the Los Angeles County Department of Health services issued a statement saying, "No credible medical or public health association has verified the existence or diagnosis of 'Morgellons Disease'", and "at this time there is no reason for individuals to panic over unsubstantiated reports of this disease". In June and July 2006, there were segments on CNN, ABC's Good Morning America, and NBC's The Today Show. In August 2006, a segment of the ABC show Medical Mysteries was devoted to the subject. Morgellons was featured on ABC's Nightline on January 16, 2008, and as the cover story of the January 20, 2008, issue of The Washington Post. +The first article to propose Morgellons as a new disease in a scientific journal was a review article co-authored by members of the MRF and published in 2006 by the American Journal of Clinical Dermatology. A 2006 article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported, "There have been no clinical studies" of Morgellons disease. A New Scientist article in 2007 also covered the phenomenon, noting that people are reporting similar symptoms in Europe and Australia. +In an article published in the Los Angeles Times on April 22, 2010, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell claimed to have the condition. +On June 13, 2011, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National broadcast The Mystery of Morgellons with guests including Mayo Clinic Professor Mark Davis. + +=== CDC investigation === +The Morgellons Research Foundation coordinated a mailing campaign via their website, in which thousands of people sent form letters to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) task force, which first met in June 2006. By August 2006, the task force consisted of 12 people, including two pathologists, a toxicologist, an ethicist, a mental health expert, and specialists in infectious, parasitic, environmental and chronic diseases. +In June 2007, the CDC started a website relating to Morgellons, CDC Study of an Unexplained Dermopathy, and by November 2007, the CDC opened an investigation into the condition. Kaiser Permanente, a health-care consortium in Northern California, was chosen to assist with the investigation, which involved skin biopsies from affected people and characterization of foreign material such as fibers or threads obtained from people to determine their potential source. The U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and the American Academy of Dermatology assisted with pathology. In January 2012, the CDC released the results of the study. +The CDC concluded that 59% of subjects showed cognitive deficits and 63% had evidence of clinically significant symptoms. They stated that 50% of the individuals had drugs in their systems, and 78% reported exposure to solvents (potential skin irritants). The study detected no parasites or mycobacteria in the samples collected from any individuals. Most materials collected from participants' skin were composed of cellulose, likely of cotton origin. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..82f5cb0ec --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +--- +title: "Morgellons" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:01.062151+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Internet and media influence === +An active online community and publications "largely from a single group of investigators" have supported the notion that Morgellons is an infectious disease, and propose an association with Lyme disease; these findings are contradicted by the much larger studies conducted by the CDC. People usually self-diagnose Morgellons based on information from the internet and find support and confirmation in online communities of people with similar illness beliefs. In 2006, Waddell and Burke reported the influence of the internet on people self-diagnosed with Morgellons: "physicians are becoming more and more challenged by the many persons who attempt self-diagnosis on-line. In many cases, these attempts are well-intentioned, yet wrong, and a person's belief in some of these oftentimes unscientific sites online may preclude their trust in the evidence-based approaches and treatment recommendations of their physician." +Physician Fidel Vila-Rodriguez wrote in a 2008 editorial that the Internet promotes the spreading and supporting of "bizarre" disease beliefs because in online communities, "a belief is not considered delusional if it is accepted by other members of an individual's culture or subculture". Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist who has studied the Morgellons phenomenon, states that the "World Wide Web has become the incubator for mass delusion and it (Morgellons) seems to be a socially transmitted disease over the Internet." According to this hypothesis, people with delusions of parasitosis and other psychological disorders become convinced they have "Morgellons" after reading internet accounts of others with similar symptoms. This phenomenon is known as mass psychogenic illness, where physical symptoms without an organic cause spread to multiple people within the same community or social group. The Dallas Observer writes that Morgellons may be memetically spread via the internet and mass media, and "[i]f this is the case, then Morgellons is one in a long line of weird diseases that have swept through populations, only to disappear without a trace once public concern subsides". The article draws parallels to several media-spread mass delusions. +Dermatologist Caroline Koblenzer specifically faults the Morgellons Research Foundation (MRF) website for misleading people: "Clearly, as more and more of our patients discover this site (MRF), there will be an ever greater waste of valuable time and resources on fruitless research into fibers, fluffs, irrelevant bacteria, and innocuous worms and insects." A 2005 Popular Mechanics article stated that Morgellons symptoms are well known and characterized in the context of other disorders, and that "widespread reports of the strange fibers date back" only a few years to when the MRF first described them on the Internet. The Los Angeles Times, in an article on Morgellons, notes that "[t]he recent upsurge in symptoms can be traced directly to the Internet, following the naming of the disease by Mary Leitao, a Pennsylvania mother". +In 2008, The Washington Post reported that internet discussions about Morgellons include many conspiracy theories about the cause, including biological warfare, nanotechnology, chemtrails and extraterrestrial life. The Atlantic says it "even received pop-culture attention" when it was featured on Criminal Minds, adding that "Morgellons patients have further alienated themselves from the mainstream medical community" by "linking Morgellons to another illness viewed skeptically by most doctors, chronic Lyme disease, and by attacking those who doubt their condition". + +== See also == +Culture-bound syndrome +Formication +Fringe medicine +Jay Traver +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience +Mass psychogenic illness +Matchbox sign +Medicalization +Münchausen syndrome +Quaternary prevention +Somatic symptom disorder + +== Notes == + +== References == + +== Further reading == +Fair, Brian (2010). "Morgellons: Contested illness, diagnostic compromise and medicalisation". Sociology of Health & Illness. 32 (4): 597–612. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9566.2009.01227.x. PMID 20149149. +Nunziato CA, Egeland BM, Gurman A, Henry SL (November 2021). "Morgellons Disease: The Spread of a Mass Psychogenic Illness via the Internet and Its Implications in Hand Surgery". Hand. 16 (6): NP5–NP9. doi:10.1177/1558944720976648. PMC 8647328. PMID 33435739. S2CID 231594436. +Shelomi M (June 2013). "Evidence of photo manipulation in a delusional parasitosis paper". Journal of Parasitology. 99 (3): 583–585. doi:10.1645/12-12.1. PMID 23198757. S2CID 6473251. +Dunning, Brian (May 18, 2010). "Skeptoid #206: Morgellons Disease". Skeptoid. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucoid_plaque-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucoid_plaque-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..96da0218c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucoid_plaque-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: "Mucoid plaque" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucoid_plaque" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:02.240221+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Mucoid plaque (or mucoid cap or rope) is a pseudo-scientific term used by some natural medicine advocates to describe what is claimed to be a combination of harmful mucus-like material and food residue that they say coats the gastrointestinal tract of most people. The term was coined by Richard Anderson, a naturopath and entrepreneur, who sells a range of products that cleanse the body of such plaques. +Many such "colon cleansing" products are promoted to the public on websites that have been described as making misleading medical claims. The presence of laxatives, bentonite clay, and fibrous thickening agents in some of these "cleansing agents" has led to suggestions that the products themselves produce the excreted matter regarded as the plaque. +The concept of a 'mucoid plaque' has been dismissed by medical experts as having no anatomical or physiological basis. + + +== History == +Various forms of colon cleansing were popular in the 19th and early 20th century. In 1932, Bastedo wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association about his observation of mucus masses being removed during a colon irrigation procedure: "When one sees the dirty gray, brown or blackish sheets, strings and rolled up wormlike masses of tough mucus with a rotten or dead-fish odor that are obtained by colon irrigations, one does not wonder that these patients feel ill and that they obtain relief and show improvement as the result of the irrigation." +While colonic irrigation enjoyed a vogue in the early 20th century as a possible cure for numerous diseases, subsequent research showed that it was useless and potentially harmful. With the scientific rationale for "colon cleansing" disproven, the idea fell into disrepute as a form of quackery, with a 2005 medical review stating that "there is no evidence to support this ill-conceived theory that has been long abandoned by the scientific community." Similarly, in response to claims that colon cleansing removes "toxins", Bennett Roth, a gastroenterologist at the University of California, stated that "there is absolutely no science to this whatsoever. There is no such thing as getting rid of quote-unquote 'toxins.' The colon was made to carry stool. This is total baloney." The preoccupation with such bowel management products has been described as a "quaint and amusing chapter in the history of weird medical beliefs." Nevertheless, interest in colonic "autointoxication" as a cause of illness, and in colonic irrigation as a cure, enjoyed a revival in alternative medicine at the end of the 20th century. +The term "mucoid plaque" was coined and popularized by naturopath and entrepreneur Richard Anderson, who sells a range of products that claim to cleanse the body of such purported plaques by causing them to be eliminated. Anderson describes a mucoid plaque as a rubbery, ropey, generally green gel-like mucus film that covers the epithelial cells of the hollow organs, particularly of the alimentary canal. Anderson also claims the plaque can impair digestion and the absorption of nutrients, hold pathogens, and cause illnesses such as diarrhea, bowel cancer, allergies and skin conditions. Based on these claims, he promotes efforts to remove the plaque, and sells a range of products to this end. +Though Anderson argues that his beliefs are backed by scientific research, his claims are primarily supported by anecdotal evidence rather than empirical data, and doctors have noted the absence of mucoid plaques. Anderson claims this is due to medical textbooks failing to cover the concept, which results in doctors not knowing what to look for. + + +== Medical evaluation == +Practicing physicians have dismissed the concept of mucoid plaque as a hoax and a "non-credible concept". A pathologist at the University of Texas School of Medicine addressed Anderson's claims directly, saying that he has "seen several thousand intestinal biopsies and have never seen any 'mucoid plaque.' This is a complete fabrication with no anatomic basis." +Another pathologist, Edward Friedlander, noted that, in his experience, he has never observed anything resembling a "toxic bowel settlement", and that some online photographs actually depict what he recognises as a blood clot. Commenting on claims that waste material can adhere to the colon, Douglas Pleskow, a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, stated, "that is the urban legend. In reality, most people clear their GI tract within three days." +In a review of websites promoting products that claim to remove 'mucoid rope' or plaque from consumers' intestines, Howard Hochster of New York University wrote that these websites are "abundant, quasi-scientific, and unfortunately convincing to a biologically uneducated public." He noted that although such sites are entertaining, they are disturbing in that they promote a belief that has no basis in physiology. +Hochster also noted that a preparation marketed to remove mucoid plaque contains laxatives and bulky fibrous ingredients. Thus, the rope-like fecal material expelled from people who consume this product "certainly is a result of the figs and senna in this preparation," rather than any sort of pathologic 'plaque'. Other 'colon cleanser' products contain bentonite clay that, when ingested, would also result in production of bulky stools. +In many cases, customers purchase supplement products that are said to help the body excrete the so-called 'mucoid plaque'. The customer may consume a number of pills, and then within 12–48 hours, will pass a rope-like fecal material in their subsequent bowel movements. This fecal material is said to be the 'mucoid plaque'. However, analysis of supplements consumed by the customer shows that the active ingredient is very similar to that of clay used in clumping cat litter. This clay takes a negative mould of the large intestine which is then excreted during the customer's next bowel movement. + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4b8c38765 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Myers–Briggs Type Indicator" +chunk: 1/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:04.548398+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a self-report questionnaire that makes pseudoscientific claims to categorize individuals into 16 distinct psychological types (often called personality types). The test assigns a binary letter value to each of four dichotomous categories: introversion or extraversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. This produces a four-letter test result, such as "INTJ" or "ESFP", representing one of the 16 types. +The original version of the MBTI was constructed during World War II by Americans Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, inspired by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung's 1921 book Psychological Types. Isabel Myers was particularly fascinated by the concept of "introversion", and she typed herself as an INFP. However, she thought that the book was too complex for the general public and tried to organize the Jungian cognitive functions to make it more accessible. +As a psychometric indicator, the test exhibits significant deficiencies, including poor validity, poor reliability, measuring supposedly dichotomous categories that are not independent, and not being comprehensive. Most of the research supporting the MBTI's validity has been produced by the Center for Applications of Psychological Type, an organization run by the Myers–Briggs Foundation, and published in the center's own journal, the Journal of Psychological Type (JPT), raising questions of independence, bias and conflict of interest. Nevertheless, due to the Barnum effect, participants often attribute a level of accuracy to the results that is disproportionate to their scientific credibility. +Psychology regards the MBTI as useless, since it lacks predictive power. According to University of Pennsylvania professor Adam Grant, "There is no evidence behind it. The traits measured by the test have almost no predictive power when it comes to how happy you'll be in a given situation, how well you'll perform at your job, or how satisfied you'll be in your marriage." Despite controversies over validity, the instrument has demonstrated widespread influence since its adoption by the Educational Testing Service in 1962. It is estimated that 50 million people have taken the MBTI and that 10,000 businesses, 2,500 colleges and universities, and 200 government agencies in the United States use it. + +== History == + +Briggs began her research into personality in 1917. Upon meeting her future son-in-law, she observed marked differences between his personality and that of other family members. Briggs embarked on a project of reading biographies and subsequently developed a typology wherein she proposed four temperaments: meditative (or thoughtful), spontaneous, executive, and social. +After the publication in 1923 of an English translation of Carl Jung's book Psychological Types (first published in German as Psychologische Typen in 1921), Briggs recognized that Jung's theory resembled, but went far beyond, her own. Briggs's four types were later identified as corresponding to the IXXXs (Introvertsion: "meditative"), EXXPs (Extraversion & Perceiving: "spontaneous"), EXTJs (Extraversion, Thinking & Judging: "executive") and EXFJs (Extraversion, Feeling & Judging: "social"). Her first publications were two articles describing Jung's theory, in The New Republic, "Meet Yourself Using the Personality Paint Box" (1926) and "Up From Barbarism" (1928). After extensively studying the work of Jung, Briggs and her daughter extended their interest in human behavior into efforts to turn the theory of psychological types to practical use. +Although Myers graduated from Swarthmore College in political science in 1919, neither Myers nor Briggs were formally educated in the discipline of psychology, and both were self-taught in the field of psychometric testing. Myers therefore apprenticed herself to Edward N. Hay (1891–1958), the head personnel officer for a large Philadelphia bank. From Hay, Myers learned rudimentary test construction, scoring, validation, and statistical methods. +Briggs and Myers began creating their indicator during World War II (1939–1945) in the belief that a knowledge of personality preferences would help women entering the industrial workforce for the first time to identify the sorts of war-time jobs that would be the "most comfortable and effective" for them. The Briggs Myers Type Indicator Handbook, published in 1944, was re-published as "Myers–Briggs Type Indicator" in 1956. +Myers' work attracted the attention of Henry Chauncey, head of the Educational Testing Service, a private assessment organization. Under these auspices, the first MBTI "manual" was published, in 1962. The MBTI received further support from Donald W. MacKinnon, head of the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley; W. Harold Grant, a professor at Michigan State University and Auburn University; and Mary H. McCaulley of the University of Florida. The publication of the MBTI was transferred to Consulting Psychologists Press in 1975, and the Center for Applications of Psychological Type was founded as a research laboratory. +After Myers' death in May 1980, Mary McCaulley updated the MBTI manual, and the second edition was published in 1985. The third edition appeared in 1998. + +=== Format and administration === +In 1987, an advanced scoring-system was developed for the MBTI. From this was developed the Type Differentiation Indicator (TDI), which is a scoring system for the longer MBTI, Form J, which includes the 290 items written by Myers that had survived her previous item analyses. It yields 20 subscales (five under each of the four dichotomous preference scales), plus seven additional subscales for a new "comfort-discomfort" factor (which parallels, though not perfectly measuring, the NEO-PI factor of neuroticism). This factor's scales indicate a sense of overall comfort and confidence versus discomfort and anxiety. They also load onto one of the four type-dimensions: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5433006e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +--- +title: "Myers–Briggs Type Indicator" +chunk: 2/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:04.548398+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +guarded-optimistic (T/F), +defiant-compliant (T/F), +carefree-worried (T/F), +decisive-ambivalent (J/P), +intrepid-inhibited (E/I), +leader-follower (E/I), and +proactive-distractible (J/P). +Also included is a composite of these called "strain". There are also scales for type-scale consistency and comfort-scale consistency. Reliability of 23 of the 27 TDI subscales is greater than 0.50, "an acceptable result given the brevity of the subscales". +In 1989, a scoring system was developed for only the 20 subscales for the original four dichotomies. This was initially known as "Form K" or "the Expanded Analysis Report". This tool is now called the MBTI Step II. +Form J or the TDI included the items (derived from Myers' and McCaulley's earlier work) necessary to score what became known as Step III. (The 1998 MBTI Manual reported that the two instruments were one and the same) Step III was developed in a joint project involving the following organizations: the Myers–Briggs Company, the publisher of all the MBTI works; the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT), which holds all of Myers' and McCaulley's original work; and the MBTI Trust headed by Katharine and Peter Myers. CAPT advertised Step III as addressing type development and the use of "perception and judgment" by respondents. + +== Concepts == +The MBTI is based on the theory of psychological types proposed by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in 1921, which was partially based on the four elements of classical cosmology. Jung speculated that people experience the world using four principal psychological functions—sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking—and that one of these four functions is dominant in an individual, a majority of the time. In MBTI theory, the four categories are introversion/extraversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. According to the MBTI, each person is said to have one preferred quality from each category, producing 16 unique types. +The MBTI Manual states that the indicator "is designed to implement a theory; therefore, the theory must be understood to understand the MBTI". Fundamental to the MBTI is the hypothesis of psychological types as originally developed by Carl Jung. Jung proposed the existence of two dichotomous pairs of cognitive functions: + +The "rational" (judging) functions: thinking and feeling. +The "irrational" (perceiving) functions: sensation and intuition. +Jung believed that for every person, each of the functions is expressed primarily in either an introverted or extraverted form. Based on Jung's original concepts, Briggs and Myers developed their own theory of psychological type, described below, on which the MBTI is based. According to psychologist Hans Eysenck writing in 1995, the 16 personality types used in the MBTI are incomplete as Jung's theory used 32 types, 16 of which could not be measured by a questionnaire. Both Jung's original model and the simplified MBTI remain hypothetical, with no controlled scientific studies supporting either. + +=== Differences from Jung === +Jung did not see the type preferences (such as introversion and extraversion) as dualistic, but rather as tendencies: both are innate and have the potential to balance. +Jung's typology theories postulated a sequence of four cognitive functions (thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition), each having one of two polar tendencies (extraversion or introversion), giving a total of eight dominant functions. The MBTI is based on these eight hypothetical functions. While the Jungian model proposes the first three dichotomies, Myers and Briggs added the judging (J) and perceiving (P) preferences. According to Myers and Briggs, J and P indicate a person's most preferred extraverted function, which is the dominant function for extraverted types and the auxiliary function for introverted types. + +=== Type dynamics and development === + +The MBTI sorts some psychological differences into four sets of opposite pairs, or "dichotomies", with a resulting 16 possible psychological types. None of these are considered to be "better" or "worse"; however, Briggs and Myers theorized that people innately "prefer" one overall combination of type differences. +The 16 types are typically referred to by an abbreviation of four letters – the initial letters of each of their four type preferences (except in the case of intuition, which uses the abbreviation "N" to distinguish it from introversion). For instance: + +ENTJ: extraversion (E), intuition (N), thinking (T), judgment (J) +ISFP: introversion (I), sensing (S), feeling (F), perception (P) +These abbreviations are applied to all 16 types. +The interaction of two, three, or four preferences is known as "type dynamics". Type dynamics has received little or no empirical support to substantiate its viability as a scientific theory. Myers and Briggs asserted that for each of the 16 four-preference types, one function is the most dominant and is likely to be evident earliest in life. A secondary or auxiliary function typically becomes more evident (differentiated) during teenage years and provides balance to the dominant. In normal development, individuals tend to become more fluent with a third, tertiary function during mid-life, while the fourth, inferior function remains least consciously developed. The inferior function is purportedly associated with the unconscious, and is most evident in situations such as high stress (sometimes referred to as being "in the grip" of the inferior function). +The use of type dynamics is disputed: in the conclusion of various studies on the subject of type dynamics, psychologist James H. Reynierse writes, "Type dynamics has persistent logical problems and is fundamentally based on a series of category mistakes; it provides, at best, a limited and incomplete account of type related phenomena"; and "type dynamics relies on anecdotal evidence, fails most efficacy tests, and does not fit the empirical facts". His studies gave the clear result that the descriptions and workings of type dynamics do not fit the real behavior of people. He suggests getting completely rid of type dynamics, because it does not help, but hinders understanding of personality. The presumed order of functions 1 to 4 did only occur in one out of 540 test results. + +=== Four dichotomies === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e92731687 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +--- +title: "Myers–Briggs Type Indicator" +chunk: 3/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:04.548398+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The four pairs of preferences or "dichotomies" proposed by Briggs and Myers are shown in the adjacent table. +The terms as used in the MBTI may differ from their everyday usage. For example, people who prefer judgment over perception are not necessarily more "judgmental" or less "perceptive", nor does the MBTI instrument attempt to measure aptitude; instead, it attempts to indicate personal preference. Myers considered the direction of the preference (for example, E vs. I) to be more important than the degree of the preference (for example, very clear vs. slight). + +=== Attitudes: extraversion/introversion === +Myers–Briggs literature uses the terms extraversion and introversion as Jung first used them. Extraversion means literally outward-turning and introversion, inward-turning. These specific definitions differ somewhat from the popular usage of the words. Extraversion is the spelling used in MBTI publications. + +=== Functions: sensing/intuition and thinking/feeling === +Jung identified two pairs of psychological functions: + +Two perceiving functions: sensation (usually called sensing in MBTI writings) and intuition +Two judging functions: thinking and feeling +According to Jung's typology model, each person uses one of these four functions more dominantly and proficiently than the other three; however, all four functions are used at different times depending on the circumstances. Each of these proposed function can manifest in either an extraverted or an introverted attitude, so Jung's model includes eight combinations of functions and attitudes, four of which are largely conscious and four unconscious. John Beebe created a model that combines ideas of archetypes and the dialogical self with functions, each function viewed as performing the role of an archetype within an internal dialog. +According to Briggs and Myers, people who prefer sensing are more likely to trust information that is in the present, tangible, and concrete. They tend to distrust hunches. Those who prefer intuition tend to trust information that is associated with other information, either remembered or discovered from context. +Thinking and feeling are described as the decision-making (judging) functions by Briggs and Myers. These functions are used to make rational decisions, based on the data received from their information-gathering functions. Those who prefer thinking tend to decide things from a more detached standpoint. Those who prefer feeling tend to come to decisions by associating or empathizing with the situation. +People who prefer thinking do not necessarily, in the everyday sense, "think better" than their feeling counterparts, as the MBTI attempts to measure of preference, not ability or skill. Similarly, those who prefer feeling do not necessarily have "better" emotional reactions than their thinking counterparts. + +==== Dominant function ==== +According to Jung, people use all four cognitive functions. However, one function is generally used in a more conscious and confident way. This dominant function is supported by the secondary (auxiliary) function, and to a lesser degree the tertiary function. The fourth and least conscious function is always the opposite of the dominant function. Myers called this inferior function the "shadow." +The four functions operate in conjunction with the attitudes (extraversion and introversion). Each function is used in either an extraverted or introverted way. + +=== Lifestyle preferences: judging/perception === +Myers and Briggs added a dimension to Jung's typological model, claiming that people have a preference for using either the judging function (thinking or feeling) or their perceiving function (sensing or intuition) when relating to the outside world (extraversion). According to Myers, judging types like to "have matters settled", while perceptive types prefer to "keep decisions open". + +== Accuracy and validity == + +Despite its popularity, the MBTI has been widely regarded as pseudoscience by the scientific community. The validity (statistical validity and test validity) of the MBTI as a psychometric instrument has been the subject of much criticism. Media reports have called the test "pretty much meaningless", and "one of the worst personality tests in existence". The psychologist Adam Grant is especially vocal against the MBTI, having called it "the fad that won't die" in a Psychology Today article in 2013. Psychometric specialist Robert Hogan wrote: "Most personality psychologists regard the MBTI as little more than an elaborate Chinese fortune cookie." Nicholas Campion comments that this is "a fascinating example of 'disguised astrology', masquerading as science in order to claim respectability." +It has been estimated that between a third and a half of the published material on the MBTI has been produced for the special conferences of the Center for the Application of Psychological Type (which provide the training in the MBTI, and are funded by sales of the MBTI) or as papers in the Journal of Psychological Type (which is edited and supported by Myers–Briggs advocates and by sales of the indicator). It has been argued that this reflects a lack of critical scrutiny. Many of the studies that endorse the MBTI are methodologically weak or unscientific. A 1996 review by Gardner and Martinko concluded: "It is clear that efforts to detect simplistic linkages between type preferences and managerial effectiveness have been disappointing. Indeed, given the mixed quality of research and the inconsistent findings, no definitive conclusion regarding these relationships can be drawn." +Susan Krauss Whitbourne, professor emerita of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, likens the test to horoscopes, as both rely on the Barnum effect, leading participants to personally identify with descriptions that are somewhat desirable, vague, and widely applicable. The MBTI is not recommended in counseling. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..829a76f86 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Myers–Briggs Type Indicator" +chunk: 4/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:04.548398+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Little evidence for dichotomies === +As previously stated in the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator § Four dichotomies section, Isabel Myers considered the direction of the preference (for example, E vs. I) to be more important than its degree. This would mean that scores on each MBTI scale would show a bimodal distribution with most people scoring near the ends of the scales, thus dividing people into either, e.g., an extraverted or an introverted psychological type. However, most studies have found that scores on the individual scales were actually distributed in a centrally peaked manner, similar to a normal distribution, indicating that the majority of people were actually in the middle of the scale and were thus neither clearly introverted nor extraverted. But in order for the MBTI to be scored, a cut-off line is used at the middle of each scale and all those scoring below the line are classified as a low type and those scoring above the line are given the opposite type. Thus, psychometric assessment research fails to support the concept of type, but rather shows that most people lie near the middle of a continuous curve. + +Although we do not conclude that the absence of bimodality necessarily proves that the MBTI developers' theory-based assumption of categorical "types" of personality is invalid, the absence of empirical bimodality in IRT-based research of MBTI scores does indeed remove a potentially powerful line of evidence that was previously available to "type" advocates to cite in defense of their position. + +=== Little evidence for "dynamic" type stack === +Some MBTI supporters argue that the application of type dynamics to the MBTI (e.g., where inferred "dominant" or "auxiliary" functions like Se / "Extraverted Sensing" or Ni / "Introverted Intuition" are presumed to exist) is a logical category error that has little empirical evidence backing it. Instead, they argue that Myers–Briggs validity as a psychometric tool is highest when each type of category is viewed independently as a dichotomy. + +=== Validity and utility === +The content of the MBTI scales is problematic. In 1991, a National Academy of Sciences committee reviewed data from MBTI research studies and concluded that only the I-E scale has high correlations with comparable scales of other instruments and low correlations with instruments designed to assess different concepts, showing strong validity. In contrast, the S-N and T-F scales show relatively weak validity. The 1991 review committee concluded at the time there was "not sufficient, well-designed research to justify the use of the MBTI in career counseling programs". This study based its measurement of validity on "criterion-related validity (i.e. does the MBTI predict specific outcomes related to interpersonal relations or career success/job performance?)." The committee stressed the discrepancy between popularity of the MBTI and research results stating, "the popularity of this instrument in the absence of proven scientific worth is troublesome." There is insufficient evidence to make claims about utility, particularly of the four letter type derived from a person's responses to the MBTI items. + +=== Lack of objectivity === +The accuracy of the MBTI depends on honest self-reporting. Unlike some personality questionnaires, such as the 16PF Questionnaire, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or the Personality Assessment Inventory, the MBTI does not use validity scales to assess exaggerated or socially desirable responses. As a result, individuals motivated to do so can fake their responses. One 2000 study in the journal Pastoral Psychology found a weak but statistically significant correlation between the MBTI judging scale and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire lie scale, suggesting that more socially conformant individuals according to that questionnaire are more likely to be considered judging according to the MBTI. + +=== Terminology === +The terminology of the MBTI has been criticized as being very "vague and general", so as to allow any kind of behavior to fit any personality type, which may result in the Barnum effect, where people give a high rating to a positive description that supposedly applies specifically to them. Others argue that while the MBTI type descriptions are brief, they are also distinctive and precise. Some authors, such as David Keirsey, have created their own systems that claim to provide more detail. For instance, Keirsey's descriptions of his four temperaments, which he correlated with the 16 MBTI personality types, claims to show how the temperaments differ in terms of language use, intellectual orientation, educational and vocational interests, social orientation, self-image, personal values, social roles, and characteristic hand gestures. + +=== Factor analysis === +Researchers have reported that the JP and the SN scales correlate with one another. One factor-analytic study based on (N=1291) college-aged students found six different factors instead of the four purported dimensions, thereby raising doubts as to the construct validity of the MBTI. + +=== Reliability === +The test-retest reliability of the MBTI tends to be low. Large numbers of people (between 39% and 76% of respondents) obtain different type classifications when retaking the indicator after only five weeks. In a 2013 Fortune Magazine article titled "Have we all been duped by the Myers-Briggs Test?", Roman Krznaric wrote: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..edf1f85ef --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Myers–Briggs Type Indicator" +chunk: 5/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:04.548398+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The interesting – and somewhat alarming – fact about the MBTI is that, despite its popularity, it has been subject to sustained criticism by professional psychologists for over three decades. One problem is that it displays what statisticians call low "test-retest reliability." So if you retake the test after only a five-week gap, there's around a 50% chance that you will fall into a different personality category compared to the first time you took the test. +A second criticism is that the MBTI mistakenly assumes that personality falls into mutually exclusive categories. ... The consequence is that the scores of two people labelled "introverted" and "extraverted" may be almost exactly the same, but they could be placed into different categories since they fall on either side of an imaginary dividing line. +Within each dichotomy scale, as measured on Form G, about 83% of categorizations remain the same when people are retested within nine months and around 75% when retested after nine months. About 50% of people re-administered the MBTI within nine months remain the same overall type and 36% the same type after more than nine months. For Form M (the most current form of the MBTI instrument), the MBTI Manual reports that these scores are higher. +In one study, when people were asked to compare their preferred type to that assigned by the MBTI assessment, only half of people chose the same profile. +Robert and Mary Capraro in 2002 meta-analysis published in the journal Educational and Psychological Measurement found out that "In general, the MBTI and its scales yielded scores with strong internal consistency and test-retest reliability estimates, although variation was observed." The analysis found that of 210 studies from 1998 to 2001, 14 (7%) reported directly on the reliability of the data, 26% reported reliability via prior studies or the test manual, and 56% did not mention reliability at all. +It has been argued that criticisms regarding the MBTI mostly come down to questions regarding the validity of its origins, not questions regarding the validity of the MBTI's usefulness. Others argue that the MBTI can be a reliable measurement of personality, and "like all measures, the MBTI yields scores that are dependent on sample characteristics and testing conditions". + +== Statistics == +A 1973 study of university students in the United States found the INFP type was the most common type among students studying the fine arts and art education subjects, with 36% of fine arts students and 26% of art education students being INFPs. A 1973 study of the personality types of teachers in the United States found Intuitive-Perceptive types (ENFP, INFP, ENTP, INTP) were over-represented in teachers of subjects such as English, social studies and art, as opposed to science and mathematics, which featured more sensing (S) and judging (J) types. A questionnaire of 27,787 high school students suggested INFP students among them showed a significant preference for art, English, and music subjects. + +== Utility == +Isabel Myers claimed that the proportion of different personality types varied by choice of career or course of study. However, researchers examining the proportions of each type within varying professions report that the proportion of MBTI types within each occupation is close to that within a random sample of the population. Some researchers have expressed reservations about the relevance of type to job satisfaction, as well as concerns about the potential misuse of the instrument in labeling people. +The Myers–Briggs Company, then known as Consulting Psychologists Press (and later CPP), became the exclusive publisher of the MBTI in 1975. They call it "the world's most widely used personality assessment", with as many as two million assessments administered annually. The Myers-Briggs Company and other proponents state that the indicator meets or exceeds the reliability of other psychological instruments. +The MBTI has poor predictive validity of employees' job performance ratings. As noted above under Precepts and ethics, the MBTI measures preferences, not ability. The use of the MBTI as a predictor of job success is expressly discouraged in the Manual. It is argued that the MBTI only continues to be popular because many people are qualified to administer it, it is not difficult to understand, and there are many supporting books, websites and other sources which are readily available to the general public. + +== Correlations with other instruments == + +=== Big Five === +McCrae and Costa (1989) present correlations between the MBTI scales and the Big Five personality constructs measured. The five purported personality constructs have been labeled: extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism (emotional instability). The following correlations are based on the results from 267 men and 201 women as part of a longitudinal study of aging. + +These correlations refer to the second letter shown, i.e., the table shows that I and P have negative correlations with extraversion and conscientiousness, respectively, while F and N have positive correlations with agreeableness and openness, respectively. McCrae and Costa conclude that, "correlational analyses showed that the four MBTI indices did measure aspects of four of the five major dimensions of normal personality. The five-factor model provides an alternative basis for interpreting MBTI findings within a broader, more commonly shared conceptual framework." However, "there was no support for the view that the MBTI measures truly dichotomous preferences or qualitatively distinct types, instead, the instrument measures four relatively independent dimensions." + +== Popularity == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6af253371 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +--- +title: "Myers–Briggs Type Indicator" +chunk: 6/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:04.548398+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== South Korea === +At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, MBTI testing became a fad among young South Koreans who were using it in an attempt to find compatible dating partners. The fad originated with a website called 16Personalities.com, which offers a free approximation of the official paid test. Both independent experts and a representative of the MBTI publishing company have cautioned against using the MBTI test for dating, as the test was not designed for this purpose. South Korea experienced a similar trend in the early 2000s with the blood type personality theory. +One survey reported that by December 2021, nearly half of the population had taken the MBTI personality test. The MBTI personality test also became an issue in 2022 presidential election. In March 2022, Korea JoongAng Daily reported that "A growing number of Korean companies are asking job candidates to reveal their MBTI personality test results, angering job hunters who argue that the test is an unreasonable standard to screen and evaluate their capabilities." A survey of South Korean job-seekers in their twenties found that 60% opposed the use of the test for such purposes. + +=== China === +16Personalities.com also influenced an MBTI fad in China, where some employers and job recruiters have asked applicants about their MBTI or 16Personalities results. The trend in China also led to MBTI-related products, paid services, and social media such as podcasts and memes. + +=== Misuse === +In 2021, director Tim Travers Hawkins's film Persona: The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests premiered on HBO. The company which owns the test condemns its misuse, writing the test "is not, and was never intended to be predictive, and should never be used for hiring, screening or to dictate life decisions". + +== See also == + +== Notes == + +== References == + +=== Works cited === +Bess, Tammy L.; Harvey, Robert J. (February 2002). "Bimodal Score Distributions and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: Fact or Artifact?". Journal of Personality Assessment. 78 (1): 176–186. doi:10.1207/S15327752JPA7801_11. PMID 11936208. +Bess, Tammy L.; Harvey, R.; Swartz, D. (2003). Hierarchical Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. doi:10.1037/E518712013-042. S2CID 5900294. +Boyle, Gregory J. (March 1995). "Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): Some Psychometric Limitations". Australian Psychologist. 30 (1): 71–74. doi:10.1111/j.1742-9544.1995.tb01750.x. +Boyle, Gregory J.; Stankov, Lazar; Cattell, Raymond B. (1995). "Measurement and Statistical Models in the Study of Personality and Intelligence". International Handbook of Personality and Intelligence. pp. 417–446. doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-5571-8_20. ISBN 978-1-4419-3239-6. +Coffield, Frank; Moseley, David; Hall, Elaine; Ecclestone, Kathryn (2004). Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: A systematic and critical review (PDF). Learning and Skills Research Centre. ISBN 978-1-85338-918-4. +Carroll, Robert T. (2004-01-09). "Myers-Briggs Type Indicator-The Skeptic's Dictionary". The Skeptic's Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2003-12-02. Retrieved 2004-01-08. +Gardner, William L.; Martinko, Mark J. (February 1996). "Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to Study Managers: A Literature Review and Research Agenda". Journal of Management. 22 (1): 45–83. doi:10.1177/014920639602200103. +Grant, Adam (2013). "Goodbye to MBTI, the Fad That Won't Die". Psychology Today. Retrieved 2018-03-19. +Huber, Daniel; Kaufmann, Heiner; Steinmann, Martin (2017). "The Missing Link: The Innovation Gap". Bridging the Innovation Gap. Management for Professionals. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 21–41. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-55498-3_3. ISBN 978-3-319-55497-6. +Hunsley, John; Lee, Catherine M.; Wood, James M. (2003). "Controversial and questionable assessment techniques". Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology. Guilford Press. pp. 39–76. ISBN 978-1-59385-070-8. +Johnson, Donald A.; Saunders, David R. (September 1990). "Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator-Expanded Analysis Report". Educational and Psychological Measurement. 50 (3): 561–571. doi:10.1177/0013164490503010. +Jung, C. G. (1971) [1921]. Psychological Types. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 6 (3rd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09770-4. +Keirsey, David (1998). Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence. Del Mar, CA: Prometheus Nemesis Book Company. ISBN 978-1-885705-02-0. +Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven Jay; Lohr, Jeffrey M. (2014). Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology, Second Edition. Guilford Publications. ISBN 978-1-4625-1751-0. +McCrae, Robert R.; Costa, Paul T. (March 1989). "Reinterpreting the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator From the Perspective of the Five-Factor Model of Personality". Journal of Personality. 57 (1): 17–40. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1989.tb00759.x. PMID 2709300. +Myers, Isabel B.; McCaulley, Mary H.; Quenk, Naomi L.; Hammer, Allen L. (1998). MBTI Manual (A guide to the development and use of the Myers Briggs type indicator) (3rd ed.). Consulting Psychologists Press. ISBN 978-0-89106-130-4. +Myers, Isabel B.; Myers, Peter B. (1995) [1980]. Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type. Mountain View, CA: Davies-Black Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89106-074-1. +Nowack, K. (1996). "Is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator the Right Tool to Use?". Performance in Practice, American Society of Training and Development. 6. Archived from the original on 2010-06-27. Retrieved 2010-08-03. +Pearman, Roger R.; Albritton, Sarah C. (1997). I'm Not Crazy, I'm Just Not You. Davies-Black. ISBN 978-0-89106-096-3. +Pittenger, David J. (1993). "Measuring the MBTI... And Coming Up Short" (PDF). Journal of Career Planning and Employment. 54 (1): 48–52. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-12-06. +Reynierse, James H. (2009). "The Case Against Type Dynamics" (PDF). Journal of Psychological Type. 69 (1): 1–20. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-12-30. Retrieved 2017-12-29. +Schuwirth, L (2004). "What the educators are saying". BMJ. 328 (7450): 1244. doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7450.1244. PMC 416604. +Stein, Randy; Swan, Alexander B. (February 2019). "Evaluating the validity of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator theory: A teaching tool and window into intuitive psychology". Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 13 (2) e12434. doi:10.1111/spc3.12434. +Thyer, Bruce A.; Pignotti, Monica (2015). Science and Pseudoscience in Social Work Practice. Springer Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-8261-7768-1. + +== Further reading == +Dunning, Brian (August 31, 2010). "Skeptoid #221: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test". Skeptoid. +Falt, Jack. Bibliography of MBTI/Temperament Books by Author Archived 2004-10-11 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved December 20, 2004. +Georgia State University. GSU Master Teacher Program: On Learning Styles Archived 2004-11-20 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved December 20, 2004. +Jung, Carl Gustav (1965). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Vintage Books: New York, 1965. p. 207 +Krauskopf, Charles J. and Saunders, David R. (1994) Personality and Ability: The Personality Assessment System. Maryland: University Press of America. ISBN 0-8191-9282-1 +Long, Thomas G. (October 1992). "Myers-Briggs and Other Modern Astrologies". Theology Today. 49 (3): 291–295. doi:10.1177/004057369204900301. +Pearman, R.; Lombardo, M.; and Eichinger, R. (2005). YOU: Being More Effective In Your MBTI Type. Minn.:Lominger International, Inc. +Wicklein, Robert C; Rojewski, Jay W (1995). "The Relationship Between Psychological Type and Professional Orientation Among Technology Education Teachers". Journal of Technology Education. 7 (1). doi:10.21061/jte.v7i1.a.5. hdl:10919/8594. + +== External links == + Media related to Myers-Briggs Type Indicator at Wikimedia Commons + Quotations related to Psychological Type at Wikiquote +"Meet Yourself: How to Use the Personality Paint Box". findingaids.lib.msu.edu. December 22, 1926. Retrieved 2023-10-13. +Patrick Vermeren, The (uncomfortable) truth of HR and leadership development, TEDxKMA \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myofascial_trigger_point-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myofascial_trigger_point-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..760a52ebf --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myofascial_trigger_point-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +--- +title: "Myofascial trigger point" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myofascial_trigger_point" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:05.800933+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Myofascial trigger points (MTrPs), also known as trigger points, are described as hyperirritable spots in the skeletal muscle. They are associated with palpable nodules in taut bands of muscle fibers. They are a topic of ongoing controversy, as there is limited data to inform a scientific understanding of the phenomenon. Accordingly, a formal acceptance of myofascial "knots" as an identifiable source of pain is more common among bodyworkers, physical therapists, chiropractors, osteopaths, and osteopathic physicians. Nonetheless, the concept of trigger points provides a framework that may be used to help address certain musculoskeletal pain. +The trigger point model states that unexplained pain frequently radiates from these points of local tenderness to broader areas, sometimes distant from the trigger point itself. Practitioners claim to have identified reliable referred pain patterns that associate pain in one location with trigger points elsewhere. There is variation in the methodology for diagnosis of trigger points and a dearth of theory to explain how they arise and why they produce specific patterns of referred pain. +Compression of a trigger point may elicit local tenderness, referred pain, or local twitch response. The local twitch response is not the same as a muscle spasm. This is because a muscle spasm refers to the entire muscle contracting, whereas the local twitch response also involves the entire muscle but only causes a small twitch, without any contraction. +Among physicians, various specialists might use trigger point therapy. These include physiatrists (physicians specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation), family medicine, and orthopedics. Osteopathic (as well as chiropractic) schools also include trigger points in their training. Other health professionals, such as athletic trainers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, acupuncturists, massage therapists and structural integrators are also aware of these ideas and many of them make use of trigger points in their clinical work as well. + +== Diagnosis == +A 2009 review of nine studies examining the reliability of trigger point diagnosis found that physical examination could not be recommended as reliable for the diagnosis of trigger points. + +=== Imaging === +Since the early 2000s several research studies have been conducted to determine if there was a way to visualize myofascial trigger points using tools such as ultrasound imaging and magnetic resonance elastography. Several of these studies have been dismissed under meta-analysis. Another synthetic literature review expressed more optimism about the validity of imaging for myofascial trigger points, but admitted small sample sizes of the reviewed studies. + +=== Myofascial pain syndrome === +Myofascial pain syndrome is a focal hyperirritability in muscle that can strongly modulate central nervous system functions. Scholars distinguish this from fibromyalgia, which is characterized by widespread pain and tenderness and is described as a central augmentation of nociception giving rise to deep tissue tenderness that includes muscles. Myofascial pain is associated with muscle tenderness that arises from trigger points, focal points of tenderness, a few millimeters in diameter, found at multiple sites in a muscle and the fascia of muscle tissue. Biopsy tests found that trigger points were hyperirritable and electrically active muscle spindles in general muscle tissue. + +=== Misdiagnosis of pain === +The misdiagnosis of pain is the most important issue taken up by Travell and Simons. Referred pain from trigger points mimics the symptoms of a very long list of common maladies. Physicians, in weighing all the possible causes for a given condition, rarely consider a myofascial source. The study of trigger points has not historically been part of medical education. Travell and Simons hold that most of the common everyday pain is caused by myofascial trigger points and that ignorance of that basic concept could inevitably lead to false diagnoses and the ultimate failure to deal effectively with pain. + +== Treatment == + +=== Physical muscle treatment === +Physical exercise aimed at controlling posture, stretching, and proprioception has all been studied with no conclusive results. However, exercise proved beneficial to help reduce pain and the severity of symptoms that one felt. Muscular contractions that occur during exercise favor blood flow to areas that may be experiencing less than normal flow. This also causes a localized stretching effect on the fascia and may help relieve the abnormally tight fascia. Evidence that supports these exercises for treatment is scarce, but physical exercise can be beneficial in reducing the intensity of pain. +Researchers of evidence-based medicine concluded as of 2001 that evidence for the usefulness of trigger points in the diagnosis of fibromyalgia is thin. More recently, an association has been made between fibromyalgia tender points and active trigger points. + +=== Trigger point injection === +Injections without anesthetics, or dry needling, and injections including saline, local anesthetics such as procaine hydrochloride (Novocain) or articaine without vasoconstrictors like epinephrine, steroids, and botulinum toxin provide more immediate relief and can be effective when other methods fail. In regards to injections with anesthetics, a low concentration, short acting local anesthetic such as procaine 0.5% without steroids or epinephrine is recommended. High concentrations or long acting local anesthetics as well as epinephrine can cause muscle necrosis, while use of steroids can cause tissue damage. +Despite the concerns about long-acting agents, a mixture of lidocaine and bupivacaine (Marcaine) is often used. A mixture of 1 part 2% lidocaine with 3 parts 0.5% bupivacaine provides 0.5% lidocaine and 0.375% bupivacaine. This has the advantages of immediate anesthesia with lidocaine during injection to minimize injection pain while providing a longer duration of action with a lowered concentration of bupivacaine. +In 1979, a study by Czech physician Karl Lewit reported that dry needling had the same success rate as anesthetic injections for the treatment of trigger points. He dubbed this the 'needle effect'. +Studies relevant to trigger points have been done since the 1930s, for example by Jonas Kellgren at University College Hospital, London, Michael Gutstein in Berlin, and Michael Kelly in Australia. +Health insurance companies in the US such as Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Medica, and HealthPartners began covering trigger point injections in 2005. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myofascial_trigger_point-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myofascial_trigger_point-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6fa2d60c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myofascial_trigger_point-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +--- +title: "Myofascial trigger point" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myofascial_trigger_point" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:05.800933+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Risks === +Treatment, whether by self or by a professional, has some inherent dangers. It may lead to damage to soft tissue and other organs. The trigger points in the upper quadratus lumborum, for instance, are very close to the kidneys, and poorly administered treatment (particularly injections) may lead to kidney damage. Likewise, treating the masseter muscle may damage the salivary glands superficial to this muscle. Furthermore, some experts believe trigger points may develop as a protective measure against unstable joints. + +=== Efficacy === +Studies have shown a moderate level of evidence for manual therapy for short-term relief in the treatment of myofascial trigger points. Dry needling and dry cupping are no more effective than a placebo. There have not been enough in-depth studies to be conclusive about the latter treatment modalities, however. +Studies to date on the efficacy of dry needling for MTrPs and pain have been too small to be conclusive. + +== Overlap with acupuncture == +In a June 2000 review, Chang-Zern Hong correlates the MTrP "tender points" to acupunctural "ah shi" ("Oh Yes!") points, and the "local twitch response" to acupuncture's "de qi" ("needle sensation"), based on a 1977 paper by Melzack et al. Peter Dorsher comments on a strong correlation between the locations of trigger points and classical acupuncture points, finding that 92% of the 255 trigger points correspond to acupuncture points, including 79.5% with similar pain indications. + +== History == +In the 19th century, British physician George William Balfour, German anatomist Robert Froriep, and the German physician Strauss described pressure-sensitive, painful knots in muscles, sometimes called myofascial trigger points, through retrospective diagnosis. +The concept was popularized in the US in the middle of the 20th century by the American physician Janet G. Travell. + +== Controversy == +A review from 2015 in the journal Rheumatology, official journal of the British Society for Rheumatology, concluded that the concept of myofascial pain caused by trigger points was nothing but an invention without any scientific basis. A rejection of this criticism appeared in the Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies, the official journal of several therapeutic societies, including The National Association of Myofascial Trigger Point Therapists USA. + +== Research == +An analysis of the environment of trigger points found the pH around active trigger points going down to pH 4.3. Furthermore, the environment of trigger points (unlike healthy muscle) contained inflammatory cytokines and CGRP. Concentrations of protons (H+), bradykinin, calcitonin gene-related peptide, substance P, tumor necrosis factor-β, interleukin 1-β, serotonin, and norepinephrine were found to be significantly higher in the active trigger point group than either of the other two groups (latent trigger points and no trigger points). + +== See also == +Acupressure +Myofascial release +Neuromuscular therapy +Pressure point + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nambudripad's_Allergy_Elimination_Techniques-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nambudripad's_Allergy_Elimination_Techniques-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4de5c15aa --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nambudripad's_Allergy_Elimination_Techniques-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +--- +title: "Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nambudripad's_Allergy_Elimination_Techniques" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:07.055942+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques (NAET) is a form of alternative medicine which proponents claim can treat allergies and related disorders. The techniques were devised by Devi Nambudripad, a California-based chiropractor and acupuncturist, in 1983, drawing on a combination of ideas from applied kinesiology, acupuncture, acupressure, nutritional management, and chiropractic methods. +Clinical research has found no evidence supporting the accuracy of muscle testing to diagnose medical allergies. Supporters of the practice agree that mainstream science has not shown credible evidence for the effectiveness of this method. + + +== History == +Devi Nambudripad was a student chiropractor and acupuncturist at the time she developed NAET. Whilst experiencing a reaction to eating carrots she attempted to overcome the reaction through a self-administered acupuncture treatment. After the treatment the reaction to eating carrots did not return. At the time of the acupuncture treatment, a remnant of carrot was on her skin, and Nambudripad concluded from this that the presence of a minute quantity of carrot during the acupuncture treatment was the key to the treatment. She then formulated a hypothesis that contact with a small amount of an allergen during an acupuncture or acupressure session can remove reactions to food and other substances. +NAET is promoted by her Nambudripad’s Allergy Research Foundation (NARF) which also publishes its own journal called The Journal of NAET, Energetics & Complementary Medicine. +She is licensed as a chiropractor and acupuncturist in California. She also identifies herself as an M.D.. Her website states that she received the Doctor of Medicine degree from University of Health Sciences Antigua (UHSA) in January 2002. The California Medical Board does not list an active license, and it does not recognize medical degrees from UHSA as valid, listing it as a "disapproved" school since 1995. + + +== Theory == +NAET uses the term word allergy differently from medicine. Nambudripad claims that the central nervous system and associated sensory systems have the ability to detect the "electromagnetic signatures" of all molecules, with the central nervous system either reacting or not reacting to a particular substance. Reaction to a neutral substance is called a sensitivity. In medical science, the reaction may be so extreme as to be called an allergy. In NAET such reaction is said to manifest itself as an energy disturbance or blockage in the flow of life force qi along meridians. In stark contrast to the modern scientific understanding of allergies, Nambudripad characterizes an allergy as a condition caused by these "repulsive electromagnetic fields between an individual and the object (allergen)". Allergens may be any of a wide variety of substances, as well as more abstract notions such as emotions and colors. The cumulative effects of these energy disturbances are said to give rise to a variety of health disorders, with Nambudripad suggesting that "95 percent of human ailments arise from some sort of allergy". The theory of NAET proposes that these allergies can be eliminated by addressing the energy blockages through the use of acupuncture or acupressure. Some of these ideas and concepts are adopted from ancient Chinese medicine, which follows a different paradigm from that of modern medicine. + + +== Technique == +NAET practitioners use a form of applied kinesiology called Neuromuscular Sensitivity Testing (NST or NST-NAET) to diagnose allergies by comparing the strength of a muscle in the presence and absence of a suspected allergen, although they recommend Ig-E allergy testing with a physician as well. Practitioners will then aim to remove energy blockages by having the patient hold a glass bottle containing the allergen whilst acupressure or acupuncture techniques are employed. After treatment, patients rest 20 minutes while continuing to hold the jar containing the allergen, after which time the patient will again be tested for a sensitivity reaction using the muscle strength test. If the NAET practitioner determines the sensitivity has cleared, the patient is advised to avoid the substance for the following 25 hours or more. Patients are invited to return for retesting with NAET between 25 hours and 7 days after the treatment. + + +== Evidence == +Several reviews of the available evidence for various alternative techniques in allergy diagnosis have determined that applied kinesiology, the primary diagnostic technique in NAET, is ineffective at diagnosing allergies and advise against its use. Various medical associations also advise against its use, including the European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, and the Allergy Society of South Africa. +Two medical review articles conclude that "NAET has to be the most unsubstantiated allergy treatment proposed to date" and that "there have been no studies supporting the use of these techniques". The Teuber and Porch-Curren review cautions that "there is the potential for an anaphylactic reaction if a patient with severe food allergies seeks such a therapy and tests themselves by oral challenge away from a physician's office after completing the NAET sessions successfully". The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy has advised against using NAET to treat allergies, criticizing its "lack of scientific rationale" and describing it as a "potentially dangerous technique". +In a critical appraisal of Nambudripad's techniques Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch writes: + +NAET clashes with the concepts of anatomy, physiology, pathology, physics, and allergy accepted by the scientific community. The story of its "discovery" is highly implausible. Its core diagnostic approach – muscle testing for "allergies" – is senseless and is virtually certain to diagnose nonexistent problems. Its recommendations for dietary restrictions based on nonexistent food allergies are likely to place the patient at great risk for nutrient deficiency, and, in the case of children, at risk for social problems and the development of eating disorders. + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3517e2848 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Narconon" +chunk: 1/10 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:08.283365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Narconon International (commonly known as Narconon) is a Scientology organization which promotes the theories of founder L. Ron Hubbard regarding substance abuse treatment and addiction. Its parent company is the Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE), which is owned and controlled by the Church of Scientology. Headquartered in Hollywood, California, United States, Narconon operates several dozen residential centers worldwide, chiefly in the U.S. and western Europe. The organization was formed in 1966 by Scientologist William Benitez with Hubbard's help, and was incorporated in 1970. +The Scientology organization and Narconon state that Narconon is a secular program independent of Hubbard's writings about Scientology, and that it provides legitimate drug education and rehabilitation. The organization has been described by many government reports and former patients as a Scientology front group. +Hubbard's writings, which underlie the program, assert that drugs and their metabolites are stored in the body's fatty tissue, causing the addict's cravings when partially released later on, and can be flushed out through a regimen known as Purification Rundown, which involves exercise, sauna and intake of high doses of vitamins. This hypothesis is contradicted by experimental evidence, and is not medically accepted. There are no independently recognized studies that confirm the efficacy of the Narconon program. +The program has garnered considerable controversy as a result of its origins in Scientology and its methods. Its drug rehabilitation treatment has been described as "medically unsafe", "quackery" and "medical fraud", while academic and medical experts have dismissed its educational program as containing "factual errors in basic concepts such as physical and mental effects, addiction and even spelling". Narconon's facilities have been the location of several deaths, some of which have been linked to a lack of trained medical personnel on site. + +== History == + +=== Origins === + +Narconon was established 19 February 1966 as a drug rehabilitation program based on the book Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought by L. Ron Hubbard, the creator of Scientology, and was first delivered to drug abusers in the Arizona prison system. The name "Narconon" originally referred not to an organization but to the program. +Narconon's creator was William C. Benitez, a former Arizona prison inmate who had served time for narcotics offenses. His work was supported by Hubbard, and in 1970 Hubbard sponsored the incorporation of Narconon as an organization. The organization was co-founded by Benitez and two Scientologists, Henning Heldt and Arthur Maren. +Even before Narconon became established, Scientology and Dianetics were promoted as providing a cure for drug addiction. In 1970, the Rev. John W. Elliot, senior minister of the Church of Scientology and chairman of its Drug Abuse Prevention team, announced that "Dianetic Counseling" had "completely cured 30 out of 30 people" who came to Scientology for help. Rev. Elliott also reported that Dianetics could cure hay fever, asthma and arthritis. +In the early days of Narconon, no distinction was made between Scientology's "religious" and "secular" branches; Narconon was considered by Scientologists to be an example of Scientology in action. "Narconon, with the Scientology program, is another example of the workability of Dianetics and Scientology", said an adherent in 1970. "The program has been expanded and is used in all Scientology churches and missions". +The Narconon website reports that the keynote of Narconon is that the "...individual is responsible for his own condition and that anyone can improve his condition if he is given a workable way to do so... man is basically good and it is pain, suffering, and loss that lead him astray". It positions the program as an approach to rehabilitation without recourse to alternative drugs. This early program did not, however, deal directly with withdrawal symptoms. In 1973, the Narconon program adopted procedures to include drug-free withdrawal. + +=== 21st century === +A number of Scientologist celebrities have publicly attested that Narconon was helpful in their own lives. Musician Nicky Hopkins and actress Kirstie Alley have credited Narconon for their recovery from addiction to drugs and alcohol. Alley subsequently became a public spokesperson for Narconon. Elsewhere, the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project has used Hubbard's sauna detoxification regimen in an effort to improve the health of rescue workers exposed to toxic substances from 9/11, although the results are disputed. Toxicologist Dr Ronald E. Gots described the Narconon / Purification Rundown program in a 1987 report on its use by California firefighters: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..52a28d616 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: "Narconon" +chunk: 2/10 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:08.283365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The treatment in California preyed upon the fears of concerned workers, but served no rational medical function. ... Moreover, the program itself, developed not by physicians or scientists, but by the founder of the Church of Scientology, has no recognized value in the established medical and scientific community. It is quackery. +In 2004 and 2005, WISE at Work magazine and International Scientology News each published articles clarifying the relationship between Narconon and Scientology; each placed Narconon in Scientology's "Division 6B", with responsibility for introducing the public to Scientology services. +By the end of 2005, according to the International Association of Scientologists (IAS), Narconon was operating 183 rehabilitation centers around the world. New centers opened that year included in Hastings, East Sussex, England (now closed), and in Battle Creek, Michigan. Narconon President Clark Carr asserted that drug prevention lectures "have been given to over 2 million children and adults over several decades... and are currently being delivered across the United States, all New England States, Washington D.C., Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma and surrounding states, Michigan and Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, Idaho, California, Nevada, Hawaii and possibly others" in response to an inquiry from The Humanist. +On 17 July 2006, the Narconon center in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada, started a website at Narcodex.ca. Narcodex was a wiki purported to contain drug information. The domain name of Narcodex.ca was owned by ABLE Canada, a Scientology subsidiary. The funding for the website came entirely from Narconon Trois-Rivières, which also controlled the content on the site. The center was closed by the local health authorities in 2012. +In July 2013, Narconon proposed to acquire the 150 acre Hockley, Ontario, estate of Donald Blenkarn, who had died the previous year. Narconon planned to convert the estate into a rehabilitation center for alcohol and other drug use, but drew widespread opposition from residents who were opposed to the presence of a rehab center, and to the presence of Narconon and Scientology specifically. The Blenkarn family ultimately chose to sell to an unidentified person within the community for below the asking price, and rejected a counter-offer from Narconon. +In January 2014, Narconon instituted a Hubbard-based detoxification program in Annapolis, Maryland, to treat veterans suffering from war-related conditions. The treatments were funded by the Department of Defense through a September 2010 grant for $633,677 given to University of Albany, where David O. Carpenter serves as the director of the school's Institute for Health and the Environment and is the program's chief investigator. As of December 2014, seven Gulf War veterans completed the program. It was administered on a seven-day-per-week schedule, with the regimen being completed in 33 days. The program's purpose was to discover whether Hubbard's program has a scientific basis for therapy and whether it was effective in reducing symptoms and improving the functional status of veterans whose physical pain and anxiety improved upon completion of the program. Carpenter affirmed that the program was effective in his own treatment. + +== Narconon and Scientology == + +Narconon's affiliation with the Church of Scientology has made the program a focus of controversy. The organization has never denied that many of its administrators are committed Scientologists or that its methods are based on the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard. +In its early days, Narconon used unaltered Scientology materials in its courses, and Scientology executives ran the organization; founders Heldt and Maren were high-ranking members of the Church's public-relations department known as the Guardian's Office (GO). In April 1970, Scientology spokesman Max Prudente described Narconon as "based solely on the philosophy and tenets of Scientology", claiming an 85% success rate. +However, as Narconon promoted its drug treatment services to a variety of governmental jurisdictions within the U.S., the organization repeatedly found itself at the center of controversy when its ties to Scientology were raised by journalists or politicians. Such ties raised questions about the constitutional appropriateness of governmental bodies sponsoring a religiously affiliated organization (see Lemon v. Kurtzman). These problems were further intensified by claims that the program was medically unsound and served as a fundraising and recruitment program for Scientology. +By the late 1970s, Scientology was keen to disavow its connection with Narconon. When the FBI raided Scientology offices on 8 July 1977, papers seized revealed that Scientologists were instructed to refer to Narconon and other "front groups" using code names: + +Codes should be used for the names of front groups that we do not want connected with the C of S and for anything that gives specific and actual evidence that the C of S is in legal control of B6 groups [of which Narconon was one]. +In 1994, John Wood, the head of Narconon UK, denied any connection between Narconon and Scientology, saying, "I know beyond doubt that Narconon does not recruit for nor promote the Church of Scientology", despite the final stage in Narconon's process for patients at that time being "Route to nearest Org (Scientology organisation) for further services", but by 2001 Scientology spokesman Graeme Wilson was describing Narconon as Scientology's "affiliate charity". +A March 1998 Boston Herald series exposed how two Scientology-linked groups, Narconon and the World Literacy Crusade, used anti-drug and learn-to-read programs to gain access to public schools without disclosing their Scientology ties. Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, who said in an interview that the Purification Rundown saved his life, confirmed after the Herald report was published that Scientology's Los Angeles law firm had hired private investigators to look into the personal life of Herald reporter Joseph Mallia, who wrote the series. The Herald noted numerous other instances over the years where reporters were harassed with "noisy investigations" after writing stories exposing Scientology. +In Montreal, Narconon employees describe themselves as "FSM's", a Scientology abbreviation for Field Staff Member, while in Georgia a memo released under court order showed Narconon executive director Mary Rieser reporting directly to Scientology's Office of Special Affairs (OSA) as well as to parent organization ABLE. + +== Drug rehabilitation program == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f8abaff58 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Narconon" +chunk: 3/10 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:08.283365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Since its establishment, Narconon has faced considerable controversy over the safety and effectiveness of its rehabilitation methods and the organization's links to Scientology. Medical professionals have been sharply critical of Narconon's methods, which rely on theories of drug metabolism that are not supported by mainstream toxicology. Narconon teaches that drugs reside in body fat, and remain there indefinitely; and that to recover from drug abuse, addicts can remove the drugs from their fat through saunas and use of vitamins. Experts disagree with this basic understanding of physiology, saying that no significant amount of drugs are stored in fat, and that drugs can't be "sweated out" as Narconon claims. In one 2005 report, experts stated that Narconon's treatment methods "does not reflect accurate, widely accepted medical and scientific evidence." Particular criticism has been directed at the therapy's use of vitamins (including massive doses of niacin) and extended sauna sessions. +David Root, an occupational medicine practitioner and a member of the Narconon Scientific Advisory Board, defended the program's validity. He told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1991 that drugs and other poisons "come out through the skin in the form of sebaceous, or fatty, sweat. The material is frequently visible and drips, or is rubbed off on towels". This apparently explains the need for "daily doses of vitamins, minerals, and oils, including niacin". +Narconon's "New Life Program" consists of two principal stages: detoxification and rehabilitation. The program, adapted from Hubbard's Purification Rundown, consists of six elements: exercise, sauna, supplements, sufficient liquids, regular diet with fresh vegetables, and adequate sleep. +According to Narconon spokesman John Bitinas, there are more than 200 beds at Narconon Arrowhead, the program's flagship center in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. Asked whether medications are used to help patients going through withdrawal, he said that, "Narconon is drug-free, meaning we do not use substitute drugs as part of our rehabilitation process." All patients are assessed at enrollment to determine whether they are "psychiatrically or medically qualified for the level of care we offer here. If they are found to need a higher level of care then Narconon is qualified to offer at that time, they are referred to a more appropriate facility." If patients require medications to treat physical conditions like diabetes or infections, those medications are prescribed by the Narconon physician, who is part-time but available on-call on a 24-hour basis, according to Bitinas. Each U.S. patient spends an average of three to four months at Narconon, for a fee that ranges from $10,000 to around $30,000. + +=== Overview === +The Narconon detoxification program is based on Hubbard's theory that "small amounts of drugs [and their metabolites] stored in fat cells are released at a later time causing the person to re-experience the drug effect and desire to use again." According to Narconon, exercise helps to release toxins from body fat as fat deposits are burned for energy, while concurrently releasing chemicals via sweating, sebum (produced by the skin's sebaceous glands), and regular bowel movements. +Narconon is not a medical model. The program rejects the disease model of addiction, and its literature has described the terminology used by that model as being disempowering to patients. +The Narconon program follows the "social education" model of drug rehabilitation. The program is four to six months long and includes a regimen of detoxification that includes "aerobic exercise, dry-sauna sweating, hydration and nutrition supplements; life skills trainings; and personalized plans for after-graduation living." The main premise of the detoxification regimen is that "the activation of drug residuals stored in the body can elicit drug cravings in the former drug user thus tempting relapse. The Narconon detoxification regimen is designed to eliminate drug residues from drug users' bodies and thus reduce the cravings that may be caused by these residues." +Experts from mainstream medicine and toxicology have repeatedly argued that Hubbard's method has no validity: "one may from a pharmacological point of view strongly question the idea of using enforced sweating to expel drugs from the body", said Professor Folke Sjoqvist in a 1996 report for the Swedish government, while an Oklahoma Board of Mental Health report from 1990 states that, "Although minute quantities of some drugs may be found in sweat the amount represents a small fraction of drug elimination". In a deposition concerning the death of Patrick Desmond at Narconon Georgia, expert witness Louis A. Casal was questioned by plaintiff's attorney Jeff Harris: + +Narconon asserts that methadone, amphetamines, methamphetamines, morphine, copper, mercury, and other toxins, some consumed years earlier, leave the body by means of sweating. This contrasts with the view of the body's drug retention taken by mainstream science, which has found that most recreational drugs leave the body within a few days (with the exception of cannabis, which in the case of frequent use can remain in the body for up to a month). + +=== Niacin === +According to Narconon, vitamin and mineral supplements are needed to address nutritional deficiencies and offset nutrient loss due to sweating. Other key elements in the program are the use of niacin, which Hubbard believed to increase free fatty acid mobilization, and the inclusion of polyunsaturated fats that he thought to increase the excretion rate of some toxin compounds. Together with a proper amount of sleep, this regime is thought by Narconon to mobilize and eliminate long-term stored toxins. +Narconon's "drug bomb" includes a niacin dose of 4000 mg/day. The risk to patients of taking high-dose niacin is one reason why medical experts assessing the Narconon program have found that it is a danger to patients; the program has been banned in a number of jurisdictions including Quebec and France as a result. +Because Narconon doctrines dictate that patients undergoing its program exhibit physical symptoms relating to the drugs that are (supposedly) being "sweated out," and because Narconon's staff are not medically qualified or typically qualified in orthodox drug rehabilitation, there is a risk that serious medical symptoms—from niacin overdose or from other causes—may be misinterpreted by Narconon staff as the desirable effects of detoxification: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..eb546e003 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Narconon" +chunk: 4/10 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:08.283365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Narconon Program exposes its patients to the risk of delayed withdrawal phenomena such as seizures, delirium and/or hallucinations. ... The Narconon program presents a potential risk to the patients of the Narconon program that delayed withdrawal phenomena such as seizures, delirium or hallucination that are occasionally seen several days after cessation of drugs such as benzodiazepines, may be misinterpreted by Narconon's non-medical staff as the effect of mobilizing the drug from fat during the sauna sweat-out procedure period. There is also a potential risk that the reported re-experience of the abused drugs' effect during the sauna sweat-out program may be the result of misinterpreted symptoms of hyperthermia or electrolyte imbalance ... + +=== Training routines === + +The remainder of the Narconon course uses Scientology's "Training Routines" or "TRs". They were originally devised by Hubbard to teach communications skills to Scientologists. In the Narconon variant, these courses claim to be designed to rehabilitate drug abusers. These routines sometimes include TR 8, which involves the individual commanding an ashtray to "stand up" and "sit down", and thanking it for doing so, as loudly as they can. Former Scientologists say that the purpose of the drill is for the individual to "beam" their "intention" into the ashtray to make it move. + +=== Efficacy === + +Narconon typically claims success rates as high as 75% of the graduates of its program remaining drug-free for the rest of their lives, and has in the past claimed "very close to a 100% success rate". However, these numbers are highly controversial, and there exist no independent studies that support these claims. +Independent researchers have found considerably lower rates of success. At least one website critical of Narconon cites a Swedish research study that gives a rate of 6.6%. Narconon has reported the same study's findings as being much more favorable, although its representation of the study is greatly simplified. +The Church of Scientology claims that "the Narconon success rate is not merely the world's highest, it is four times better than international averages", while a systematic review of evidence regarding Narconon's efficacy conducted by the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services on behalf of the Norwegian Directorate of Health concluded that: + +Collectively, one quasi-experimental and five non-experimental studies document lack of evidence of the preventive effects of these programs. Thus, there is currently no reliable evidence for the effectiveness of Narconon as a primary or secondary drug prevention program. This is partly due to the insufficient research evidence about Narconon and partly due to the non-experimental nature of the few studies that exist. +In April 2014, the town council of Wyong, New South Wales, Australia refused permission for Narconon to open a new centre at nearby Yarramalong, saying that the program's method of treatment was a factor in the decision. Wyong Mayor Doug Eaton said: + +To be allowed in the area it'd have to be defined as a hospital and there wasn't enough material to demonstrate it could be so defined because my understanding of the rehab process it that it is more of a religious process than it is a medical process. + +== Education program == + +=== Florida === +In 1999, Scientologists from Clearwater, Florida, tried to get a Narconon drug education program instituted into the Pinellas County school district curriculum. After a hearing on the matter, a school district committee refused to allow students to participate in an anti-drug program based on Hubbard's teachings, citing that teaching students about the "tone scale" and other trappings of Scientology was inappropriate for a drug education program for their schools. + +=== California === +In 2004, Narconon offered an anti-drug program to public schools in California, free of charge. However, a series of articles in the San Francisco Chronicle in June 2004, resulted in California school officials investigating Narconon's claims. The study found that Narconon's program did not reflect medically and scientifically based practices and that it offered students misleading information about drug use and abuse. As a result of the investigation, on 23 February 2005, the state's superintendent of public instruction, Jack O'Connell, officially recommended that all schools in the state reject the Narconon program. O'Connell's secretary announced that the school systems in Los Angeles and San Francisco had dropped the program. The president of Narconon, Clark Carr, responded that the study presented only limited information about his organization's work, and that those efforts were "accurate and relevant to the current challenges children face with drugs." +A May 2014 investigation by the Chronicle discovered that some California schools were still using the Narconon program, in spite of the 2004 decision. Steve Heilig, one of the experts who evaluated the Narconon education program on behalf of the school district and found it to be scientifically unsound, urged schools to check the accreditation of drug education programs before allowing them access to students, saying, "One imperative of drug education is that we not deceive students, as once they discover that you are not telling them factual information, they are likely to disbelieve everything you say". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..dd4e401eb --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +--- +title: "Narconon" +chunk: 5/10 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:08.283365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== United Kingdom === +The UK prisons ombudsman recommended to prison governors that Narconon rehabilitation programs not be used in prisons although some schools in the UK are using these programs; The Sunday Times said this was because schools are less aware of Narconon's links to Scientology. In September 2012, the 149 Church of England schools in the Diocese of London were warned not to accept offers from Narconon to give lectures to their pupils, following complaints from parents. +In November 2016, Narconon was reported to have given talks on the dangers of drug addiction in two schools in Camden, London. Elizabeth Kitcatt, Camden School for Girls headteacher, said in a statement that the students found the talk "very useful", while Harry Shapiro, Director of DrugWise, called out the schools for being unaware to the group's ties to Scientology. A Brecknock Primary spokeswoman said: "The school's deputy head was in the room for the whole drug awareness talk and at no point was there any mention of Scientology or any religious connotations. It was marketed as an anti-drug talk and that's exactly what it was". President of Narconon UK Noel Nile claimed that the group was "in the business of saving lives". + +=== Cecchini/Lennox study === +In 2008, Narconon executive Marie Cecchini published, with Richard Lennox, a paper that claimed to show that the Narconon educational program reduced drug use among youths. However, the study was funded by Narconon's parent organisation, ABLE, and subsequent correspondence in the same journal asserted that the study's conclusions were contradicted by its own data: that the control group "were more likely to resist pressures to take drugs" than the Narconon group. + +== Deaths == + +=== Jocelyne Dorfmann, Grancey-sur-Ource, France (1984) === +In 1984, a 34-year-old French woman named Jocelyne Dorfmann died from an untreated epilepsy seizure while undergoing treatment at a Narconon center in Grancey-sur-Ource (near Dijon). The assistant-director of that center was convicted of lack of assistance to a person in danger. The Narconon center was closed. Medical experts reported that her death was caused by "an epileptic seizure due to the absence of sufficient treatment at its beginning and of emergency treatment during the seizure". Narconon staff failed to call for medical assistance, as a result of which Dorfmann died. + +=== X del Pozo, Cercedilla, Spain (1985) === +In 1985, a young man surnamed Del Pozo, a native of Ceuta, injected himself with an overdose of heroin while he was in Narconon Cercedilla, in the Community of Madrid. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where he died. The El Escorial Court opened an investigation, but ended up closing the case for lack of evidence and testimonies to clarify the incident. + +=== Paride Ella and Giuseppe Tomba, Valsassina, Italy (1995) === +In 1995, two young men, Paride Ella (22) and Giuseppe Tomba (26), died suddenly at the Narconon centre in Taceno, Province of Lecco, Italy. Ella died of acute kidney failure (symptoms consistent with a niacin overdose), while the recorded cause of death for Giuseppe Tomba was heart attack. Both patients suffered similar symptoms, namely vomiting and diarrhea, for days before their deaths. The young men died within a few days of one another, in the so-called "detoxification" stage of the Narconon program. +The Narconon centre had no medical staff and was unable in either case to diagnose the seriousness of their condition. Before the deaths, Taceno's mayor had asked for the Narconon centre to be closed. + +=== Federica X, Torre dell'Orso, Italy (2002) === +In 2002, a 33-year-old Italian patient identified as "Federica X", from Torre dell'Orso, died from peritonitis, according to her autopsy. She first began to suffer from stomach pains on Monday 7 October, and was driven to a first aid station where she was given painkillers. Federica was driven to hospital the following evening, where she died soon after being admitted in a coma. +Narconon patient Giovanni Costa later stabbed staff member Rodolfo Savino, whom Costa claimed had ignored Federica's symptoms and had given her insufficient medical aid. Costa was arrested and charged with attempted murder. + +=== Patrick Desmond, Norcross, Georgia, United States (2008) === +Patrick W. "Ricko" Desmond, a former member of the United States Marine Corps, died at Narconon Georgia on 11 June 2008, aged 28, from a heroin overdose. Desmond's family alleged wrongful death and filed a lawsuit against Narconon, claiming that their actions led to his death and that Narconon falsely claimed to be a licensed inpatient program. +WSB-TV in Atlanta reported that: + +The evidence includes documents with Narconon's letterhead with the word "outpatient" when reporting Patrick's death to state investigators, but letterhead on letters sent to Florida courts omitted the word "outpatient". +Desmond's family paid Narconon $30,000 for his treatment. Narconon Georgia director Mary Rieser commented to a reporter: + +There's things that people do to themselves. Of course it's sad. +The lawsuit between Narconon Georgia and the Desmond family was settled out of court in February 2013, three days before jury selection was scheduled to begin. The settlement followed harsh sanctions against Narconon by the trial judge Stacey K. Hydrick, who said in a court order that Narconon Georgia had: + +Intentionally, willfully and repeatedly provided false and misleading responses to plaintiff's discovery requests regarding issues relevant to the resolution of this case and that it had: Repeatedly failed to produce, and on multiple occasions falsely denied the existence of clearly relevant, responsive documents and information. +Judge Hydrick withdrew Narconon's response to the Desmond family's allegations, meaning that if the case had not been settled then the family's claims would essentially have gone unopposed by Narconon. +Narconon International denied that it had any connection with Narconon Georgia, although documents disclosed in the Patrick case showed that Narconon Georgia's executive director, Mary Rieser, reported to Narconon International, Scientology's Office of Special Affairs, and to ABLE, describing in her reports the evening of Patrick's death: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..92c7933cb --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Narconon" +chunk: 6/10 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:08.283365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +On June 10th 2008 a student was watching a basketball game late in the evening with Brad in his apartment. They consumed tequila and the student gained access to his cash which was supposed to be locked in that apartment. A sad thing happened later in the evening. Two days later we tested Brad and he was dirty for methadone, PCP, cocaine and methamphetamine. + +=== John Cunningham, Watsonville, California, United States (2015) === +In July 2015, John Cunningham, a 58-year-old Boeing employee addicted to benzodiazepines, was sent by his sister to Redwood Cliffs, a Narconon facility in Watsonville, California. The staff at Redwood Cliffs sent Cunningham to be detoxed to Bright Futures Recovery, which removed Cunningham from medications he was taking for depression. Cunningham was sent to the "local ER three times in just five days for withdrawal symptoms". On 22 August 2015, he was left alone in his room long enough for him to "hang himself by a belt in his bedroom closet". Cunningham's sister did not know that Narconon was a Scientology outfit until after her brother's death. +Represented by attorney H. Gavin Long, Cunningham's family sued Redwood Cliffs and Bright Futures Recovery for $1 million each. The rehabilitation centers countered with an offer of "$100,000 and $350,000, respectively". The family refused and took the case to a jury in Santa Cruz. After a twelve-day trial where Narconon tried to argue that they had not referred Cunningham to Bright Futures Recovery, the jury awarded the family $11 million. According to journalist Tony Ortega, it was very rare for the case to go to a jury, and since this court case, "Scientology cut ties with its Northern California Narconon network, and the Redwood Cliffs facility has closed. But Narconon is still on the hook for its share of the verdict". + +=== Deaths at Narconon Arrowhead, Oklahoma, United States (2009–2012) === + +In August 2012, Pittsburg County sheriffs and the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health (ODMHSAS), along with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI), began an investigation of deaths at Narconon Arrowhead following the deaths of three patients in a period of nine months. +The investigation included the recent deaths of four patients: Stacy Dawn Murphy, aged 20, who died at Narconon Arrowhead on 19 July 2012; Hillary Holten, 21, who was found dead at the facility on 11 April 2012; and 32-year-old Gabriel Graves, who died at the facility on 26 October 2011. The investigation later expanded to cover the death of 28-year-old Kaysie Dianne Werninck, who died at Narconon Arrowhead on 3 March 2009. +Following media attention surrounding the deaths, the National Association of Forensic Counselors (NAFC) permanently revoked the Certified Chemical Dependency Counseling certification of several Narconon Arrowhead employees, including director Gary Smith. In August 2013, the ODMHSAS permanently revoked the facility's permit for medical detoxification after Narconon had exhausted all avenues for protesting the decision. +In August 2013, Inspector General Kim Poff and investigator Michael DeLong, both of the ODMHSAS, who had been investigating the deaths at Narconon Arrowhead, had their employment terminated. No reason was given for the termination, but the investigators' attorney later claimed that the two were wrongfully fired, saying: "Their termination, in part, relates to the Narconon investigation". + +==== Kaysie Dianne Werninck (2009) ==== +Kaysie Dianne Werninck died at Narconon Arrowhead on 3 March 2009. Her parents filed a lawsuit against the center claiming her death was "a result of the defendant's gross negligence". The case was settled. + +==== Gabriel Graves (2011) ==== +Gabriel Graves, who died at the facility in October 2011, was the subject of an open records request made to the ODMHSAS by the Tulsa World newspaper, which revealed reports of use and distribution of drugs at the facility. Graves' autopsy recorded his cause of death as "unknown". + +==== Hillary Holten (2012) ==== +Hillary Holten died on April 11, 2012. Her parents filed a lawsuit against Narconon Arrowhead, and alleged Hillary had died due to lack of medical care. Their lawsuit states that she "had a history of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, a condition that required the daily administration of Dexamethasone and in extreme circumstances, an injection of liquid cortisone", and that Narconon Arrowhead did not properly manage her condition. Gary Smith of Narconon refrained from comment, adding that "there are federal rights to privacy laws which prohibit us from discussing anything about former clients." + +==== Stacy Dawn Murphy (2012) ==== +Stacy Dawn Murphy died on July 20, 2012 at Narconon Arrowhead. Stacy's father said Narconon officials told him that, when his daughter was found dead alone in the "detox" room, she had not been checked on for two and a half hours. "That's too long, if they thought she was overdosed, why didn't they have someone with her the whole time?" he said, adding, "We sent her there to get better, not to die". Gary Smith responded in an email statement that, "It is always deeply saddening when drug addiction takes a life or destroys a family. ... For the family the pain of losing a loved one to addiction is unimaginable." +A patient who was resident at Narconon Arrowhead at the time of Stacy's death said, "There was no doctor there, no nurse on staff. There's nothing like that there ... The staff, they're all former patients. ... My understanding is that everyone there is pretty much a former patient. ... The drugs that would have saved Stacy's life were either not available or no one there knew how to administer it." Now told reporters that he feared retaliation by Narconon for talking to the police and media: "I'm afraid for my life." Stacy's roommate, Destanie Ramsey, called police on the night of her death in order to leave Narconon Arrowhead, where she claimed she was being held against her will. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-6.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-6.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b980deba9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-6.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: "Narconon" +chunk: 7/10 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:08.283365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +==== Public and media response ==== +Protests over the deaths took place outside Narconon Arrowhead; one protest in late June 2012, planned to include bereaved family members, was disrupted by road resurfacing works outside the facility, paid for by Narconon. Pittsburg County Commission Chairman Gene Rogers explained that, "[Gary Smith] called me and said they might be having a problem with the public that weekend and he wanted help policing the area and he asked about doing overlaying [of the road]". +Oklahoma State Senator Tom Ivester commented that, "Clearly something isn't right and we have a moral obligation to do everything in our power to end this predatory business being run by the Church of Scientology disguised as drug treatment", adding, "This is a disgusting business that preys on desperate family members and their sick loved ones, scamming them out of thousands of dollars with the promise of providing hope and new life. It's a disgrace to have these people operating in the state of Oklahoma." In direct response to the Arrowhead deaths, Ivestor introduced legislation to expand Oklahoma's ability to regulate rehab facilities. +In response to an NBC Rock Center segment on the facility, Narconon President Clark Carr called its criticism of Narconon "bigoted" and described the program as addicts' "last chance for a decent, honest, drug-free life". + +== Controversies == + +=== State code violations === +Narconon facilities in California have been cited repeatedly for violations by state inspectors. Violations included administering medication without authorization, having alcohol on the premises, and not having proper bedding for patients. Narconon has also attempted to silence opposition, including sending letters to neighbors of a proposed facility in Leona Valley threatening legal action for criticism. Residents had been concerned that Narconon would increase crime. The local town council recommended an eight-foot security fence and independent security, which was objected to by Narconon officials. + +=== Narconon Chilocco licensing problems === + +Narconon began operations in Oklahoma in 1990, as an unlicensed facility on the site of the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School near the town of Newkirk, claiming that it did not require a state license as it was operating on an Indian reservation. In 1992 Narconon applied for a state licence, and was twice refused by the ODMHSAS, which found "no evidence that drug and alcohol abuse education was part of the program" and declared the program "not medically safe", a decision to which Narconon spokesperson Kirstie Alley responded, "The arrogance and irresponsibility of the mental health board will not survive the outrage of the many thousands of parents, graduates and supporters from the scientific community". +Between 1989 and 1992, Narconon, through Scientology attorney Tim Bowles, filed lawsuits against the ODMHSAS; its members; and local newspaper editor Robert Lobsinger, who had written about Narconon's Scientology connection. Narconon contacted the Mayor of Newkirk's 12-year-old son at a library, and hired private detectives to research Narconon's opponents, leading residents to fear retribution if they spoke out against the organization. A Narconon spokesman quoted by The New York Times described Narconon's critics in Newkirk as "in favor of drug abuse... They're either connected to selling drugs or they're using drugs." +Narconon achieved exemption from the requirement for state licensing in 1992, as a result of approval from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities. Scientology leader David Miscavige commented on the case in an interview with ABC News Nightline, saying, "There are a group of people on this planet who find us to be a threat to their existence, and they will do everything in their power to stop us. And that is the mental health field. I didn't pick a war with them." +In 2012, a paid advert in the Oklahoma Gazette contained allegations from a previously unknown group named "Oklahomans for the preservation of homeland security and american values, (ohsav)" [sic]. The advert referred to recent TV news stories about Narconon and Scientology, named some of Narconon's critics in Oklahoma, and alleged those critics had "subjugated [their] individuality for [their] own thirst for hatred", had an "agenda of religious intolerance, racial discrimination or disdain for corporate America", and blamed them for "public disinformation hate campaigns against Blacks, Jews, Muslims and Scientologists". The advertisement showed the characteristics of a dead agenting campaign. + +=== Investigation in Russia === +In April 2007, it was revealed that the public procurator in Moscow's South District had begun an investigation into Narconon's activities in Russia. The Moskovskij Komsomolets newspaper reported that legal proceedings were begun against the head of the clinic "Narconon-Standard" for violating bans in Russian medical practices. Russian law enforcement became interested after receiving many complaints from citizens about the high fees charged by Narconon. The Narconon office in Bolshaya Tulskaya St. was searched, and documents and unidentified medications were seized. One year later, as part of an investigation in Ulyanovsk into the Church of Scientology, police searched a Narconon office in the town of Dimitrovgrad. + +=== Narconon Trois-Rivières closed by Quebec health authorities === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-7.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-7.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6638bc55d --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-7.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +title: "Narconon" +chunk: 8/10 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:08.283365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +On 17 April 2012, Quebec health officials ordered the Narconon facility in Trois-Rivières to close, and to relocate its 32 residents. After an investigation into Narconon Trois-Rivières' activities by the Centre Québécois d'Agrément (CQA), an independent body that monitors the quality of healthcare, the Mauricie Region's Health and Social Services Agency decided not to re-certify Narconon due to concerns that its methods "may represent a risk to health" of patients. +The Agency's director, Marc Latour, said that Narconon Trois-Rivières was dangerous for patients, that it violated many of the criteria governing rehabilitation centres in Quebec, and that there was no medical supervision and no scientific basis to its treatment. He added that at least four clients had been hospitalized in recent months because of methods used at the centre. Narconon Trois-Rivières issued a response, saying, "People with drug problems and their families should have a right to choose the program that works for them as these days there are many good alternative programs". +The closure followed a two-year campaign by ex-Narconon patient and staff member David Love, whose negative experiences with the program prompted him to become one of its fiercest critics in Canada. While he was at Narconon Trois-Rivieres, Love reports that: + +staff members withheld insulin from a diabetic patient undergoing the sauna treatment. That young man ended up in hospital for three days, Love said. In another [incident], [Narconon] took away a patient's antidepressants. He jumped from a second-floor window in a suicide attempt. +Love is one of five former Narconon patients who have filed a complaint with Quebec's Human Rights Commission, alleging that their drug addiction was exploited by Narconon, which recruited them into the program and made them perform manual labour while taking part in it. Love also alleges that Narconon Trois-Rivieres earned around $16 million for Scientology between its opening in 2005 and its forced closure in 2012. +Narconon President Clark Carr stated that the facility closed because the province changed its stance on "what kind of drug rehabilitation it would tolerate" to "strictly medical, drug substitution, and so forth". Narconon was informed that it had to reacquire a license, but would only be approved if its method of treatment was changed. + +=== Pur Detox suicide attempt === +In September 2012, Pur Detox, a Narconon offshoot, was sued in Orange County, California, for negligence, medical malpractice, and negligent supervision. William Sweeney, the plaintiff, "suffered severe personal injuries" after a suicide attempt, jumping from a third floor balcony at the clinic, in Dana Point. Sweeney's complaint alleges that he was taken off his prescribed psychiatric medication at the facility, and that it was this which led to his suicide attempt. + +=== Arrest of Heber Jentzsch === +In December 1988, the president of the Church of Scientology International, Heber Jentzsch, was arrested in Spain after an investigation into Narconon that resulted in (later dropped) allegations that he and Scientology were defrauding Spanish citizens and running its centers with unqualified staff. The judge in the case said at a news conference after the arrests that the only god of Scientology was money, and compared the church to a pyramid scheme in which members pay increasing sums of money. The judge said that Narconon swindled its clients and lured them into Scientology. By the end of 1991, the Spanish court found there was no evidence to support prosecutors' allegations that drug rehabilitation and other programs sponsored by Scientology in Spain amounted to illicit gatherings aimed at activities such as fraud. In April 2002, the charge was formally dropped. The court also ordered that the bail bond deposited for Jentzsch's release in 1988 be returned to Scientology along with interest, which nearly doubled the original amount. + +=== Slatkin fraud === +On 8 November 2006, the Associated Press reported that Narconon was one of the Scientology groups that would pay back a total of $3.5 million of illegal funds from EarthLink co-founder Reed Slatkin: + +Slatkin, who was once an ordained Scientology minister, paid $1.7 million from his scheme directly to Scientology groups, while millions of dollars more were funneled through other investors to groups affiliated with the church, bankruptcy trustee R. Todd Neilson said in court filings. Among the church groups to receive ill-gotten gains from Slatkin's scheme were Narconon International, the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International and the Church of Scientology Western United States, the filings said. The $3.5 million being returned by the church groups was the result of a negotiated compromise, Scientology attorney David Schindler and Alexander Pilmer, an attorney for Neilson, said. + +=== Head of Narconon deported from Kazakhstan === +In July 2008, the head of Narconon in Kazakhstan was deported: Kazakh Justice Minister Zagipa Baliyeva announced that "foreigners from the USA, Georgia, South Korea and Japan have been deported from the country by law-enforcement agencies and in line with court rulings for violating the rules regarding the stay of foreigners and carrying out missionary activities without registration. In particular, with a further ban on entering Kazakhstan for five years, the head of the Narconon public foundation affiliated with the Church of Scientology has been deported," adding, "27 cases were uncovered where heads of non-traditional religious organizations violated the law on the freedom of conscience and religious organizations; in particular, materials propagating radical ideas and teachings of non-traditional religions were seized from them". + +=== Accusation of website graphics design/layout plagiarism === +In January 2001, Narconon came under fire when they appeared to plagiarize the entire layout and site design of the webzine Urban75.com for their websites heroinaddiction.com and cocaineaddiction.com, among others. The editor of Urban75 posted up comparisons of the copying, showing that Narconon had not even removed Urban75's hidden JavaScript code, unique to Urban75. The Register noted the irony of this scandal, quoting a critic who wrote, "Scientology has sued countless individuals and organizations putatively [sic] for 'copyright violation' and the organization claims loudly that they're at the 'forefront of protecting proprietary information on the Internet'." \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-8.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-8.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a72ccc92c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-8.md @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +--- +title: "Narconon" +chunk: 9/10 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:08.283365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Narconon Georgia closed amid investigation for insurance fraud === +In April 2013, agents of the insurance commissioner of the U.S. state of Georgia and the Gwinnett County district attorney's office searched the group's offices in Norcross, Georgia, questioning employees as they arrived at work and impounding more than a dozen computers and boxes full of documents. The insurance commissioner said during the investigation that, "We have credible information that indicates that insurance fraud is taking place with Narconon". The family of one patient said that the group was billing insurance companies for treatments that had never been given, and the doctors for whom the costs were being billed claimed never to have met the patient. +State investigators discovered nearly $3 million of insurance fraud at Narconon Georgia; in September 2013, the facility surrendered its state license in order to avoid criminal charges. + +== Lawsuits == + +=== California === +In March 2014, attorney Ryan Hamilton filed two civil lawsuits against Narconon with the state of California. +The first civil suit was filed on behalf of Angelo Amato of Illinois, who purchased Narconon's Purification Rundown at Narconon Fresh Start (a.k.a. Sunshine Summit Lodge) in Warner Springs, after Amato searched the Internet for drug treatment facilities and believed claims by Scientology that purported to be from an "independent consultant" web site. Amato claims to have been defrauded of $31,000 and began the Narconon program only to discover that it was actually Scientology being practiced, alleging that no actual drug treatment was offered at the facility. +The second civil suit was filed on behalf of plaintiffs Christie Estrada and Branden Chavez of New Mexico, who also researched "drug treatment facilities" on the Internet and were allegedly deceived by Narconon Fresh Start in to paying $33,000 before the Purification Rundown process could be applied, with Narconon Fresh Start allegedly asking for $23,000 of that fee up front in cash. The defendants in this case are also Narconon Fresh Start. +The core plaintiff complaints cover a spectrum of allegations of criminal misconduct by Scientology that include insurance fraud, denial that Narconon is tied to Scientology, fraudulent claims that Narconon staff were medically trained in drug treatment, and a number of other deceptive claims. + +=== Nevada === +In February 2014, Hamilton filed an additional civil suit against Narconon with the state of Nevada. His clients, Michael Tarr and his mother Cathy, sued Narconon Fresh Start (doing business as Rainbow Canyon Retreat) for fraud, breach of contract and negligence. The Tarrs claimed that, while residing at Narconon to treat his former heroin addiction, Michael did not receive detoxification treatment but rather indoctrination into Scientology, and asked the court to award them punitive damages as well as a refund of Narconon's $33,000 fees and their legal expenses. +The Tarrs' civil suit followed closely behind a previous lawsuit filed by Hamilton on behalf of David, Stacy, and Jack Welch of Texas, who also allege that Narconon Fresh Start committed breach of contract, fraud, and negligence. +In April 2014, Hamilton filed another lawsuit against Narconon Nevada, this time on behalf of Harry and Lauren Geanacopulos and their son Peter. The Geanacopulos family's complaint argues that Narconon's programme content and success rate were misrepresented to them and that it has no genuine medical or scientific basis. Hamilton claimed to possess a Narconon internal document showing that the program was used as a "bridge" to introduce clients to Scientology. + +=== National Association of Forensic Counselors === +In May 2014, the NAFC filed a lawsuit in Oklahoma, naming Narconon, Scientology and eighty other defendants. The NAFC is a body that provides certification to drug abuse counsellors. The filing sought an injunction to prevent Narconon from using the NAFC's trademarks, certifications or logos; it also sought punitive damages. +The filing alleged that Narconon and the other defendants conspired to: + +willfully misuse the NAFC logos and trademarks and falsified certifications supposedly obtained through the NAFC or the ACCFC to misrepresent the credentials of their employees and volunteers to promote the Narconon Network. +going on to claim that Narconon: + +willfully misused (and continues to misuse) Plaintiff NAFC's logos, trademarks and false certifications to further the goals and purposes of the Church of Scientology International. Specifically, Plaintiffs claim that the misuse was calculated to increase the credibility of the Narconon Treatment Centers and the affiliated counselors, and to expand the reach and profitability of the Church of Scientology International to Plaintiffs' detriment. + +=== Oklahoma === +On 5 June 2014, one-time Narconon employee Eric Tenorio was issued a subpoena to appear before a multi-county grand jury in Oklahoma that was investigating alleged insurance fraud and credit card fraud being committed at Narconon Arrowhead. The grand jury is empowered to hand down state and federal indictments and to subpoena current and previous employees, agents, and operators of the facility. +The grand jury investigation of Narconon Arrowhead came shortly after Tenorino filed documentation with the state of Oklahoma and with the NAFC, which resulted in NAFC filing their own civil lawsuits against 82 named defendants working for Narconon. + +=== Colorado === +At the Scientology facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, operating under the name "A Life Worth Living", there have been numerous law enforcement call-outs, medical emergencies, and other related requests for emergency services reported under a Freedom of Information Act request made available to the public on the Scribd document server, detailing numerous recorded incidents of Scientology operatives refusing to allow patents to leave, refusing to return their property, and patients making 9-1-1 calls that are interrupted by Scientology operatives. + +== Spin-offs and related groups == + +Narconon also operates and markets drug rehabilitation facilities under other names, partly to hide that they are part of Scientology. There are also other Scientology-affiliated drug rehabilitation groups that are based on the Purification Rundown. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-9.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-9.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..cb647f09a --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon-9.md @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +--- +title: "Narconon" +chunk: 10/10 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:08.283365+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Blu by the Sea in Emerald Coast, Florida, is the name of the former Narconon Gulf Coast. +Droganon was active in Spain in the 1980s and was controlled by the Scientology. +Drug Free Ambassadors is a Narconon program targeting schools and youth organizations. +Elevate Addiction Services, a group of clinics formerly operating under the name Narconon of Northern California, broke away from Narconon in 2014/2015 after an arbitration where they agreed to no longer use the sauna and vitamin method or teach Narconon/Church of Scientology programs, and would no longer be licensed by Narconon. The name was changed to Halcyon Horizons and several other entities operating under the trade name of Elevate Addiction Services. Still owned by the same Scientologists and using much of the earlier faculty, similar practices are in use. +Fresh Start is a pseudonym sometimes used by Narconon's facility in Nevada. +Get Off Drugs Naturally is a business name for Narconon's Australian branch. +Israel Says No to Drugs is a Scientology-affiliated organization based in Jaffa, Israel. +Pur Detox (also Pür Detox with an umlaut) is a Scientology-affiliated clinic in Dana Point, California. The clinic has come under scrutiny due to a lawsuit by one of the former patients. The Church of Scientology was not a party to the lawsuit. +Rainbow Canyon Rehabilitation Center, Rainbow Canyon Retreat or just Rainbow Canyon is a Narconon center in Caliente, Nevada. +Say No to Drugs Say Yes To Life or Yes to Life, No to Drugs is a front group for Narconon and Scientology, organizing races and street festivals to support Narconon. +Sober Living in Orange County is the Purification Rundown operated at the Orange County Scientology Org itself. +Suncoast Rehabilitation Center is a trade name or subsidiary of Narconon Spring Hill Inc., Florida. The center has come under scrutiny from the local authorities for their patient housing. The nearby Novus Medical Detox Center, while not directly affiliated to Scientology, is operated by the landlord of the Suncoast center. +Teen-anon or Streetcats is a Narconon program at the Narconon Vista Bay facility. +The Truth About Drugs and Foundation for a Drug-Free World are slogans under which Scientology and Narconon advertise their programs while concealing their Scientology origins. +Though not directly linked to Narconon, the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project and Second Chance Program are both Scientology-affiliated and also use the Purification Rundown. + +== See also == +Association for Better Living and Education +Clear Body, Clear Mind +Criminon +Scientology front groups +New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project +Purification Rundown +Second Chance Program +Synanon + +== References == + +== External links == +Narconon International +"Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention Program Evaluation". California Department of Education. Archived from the original on December 22, 2019. +"Narconon-Exposed.org (archive)". +"Stop-Narconon.org (archive)". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Discovery_Science-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Discovery_Science-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e865e71cc --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Discovery_Science-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "National Institute for Discovery Science" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Discovery_Science" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:09.420930+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDSci) was a privately financed research organization based in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, and operated from 1995 to 2004. It was founded in 1995 by real-estate developer Robert Bigelow, who set it up to research and advance serious study of various fringe science and paranormal topics, most notably ufology. Deputy Administrator Colm Kelleher was quoted as saying the organization was not designed to study UFOs only. "We don't study aliens, we study anomalies. They're the same thing in a lot of people's minds, but not in our minds." NIDSci was disbanded in October 2004. + + +== History == +The National Institute for Discovery Science, known also as NIDS, was founded by Robert Bigelow serving as a way to channel funds into the scientific study of paranormal phenomena. The NIDS performed research in the areas of cattle mutilation and black triangle reports. +The NIDSci bought Skinwalker Ranch after journalist George Knapp first wrote about it in 1996, and Deputy Administrator Colm Kelleher led the investigation for a number of years. +A hotline was established in 1999 to receive reports of odd occurrences. Over 5,000 reports made by phone calls and e-mails were received by the organization. Officials say many were explained as missile test launches and meteors. + + +== See also == +Bigelow Aerospace +Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program +Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force + + +== References == + + +== External links == +Snapshot of NIDSci site at the Internet Archive (archived October 7, 2007) +NIDS - Robert Bigelow — a collection of news articles about the NIDS' early days +The UFO Hunters - Scientists at National Institute for Discovery Science study anomalous phenomena +Where the Steers and the Aliens Play an article by Sean Castel in Fate, August, 1998 +The End of the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) +Bigelow’s Aerospace and Saucer Emporium, Skeptical Inquirer 33.4, July/August 2009 \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..94b8f3859 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Natural News" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:10.668219+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Natural News (formerly NewsTarget, which is now a separate sister site) is a far-right website that promotes anti-vaccination content, conspiracy theories, fake news, and pseudoscience. The website began publishing articles in 2008 and is based in the United States. As of 2014, Natural News had approximately 7 million unique visitors per month. +The site's founder, Michael Allen "Mike" Adams, gained attention after posting a blog entry implying a call for violence against proponents of GMO foods, and then allegedly creating another website with a list of names of alleged supporters. He has been widely criticized and accused of using "pseudoscience to sell his lies". Adams has described vaccines as "medical child abuse". +The website sells various dietary supplements, promotes alternative medicine and climate change denial, makes tendentious nutrition and health claims, disseminates fake news, and espouses various conspiracy theories and pro-Donald Trump propaganda. +Natural News content has been restricted on various platforms including Google, YouTube, and Facebook. The website launched an AI chatbot called "Enoch" in 2025. + +== Founder == +Michael Allen "Mike" Adams (born 1967 in Lawrence, Kansas) is the founder and owner of Natural News; the domain name was registered in 2005 and began publishing articles in 2008. +According to Adams' own website, he became interested in alternative nutrition when he developed type II diabetes at the age of 30 and then "cured himself of diabetes in a matter of months and transformed himself into the picture of perfect health in mind, body and spirit". He recommends products for his readers to do the same. +He calls himself a holistic nutritionist, is enthusiastic about raw food, and claims that he excludes processed food, dairy, sugar, meat from mammals, and additives such as MSG from his diet. He also says he avoids use of prescription drugs and visits to Western medical doctors. +The Daily Beast found at least eight articles where Adams recommended products from Amazon Herb Company with some specifying to buy them from a distributor named Terry Pezzi. One such article is a lengthy review by Adams which he characterizes as "independent", despite Arizona non-profit business records showing that he had entered into business with Terrry Pezzi prior to writing it. + +== Conspiracy theories and controversial positions == +Adams has endorsed conspiracy theories surrounding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and those involving Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. He has endorsed Burzynski: Cancer Is Serious Business, a movie about Stanislaw Burzynski, who treats cancer patients with unproven treatments that have received FDA warnings. Adams has also endorsed the books of conspiracy theorist Jim Marrs. Adams has made music videos expressing similar viewpoints as the articles posted on his website, such as opposition to the swine flu vaccine. He has described vaccines as "medical child abuse". +After Patrick Swayze died in 2009, Adams posted an article in which he remarked that Swayze, in dying, "joins many other celebrities who have been recently killed by pharmaceuticals or chemotherapy." Commentators of Adams' article on Swayze included bloggers David Gorski and Phil Plait, the latter of whom called Adams' commentary "obnoxious and loathsome." +In 2012, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred, Adams called for "medication control" instead of gun control. In March 2018, Adams created Hoggwatch.com, a website Snopes said was "apparently created solely for the purpose of attacking American gun control activist David Hogg." +In July 2014, Adams compared media outlets that wrote positively about GMOs with Nazi Germany's propagandists, calling them, "Monsanto collaborators who have signed on to accelerate heinous crimes being committed against humanity under the false promise of 'feeding the world' with toxic GMOs." He continued with a statement that he set in boldface: "that it is the moral right—and even the obligation—of human beings everywhere to actively plan and carry out the killing of those engaged in heinous crimes against humanity." A day after the post a website called "Monsanto Collaborator" appeared online which listed the names of scientists and journalists who allegedly collaborate with the bio industry; Adams denied creating the website claiming that Monsanto set up the website in order to frame him. + +== Platform removals and restrictions == +On February 22, 2017, Google delisted about 140,000 pages on Natural News, removing it from search results. It was returned soon after. The following year, on March 3, 2018, YouTube removed the Natural News channel for terms of service violations, effectively removing its library of videos from the site. The channel was subsequently reinstated and the videos returned. +In February 2019, The Atlantic reported that Natural News was one of the most prominent anti-vaccination websites on Facebook. In June 2019, Facebook removed the Natural News page from its website for violating its policies against spam. Adams wrote on InfoWars that his site was "permanently banned" from Facebook, and on The Gateway Pundit that the ban was part of a conspiracy against his website. +In May 2020, Facebook expanded the ban to include all Natural News content from its platform after discovering that the site was boosting its popularity using content farms in North Macedonia and the Philippines, a form of spamming. Natural News bypassed the ban by republishing its content on a large number of topic-specific domain names, including trump.news, extinction.news, mind.control.news, and veggie.news. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue found 496 domain names associated with Natural News as of June 2020. +Natural News has been blacklisted as a source on Wikipedia. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a60017438 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Natural News" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_News" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:10.668219+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Criticism == +An article in the journal Vaccine said the site "tend(s) to not only spread irresponsible health information in general (e.g. discouraging chemotherapy or radiation for cancer treatment, antiretrovirals for HIV, and insulin for diabetes), but also have large sections with dubious information on vaccines." +According to John Banks, Adams uses "pseudoscience to sell his lies" and is "seen as generally a quack and a shill by science bloggers." Adams is also listed as a "promoter of questionable methods" by Quackwatch. +Steven Novella of NeuroLogica Blog characterizes Adams as "a dangerous conspiracy-mongering crank" and called Natural News "a crank alt med site that promotes every sort of medical nonsense imaginable." Novella continued: "If it is unscientific, antiscientific, conspiracy-mongering, or downright silly, Mike Adams appears to be all for it—whatever sells the "natural" products he hawks on his site." +Robert T. Carroll at The Skeptic's Dictionary said, "Natural News is not a very good source for information. If you don't trust me on this, go to Respectful Insolence or any of the other bloggers on ScienceBlogs and do a search for Natural News... Hundreds of entries will be found and not one of them will have a good word to say about [Adams] as a source." +Peter Bowditch of the website Ratbags has criticized the site, referring to it as a "cesspit" and in 2011 and 2015, Brian Dunning listed Natural News as #1 on his "Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites" lists. Other individuals who have commented about Adams' website include astronomer and blogger Phil Plait, PZ Myers, and Mark Hoofnagle. +In February 2014, Brian Palmer, writing in the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Illinois, criticized the site's promotion of alternative medicine treatments, such as bathing in Himalayan salt and eating Hijiki seaweed, and referred to the claims Natural News made about their efficacy as "preposterous." In August 2014, Nathanael Johnson, writing for Grist, dismissed Natural News as "simply not credible" and as "nothing but a conspiracy-theory site." +On December 8, 2016, Michael V. LeVine, writing in Business Insider, criticized the site as part of a scientific fake news epidemic: "Snake-oil salesmen have pushed false cures since the dawn of medicine, and now websites like Natural News flood social media with dangerous anti-pharmaceutical, anti-vaccination and anti-GMO pseudoscience that puts millions at risk of contracting preventable illnesses." + +== Notable claims and content == +Natural News has made chemophobic claims about the purported dangers of "chemtrails", fluoridated drinking water, heavy metals, anti-perspirants, laundry detergent, monosodium glutamate (MSG), aspartame, and vaccines. The site has also spread conspiracy theories about the Zika virus being caused by genetically modified mosquitoes and the purported adverse effects of genetically modified crops, foods, and farming practices. +In 2011, Adams posted a report on Natural News which stated that many blueberry food products did not contain real blueberries. +In 2013, Adams posted an article describing what he saw when he examined Chicken McNuggets under a microscope. He said in the article that the patterns he saw included "dark black hair-like structures" and a round algae-like object. +On August 11, 2014, Natural News published a blog post promoting a homeopathic treatment for Ebola, which was met with harsh criticism from several commentators, and was taken down later that day. In a statement on the article, Natural News said that the blogger who posted the article, Ken Oftedal, was "under review" and that they did not condone anyone interacting with Ebola. However, as of August 20, 2014, the site was still featuring an article written by Adams promoting the use of herbal medicines to treat Ebola. Natural News was among the pseudoscience platforms which promoted hoaxes about the 2014 Ebola epidemic, including claims that an infected woman was found in Atlanta and that Ebola was a bioweapon. +In 2019, Natural News falsely claimed that wind turbines contribute more to climate change than fossil fuels. +A 2020 study by researchers from Northeastern, Harvard, Northwestern and Rutgers universities found that Natural News was among the top 5 most shared fake news domains in tweets related to COVID-19, the others being The Gateway Pundit, InfoWars, WorldNetDaily and Judicial Watch. +Natural News launched an AI chatbot called "Enoch" in 2025 that, according to Mike Adams, utilizes "a billion pages of content on alternative media." + +== References == + +== External links == + Media related to Natural News at Wikimedia Commons +Official website \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy-0.md index 987c0ed95..a89416744 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy-0.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy-0.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/2 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:22:15.902461+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:11.878887+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy-1.md index 708ff128c..25f803a55 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy-1.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy-1.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 2/2 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:22:15.902461+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:11.878887+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c70bf9360 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: "Naturopathy" +chunk: 1/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:13.045899+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine. A wide array of practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", or promoting "self-healing" are employed by its practitioners, who are known as naturopaths. These treatments range from the pseudoscientific and thoroughly discredited, such as homeopathy, to the widely accepted, such as certain forms of psychotherapy. The ideology and methods of naturopathy are based on vitalism and folk medicine rather than evidence-based medicine, although practitioners may use techniques supported by evidence. The ethics of naturopathy have been called into question by medical professionals and its practice has been characterized as quackery. +Naturopathic practitioners commonly encourage alternative treatments that are rejected by conventional medicine, including resistance to surgery or vaccines for some patients. The diagnoses made by naturopaths often have no basis in science and are often not accepted by mainstream medicine. +Naturopaths frequently campaign for legal recognition in the United States. Naturopathy is prohibited in three U.S. states (Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee) and tightly regulated in many others. Some states, however, allow naturopaths to perform minor surgery or even prescribe drugs. While some schools exist for naturopaths, and some jurisdictions allow such practitioners to call themselves doctors, the lack of accreditation, scientific medical training, and quantifiable positive results means they lack the competency of true medical doctors. + +== History == +The term "naturopathy" originates from natura (Latin root for 'birth') and pathos (the Greek root for 'suffering') to suggest "natural healing". Naturopaths claim the ancient Greek "Father of Medicine", Hippocrates, as the first advocate of naturopathic medicine, before the term existed. Naturopathy has its roots in the 19th-century Natural Cure movement of Europe. After graduating as a licenciate of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1879, Thomas Allinson began promoting his hygienic medicine in London, advocating a natural diet, exercise, and avoidance of tobacco and overwork. +The term naturopathy was coined in 1895 by John Scheel, and bought by Benedict Lust, whom naturopaths consider to be the "Father of U.S. Naturopathy". Lust had been schooled in hydrotherapy and other natural health practices in Germany by Father Sebastian Kneipp; Kneipp sent Lust to the United States to spread his drugless methods. Lust defined naturopathy as a broad discipline rather than a particular method, and included such techniques as hydrotherapy, herbal medicine, and homeopathy, as well as eliminating overeating, tea, coffee, and alcohol. He described the body in spiritual and vitalistic terms with "absolute reliance upon the cosmic forces of man's nature". According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the first known use of "naturopathy" in print is from 1901. +From 1901, Lust founded the American School of Naturopathy in New York. In 1902, the original North American Kneipp Societies were discontinued and renamed "Naturopathic Societies". In September 1919, the Naturopathic Society of America was dissolved, and Benedict Lust founded the American Naturopathic Association to supplant it. Naturopaths became licensed under naturopathic or drugless practitioner laws in 25 states in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Naturopathy was adopted by many chiropractors, and several schools offered both Doctor of Naturopathy (ND) and Doctor of Chiropractic (DC) degrees. Estimates of the number of naturopathic schools active in the United States during this period vary from about one to two dozen. +After a period of rapid growth, naturopathy went into decline for several decades after the 1930s. In 1910, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published the Flexner Report, which criticized many aspects of medical education, especially quality and lack of scientific rigour. The advent of penicillin and other "miracle drugs" and the consequent popularity of modern medicine also contributed to naturopathy's decline. In the 1940s and 1950s, a broadening of scope-of-practice laws led many chiropractic schools to drop their ND degrees, though many chiropractors continued to practice naturopathy. From 1940 to 1963, the American Medical Association campaigned against heterodox medical systems. By 1958, practice of naturopathy was licensed in only five states. In 1968, the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare issued a report on naturopathy concluding that naturopathy was not grounded in medical science and that naturopathic education was inadequate to prepare graduates to make appropriate diagnosis and provide treatment; the report recommends against expanding Medicare coverage to include naturopathic treatments. In 1977, an Australian committee of inquiry reached similar conclusions; it did not recommend licensure for naturopaths. +Beginning in the 1970s, there was a revival of interest in the United States and Canada, in conjunction with the "holistic health" movement. As of 2009, fifteen U.S. states, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia licensed naturopathic doctors, and the State of Washington requires insurance companies to offer reimbursement for services provided by naturopathic physicians. On the other hand, some states, such as South Carolina and Tennessee, prohibit the practice of naturopathy. +In the United States, the Indian Health Service began accepting naturopathic doctors in their clinics and practice in 2013, also making loan repayment available to NDs. +In 2015, a former naturopathic doctor, Britt Marie Hermes, began writing critically about her experience in naturopathic medical training and practice. Her blog garnered a large following among skeptics while enraging some proponents of alternative medicine. + +== Practice == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..355121b1c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: "Naturopathy" +chunk: 2/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:13.045899+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In 2003, a report was presented by Kimball C. Atwood, an American medical doctor and researcher from Newton, Massachusetts, best known as a critic of naturopathic medicine, stating among other criticisms that "The practice of naturopathy is based on a belief in the body's ability to heal itself through a special vital energy or force guiding bodily processes internally". +Diagnosis and treatment concern primarily alternative therapies and "natural" methods that naturopaths claim promote the body's natural ability to heal. Many naturopaths in India now use modern diagnostic techniques in their practice. Naturopaths focus on a holistic approach, avoiding the use of surgery and conventional medicines. Naturopaths aim to prevent illness through stress reduction and changes to diet and lifestyle, often rejecting the methods of evidence-based medicine. +A consultation typically begins with a comprehensive patient interview assessing lifestyle, medical history, emotional tone, and physical features, as well as physical examination. Many naturopaths present themselves as primary care providers, and some naturopathic physicians may prescribe drugs, perform minor surgery, and integrate other conventional medical approaches such as diet and lifestyle counselling with their naturopathic practice. Traditional naturopaths deal exclusively with lifestyle changes, not diagnosing or treating disease. Naturopaths do not generally recommend vaccines and antibiotics, based in part on the early views that shaped the profession, and they may provide alternative remedies even in cases where evidence-based medicine has been shown effective. + +=== Methods === +Naturopaths are often opposed to mainstream medicine and take an antivaccinationist stance. +The particular modalities used by a naturopath vary with training and scope of practice. These may include herbalism, homeopathy, acupuncture, nature cures, physical medicine, applied kinesiology, colonic enemas, chelation therapy, color therapy, cranial osteopathy, hair analysis, iridology, live blood analysis, ozone therapy, psychotherapy, public health measures and hygiene, reflexology, rolfing, massage therapy, and traditional Chinese medicine. Nature cures include a range of therapies based on exposure to natural elements such as sunshine, fresh air, or heat or cold, as well as nutrition advice such as following a vegetarian and whole food diet, fasting, or abstention from alcohol and sugar. Physical medicine includes naturopathic, osseous, or soft tissue manipulative therapy, sports medicine, exercise, and hydrotherapy. Psychological counseling includes meditation, relaxation, and other methods of stress management. +A 2004 survey determined the most commonly prescribed naturopathic therapeutics in Washington state and Connecticut were botanical medicines, vitamins, minerals, homeopathy, and allergy treatments. An examination published in 2011 of naturopathic clinic websites in Alberta and British Columbia found that the most commonly advertised therapies were homeopathy, botanical medicine, nutrition, acupuncture, lifestyle counseling, and detoxification. +In 2020, a survey of methods used by naturopaths in fourteen countries reported that 27% of clients received acupuncture, 22% homeopathy, 16% "other energetic medicines", and 13.5% were given hydrotherapy. A mean of 4.0 "treatments" were provided to each customer. One-third (33%) of patients consulted with only the naturopath to manage their primary health concern. + +=== Evidence basis === + +Naturopathy as a whole lacks an adequate scientific basis, and it is rejected by the medical community. Although it includes valid lifestyle advice from mainstream medicine (healthy sleep, balanced diet, regular exercise), it typically adds a range of pseudoscientific beliefs. Some methods rely on immaterial "vital energy fields", the existence of which has not been proven, and there is concern that naturopathy as a field tends towards isolation from general scientific discourse. Naturopathy is criticized for its reliance on and its association with unproven, disproven, and other controversial alternative medical treatments, and for its vitalistic underpinnings. Natural substances known as nutraceuticals show little promise in treating diseases, especially cancer, as laboratory experiments have shown limited therapeutic effect on biochemical pathways, while clinical trials demonstrate poor bioavailability. According to the American Cancer Society, "scientific evidence does not support claims that naturopathic medicine can cure cancer or any other disease". According to Britt Hermes, naturopath student programs are problematic because "As a naturopath [student], you are making justifications to make the rules and to fudge the standards of how to interpret research all along the way. Because if you don't, you're not left with anything, basically". +In 2015, the Australian Government's Department of Health published the results of a review of alternative therapies that sought to determine if any were suitable for being covered by health insurance; Naturopathy was one of 17 therapies evaluated for which no clear evidence of effectiveness was found. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6cd532bd8 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Naturopathy" +chunk: 3/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:13.045899+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Kimball C. Atwood IV writes, in the journal Medscape General Medicine,Naturopathic physicians now claim to be primary care physicians proficient in the practice of both "conventional" and "natural" medicine. Their training, however, amounts to a small fraction of that of medical doctors who practice primary care. An examination of their literature, moreover, reveals that it is replete with pseudoscientific, ineffective, unethical, and potentially dangerous practices. In another article, Atwood writes that "Physicians who consider naturopaths to be their colleagues thus find themselves in opposition to one of the fundamental ethical precepts of modern medicine. If naturopaths are not to be judged "nonscientific practitioners", the term has no useful meaning". +A former licensed naturopathic doctor, Britt Marie Hermes, states that "any product that is sold by a naturopath almost guarantees that there is no reliable scientific data to support whatever health claims are made, and that while some naturopaths claim to only practice evidence based medicine, "the problem is, all naturopaths in an accredited naturopathic program are required to extensively study homeopathy, herbal medicine, energy healing, chiropractic techniques, water therapy" and other pseudoscientific practices. Hermes further notes that, while some naturopaths claim that their method can be effective treatments for psychological disorders, "no naturopathic treatment has been clinically proven to be safe and effective for bipolar disorder or any other condition." +According to Arnold S. Relman, the Textbook of Natural Medicine is inadequate as a teaching tool, as it omits to mention or treat in detail many common ailments, improperly emphasizes treatments "not likely to be effective" over those that are, and promotes unproven herbal remedies at the expense of pharmaceuticals. He concludes that "the risks to many sick patients seeking care from the average naturopathic practitioner would far outweigh any possible benefits". +The Massachusetts Medical Society states, "Naturopathic practices are unchanged by research and remain a large assortment of erroneous and potentially dangerous claims mixed with a sprinkling of non-controversial dietary and lifestyle advice." + +=== Safety of natural treatments === +Naturopaths often recommend exposure to naturally occurring substances, such as sunshine, herbs and certain foods, as well as activities they describe as natural, such as exercise, meditation and relaxation. Naturopaths claim that these natural treatments help restore the body's innate ability to heal itself without the adverse effects of conventional medicine. However, "natural" methods and chemicals are not necessarily safer or more effective than "artificial" or "synthetic" ones, and any treatment capable of eliciting an effect may also have deleterious side effects. +Certain naturopathic treatments offered by naturopaths, such as homeopathy, rolfing, and iridology, are widely considered pseudoscience or quackery. Stephen Barrett of QuackWatch and the National Council Against Health Fraud has stated that naturopathy is "simplistic and that its practices are riddled with quackery". "Non-scientific health care practitioners, including naturopaths, use unscientific methods and deception on a public who, lacking in-depth health care knowledge, must rely upon the assurance of providers. Quackery not only harms people, it undermines the ability to conduct scientific research and should be opposed by scientists", says William T. Jarvis. In the 2018 Australian case against Marlyin Bodnar, who advised a mother to treat her infant son's eczema with a raw food diet which nearly led to the child's starvation death, Judge Peter Berman said, "Well intentioned but seriously misguided advice is, as the facts of this case demonstrate, capable of causing great harm and even death to vulnerable children." Furthermore, Britt Hermes criticizes the "pervasive culture of patient blaming" among naturopathic practitioners, where "when something doesn't work for the patient and the patient is not experiencing all of the positive effects and zero side-effects that are promised with the therapy, it's never because the therapy doesn't work, it's because the patient didn't do something right." + +=== Vaccination === + +Many naturopathy practitioners voice their opposition to vaccination. The reasons for this opposition are based, in part, on the early views which shaped the foundation of this occupation. A naturopathy textbook, co-authored by Joseph Pizzorno, recalls anti-vaccine beliefs associated with the founding of naturopathy in the United States: "a return to nature in regulating the diet, breathing, exercising, bathing and the employment of various forces" in lieu of the smallpox vaccine. +In general, evidence about associations between naturopathy and pediatric vaccination is sparse, but "published reports suggest that only a minority of naturopathic physicians actively support full vaccination". In Washington state from 2000 to 2003, children were significantly less likely to receive immunizations if they had seen a naturopath. A survey of naturopathic students published in 2004 found that students at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine became less likely to recommend vaccinations to their patients and became more distrustful of public health and conventional medicine as they advanced in the program. +The British Columbia Naturopathic Association lists several major concerns regarding the pediatric vaccine schedule and vaccines in general, and the group's policy is to not advocate for or against vaccines. The Oregon Association of Naturopathic Physicians reports that many naturopaths "customize" the pediatric vaccine schedule. +As of April 25, 2022, a British Columbia government report found that 69.2% of naturopaths reported having received at least two COVID vaccines or receiving a medical exemption. This was much lower than all the other regulated medical professions in the report. The number for two professions – dieticians and physicians/surgeons – was 98%. +As of 2016, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, which is the largest professional organization for licensed naturopaths in the U.S., is "still discussing its stance on vaccinations". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..bdf1f5dd6 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Naturopathy" +chunk: 4/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:13.045899+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Practitioners == +Naturopath practitioners can generally be categorized into three groups: 1) those with a government issued license; 2) those who practice outside of an official status ("traditional naturopaths"); 3) those who are primarily another kind of health professional who also practices naturopathy. +In Switzerland, these divisions fall between those with a federal diploma, those recognized by health insurances, and those with neither federal diploma nor recognition by health insurances. Naturopaths with federal diploma can be divided into four categories: European traditional medicine, Chinese traditional medicine, ayurvedic medicine and homeopathy. The number of listed naturopaths (including traditional healers) in Switzerland rose from 223 in 1970 to 1835 in 2000. + +=== Licensed naturopaths === +Licensed naturopaths may be referred to as "naturopathic doctors" or "naturopathic physicians" in 26 US states or territories and 5 Canadian provinces. Licensed naturopaths present themselves as primary care providers. Licensed naturopaths do not receive comparable training to medical doctors in terms of the quality of education or quantity of hours. +In British Columbia, legislation permits licensed naturopaths to use the title "doctor" or "physician". However, section 102 of the bylaw of the College of Naturopathic Physicians of British Columbia (CNPBC), the terms "naturopathic" or "naturopathic medicine" must be included anytime the term doctor or physician is used by a member of the CNPBC. + +==== Education ==== + +Licensed naturopaths must pass the Naturopathic Physicians Licensing Examinations (NPLEX) administered by the North American Board of Naturopathic Examiners (NABNE) after graduating from a program accredited by the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education (CNME). Training in CNME-accredited programs includes basic medical diagnostics and procedures such as rudimentary physical exams and common blood tests, in addition to pseudoscientific modalities, such as homeopathy, acupuncture, and energy modalities. +These accredited programs have been criticized for misrepresenting their medical rigor and teaching subjects that are antithetical to the best understandings of science and medicine. The CNME as an accrediting authority has been characterized as unreliable and suffering from conflicts of interest. The naturopathic licensing exam has been called a mystery by those outside the naturopathic profession and criticized for testing on homeopathic remedies, including for the use to treat pediatric emergencies. +Several schools in North America exist for the study of naturopathic medicine, some accredited by the CNME. The CNME and the Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges (AANMC) claim entrance requirements and curricula at accredited colleges are often similar or comparable to those required and offered at conventional medical schools. However, the lack of accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education may indicate insufficiency of scientific medical training and/or quantifiable positive results, and accordingly it remains disputed whether graduates of medical colleges accredited by the CNME have the competency of Medical Doctors and Doctors of Osteopathy. +Naturopathic doctors are not eligible for medical residencies, which are available exclusively for medical doctors and doctors of osteopathic medicine. There are limited post-graduate "residency" positions available to naturopathic doctors offered through naturopathic schools and naturopathic clinics approved by the CNME. Most naturopathic doctors do not complete such a residency, and naturopathic doctors are not mandated to complete one for licensure, except in the states of Utah and Connecticut. Continuing education in naturopathic modalities for health care professionals varies greatly. + +==== Political activity in the United States ==== +Naturopathic practitioners affiliated with the CNME-accredited schools lobby state, provincial, and federal governments for medical licensure and participation in social health programs. The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians represents licensed naturopaths in the United States; the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors represents licensed naturopaths in Canada. Naturopathic lobbying efforts are funded by vitamin and supplement makers and focus on portraying naturopathic education as comparable to medical education received by physicians and on having high professional standards. Medical societies and advocacy groups dispute these claims by citing evidence of licensed naturopathic practitioners using pseudoscientific methods without a sound evidence basis and lacking adequate clinical training to diagnose and treat disease competently according to the standard of care. Jann Bellamy has characterized the process by which naturopathic practitioners and other practitioners of pseudoscience convince lawmakers to provide them with medical licenses as "legislative alchemy". +Since 2005, the Massachusetts Medical Society has opposed licensure based on concerns that NDs are not required to participate in residency and concerns that the practices of naturopaths included many "erroneous and potentially dangerous claims". The Massachusetts Special Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medical Practitioners rejected their concerns and recommended licensure. The Massachusetts Medical Society states: + +Naturopathic medical school is not a medical school in anything but the appropriation of the word medical. Naturopathy is not a branch of medicine. It is a hodge podge of nutritional advice, home remedies and discredited treatments ... Naturopathic colleges claim accreditation but follow a true "alternative" accreditation method that is virtually meaningless. They are not accredited by the same bodies that accredit real medical schools and while some courses have similar titles to the curricula of legitimate medical schools the content is completely different. +In 2015, a former naturopathic doctor, Britt Marie Hermes, who graduated from Bastyr University and practiced as a licensed ND in Washington and Arizona, began advocating against naturopathic medicine. In addition to opposing further licensure, she believes that NDs should not be allowed to use the titles "doctor" or "physician", and be barred from treating children. She states: + +Naturopaths aggressively lobby for laws to issue them medical licenses. I would characterize this political effort as a perverted redefinition of the words "physician", "doctor", "medical school", and "residency" in order to mask the inadequacy of the training provided in naturopathic programs. ND students do not realize that they are taking educational shortcuts and therefore do not possess any demonstrable competencies found in modern medicine. + +=== Traditional naturopaths === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..575a7f93f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,55 @@ +--- +title: "Naturopathy" +chunk: 5/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:13.045899+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Traditional naturopaths are represented in the United States by the American Naturopathic Association (ANA), representing about 1,800 practitioners and the American Naturopathic Medical Association (ANMA). +The level of naturopathic training varies among traditional naturopaths in the United States. Traditional naturopaths may complete non-degree certificate programs or undergraduate degree programs and generally refer to themselves as naturopathic consultants. These programs often offer online unaccredited degrees, but do not offer comprehensive biomedical education or clinical training. +Traditional naturopathic practitioners surveyed in Australia perceive evidence-based medicine to be an ideological assault on their beliefs in vitalistic and holistic principles. They advocate for the integrity of natural medicine practice. +Naturopaths graduating from accredited programs argued in 2002 that their training used evidence-based scientific principles unlike traditional naturopathic programs, but this claim remains inaccurate. + +== Regulation == +Naturopathy is practiced in many countries and is subject to different standards of regulation and levels of acceptance. The scope of practice varies widely between jurisdictions, with some covering naturopathy under medical regulation and allowing practitioners to prescribe drugs and perform minor surgery, while other jurisdictions outlaw naturopathy entirely. + +=== Australia === +In 1977, a Commonwealth Government inquiry reviewed all colleges of naturopathy in Australia and found that despite having syllabuses appearing to cover the basic biomedical sciences, actual lectures had little connection to those syllabuses and no significant practical work was available. In addition, there did not appear to be significant or systematic coverage of techniques favoured by naturopaths, such as homeopathy, Bach's floral remedies, or mineral salts. +The position of the Australian Medical Association is that "evidence-based aspects of complementary medicine can be part of patient care by a medical practitioner", but it has concerns that there is "limited efficacy evidence regarding most complementary medicine. Unproven complementary medicines and therapies can pose a risk to patient health either directly through misuse or indirectly if a patient defers seeking medical advice." The AMA's position on regulation is that "there should be appropriate regulation of complementary medicine practitioners and their activities". +In 2015, the Australian government found no clear evidence of effectiveness for naturopathy. Accordingly, In 2017 the Australian government named naturopathy as a practice that would not qualify for insurance subsidies, saying this step would "ensure taxpayer funds are expended appropriately and not directed to therapies lacking evidence". + +=== India === +In India, naturopathy is overseen by the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH); there is a 5½-year degree in "Bachelor of Naturopathy and Yogic Sciences" (BNYS) degree that was offered by twelve colleges in India as of August 2010. The National Institute of Naturopathy in Pune that operates under AYUSH, which was established on December 22, 1986, and encourages facilities for standardization and propagation of the existing knowledge and its application through research in naturopathy throughout India. + +=== North America === +In five Canadian provinces, seventeen U.S. states, and the District of Columbia, naturopathic doctors who are trained at an accredited school of naturopathic medicine in North America are entitled to use the designation ND or NMD. Elsewhere, the designations "naturopath", "naturopathic doctor", and "doctor of natural medicine" are generally unprotected or prohibited. +In North America, each jurisdiction that regulates naturopathy defines a local scope of practice for naturopathic doctors that can vary considerably. Some regions permit minor surgery, access to prescription drugs, spinal manipulations, midwifery (natural childbirth), and gynecology; other regions exclude these from the naturopathic scope of practice or prohibit the practice of naturopathy entirely. + +==== Canada ==== +Five Canadian provinces license naturopathic doctors: Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. British Columbia has the largest scope of practice in Canada, allowing certified NDs to prescribe pharmaceuticals and perform minor surgeries. Ontario also permits prescription from a modified formulary list, following separate examination. + +==== United States ==== +U.S. jurisdictions that currently regulate or license naturopathy include Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Utah, Vermont, and Washington. Additionally, Virginia licenses the practice of naturopathy under a grandfather clause. (This was previously also the case in Florida, though currently no practitioners remain active under the grandfather provisions). +U.S. jurisdictions that permit access to prescription drugs: Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington. +U.S. jurisdictions that permit minor surgery: Arizona, District of Columbia, Kansas, Maine, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington. +Three U.S. states specifically prohibit the practice of naturopathy: Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee. + +=== Switzerland === +The Swiss Federal Constitution defines the Swiss Confederation and the Cantons of Switzerland within the scope of their powers to oversee complementary medicine. In particular, the Federal authorities must set up diplomas for the practice of non-scientific medicine. The first of such diplomas has been validated in April 2015 for the practice of naturopathy. There is a long tradition of naturopathy and traditional medicine in Switzerland. The Cantons of Switzerland make their own public health regulations. Although the law in certain cantons is typically monopolistic, the authorities are relatively tolerant with regard to alternative practitioners. + +=== United Kingdom === +Naturopathy is not regulated in the United Kingdom. In 2012, publicly funded universities in the United Kingdom dropped their alternative medicine programs, including naturopathy. + +== See also == + +== References == + +== External links == + +Council on Naturopathic Medical Education +American Naturopathic Medical Association +American Association of Naturopathic Physicians +Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative-calorie_food-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative-calorie_food-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4d73571fe --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative-calorie_food-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: "Negative-calorie food" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative-calorie_food" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:14.313731+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +A negative-calorie food is food that supposedly requires more food energy to be digested than the food provides. Its thermic effect or specific dynamic action—the caloric "cost" of digesting the food—would be greater than its food energy content. Despite its recurring popularity in dieting guides, there is no evidence supporting the idea that any food is calorically negative. While some chilled beverages are calorically negative, the effect is minimal and requires drinking very large amounts of water, which can be dangerous, as it can cause water intoxication. + + +== Controversy == +There is no evidence to show that any of these foods have a negative calorific impact. Foods claimed to be negative in calories are mostly low-calorie fruits and vegetables such as celery, grapefruit, orange, lemon, lime, apple, lettuce, broccoli, and cabbage. However, celery has a thermic effect of around 8%, much less than the 100% or more required for a food to have "negative calories", unless you freeze the celery, but then it would be too hard to chew and you would have to blend it to consume it in smoothie form while it's still at freezing temperature. +Diets based on negative-calorie food do not work as advertised but can lead to weight loss because they satisfy hunger by filling the stomach with food that is not calorically dense. A 2005 study based on a low-fat plant-based diet found that the average participant lost 13 pounds (5.9 kg) over fourteen weeks, and attributed the weight loss to the reduced energy density of the foods resulting from their low fat content and high fiber content, and the increased thermic effect. Nevertheless, these diets are not "negative-calorie" since they bear energy. Another study demonstrated that negative-calorie diets (NCDs) have the same efficacy to low-calorie diets (LCDs) in inducing weight loss when both of these diets are combined with exercise. +Chewing gum has been speculated as a "negative-calorie food"; A study on chewing gum reported mastication burns roughly 11 kcal (46 kJ) per hour. Therefore, to reach "negative-calorie" one has to chew for almost 6 minutes per kcal (one chewing gum can have a large range of kcal from around 2 to 15 kcal). + + +== See also == + +Diet +Dieting +Calorie restriction +List of diets +Very-low-calorie diet +Fad diet +Protein poisoning + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..9b296ccf7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Negroid" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:15.584073+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Negroid (less commonly called Congoid) is an obsolete racial grouping of various people indigenous to Africa south of the area which stretched from the southern Sahara desert in the west to the African Great Lakes in the southeast, but also to isolated parts of South and Southeast Asia (Negritos). The term is derived from now-disproven conceptions of race as a biological category. +The concept of dividing humans into three races called Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid (originally named "Ethiopian") was introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history and further developed by Western scholars in the context of "racist ideologies" during the age of colonialism. +With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists stated: "Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation. It was never accurate in the past, and it remains inaccurate when referencing contemporary human populations." + +== Etymology == +Negroid has Portuguese or Spanish and Ancient Greek etymological roots. It literally translates as "black resemblance" from the Portuguese and Spanish word negro (black) from Latin nigrum, and Greek οειδές -oeidēs, equivalent to -o- + είδες -eidēs "having the appearance of", derivative of είδος eîdos "appearance". The earliest recorded use of the term "Negroid" came in 1859. + +== History of the concept == + +=== Origins === +Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a scholar at the then modern Göttingen University developed a concept dividing mankind into five races in the revised 1795 edition of his De generis humani varietate nativa (On the Natural Variety of Mankind). Although Blumenbach's concept later gave rise to scientific racism, his arguments were basically anti-racist, since he underlined that mankind as a whole forms one single species, and points out that the transition from one race to another is so gradual that the distinctions between the races presented by him are "very arbitrary". Blumenbach counts the inhabitants of North Africa among the "Caucasian race", grouping the other Africans as "Ethiopian race". In this context, he names the "Abyssinians" and "Moors" as peoples through which the "Ethiopian race" gradually "flows together" with the "Caucasian race". + +=== In the context of scientific racism === + +==== Before Darwin ==== +The development of Western race theories took place in a historical situation where most Western nations were still profiting from the enslavement of Africans and therefore had an economical interest in portraying the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa as an inferior race. A significant change in Western views on Africans came about when Napoleon's 1798 invasion of Egypt drew attention to the impressive achievements of Ancient Egypt, which could hardly be reconciled with the theory of Africans being inferior. In this context, many of the works published on Egypt after Napoleon's expedition "seemed to have had as their main purpose an attempt to prove in some way that the Egyptians were not Negroes", but belonged to a "Hamitic race", which was seen as a subgroup of the "Caucasian race". Thus the high civilization of Ancient Egypt could be separated from the allegedly inferior African "race". + +As historian Edith Sanders writes, "Perhaps because slavery was both still legal and profitable in the United States ... there arose an American school of anthropology which attempted to prove scientifically that the Egyptian was a Caucasian, far removed from the inferior Negro". In his Crania Aegyptiaca (1844), Samuel George Morton, the founder of anthropology in the United States, analyzed over a hundred intact crania gathered from the Nile Valley, and concluded that the ancient Egyptians were racially akin to Europeans. +Discussions on race among Western scholars during the 19th century took place against the background of the debate between monogenists and polygenists, the former arguing for a single origin of all mankind, the latter holding that each human race had a specific origin. Monogenists based their arguments either on a literal interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve or on secular research. Since polygenism stressed the perceived differences, it was popular among white supremacists, especially slaveholders in the US. +Through craniometry conducted on thousands of human skulls, Morton argued that the differences between the races were too broad to have stemmed from a single common ancestor, but were instead consistent with separate racial origins. In Crania Aegyptiaca, he reported his measurements of internal skull capacity grouped according to Blumenbach's five races, finding that the average capacity of the "Caucasian race" was at the top, and that "Ethiopian" skulls had the smallest capacity, with the other "races" ranging in between. He concluded that the "Ethiopian race" was inferior in terms of intelligence. Upon his death in 1851, when slavery still existed in the southern United States, the influential Charleston Medical Journal praised him with the words: "We of the South should consider him as our benefactor for aiding most materially in giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race." While a controversy about the correctness of Morton's measurements has been going on since the late 1970s, modern scientists agree that the volume of the skull and intelligence are not related. + +==== In the age of evolutionary biology ==== \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..699b14fb8 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +title: "Negroid" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:15.584073+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Darwin's landmark work On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, eight years after Morton's death, significantly changed scientific discourse on the origin of humans. British biologist Thomas Huxley, a strong advocate of Darwinism and a monogenist, counted ten "modifications of mankind", dividing the native populations of sub-Saharan Africa into the "Bushmen" of the Cape region and the "Negroes" of the central areas of the continent. +By the end of the 19th century, the influential German encyclopaedia, Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, divided humanity into three major races called Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid, each comprising various sub-races. While the "Hamites" of northern Africa were seen as Caucasoid, "Australians", "Melanesians", and "Negritoes" were seen as Negroid sub-races, although living outside the African continent. The only sub-races attributed to Africa were the "African Negroes" and the "Hottentots". +The justification for racist Jim Crow laws was provided by pseudo-scientific opinions on "negro" psychology like those expressed by the entry for "Negro" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1910–1911): + +"Mentally the negro is inferior to the white ... the arrest or even deterioration of mental development [after adolescence] is no doubt very largely due to the fact that after puberty sexual matters take the first place in the negro's life and thoughts. ... the mental constitution of the negro is very similar to that of a child, normally good-natured and cheerful, but subject to sudden fits of emotion and passion during which he is capable of performing acts of singular atrocity, impressionable, vain, but often exhibiting in the capacity of servant a dog-like fidelity which has stood the supreme test." + +==== Franz Boas and The Race Question ==== +Since the 1920s, Franz Boas and his school of anthropology at Columbia University were criticising the concept of race as politically dangerous and scientifically useless because of its vague definition. +In 1950, UNESCO published their statement The Race Question. It condemned all forms of racism, naming "the doctrine of inequality of men and races" among the causes of World War II and proposing to replace the term "race" with "ethnic groups" because "serious errors ... are habitually committed when the term "race" is used in popular parlance." + +==== Carleton Coon ==== +American anthropologist Carleton S. Coon published his much debated Origin of Races in 1962. Coon divided the species Homo sapiens into five groups: Besides the Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Australoid races, he posited two races among the indigenous populations of sub-Saharan Africa: the Capoid race (named for the Cape of Good Hope) in the south, and the Congoid race. In 1982, he used Negroid and Congoid as synonyms. +Coon's thesis was that Homo erectus had already been divided into five different races or subspecies. "Homo Erectus then evolved into Homo Sapiens not once but five times, as each subspecies, living in its own territory, passed a critical threshold from a more brutal to a more sapient state." He thought the Caucasoid race had passed the threshold to Homo sapiens about 200,000 years earlier than the Negroid race, thus giving segregationists in the southern US the opportunity to make political use of his thesis in their fight against the civil rights movement. Although Coon publicly assumed a neutral stance regarding segregation, some fellow anthropologists accused him of being racist because of his "clear insensitivity to social issues". In private conversations and correspondence with his cousin Carleton Putnam, a prominent supporter of white supremacy, he went much further, helping Putnam "hone his arguments against integration". +Coon's evolutionary approach was criticized on the basis that such sorting criteria generally do not produce meaningful results, and that evolutionary divergence was extremely improbable over the given time-frames. Monatagu (1963) argued that Coon's theory on the speciation of Congoids and other Homo sapiens was unlikely because the transmutation of one species to another was a markedly gradual process. +Since Coon followed the traditional methods of physical anthropology, relying on morphological characteristics, and not on the emerging genetics to classify humans, the debate over Origin of Races has been "viewed as the last gasp of an outdated scientific methodology that was soon to be supplanted". + +=== Cheikh Anta Diop and "Negroid" primacy === +Afrocentrist author Cheikh Anta Diop contrasted "Negroid" with "Cro-Magnoid" in his publications arguing for "Negroid" primacy. Grimaldi Man, Upper Paleolithic fossils found in Italy in 1901, had been classified as Negroid by Boule and Vallois (1921). The identification was obsolete by the 1960s, but was controversially revived by Diop in his work, "The African Origin of Civilizations" in 1974 and republished in 1989. + +== Physical features == + +=== General appearance === +The Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition (1910–1911), lists the following "well-defined characteristics" of the "Negroid" populations of Africa, southern India, Malaysia, and Australasia: "A dark skin, varying from dark brown, reddish-brown, or chocolate to nearly black; dark, tightly curled hair, flat in traverse section, of the woolly or the frizzly type; a greater or less tendency to prognathism; eyes dark brown with yellowish cornea; nose more or less broad and flat; and large teeth". The Encyclopædia Britannica sees a tendency towards a "tall stature" and "dolichocephaly" (long-headedness), with the exception of the Negritos who are described as showing "short stature" and "brachycephaly" (short-headedness). +Forensic anthropologists writing around the turn of the millennium described "Negroid" skulls as having a broad and round nasal cavity; no dam or nasal sill; Quonset hut-shaped nasal bones; notable facial projection in the jaw and mouth area (prognathism); a rectangular-shaped palate; a square or rectangular eye orbit shape; a large interorbital distance; a more undulating supraorbital ridge; and large teeth. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8564c15df --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +--- +title: "Negroid" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:15.584073+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Neoteny === +Ashley Montagu lists "neotenous structural traits in which ... Negroids [generally] differ from Caucasoids ... flattish nose, flat root of the nose, narrower ears, narrower joints, frontal skull eminences, later closure of premaxillary sutures, less hairy, longer eyelashes, [and] cruciform pattern of second and third molars." He also suggested that in the extinct Negroid group termed the "Boskopoids", pedomorphic traits proceeded further than in other Negroids. Additionally, Montagu wrote that the Boskopoids had larger brains than modern humans (1,700 cubic centimeters cranial capacity compared to 1,400 cubic centimeters in modern-day humans), and the projection of their mouth was less than in other Negroids. He believed the Boskopoids were the ancestors of the Khoisan. + +=== Athleticism === +In the context of prominent successes of African-American athletes like Jesse Owens during the 1936 Summer Olympics, the speed advantage of the "Negroid type of calf, foot and heel bone" was discussed. Black Anthropologist W. Montague Cobb joined the debate in the same year, pointing out that "there is not a single physical characteristic, including skin color, which all the Negro stars have in common which definitely classify them as Negroes." Today, suggestions of biological differences in athletic ability between racial groups are considered unscientific. + +== Criticism == + +The Oxford Dictionary of English states: "The term Negroid belongs to a set of terms introduced by 19th-century anthropologists attempting to categorize human races. Such terms are associated with outdated notions of racial types, and so are now potentially offensive and best avoided." + +=== Criticism based on modern genetics === + +In his 2016 essay Evolution and Notions of Human Race, Alan R. Templeton discusses various criteria used in biology to define subspecies or races. His examples for traits traditionally considered to be racial include skin colour: "[T]he native peoples with the darkest skins live in tropical Africa and Melanesia." While those two groups would traditionally be classified as "black", in reality Africans are more closely related to Europeans than to Melanesians. Another example is malarial resistance, which is often found in African populations, but also in "many European and Asian populations". +Templeton concludes: "[T]he answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no." + +== Further reading == +Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, New York: Nation Books 2016. ISBN 978-1-5685-8464-5 + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-creationism-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-creationism-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d601ff499 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-creationism-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +--- +title: "Neo-creationism" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-creationism" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:16.829563+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Neo-creationism is a pseudoscientific movement which aims to restate creationism in terms more likely to be well received by the public, by policy makers, by educators and by the scientific community. It aims to re-frame the debate over the origins of life in non-religious terms and without appeals to scripture. In the United States, this comes in response to the 1987 ruling by the Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard that creationism is an inherently religious concept and that advocating it as correct or accurate in public-school curricula violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. +One of the principal claims of neo-creationism propounds that ostensibly objective orthodox science, with a foundation in naturalism, is actually a dogmatically atheistic religion. Its proponents argue that the scientific method excludes certain explanations of phenomena, particularly where they point towards supernatural elements, thus effectively excluding religious insight from contributing to understanding the universe. This leads to an open and often hostile opposition to what neo-creationists term "Darwinism", which they generally mean to refer to evolution, but which they may extend to include such concepts as abiogenesis, stellar evolution and the Big Bang theory. +Notable neo-creationist organizations include the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture. Neo-creationists have yet to establish a recognized line of legitimate scientific research and as of 2015 lack scientific and academic legitimacy, even among many academics of evangelical Christian colleges. Eugenie C. Scott and other critics regard neo-creationism as the most successful form of irrationalism. The main form of neo-creationism is intelligent design. A second form, abrupt appearance theory, which claims that the first life and the universe appeared abruptly and that plants and animals appeared abruptly in complex form, has occasionally been postulated. + + +== Motivations == +The neo-creationist movement is motivated by the fear that religion is under attack by the study of evolution. An argument common to neo-creationist justifications is that society has suffered "devastating cultural consequences" from adopting materialism and that science is the cause of this decay into materialism since science seeks only natural explanations. They believe that the theory of evolution implies that humans have no spiritual nature, no moral purpose, and no intrinsic meaning, and thus that acceptance of evolution devalues human life directly leading to the atrocities committed by Hitler's Nazi regime, for example. The movement's proponents seek to "defeat [the] materialist world view" represented by the theory of evolution in favor of "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions". Phillip E. Johnson, 'father' of the intelligent design movement, states the movement's goal is to "affirm the reality of God". + + +== Tactics == +Much of the effort of neo-creationists in response to science consists of polemics highlighting gaps in understanding or minor inconsistencies in the literature of biology, then making statements about what can and cannot happen in biological systems. Critics of neo-creationism suggest that neo-creationist science consists of quote-mining the biological literature (including outdated literature) for minor slips, inconsistencies or polemically promising examples of internal arguments. These internal disagreements, fundamental to the working of all natural science, are then presented dramatically to lay audiences as evidence of the fraudulence and impending collapse of "Darwinism". Critics suggest that neo-creationists routinely employ this method to exploit the technical issues within biology and evolutionary theory to their advantage, relying on a public that is not sufficiently scientifically literate to follow the complex and sometimes difficult details. +Robert T. Pennock argues that intelligent design proponents are "manufacturing dissent" in order to explain the absence of scientific debate of their claims: "The 'scientific' claims of such neo-creationists as Johnson, Denton, and Behe rely, in part, on the notion that these issues [surrounding evolution] are the subject of suppressed debate among biologists.... According to neo-creationists, the apparent absence of this discussion and the nearly universal rejection of neo-creationist claims must be due to the conspiracy among professional biologists instead of a lack of scientific merit." +Eugenie Scott describes neo-creationism as "a mixed bag of antievolution strategies brought about by legal decisions against equal time laws". Those legal decisions, McLean v. Arkansas and Edwards v. Aguillard, doomed the teaching of creation science as an alternative to evolution in public school science classes. Scott considers intelligent design, and the various strategies of design proponents like Teach the Controversy and Critical Analysis of Evolution, as leading examples of neo-creationism. +Neo-creationists generally reject the term "neo-creation", alleging it is a pejorative term. Any linkage of their views to creationism would undermine their goal of being viewed as advocating a new form of science. Instead, they identify themselves to their non-scientific audience as conducting valid science, sometimes by redefining science to suit their needs. This is rejected by the vast majority of actual science practitioners. Nevertheless, neo-creationists profess to present and conduct valid science which is equal, or superior to, the theory of evolution, but have yet to produce recognized scientific research and testing that supports their claims. Instead, the preponderance of neo-creationist works are publications aimed at the general public and lawmakers and policymakers. Much of that published work is polemical in nature, disputing and controverting what they see as a "scientific orthodoxy" which shields and protects "Darwinism" while attacking and ridiculing alleged alternatives like intelligent design. Examples of neo-creationist polemics include the Discovery Institute's Wedge Document, the book Darwin on Trial by Phillip E. Johnson, and the book From Darwin to Hitler by Richard Weikart. Research for Weikart's book was funded by the Discovery Institute, and is promoted through the institute. Both Johnson and Weikart are affiliated with the Discovery Institute; Johnson is program advisor, and Weikart is a fellow. + + +== Criticism == +All of the following names make explicit the connections between traditional creationism, neo-creationism and intelligent design. Not all critics of neo-creationism are on the evolution side of the debate. Henry M. Morris, a notable young earth creationist, accepted the term but opposed the logic of neo-creationism for the very reason that it does not embrace the Bible. The Baptist Center for Ethics calls for "Baptists to recommit themselves to the separation of church and state, which will keep public schools free from coercive pressure to promote sectarian faith, such as state-written school prayers and the teaching of neo-creationism..." + +Barbara Forrest, co-author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (ISBN 0-19-515742-7) +Georgetown University theologian John Haught +Journalist Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science (ISBN 0-465-04675-4) +Massimo Pigliucci +Eugenie C. Scott +Robert T. Pennock + + +== See also == +Creation–evolution controversy +Creation myth +Creation science +Intelligent design movement +Social implications of the theory of evolution +Theistic realism + + +== References == + + +== External links == +Neo-Creo New York Times By William Safire \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..195029f2e --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +title: "Neuro-linguistic programming" +chunk: 1/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:17.977876+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a pseudoscientific approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy that first appeared in Richard Bandler and John Grinder's book The Structure of Magic I (1975). NLP asserts a connection between neurological processes, language, and acquired behavioral patterns, and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life. According to Bandler and Grinder, NLP can treat problems such as phobias, depression, tic disorders, psychosomatic illnesses, near-sightedness, allergy, the common cold, and learning disorders, often in a single session. They also say that NLP can model the skills of exceptional people, allowing anyone to acquire them. +NLP has been adopted by some hypnotherapists as well as by companies that run seminars marketed as leadership training to businesses and government agencies. +No scientific evidence supports the claims made by NLP advocates, and it has been called a pseudoscience. Scientific reviews have shown that NLP is based on outdated metaphors of the brain's inner workings that are inconsistent with current neurological theory, and that NLP contains numerous factual errors. Reviews also found that research that favored NLP contained significant methodological flaws, and that three times as many studies of a much higher quality failed to reproduce the claims made by Bandler, Grinder, and other NLP practitioners. + +== Early development == +According to Bandler and Grinder, NLP consists of a methodology termed modeling, plus a set of techniques that they derived from its initial applications. They derived many of the fundamental techniques from the work of Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson and Fritz Perls. Bandler and Grinder also drew upon the theories of Gregory Bateson, and Noam Chomsky (particularly transformational grammar). +Bandler and Grinder say that their methodology can codify the structure inherent to the therapeutic "magic" as performed in therapy by Perls, Satir and Erickson, and indeed inherent to any complex human activity. From that codification, they say, the structure and its activity can be learned by others. Their 1975 book, The Structure of Magic I: A Book about Language and Therapy, is intended to be a codification of the therapeutic techniques of Perls and Satir. +Bandler and Grinder say that they used their own process of modeling to model Virginia Satir so they could produce what they termed the Meta-Model, a model for gathering information and challenging a client's language and underlying thinking. They say that by challenging linguistic distortions, specifying generalizations, and recovering deleted information in the client's statements, the transformational grammar concept of surface structure yields a more complete representation of the underlying deep structure and therefore has therapeutic benefit. Also derived from Satir were anchoring, future pacing and representational systems. +In contrast, the Milton-Model—a model of the purportedly hypnotic language of Milton Erickson—was described by Bandler and Grinder as "artfully vague" and metaphoric. The Milton-Model is used in combination with the Meta-Model as a softener, to induce "trance" and to deliver indirect therapeutic suggestion. +Psychologist Jean Mercer writes that Chomsky's theories "appear to be irrelevant" to NLP. Linguist Karen Stollznow describes Bandler's and Grinder's reference to such experts as namedropping. Other than Satir, the people they cite as influences did not collaborate with Bandler or Grinder. Chomsky himself has no association with NLP, with his work being theoretical in nature and having no therapeutic element. Stollznow writes, "[o]ther than borrowing terminology, NLP does not bear authentic resemblance to any of Chomsky's theories or philosophies—linguistic, cognitive or political." +According to André Muller Weitzenhoffer, a researcher in the field of hypnosis, "the major weakness of Bandler and Grinder's linguistic analysis is that so much of it is built upon untested hypotheses and is supported by totally inadequate data." Weitzenhoffer adds that Bandler and Grinder misuse formal logic and mathematics, redefine or misunderstand terms from the linguistics lexicon (e.g., nominalization), create a scientific façade by needlessly complicating Ericksonian concepts with unfounded claims, make factual errors, and disregard or confuse concepts central to the Ericksonian approach. +More recently, Bandler has stated, "NLP is based on finding out what works and formalizing it. In order to formalize patterns I utilized everything from linguistics to holography ... The models that constitute NLP are all formal models based on mathematical, logical principles such as predicate calculus and the mathematical equations underlying holography." There is no mention of the mathematics of holography nor of holography in general in Spitzer's, or Grinder's account of the development of NLP. +On the matter of the development of NLP, Grinder recollects: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b528f2cca --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +title: "Neuro-linguistic programming" +chunk: 2/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:17.977876+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +My memories about what we thought at the time of discovery (with respect to the classic code we developed—that is, the years 1973 through 1978) are that we were quite explicit that we were out to overthrow a paradigm and that, for example, I, for one, found it very useful to plan this campaign using in part as a guide the excellent work of Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) in which he detailed some of the conditions which historically have obtained in the midst of paradigm shifts. For example, I believe it was very useful that neither one of us were qualified in the field we first went after—psychology and in particular, its therapeutic application; this being one of the conditions which Kuhn identified in his historical study of paradigm shifts. +The philosopher Robert Todd Carroll responded that Grinder has not understood Kuhn's text on the history and philosophy of science, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Carroll replies: (a) individual scientists never have nor are they ever able to create paradigm shifts volitionally and Kuhn does not suggest otherwise; (b) Kuhn's text does not contain the idea that being unqualified in a field of science is a prerequisite to producing a result that necessitates a paradigm shift in that field and (c) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is foremost a work of history and not an instructive text on creating paradigm shifts and such a text is not possible—extraordinary discovery is not a formulaic procedure. Carroll explains that a paradigm shift is not a planned activity, rather it is an outcome of scientific effort within the dominant paradigm that produces data that cannot be adequately accounted for within the current paradigm—hence a paradigm shift, i.e. the adoption of a new paradigm. In developing NLP, Bandler and Grinder were not responding to a paradigmatic crisis in psychology nor did they produce any data that caused a paradigmatic crisis in psychology. There is no sense in which Bandler and Grinder caused or participated in a paradigm shift. "What did Grinder and Bandler do that makes it impossible to continue doing psychology ... without accepting their ideas? Nothing," argues Carroll. + +=== Commercialization and evaluation === +By the late 1970s, the human potential movement had developed into an industry and provided a market for some NLP ideas. At the center of this growth was the Esalen Institute at Big Sur, California. Perls had led numerous Gestalt therapy seminars at Esalen. Satir was an early leader and Bateson was a guest teacher. Bandler and Grinder have said that in addition to being a therapeutic method, NLP was also a study of communication and began marketing it as a business tool, writing that, "if any human being can do anything, so can you." After 150 students paid $1,000 each for a ten-day workshop in Santa Cruz, California, Bandler and Grinder gave up academic writing and started producing popular books from seminar transcripts, such as Frogs into Princes, which sold more than 270,000 copies. According to court documents relating to an intellectual property dispute between Bandler and Grinder, Bandler made more than $800,000 in 1980 from workshop and book sales. +A community of psychotherapists and students began to form around Bandler and Grinder's initial works, leading to the growth and spread of NLP as a theory and practice. For example, Tony Robbins trained with Grinder and utilized a few ideas from NLP as part of his own self-help and motivational speaking programmes. Bandler led several unsuccessful efforts to exclude other parties from using NLP. Meanwhile, the rising number of practitioners and theorists led NLP to become even less uniform than it was at its foundation. Prior to the decline of NLP, scientific researchers began testing its theoretical underpinnings empirically, with research indicating a lack of empirical support for NLP's essential theories. The 1990s were characterized by fewer scientific studies evaluating the methods of NLP than the previous decade. Tomasz Witkowski attributes this to a declining interest in the debate as the result of a lack of empirical support for NLP from its proponents. + +== Main components and core concepts == +NLP can be understood in terms of three broad components: subjectivity, consciousness, and learning. +According to Bandler and Grinder, people experience the world subjectively, creating internal representations of their experiences. These representations involve the five senses and language. In other words, our conscious experiences take the form of sights, sounds, feelings, smells, and tastes. When we imagine something, recall an event, or think about the future, we utilize these same sensory systems within our minds. Furthermore it is stated that these subjective representations of experience have a discernible structure, a pattern. +Bandler and Grinder assert that behavior (both our own and others') can be understood through these sensory-based internal representations. Behavior here includes verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as effective or adaptive behaviors and less helpful or "pathological" ones. They also assert that behavior in both the self and other people can be modified by manipulating these sense-based subjective representations. +NLP posits that consciousness can be divided into conscious and unconscious components. The part of our internal representations operating outside our direct awareness is referred to as the "unconscious mind". +Finally, NLP uses a method of learning called "modeling", designed to replicate expertise in any field. According to Bandler and Grinder, by analyzing the sequence of sensory and linguistic representations used by an expert while performing a skill, it's possible to create a mental model that can be learned by others. + +== Techniques or set of practices == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f27ad49b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +title: "Neuro-linguistic programming" +chunk: 3/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:17.977876+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +According to one study by Steinbach, a classic interaction in NLP can be understood in terms of several major stages including establishing rapport, gleaning information about a problem mental state and desired goals, using specific tools and techniques to make interventions, and integrating proposed changes into the client's life. The entire process is guided by the non-verbal responses of the client. The first is the act of establishing and maintaining rapport between the practitioner and the client which is achieved through pacing and leading the verbal (e.g., sensory predicates and keywords) and non-verbal behavior (e.g., matching and mirroring non-verbal behavior, or responding to eye movements) of the client. +Once rapport is established, the practitioner may gather information about the client's present state as well as help the client define a desired state or goal for the interaction. The practitioner pays attention to the verbal and non-verbal responses as the client defines the present state and desired state and any resources that may be required to bridge the gap. The client is typically encouraged to consider the consequences of the desired outcome, and how they may affect their personal or professional life and relationships, taking into account any positive intentions of any problems that may arise. The practitioner thereafter assists the client in achieving the desired outcomes by using certain tools and techniques to change internal representations and responses to stimuli in the world. Finally, the practitioner helps the client to mentally rehearse and integrate the changes into their life. For example, the client may be asked to envision what it is like having already achieved the outcome. +According to Stollznow, "NLP also involves fringe discourse analysis and 'practical' guidelines for 'improved' communication. For example, one text asserts 'when you adopt the "but" word, people will remember what you said afterwards. With the "and" word, people remember what you said before and after.'" + +== Applications == + +=== Alternative medicine === +NLP has been promoted as being able to treat a variety of diseases including Parkinson's disease, HIV/AIDS and cancer. Such claims have no supporting medical evidence. People who use NLP as a form of treatment risk serious adverse health consequences as it can delay the provision of effective medical care. + +=== Psychotherapeutic === +Early books about NLP had a psychotherapeutic focus given that the early models were psychotherapists. As an approach to psychotherapy, NLP shares similar core assumptions and foundations in common with some contemporary brief and systemic practices, such as solution focused brief therapy. NLP has also been acknowledged as having influenced these practices with its reframing techniques which seeks to achieve behavior change by shifting its context or meaning, for example, by finding the positive connotation of a thought or behavior. +The two main therapeutic uses of NLP are, firstly, as an adjunct by therapists practicing in other therapeutic disciplines and, secondly, as a specific therapy called Neurolinguistic Psychotherapy. +According to Stollznow, "Bandler and Grinder's infamous Frogs into Princes and their other books boast that NLP is a cure-all that treats a broad range of physical and mental conditions and learning difficulties, including epilepsy, myopia and dyslexia. With its promises to cure schizophrenia, depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and its dismissal of psychiatric illnesses as psychosomatic, NLP shares similarities with Scientology and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)." A systematic review of experimental studies by Sturt et al. (2012) concluded that "there is little evidence that NLP interventions improve health-related outcomes." In his review of NLP, Stephen Briers writes, "NLP is not really a cohesive therapy but a ragbag of different techniques without a particularly clear theoretical basis ... [and its] evidence base is virtually non-existent." Eisner writes, "NLP appears to be a superficial and gimmicky approach to dealing with mental health problems. Unfortunately, NLP appears to be the first in a long line of mass marketing seminars that purport to virtually cure any mental disorder ... it appears that NLP has no empirical or scientific support as to the underlying tenets of its theory or clinical effectiveness. What remains is a mass-marketed serving of psychopablum." +André Muller Weitzenhoffer—a friend and peer of Milton Erickson—wrote, "Has NLP really abstracted and explicated the essence of successful therapy and provided everyone with the means to be another Whittaker, Virginia Satir, or Erickson? ... [NLP's] failure to do this is evident because today there is no multitude of their equals, not even another Whittaker, Virginia Satir, or Erickson. Ten years should have been sufficient time for this to happen. In this light, I cannot take NLP seriously ... [NLP's] contributions to our understanding and use of Ericksonian techniques are equally dubious. Patterns I and II are poorly written works that were an overambitious, pretentious effort to reduce hypnotism to a magic of words." +Clinical psychologist Stephen Briers questions the value of the NLP maxim—a presupposition in NLP jargon—"there is no failure, only feedback". Briers argues that the denial of the existence of failure diminishes its instructive value. He offers Walt Disney, Isaac Newton and J.K. Rowling as three examples of unambiguous acknowledged personal failure that served as an impetus to great success. According to Briers, it was "the crash-and-burn type of failure, not the sanitised NLP Failure Lite, i.e. the failure-that-isn't really-failure sort of failure" that propelled these individuals to success. Briers contends that adherence to the maxim leads to self-deprecation. According to Briers, personal endeavour is a product of invested values and aspirations and the dismissal of personally significant failure as mere feedback effectively denigrates what one values. Briers writes, "Sometimes we need to accept and mourn the death of our dreams, not just casually dismiss them as inconsequential." Briers also contends that the NLP maxim is narcissistic, self-centered and divorced from notions of moral responsibility. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..fb3bff81a --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,75 @@ +--- +title: "Neuro-linguistic programming" +chunk: 4/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:17.977876+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Other uses === +Although the original core techniques of NLP were therapeutic in orientation their generic nature enabled them to be applied to other fields. These applications include persuasion, sales, negotiation, management training, sports, teaching, coaching, team building, public speaking, and in the process of hiring employees. + +== Scientific criticism == +In the early 1980s, NLP was advertised as an important advance in psychotherapy and counseling, and attracted some interest in counseling research and clinical psychology. However, as controlled trials failed to show any benefit from NLP and its advocates made increasingly dubious claims, scientific interest in NLP faded. +Numerous literature reviews and meta-analyses have failed to show evidence for NLP's assumptions or effectiveness as a therapeutic method. While some NLP practitioners have argued that the lack of empirical support is due to insufficient research which tests NLP, the consensus scientific opinion is that NLP is pseudoscience and that attempts to dismiss the research findings based on these arguments "[constitute]s an admission that NLP does not have an evidence base and that NLP practitioners are seeking a post-hoc credibility." +Surveys in the academic community have shown NLP to be widely discredited among scientists. Among the reasons for considering NLP a pseudoscience are that evidence in favor of it is limited to anecdotes and personal testimony that it is not informed by scientific understanding of neuroscience and linguistics, and that the name "neuro-linguistic programming" uses jargon words to impress readers and obfuscate ideas, whereas NLP itself does not relate any phenomena to neural structures and has nothing in common with linguistics or programming. In education, NLP has been used as a key example of pseudoscience. + +== As a quasi-religion == +Sociologists and anthropologists have categorized NLP as a quasi-religion belonging to the New Age and/or Human Potential Movements. +Medical anthropologist Jean M. Langford categorizes NLP as a form of folk magic; that is to say, a practice with symbolic efficacy—as opposed to physical efficacy—that is able to effect change through nonspecific effects (e.g., placebo). To Langford, NLP is akin to a syncretic folk religion "that attempts to wed the magic of folk practice to the science of professional medicine". +Bandler and Grinder were influenced by the shamanism described in the books of Carlos Castaneda. Concepts like "double induction" and "stopping the world", central to NLP modeling, were incorporated from these influences. +Some theorists characterize NLP as a type of "psycho-shamanism", and its focus on modeling has been compared to ritual practices in certain syncretic religions. The emphasis on lineage from an NLP guru has also been likened to similar concepts in some Eastern religions. Aupers, Houtman, and Bovbjerg identify NLP as a New Age "psycho-religion". Bovbjerg argues that New Age movements center on a transcendent "other". While monotheistic religions seek communion with a divine being, this focus shifts inward in these movements, with the "other" becoming the unconscious self. Bovbjerg posits that this emphasis on the unconscious and its hidden potential underlies NLP techniques promoting self-perfection through ongoing transformation. +Bovbjerg's secular critique echoes the conservative Christian perspective, as exemplified by David Jeremiah. He argues that NLP's emphasis on self-transformation and internal power conflicts with the Christian belief in salvation through divine grace. + +== Legal disputes == + +=== Founding, initial disputes, and settlement (1979–1981) === +In 1979, Richard Bandler and John Grinder established the Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to manage commercial applications of NLP, including training, materials, and certification. The founding agreement conferred exclusive rights to profit from NLP training and certification upon Bandler's corporate entity, Not Ltd. Around November 1980, Bandler and Grinder had ceased collaboration for undisclosed reasons. +On September 25, 1981, Bandler filed suit against Grinder's corporate entity, Unlimited Ltd., in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Cruz seeking injunctive relief and damages arising from Grinder's NLP-related commercial activities; the Court issued a judgment in Bandler's favor on October 29, 1981. The subsequent settlement agreement granted Grinder a 10-year license to conduct NLP seminars, offer NLP certification, and utilize the NLP name, subject to royalty payments to Bandler. + +=== Further litigation and consequences (1996–2000) === +Bandler commenced further civil actions against Unlimited Ltd., various figures within the NLP community, and 200 initially unnamed defendants in July 1996 and January 1997. Bandler alleged violations of the initial settlement terms by Grinder and sought damages of no less than US$10,000,000.00 from each defendant. +In February 2000, the Court ruled against Bandler. The judgment asserted that Bandler had misrepresented his exclusive ownership of NLP intellectual property and sole authority over Society of NLP membership and certification. + +=== Trademark revocation (1997) === +In December 1997, a separate civil proceeding initiated by Tony Clarkson resulted in the revocation of Bandler's UK trademark of NLP. The Court ruled in Clarkson's favor. + +=== Resolution and legacy (2000) === +Bandler and Grinder reached a settlement in late 2000, acknowledging their status as co-creators and co-founders of NLP and committing to refrain from disparaging one another's NLP-related endeavors. +Due to these disputes and settlements, the terms "NLP" and "neuro-linguistic programming" remain in the public domain. No single party holds exclusive rights, and there are no restrictions on offering NLP certifications. +The designations "NLP" and "neuro-linguistic programming" are not owned, trademarked, or subject to centralized regulation. Consequently, there are no restrictions on individuals self-identifying as "NLP master practitioners" or "NLP master trainers". This decentralization has led to numerous certifying associations. + +=== Decentralization and criticism === +This lack of centralized control means there is no single standard for NLP practice or training. Practitioners can market their own methodologies, leading to inconsistencies within the field. This has been a source of criticism, highlighted by an incident in 2009 where a British television presenter registered his cat with the British Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming (BBNLP), demonstrating the organization's lax credentialing. Critics like Karen Stollznow find irony in the initial legal battles between Bandler and Grinder, considering their failure to apply their own NLP principles to resolve their conflict. Others, such as Grant Devilly, characterize NLP associations as "granfalloons"—a term implying a lack of unifying principles or a shared sense of purpose. + +== See also == +Avatar Course +Family systems therapy +Frank Farrelly +List of New Age topics +List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments +Solution-focused brief therapy +Notable practitioners + +Steve Andreas +Paul McKenna + +== Notes == + +== References == + +=== Citations === + +=== Works cited === +Primary sources + +Secondary sources + +== Further reading == + +== External links == + The dictionary definition of Neuro-linguistic programming at Wiktionary + Media related to Neuro-linguistic programming at Wikimedia Commons + Quotations related to Neuro-linguistic programming at Wikiquote \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4703843af --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +title: "Nibiru cataclysm" +chunk: 1/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:19.340542+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Nibiru cataclysm is a supposed disastrous encounter between Earth and a large planetary object (either a collision or a near-miss) that certain groups believed would take place in the early 21st century. Believers in this doomsday event usually refer to this object as Nibiru or Planet X. The idea was first put forward in 1995 by Nancy Lieder, founder of the website ZetaTalk. Lieder claims she is a contactee with the ability to receive messages from extraterrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system through an implant in her brain. She states that she was chosen to warn mankind that the object would sweep through the inner Solar System in May 2003 (though that date was later postponed) causing Earth to undergo a physical pole shift that would destroy most of humanity. +The prediction has subsequently spread beyond Lieder's website and has been embraced by numerous Internet doomsday groups. In the late 2000s, it became closely associated with the 2012 phenomenon. Since 2012, the Nibiru cataclysm has frequently reappeared in the popular media, usually linked to newsmaking astronomical objects such as Comet ISON or Planet Nine. Although the name "Nibiru" is derived from the works of the "ancient astronaut" writer Zecharia Sitchin and his interpretations of Babylonian and Sumerian mythology, he denied any connection between his work and various claims of a coming apocalypse. A prediction by self-described "Christian numerologist" David Meade that the Nibiru cataclysm would occur on 23 September 2017 received extensive media coverage. +The idea that a planet-sized object will collide with or closely pass by Earth in the near future is not supported by any scientific evidence and has been rejected by astronomers and planetary scientists as pseudoscience and an Internet hoax. Such an object would have destabilised the orbits of the planets to the extent that their effects would be easily observable today. Astronomers have hypothesized many planets beyond Neptune, and though many have been disproved, there are some that remain possible, such as Planet Nine. All the current hypotheses describe planets in orbits that would keep them well beyond Neptune throughout their orbit, even when they were closest to the Sun. + +== History == + +=== Nancy Lieder and ZetaTalk === + +The idea of the Nibiru encounter originated with Nancy Lieder, a Wisconsin woman who claims that as a girl she was contacted by gray extraterrestrials called Zetans, who implanted a communications device in her brain. In 1995, she founded the website ZetaTalk to disseminate her ideas. Lieder first came to public attention on Internet newsgroups during the build-up to Comet Hale–Bopp's 1997 perihelion (the closest approach to the Sun). She stated, claiming to speak as the Zetans, that: "The Hale–Bopp comet does not exist. It is a fraud, perpetrated by those who would have the teeming masses quiescent until it is too late. Hale–Bopp is nothing more than a distant star, and will draw no closer." She claimed that the Hale–Bopp story was manufactured to distract people from the imminent arrival of a large planetary object, "Planet X", which would soon pass by Earth and destroy civilization. After Hale–Bopp's perihelion revealed it as one of the brightest and longest-observed comets of the last century, Lieder removed the first two sentences of her initial statement from her site, though they can still be found in Google's archives. Her claims eventually made the New York Times. +Lieder described Planet X as roughly four times the size of Earth, and said that its closest approach would occur on May 27, 2003, resulting in Earth's rotation ceasing for exactly 5.9 terrestrial days. This would be followed by Earth's pole destabilising in a pole shift caused by magnetic attraction between Earth's core and the magnetism of the passing planet. This in turn would disrupt Earth's magnetic core and lead to subsequent displacement of Earth's crust. After the 2003 date passed without incident, Lieder said that it was merely a "white lie ... to fool the establishment". She refused to disclose the true date, saying that to do so would give those in power enough time to declare martial law and trap people in cities during the shift, leading to their deaths. + +=== Zecharia Sitchin and Sumer === + +Although Lieder originally referred to the object as "Planet X", it has become deeply associated with Nibiru, a planet from the works of ancient astronaut proponent Zecharia Sitchin, particularly his book The 12th Planet. According to Sitchin's interpretation of ancient Mesopotamian religious texts, which has been shown to be based on a faulty understanding of Sumerian text, a giant planet (called Nibiru or Marduk) passes by Earth every 3,600 years, allowing its sentient inhabitants to interact with humanity. Sitchin identified these beings with the Anunnaki in Sumerian mythology and claimed that they were humanity's first gods. Lieder first made the connection between Nibiru and Planet X on her site in 1996 ("Planet X does exist, and it is the 12th Planet, one and the same"). +Sitchin, who died in 2010, denied any connection between his work and Lieder's claims. In 2007, partly in response to Lieder's proclamations, Sitchin published a book, The End of Days, which set the time for the last passing of Nibiru by Earth at 556 BC, which would mean, given the object's supposed 3,600-year orbit, that it would return sometime around AD 2900. He did say that he believed that the Annunaki might return earlier by spaceship, and that the timing of their return would coincide with the shift from the astrological Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius, sometime between 2090 and 2370. +Modern proponents of the Nibiru cataclysm often cite the winged sun symbol as actually representing Nibiru, whom they believe would appear like a "winged star". + +=== 2012 and the Mayan calendar === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0f26dfad0 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: "Nibiru cataclysm" +chunk: 2/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:19.340542+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Though Lieder herself has not specified a new date for the object's return, many groups have taken up her idea and cited their own dates. One frequently cited date was December 21, 2012. This date had many apocalyptic associations, as it was the end of a cycle (bʼakʼtun) in the long count in the Maya calendar. Several writers published books connecting the encounter with 2012. Despite that date having passed, many websites still contend that Nibiru/Planet X is en route to Earth. +In 2012, Lieder claimed that U.S. President Barack Obama futilely attempted to announce the presence of Nibiru near the Sun. After 2012, she claimed that several world leaders had intended to announce the presence of Nibiru near the Sun on October 20, 2014. Two weeks after the supposed date of announcement, she claimed that it did not occur because of consternation amongst the establishment. + +=== 2017 revival === + +In 2017, a conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed "Christian numerologist" named David Meade revived the Nibiru cataclysm by tying it to various passages from the Bible. Meade declared that these passages contained secret numerological codes, which revealed the exact date on which Nibiru would arrive. He also based his predictions on the geometry of the Giza Pyramids. Meade initially predicted that Nibiru would arrive in October 2017, but he later revised the date back to September 23. The specific focus of his prediction revolved around the Woman of the Apocalypse referring to a supposedly unique configuration on that date of the Sun, Moon, and planets in Virgo. He cited the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, as a harbinger. +Meade's claims received extensive media attention. Viral fake news stories circulated across the Internet, adducing non-existent confirmations by NASA of Nibiru's existence on a course "headed straight for Earth". In reality, NASA's position is, and always has been, that Nibiru does not exist. Meade also faced criticism from fellow Christians; Ed Stetzer, writing for Christianity Today, stated that "there is no such thing as a 'Christian numerologist'", and described Meade as "a made-up expert in a made-up field talking about a made-up event". Christopher M. Graney, a professor with the Vatican Observatory Foundation, noted that the supposedly unique event was, in fact, quite common, having occurred four times in the last millennium. His September 23 theories were also debunked by Time writer Jeff Kluger. Brazilian astronomer Duília de Mello called his predictions and conjectures rubbish, and also said Nibiru would have been seen during the eclipse and that Meade was using calculations based on the Gregorian calendar. +After his predictions failed to come true, Meade revised them and declared that Nibiru would arrive on October 5, 2017, not on September 23. Meade announced that, on October 5, Nibiru would eclipse the Sun, and North Korea, China and Russia would launch a combined nuclear attack on the United States. Then, Earth would be devastated by a series of magnitude 9.8 earthquakes, Earth's magnetic pole would shift by 30 degrees, the United States would be split in half, and Barack Obama would be elected president for an unconstitutional third term. He predicted that the seven-year Great Tribulation would begin on October 15. +When October came, another apocalyptic writer, Terral Croft, predicted the arrival of Nibiru for November 19, a prediction again reported in the British tabloid press. Croft describes Nibiru as a "black star" at the edge of the Solar System, which, rather than colliding with Earth, would form an apocalyptic conjunction with Earth, leading to massive earthquakes. Croft claimed that earthquakes have been increasing worldwide in the leadup to the conjunction, though The Washington Post, quoting the United States Geological Survey, was quick to point out that earthquakes had decreased in both power and frequency over the year. Paul Begley, a YouTube conspiracy theorist and pastor at the Community Gospel Baptist Church in Knox, Indiana, also predicted in one of his YouTube videos that Nibiru would appear in 2017 and declared that the solar eclipse was a sign of the apocalypse and the rogue planet. Around 12 April 2018, Meade cited an alleged 23 April astrological conjunction in Virgo and predicted that Nibiru would appear during the conjunction and presage the Rapture; Space.com commented that nothing resembling such a conjunction was forecast for April 23. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..33fc1382e --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Nibiru cataclysm" +chunk: 3/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:19.340542+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Scientific rejection == +Astronomers reject the idea of Nibiru and have made efforts to inform the public that there is no threat to Earth. They point out that such an object so close to Earth would be easily visible to the naked eye and would cause noticeable effects in the orbits of the outer planets. Most photographs purporting to show "Nibiru" beside the Sun are lens flares, false images of the Sun caused by reflections within the lens. Claims that the object has been concealed behind the Sun are untenable. +An orbit like that of Nibiru (within the planetary region of the Solar System) is inconsistent with celestial mechanics. David Morrison, a NASA space scientist, explains that after just one previous flyby of Earth, such as proponents claim happened in Sumerian times, Earth itself would no longer be in its current near-circular orbit and would be likely to have lost its Moon. If Nibiru were a brown dwarf it would have even worse effects, as brown dwarfs are far more massive. Since Pluto is now frequently observed by backyard telescopes, any giant planet beyond Pluto would be easily observed by an amateur astronomer, and if such an object existed in the Solar System, it would have passed through the inner Solar System a million times by now. +Astronomer Mike Brown notes that if this object's orbit were as described, it would only have remained in the Solar System for about a million years before Jupiter expelled it, and, even if such a planet existed, its magnetic field would have no effect on Earth's. Lieder's assertions that the approach of Nibiru would cause Earth's rotation to stop or its axis to shift violate the laws of physics. In his rebuttal of Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision, which made the same claim that Earth's rotation could be stopped and then restarted, Carl Sagan noted that "the energy required to brake the Earth is not enough to melt it, although it would result in a noticeable increase in temperature: The oceans would [be] raised to the boiling point of water ... [Also,] how does the Earth get started up again, rotating at approximately the same rate of spin? The Earth cannot do it by itself, because of the law of the conservation of angular momentum." +In a 2009 interview with the Discovery Channel, Mike Brown noted that, while it is not impossible that the Sun has a distant planetary companion, such an object would have to be lying very far from the observed regions of the Solar System to have no detectable gravitational effect on the other planets. A Mars-sized object could lie undetected at 300 AU (10 times the distance of Neptune); a Jupiter-sized object at 30,000 AU. To travel 1000 AU in two years, an object would need to be moving at 2400 km/s – faster than the galactic escape velocity. At that speed, any object would be shot out of the Solar System, and then out of the Milky Way galaxy into intergalactic space. + +== Conspiracy theories == +Many believers in the imminent approach of Planet X/Nibiru accuse NASA of deliberately covering up visual evidence of its existence. Certain polls have suggested that a number of people perceive NASA as a vast government agency that receives as much funding as the Department of Defense. However, NASA's budget amounts to roughly 0.5% of that of the US government. +One such accusation involves the IRAS infrared space observatory, launched in 1983. The satellite briefly made headlines due to an "unknown object" that was at first described as "possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this Solar System". This newspaper article has been cited by proponents of the Nibiru cataclysm, beginning with Lieder herself, as evidence for the existence of Nibiru. However, further analysis revealed that of several initially unidentified objects, nine were distant galaxies and the tenth was "galactic cirrus"; none were found to be Solar System bodies. + +Another accusation made by websites predicting the collision is that the US government built the South Pole Telescope (SPT) to track Nibiru's trajectory, and that the object has been imaged optically. However, the SPT (which is not funded by NASA) is a radio telescope, and cannot take optical images. Its South Pole location was chosen due to the low-humidity environment, and there is no way an approaching object could be seen only from the South Pole. A purported "picture" of Nibiru posted on YouTube was revealed to be a Hubble Space Telescope image of the expanding light echo around the star V838 Mon, which is more than 19,000 light-years away from Earth. +Another conspiracy claim regards a patch of missing data in Google Sky near the constellation of Orion, which has often been cited as evidence that Nibiru has been redacted. However, the same region of sky can still be viewed by thousands of amateur astronomers. A scientist at Google said that the missing data is due to a software error when piecing images together. +Another piece of claimed evidence drawn from Google Sky is the carbon star CW Leonis, which is the brightest object in the 10 μm infrared sky and has been incorrectly claimed to be Nibiru. + +== Misappellations == +Believers in Planet X/Nibiru have given it many names since it was first proposed. All are, in fact, names for other real, hypothetical or imaginary Solar System objects that bear little resemblance either to the planet described by Lieder or to Nibiru as described by Sitchin. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0b99744a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Nibiru cataclysm" +chunk: 4/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:19.340542+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Planet X === +Lieder drew the name Planet X from the hypothetical planet once searched for by astronomers to account for discrepancies in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. In 1894, Bostonian astronomer Percival Lowell became convinced that the planets Uranus and Neptune had slight discrepancies in their orbits. He concluded that they were being tugged by the gravity of another, more distant planet, which he called "Planet X". However, nearly a century of searching failed to turn up any evidence for such an object (Pluto was initially believed to be Planet X, but was later determined to be too small). +The discrepancies remained through to the 1990s when the astronomer Robert Harrington put forward his hypothesis for an extra planet beyond Neptune with, as one example, a semi-major axis 101.2 AU and eccentricity 0.411 which makes its perihelion 59.60, so the closest to the Sun it would get is one and a half times the distance to Pluto. +Six months before Harrington died of throat cancer in 1992, astronomer E. Myles Standish showed that the supposed discrepancies in the planets' orbits were illusory, the product of overestimating the mass of Neptune. When Neptune's newly determined mass was used in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Developmental Ephemeris (JPL DE), the supposed discrepancies in the Uranian orbit, and with them the need for a Planet X, vanished. There are no discrepancies in the trajectories of any space probes such as Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2 that can be attributed to the gravitational pull of a large undiscovered object in the outer Solar System. Today astronomers accept that Planet X, as originally defined, does not exist. + +=== Hercolubus === + +In 1999, New Age author V. M. Rabolú (1926–2000) wrote in Hercolubus or Red Planet that Barnard's Star is actually a planet known to the ancients as Hercolubus, which purportedly came dangerously close to Earth in the past, destroying Atlantis, and will come close to Earth again. Lieder subsequently used Rabolú's ideas to bolster her claims. +Barnard's Star has been directly measured to be 5.98 ly (1.83 pc; 56.6 trillion km). While it is approaching Earth, Barnard's Star will not make its closest approach to the Sun until around AD 11,700, when it will approach to within some 3.8 ly (1.2 pc; 36 trillion km). This is only slightly closer than the closest star to the Sun (Proxima Centauri) lies today. + +=== Nemesis === + +Believers in Planet X/Nibiru have often confused it with Nemesis, a hypothetical star first proposed by physicist Richard A. Muller. In 1984, Muller postulated that mass extinctions were not random, but appeared to occur in the fossil record with a loose periodicity that ranged from 26 to 34 million years. He attributed this supposed pattern to a heretofore undetected companion to the Sun, either a dim red dwarf or a brown dwarf, lying in an elliptical, 26-million-year orbit. This object, which he named Nemesis, would, once every 26 million years, pass through the Oort cloud, the shell of over a trillion icy objects believed to be the source of long-period comets that orbit at thousands of times Pluto's distance from the Sun. Nemesis's gravity would then disturb the comets' orbits and send them into the inner Solar System, causing Earth to be bombarded. However, to date no direct evidence of Nemesis has been found. Though the idea of Nemesis appears similar to the Nibiru cataclysm, they are, in fact, very different, as Nemesis, if it existed, would have an orbital period thousands of times longer, and would never come near Earth itself. + +=== Sedna or Eris === + +Other people also confuse Nibiru with Sedna (90377 Sedna) or Eris (136199 Eris), trans-Neptunian objects discovered by Mike Brown in 2003 and 2005 respectively. However, despite having been described as a "tenth planet" in an early NASA press release, Eris (then known only as 2003 UB313) is now classified as a dwarf planet. Only slightly more massive than Pluto, Eris has a well-determined orbit that never brings it closer to Earth than 5.5 billion km (3.4 billion mi). Sedna is slightly smaller than Pluto, and never comes closer to Earth than 11.4 billion km (7.1 billion mi). Mike Brown believes the confusion results from both the real Sedna and the imaginary Nibiru having extremely elliptical orbits. + +=== Tyche === + +Others have tied it to Tyche, the name proposed by John Matese and Daniel Whitmire of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for an object they believe to be influencing the orbits of comets in the Oort cloud. In February 2011, Whitmire and his colleagues took their hypothesis to the public in an article in The Independent, in which they named the object "Tyche" and claimed that evidence for its existence would be found once data from the WISE infrared telescope was collated, leading to a spike in calls to astronomers. The name, after the "good sister" of the Greek goddess Nemesis, was chosen to distinguish it from the similar Nemesis hypothesis as, unlike Nemesis, Matese and Whitmire do not believe that their object poses a threat to Earth. Also, this object, if it exists, would, like Nemesis, have an orbit hundreds of times longer than that proposed for Nibiru, and never come near the inner Solar System. In March 2014, NASA announced that the WISE survey had ruled out the existence of Tyche as its proponents had defined it. + +=== Comet Elenin === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6a4758df9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: "Nibiru cataclysm" +chunk: 5/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:19.340542+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Some associated Nibiru with Comet Elenin, a long-period comet discovered by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin on December 10, 2010. On October 16, 2011, Elenin made its closest approach to Earth at a distance of 0.2338 AU (34,980,000 km; 21,730,000 mi), which is slightly closer than the planet Venus. Nevertheless, in the leadup to its closest approach, claims spread on conspiracy websites concluded that it was on a collision course, that it was as large as Jupiter or even a brown dwarf, and even that the name of the discoverer, Leonid Elenin, was in fact code for ELE, or an Extinction Level Event. +Although the sizes of comets are difficult to determine without close observation, Comet Elenin is likely to be less than 10 km in diameter. Elenin himself estimates that the comet nucleus is roughly 3–4 km in diameter. This would make it millions of times smaller than the supposed Nibiru. Comet hysteria is not uncommon. Attempts have been made to correlate Elenin's alignments with the 2011 Japan earthquake, the 2010 Canterbury earthquake, and 2010 Chile earthquake; however, even discounting Elenin's tiny size, earthquakes are driven by forces within the earth, and cannot be triggered by the passage of nearby objects. In 2011, Leonid Elenin ran a simulation on his blog in which he increased the mass of the comet to that of a brown dwarf (0.05 solar masses). He demonstrated that its gravity would have caused noticeable changes in the orbit of Saturn years before its arrival in the inner Solar System. +In August 2011, Comet Elenin began to disintegrate, and by the time of its closest approach in October 2011 the comet was undetected even by large ground-based telescopes. + +=== Comet ISON === + +On September 21, 2012, Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok, using the International Scientific Optical Network of telescopes (ISON), discovered the comet C/2012 S1, known as "Comet ISON". Its orbit was expected to bring it within 0.429 AU (64,200,000 km; 39,900,000 mi) of Earth on December 26, 2013. Nonetheless, believers tied it to the Nibiru cataclysm, claiming it would hit Earth on that date, or that it would fragment and pieces of it would hit Earth. Images of the "fragments" of the comet circulating on the Internet were shown to be camera artifacts. On April 30, 2013, the Hubble Space Telescope took three pictures of the comet over the course of 12 hours, which were published as a composite in Hubble's archives. This led to speculation on conspiracy sites that the comet had split into three pieces, or even that it was a UFO. After ISON passed perihelion on November 28, it rapidly began to fade, leaving many to suspect that it had been destroyed as it passed the Sun. While a dim remnant did eventually return round the Sun, it was generally accepted to be a cloud of dust, rather than a solid object. On December 2, 2013, the CIOC (NASA Comet ISON Observing Campaign) officially announced that Comet ISON had fully disintegrated. The Hubble Space Telescope failed to detect fragments of ISON on December 18, 2013. On May 8, 2014, a detailed examination of the comet disintegration was published, suggesting that the comet fully disintegrated hours before perihelion. + +=== Planet Nine === + +In March 2014, astronomers Chad Trujillo and Scott Sheppard published a paper in Nature arguing that the apparent clustering of the arguments of perihelion of distant trans-Neptunian objects suggested the existence of a large trans-Neptunian planet. On January 20, 2016, Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin announced that they had corroborated Trujillo and Sheppard's findings, and that they believed the planet, which they dubbed "Planet Nine", would have a mass roughly ten times that of Earth, and a semimajor axis of approximately 400–1500 AU (60–225 billion km). Believers in Nibiru and the Nibiru cataclysm immediately argued that this constituted evidence for their claims. However, astronomers pointed out that this planet, if it exists, would have a perihelion of roughly 200 AU (30 billion km). +In March 2016, the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society published a paper by Daniel Whitmire (who had proposed the existence of Tyche) in which he reconsidered a modified version of the Nemesis model he had first proposed in 1985 due to recent speculations concerning the possibility of a trans-Neptunian planet. The hypothesis argues that an object far closer to the Sun than Nemesis could have a similar effect if its orbit precessed at a rate thousands of times slower than its actual speed, which would mean it might only interact with the Kuiper belt every 27 million years, potentially sending comets into the inner Solar System and triggering mass extinctions. However, the paper had been initially published online in November 2015, before Brown and Batygin went public with Planet Nine, and concerns a different object far closer to the Sun (100 AU vs. ~600 AU); Planet Nine, if it exists, is too far away, says Brown, to have such an effect on the Kuiper belt. Nonetheless, an article in the British tabloid The Sun (later republished in the New York Post) conflated the three ideas of Nibiru, Planet Nine, and Whitmire's planet to suggest that not only had Planet Nine been found, but that it would collide with Earth at the end of April, which resulted in Batygin receiving a spike in panicked calls. In October 2017, science writer Pat Brennan wrote that this planet has no chance of ever colliding with Earth. + +== Public reaction == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2198f5702 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Nibiru cataclysm" +chunk: 6/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:19.340542+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The impact of the public fear of the Nibiru cataclysm has been especially felt by professional astronomers. In 2008, Mike Brown said that Nibiru was the most common pseudoscientific topic he was asked about. +Before his retirement after 2012, David Morrison, director of the SETI Institute, CSI Fellow and Senior Scientist at NASA's Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center, said he received 20 to 25 emails a week about the impending arrival of Nibiru: some frightened, others angry and naming him as part of the conspiracy to keep the truth of the impending apocalypse from the public, and still others asking whether or not they should kill themselves, their children or their pets. Half of these emails were from outside the US. Science writer Govert Schilling noted, "Planetary scientists are being driven to distraction by Nibiru. ... And it is not surprising; you devote so much time, energy and creativity to fascinating scientific research, and find yourself on the tracks of the most amazing and interesting things, and all the public at large is concerned about is some crackpot theory about clay tablets, god-astronauts and a planet that doesn't exist." Similarly, Professor Brian Cox posted on Twitter in 2012 that, "If anyone else asks me about 'Nibiru' the imaginary bullshit planet I will slap them around their irrational heads with Newton's Principia". +NASA frequently has to evaluate whether or not to respond to such claims, and the value of reassuring the public is outweighed by the risk of granting further exposure to a completely non-scientific idea. Prior to the 2012 date, Morrison stated that he hoped that the non-arrival of Nibiru could serve as a teaching moment for the public, instructing them on "rational thought and baloney detection", but doubted that would happen. During the 2017 revival, Morrison stated that the Nibiru phenomenon "keeps popping up over and over" despite his original assumption that it would be short-lived. +Morrison noted in a lecture recorded on FORA.tv that there was a huge disconnect between the large number of people on the Internet who believed in Nibiru's arrival and the majority of scientists who have never heard of it. To date he is the only major NASA scientist to speak out regularly against the Nibiru phenomenon. + +== Cultural influence == + +A viral marketing campaign for Sony Pictures' 2009 film 2012, directed by Roland Emmerich, which depicts the end of the world in the year 2012, featured a supposed warning from the "Institute for Human Continuity" that listed the arrival of Planet X as one of its doomsday scenarios. Mike Brown attributed a spike in concerned emails and phone calls he received from the public to this site. +Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier drew inspiration from Nibiru for his 2011 apocalyptic film Melancholia. +A planet named "Nibiru" made a cameo appearance in the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness, which was connected to the cataclysm in the press. +Nibiru was a long-running story arc in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, ultimately revealed to be a periodic planetary alignment which allowed extradimensional Anunnaki to cross over to Earth and would allow an evil member of their kind in the 21st century to destroy Earth's universe. +The Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Card "Nibiru, the Primal Being" depicts a massive, asteroid-like object hurtling towards a planet that looks like Earth. + +== See also == +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience +Theia (hypothetical planet) + +== References == + +== External links == +"How to Escape Nibiru", podcast by Brian Dunning +Bad Astronomy: The Planet X Saga (exposé of ZetaTalk's astronomical errors) +Space.com: Nibiru: The Nonexistent Planet \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niña_de_las_Peras-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niña_de_las_Peras-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7966773b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niña_de_las_Peras-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +title: "Niña de las Peras" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niña_de_las_Peras" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:20.516221+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Niña de las Peras (in English: Pear Girl) is one of the most popular Canarian legends, and although it has undergone many transformations over time, its basic premise has remained the same. + +This legend is believed to have originated between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, specifically between 1890 and 1910. The story takes place in the town of Güímar on the island of Tenerife, where parents sent their young daughter to the nearby barranco de Badajoz to look for fruit, but the girl disappeared. +A frantic search by the local residents began, but to no avail. After a while, the girl was considered unrecoverable, and the neighbors returned to their daily routines. Several decades later, the girl knocked on the door of her parents' house, looking the same as the day she disappeared. Her parents, who had already grown old, could not hide their surprise and amazement at what had happened. +The girl told her parents what had happened: after reaching the ravine, exhausted, she had fallen asleep at the foot of a pear tree, until a very tall being dressed in white woke her. This being asked the girl to accompany him into a cave, and she followed his instructions, as he inspired her confidence. They descended into the cave, where they found a garden inhabited by more beings like the one who had guided her there. The girl started a conversation with them, but the being who had led her there led her back to the cave exit and said goodbye to her. The girl believed that only a short period of time had passed, but in reality, twenty or forty years had passed, depending on the source. + + +== See also == +Lists of people who disappeared +Hollow Earth + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..de2f19383 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +--- +title: "Nobel disease" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:21.663212+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Nobel disease or Nobelitis is an informal term for the embrace of strange or scientifically unsound ideas by some Nobel Prize winners, usually later in life. Use of the term embodies an attitude that has been illustrated and exemplified by the author Thomas Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which describes the friction opposed by those operating within an incumbent scientific paradigm to the motion imparted by those proposing new ideas and perspectives, which may herald a paradigm shift. +It has been argued that the effect results, in part, from a tendency for Nobel winners to feel empowered by the award to speak on topics outside their specific area of expertise, although it is unknown whether Nobel Prize winners are more prone to this tendency than other individuals. Paul Nurse, co-winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, warned later laureates against "believing you are expert in almost everything, and being prepared to express opinions about most issues with great confidence, sheltering behind the authority that the Nobel Prize can give you". Nurse also noted that media play a role in reinforcing this tendency, observing that after receiving his Nobel Prize, journalists had begun to take him seriously when he commented on issues about which he knew little. "Nobel disease" has been described as a tongue-in-cheek term. + +== Implications == +While it remains unclear whether Nobel winners are statistically more prone to critical thinking errors than other scientists, the phenomenon is of interest because it provides an existence proof that being an authority in one field does not necessarily make one an authority in any other field, and, to the extent that winning a Nobel Prize serves as a proxy indicator of scientific brilliance and high general intelligence, such characteristics are not incompatible with irrationality. +Nobel disease also serves to demonstrate that, for some prize winners, being universally hailed as correct appears to bolster the individual laureate's confirmation bias more than it does their skepticism. Milton Friedman, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1976, said of the Nobel disease, as it relates to his economic thinking towards an "antidote", the following: + +I myself have been asked my opinion on everything from a cure for the common cold to the market value of a letter signed by John F. Kennedy. Needless to say the attention [from receiving a Nobel prize] is flattering, but also corrupting. Somehow we badly need an antidote for both the inflated attention granted a Nobel laureate in areas outside his competence and the inflated ego each of us is in danger of acquiring. My own field suggests one obvious antidote: competition through the establishment of many more awards. But a product that has been so successful is not easy to replace. Hence, I suspect that our inflated egos are safe for a good long time to come. + +== Winners reported as examples == + +=== Phillip Lenard === +Phillip Lenard won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on cathode rays. He was a supporter of the Nazi party, and promoted the idea of Deutsche Physik and Jewish physics. + +=== Alexis Carrel === +Alexis Carrel, winner of the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the invention of the perfusion pump, became an advocate of eugenic policies in Vichy France. + +=== Charles Richet === +Charles Richet won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on anaphylaxis. He also believed in extrasensory perception, paranormal activity, dowsing, and ghosts. + +=== Linus Pauling === +Linus Pauling won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on chemical bonds and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his peace activism. A decade before winning the first prize, he was diagnosed with Bright's disease, which he treated in part by ingesting vitamin supplements, which he claimed dramatically improved his condition. He later espoused taking high doses of vitamin C to reduce the likelihood and severity of experiencing the common cold. Pauling himself consumed amounts of vitamin C on a daily basis that were more than 120 times the recommended daily intake. He further argued that megadoses of vitamin C have therapeutic value for treating schizophrenia and for prolonging cancer patients' lives. These claims are not supported by the best available science. + +=== William Shockley === +William Shockley, who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics with Walter Houser Brattain and John Bardeen for their invention of the point-contact transistor, believed in racialism and eugenics. + +=== James Watson === +James Watson was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, together with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". Since at least 2000, Watson consistently and publicly claimed that black people are on average less intelligent than white people, and that exposure to sunlight in tropical regions and higher levels of melanin cause dark-skinned people to have a higher sex drive. + +=== Nikolaas Tinbergen === +Nikolaas Tinbergen won the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning the organization and elicitation of individual and social behavior patterns in animals. During his Nobel acceptance speech, Tinbergen promoted the widely discredited "refrigerator mother" hypothesis of the causation of autism. In 1985, Tinbergen coauthored a book with his wife that recommended the use of "holding therapy" for autism, a form of treatment that is empirically unsupported and that can be physically dangerous. + +=== Brian Josephson === +Brian Josephson won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 for his prediction of the Josephson effect. Josephson has promoted a number of scientifically unsupported or discredited beliefs, including the homeopathic notion that water can somehow "remember" the chemical properties of substances diluted within it (cf. § Luc Montagnier); the view that transcendental meditation is helpful for bringing unconscious traumatic memories into conscious awareness; and the possibility that humans can communicate with each other by telepathy. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6eb2bd997 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Nobel disease" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:21.663212+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Kary Mullis === +Kary Mullis won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for development of the polymerase chain reaction. Mullis disagreed with the scientifically accepted view that AIDS is caused by HIV, claiming that the virus is barely detectable in people with the disease. He also expressed doubt in the evidence for human-caused climate change. In his autobiography, Mullis professed a belief in astrology and wrote about an encounter with a fluorescent, talking raccoon that he suggested might have been an extraterrestrial alien. + +=== Louis J. Ignarro === +Louis J. Ignarro was one of three winners of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on nitric oxide as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system, which led to the development of new medications to treat cardiovascular disease, as well as of Viagra. In 2003, he became a consultant for Herbalife (which has been investigated for various kinds of dishonesty about its products). As a member of their Scientific Advisory Board, he helped to promote dubious dietary supplements. He studied the effects of his pet invention, Niteworks, on mice, and is known for saying, "What's good for mice is good for humans," an unverified statement. + +=== Luc Montagnier === +Luc Montagnier co-discovered HIV in 1983, for which he won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In 2009, in a non-peer-reviewed paper in a journal that he had founded, Montagnier claimed that solutions containing the DNA of pathogenic bacteria and viruses could emit low frequency radio waves that induce surrounding water molecules to become arranged into "nanostructures". He suggested water could retain such properties even after the original solutions were massively diluted, to the point where the original DNA had effectively vanished, and that water could retain the "memory" of substances with which it had been in contact – claims that place his work in close alignment with the pseudoscientific tenets of homeopathy (cf. § Brian Josephson). He further claimed that DNA sequence information could be "teleported" to a separate test tube of purified water via these radio waves. He explained this in the framework of quantum field theory. He supported the scientifically discredited view that vaccines cause autism and has claimed that antibiotics are of therapeutic value in the treatment of autism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montagnier promoted the idea that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately created and escaped from a laboratory, a claim which has been rejected by other virologists. + +=== Other Nobelists === +Scott O. Lilienfeld et al. list more examples of "Nobel laureates who held/hold weird ideas": Pierre Curie, who participated in spiritual seances; John William Strutt, who "was fond of parapsychology"; J. J. Thomson, who was interested in psychic phenomena; Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who wrote a book "on hypnosis, spiritualism, and metaphysics"; Wolfgang Pauli, who, together with Carl Jung, "developed the concept of synchronicity"; Egas Moniz, for his belief that lobotomy can treat mental illnesses; Julian Schwinger, for his work on cold fusion; Ivar Giaever, for global warming skepticism; Arthur Schawlow, for his support of a subsequently debunked "technique of facilitated communication for autism"; and Richard Smalley, for promotion of anti-evolutionary ideas. + +== See also == + +Argument from authority +History of the Nobel Prize +Nobel Prize controversies +Nobel Prize effect +Sutor, ne ultra crepidam +VIP syndrome +Dunning–Kruger effect + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-contact_thermography-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-contact_thermography-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2476730fa --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-contact_thermography-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +title: "Non-contact thermography" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-contact_thermography" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:22.839355+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Non-contact thermography, thermographic imaging, or medical thermology is the field of thermography that uses infrared images of the human skin to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. Medical thermology is sometimes referred to as medical infrared imaging or tele-thermology and utilizes thermographic cameras. According to the American Academy of Thermology, Medical Thermology practitioners are licensed health care practitioners who utilize IR imaging in consistent with medically established paradigms of care. Non-medically licensed alternative practitioners who are not held to the same standard may offer thermography services but that should not be confused with the field of medical thermology. +Restated, medical thermology is the use of infrared (IR) imaging to assess skin temperature as an extension of the clinician's physical exam to aid in the formation of a medical diagnosis or treatment plan. Medical Thermology does not condone those who purport that "Thermography" can find disease by looking for areas of the body that have abnormal heat or irregular blood flow. IR imaging simply does not have the ability to assess temperature beyond the surface of the skin. +Thermography is a physiologic study and is not a replacement for structural studies such as X-Ray, MRI, or Mammography. As a physiologic study, however, medical thermology has many health-related indications. The American Academy of Thermology (AAT) (www.aathermology.org) has published internationally peer-reviewed guidelines for neuro-musculoskeletal (MSK), breast, veterinary, and oral-systemic disease. + +Examples of neuro-musculoskeletal indications for medical thermology include Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), Dysautonomia, Migraine, Fibromyalgia (and other weather-sensitive pain syndromes), thoracic outlet syndrome, and vaso-motor migraine/headaches such as Barré-Liéou syndrome. This is especially true when used to monitor the results of a cold stress (cold presser) test. +Thermography is not effective for any type of medical screening, and the FDA had repeatedly issued warning letters to fraudsters claiming otherwise. +Veterinary thermography indications include, but are not limited to, assessment of shoring, limb inflammation, and sweating disorders. +Telethermography systems are regulated as a medical device under 21 CFR 884.2980. + + +== Medical Thermology versus Thermography == + +There is a difference between Medical Thermology as promulgated by medically based organizations such as the American Academy of Thermology (AAT), and thermography as practiced by alternative providers or physicians who overstate the benefits of thermography. As a result of this disparity organizations such as the FDA, ISO, and the AAT have published Guidelines and best use practices to help educate medical providers and the public to recognize the difference between providers who provide medical thermology services and those that offer something else. + +Thermography has been promoted by some alternative medicine practitioners as a means to diagnose cancer, although it is not effective for this purpose. Health Canada has issued "cease and desist" orders to clinics offering breast thermography as a cancer diagnostic device because thermography cameras are not licensed as a medical device in Canada, and because thermography for cancer detection is viewed as ineffective by medical experts. The FDA has issued a public warning notice stating that breast thermography is not an alternative to mammography and has ordered Joseph Mercola to stop making excessive claims for thermography. +Thermography is discouraged in North America by the American Cancer Society, radiologists and the FDA for early breast cancer detection. Advertisements in the United Kingdom have been found to be misleading. +The FDA has cleared thermography only as an adjunct method of screening. "Thermography devices have been cleared by the FDA for use as an adjunct, or additional, tool for detecting breast cancer." The FDA says it is not effective for any kind of medical screening. The AAT has published several Position Papers, including statements on Breast Thermography that clearly delineate its utility as an adjudicative breast risk health assessment only. + + +== See also == +Thermography + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noni_juice-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noni_juice-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..13f820a25 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noni_juice-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +--- +title: "Noni juice" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noni_juice" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:24.039954+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Noni juice is derived from the fruit of the Morinda citrifolia tree indigenous to Southeast Asia and Australasia. It has been promoted, illegally in several cases, as a cure for a number of human diseases. However, there is no evidence to support any claims of therapeutic benefit. + + +== Regulatory warnings == + + +=== Tahitian Noni (Morinda, Inc.) === +On August 26, 1998, the Attorneys General of Arizona, California, New Jersey, and Texas announced a multi-state settlement with Morinda, Inc. following charges that the company had made "unsubstantiated claims in consumer testimonials and other promotional material indicating that its Tahitian Noni juice could treat, cure or prevent numerous diseases such as diabetes, clinical depression, hemorrhoids and arthritis." Such claims rendered the beverage an unapproved new drug under state and federal food and drug laws and should not have been sold until it received approval. Under the terms of the agreement, Morinda agreed to: + +No longer make drug claims, or claims that the product can cure, treat, or prevent any disease until "Tahitian Noni" is approved and cleared for those uses by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. +Not make any other claims, whether health claims or others, regarding the benefits of Tahitian Noni unless such claims are true and the company can substantiate the claim by reliable scientific evidence. +Not use testimonials which imply that the advertised claimed results are the typical or ordinary experience of consumers in actual conditions of use, unless Morinda possesses and relies upon adequate substantiation that the results are typical or ordinary. + + +=== Other === +In August 2004, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a Warning Letter to Flora, Inc. for violating section 201(g)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) [21 U.S.C. § 321(g)(1)]. Flora made twelve unfounded health claims about the purported benefits of noni juice as a medical product, in effect causing the juice to be evaluated as a drug. Under the Act, this necessitates all safety and clinical trial evidence for the juice providing such effects in humans. +The FDA letter also cited 1) absent scientific evidence for health benefits of the noni phytochemicals scopoletin and damnacanthal, neither of which has been confirmed with biological activity in humans, and 2) lack of scientific foundation for health claims made by two proponents of noni juice, Dr. Isabella Abbot and Dr. Ralph Heinicke. Two other FDA letters have been issued for the same types of violations. + + +== Toxicity == +Research has pointed to anthraquinones found in noni roots, leaves and fruit as potentially toxic to the liver and other organs. In 2005, two published clinical case reports described incidents of acute hepatitis caused by ingesting Tahitian Noni juice. These case reports were reviewed in 2006 by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which initially reported that data available at the time of the case reports were not sufficient to establish a causal relationship between consumption of the juice and hepatotoxicity; however, an increasing number of subsequent case reports suggested that some individuals may be particularly sensitive to hepatotoxic effects of noni fruit products. The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health advised against consumption of noni products if one has a history of liver disorders. +The potential for toxicity caused by noni juices remained under surveillance by EFSA, individual food safety authorities in France, Finland and Ireland, and medical investigators in Germany. +Noni products may contain high amounts of potassium, leading to one advisory that people on potassium-restricted diets because of kidney problems should avoid using noni. + + +== Medical claims == +Although noni plants and juices have been promoted by practitioners of alternative medicine as a cure for a number of human maladies including HIV, heart disease and cancer, the American Cancer Society concluded that "there is no reliable clinical evidence that noni juice is effective in preventing or treating cancer or any other disease in humans". + + +== See also == +List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments +Tahitian Noni juice + + +== References == + + +== Further reading == +"The Noni Website". University of Hawaii. 2006. +Thomas, Chris (August 30, 2002). "Noni No Miracle Cure". Cancerpage.com. Archived from the original on June 26, 2008. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_of_Hope_Hospital-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_of_Hope_Hospital-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..cacd97264 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_of_Hope_Hospital-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Oasis of Hope Hospital" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_of_Hope_Hospital" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:25.264029+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Oasis of Hope Hospital is a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico providing alternative cancer treatments to its customers. The clinic was founded by the physician Ernesto Contreras. After his death in 2003, the management of the hospital was taken over by his son, Francisco Contreras, and nephew, Daniel Kennedy. +Since the 1960s, it has administered amygdalin to its patients. The clinic has been characterized by Quackwatch as "dubious." + +== History == +The Oasis of Hope hospital is based in Tijuana, Mexico. The city is significant as there is a concentration of more than 60 cancer treatment centres in the city, making it one of the largest concentrations of this type of treatment in the world. The Guardian reported in 2005 that the reason for the concentration is that most methods used by the hospitals are "discouraged by conventional medical science" and because health regulations aren't as strict as the United States, it is a logical place for them to operate. +Tijuana is home to the largest concentration of cancer treatment centres offering unorthodox therapies anywhere in the world. More than 60 hospitals, clinics and semi-clandestine offices offer to cure or help control the disease in ways ranging from the unconventional to the controversial. Most methods are discouraged by conventional medical science, which is why they are based in Tijuana, where health regulators rarely bother them. +After Ernesto's death in 2003, running of the clinic passed to his son Francisco Contreras and Daniel Kennedy, who is Francisco's nephew. +In 2005 Ralph Moss, an advocate of alternative cancer treatments, published an article giving something of the clinic's history. He wrote that it was formerly known as the Del Mar Medical Center and Hospital and was run by Ernesto Contreras who oversaw its expansion to accommodate customers from the United States; new English-speaking staff had been hired especially to cater for this client base. According to Moss, despite the fact that the American Cancer Society had put Ernesto Contreras on a list of practitioners of "unproven methods" in 1971, the clinic claimed to have had 40,000 American customers in the 40 years prior to 2005. +In 2014, senior management from The Oasis of Hope hospital visited the United Kingdom to speak about alternative medicine. At the time they were not allowed to publicly advertise alternative cancer treatments in the United Kingdom, so the talk was aimed at raising understanding. It was reported however that many of the attendees had cancer and were considering alternative options. This was following a number of public discussions in the country about how to approach alternative treatments. Prince Charles had suggested that the country should itself pursue alternative treatments and offer them in some way. Members of staff from Oasis of Hope visited the UK around the time the Medical Innovation Bill was being discussed. If the bill had passed, it would have opened the door for Oasis of Hope-like treatments to take place in Britain. + +== Treatment == +The Oasis of Hope Hospital offers a variety of alternative cancer treatments. During an interview, Edzard Ernst spoke about the sort of treatments commonly used by hospitals and treatment centers such as the Oasis of Hope. Many of the therapies focus on the removal of carcinogenic substances. Claims are made by the hospitals that the removal of such substances is able to boost the immune system to then fight off cancer. This treatment is however unproven in traditional medicine. +Since the 1960s, Oasis of Hope has treated its patients with amygdalin, also known as laetrile, an ineffective and dangerously toxic substance. By 1978, more than 70,000 people in the United States had reportedly been treated with Laetrile. +Between 1996 and 1997, sociologist David Hess conducted an interview with Francisco Contreras, in which he discussed many aspects of the Clinic's operations. Contreras said that metabolic therapy was the main offering of the clinic, and was made up of four steps; Detoxification, restrictive low-fat, low-protein, high-carbohydrate diet, the use of megavitamin therapy, shark cartilage, thymus and levamisole and the use of amygdalin extracted from apricot seeds. +Another therapy was called the "Warburg" therapy named (according to Hess's account) after Otto Heinrich Warburg. This consisted of a restrictive high-carbohydrate diet, giving patients insulin and quercetin. +Hess also wrote that Contreras cited a number of non-physical aspects to the clinic's therapy, including religious assistance, psychology and singing and laughter sessions – Contreras claimed that people with strong spiritual beliefs recovered better, and that laughter stimulates the immune system. +In 2005 Ralph Moss reported that the clinic was using amygdalin and the Issels treatment. In 2011 Moss wrote a further report on the Tijuana clinics, and noted that their ability to attract customers had been diminished by the publication of research showing that amygdalin was not effective, by tougher regulation arising from the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, and from Tijuana itself become a less desirable destination as a result of a decline brought on by the war on drugs. Moss also noted that some American hospitals now have alternative medicine offerings, diminishing the distinctive appeal of the clinics in Tijuana. +In 2005, The Guardian reported the case of a man with cancer who paid US$40,000 for a one-month treatment in which he had high-fevers induced in the belief that the heat would kill his cancer cells. + +=== Evidence === +Amygdalin (sometimes called "laetrile") is a toxic glycoside. The major argument against the use of amygdalin is that it is a toxic glycoside, which has been known to provoke cyanide poisoning in patients. Evidence that is frequently used to display this is people that suffered cyanide poisoning after ingesting bitter almonds, which contain amygdalin. +Issels treatment requires removal of metal fillings from the patient's mouth and adherence to a restrictive diet, supposedly to aid in cancer treatment. Cancer Research UK have said of it: "There is no scientific or medical evidence to back up the claims made by the Issels website". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_of_Hope_Hospital-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_of_Hope_Hospital-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..efc56a11f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_of_Hope_Hospital-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +title: "Oasis of Hope Hospital" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oasis_of_Hope_Hospital" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:25.264029+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Reception == +Edzard Ernst, a former professor at The University of Exeter stated that Britons in particular were attracted to Tijuana clinics "because the clinics there are famous." According to Quackwatch, the Oasis of Hope Hospital is a "dubious cancer clinic". Richard Sullivan of Cancer Research UK has said, "the Tijuana clinics are essentially set up to deceive and it's a disgrace." +Barrie R. Cassileth commented on a small longterm follow-up study that had been carried out on patients of Mexican clinics, including those taking the Contreras treatments. She said that most patients did not know what stage their cancer was at, but that the mean survival time – of 7 months – was enough to conclude that "Contreras therapy is ineffective in treating late-stage cancer patients". +The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center lists "Contreras Therapy" alongside other alternative nutrition-based cancer treatments like the Gerson Therapy which "show no evidence of efficacy". + +== See also == +List of ineffective cancer treatments +Quackery +Clinica 0-19 + +== References == + +== Further reading == +Petersen, J. C.; Markle, G. E. (1979). "Politics and Science in the Laetrile Controversy" (PDF). Social Studies of Science. 9 (2): 139–66. doi:10.1177/030631277900900201. PMID 11645793. S2CID 14579797. +"Unproven methods of cancer management: Contreras Methods". CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. 21 (5): 317–321. 1971. doi:10.3322/canjclin.21.5.317. PMID 4999535. + +== External links == +Official clinic web site \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-0.md index 8351dcbb8..bcb61e7a6 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-0.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-0.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-1.md index cacf5c415..581c6530b 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-1.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-1.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 2/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-10.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-10.md index 2e6253ad8..eace1e713 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-10.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-10.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 11/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-11.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-11.md index 860d584ab..e59902c79 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-11.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-11.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 12/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-12.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-12.md index 9ec858d7f..5337e2568 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-12.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-12.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 13/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git 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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-4.md index 744904f96..bd501d7fc 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-4.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-4.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 5/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-5.md index 22816da09..7bde46b0f 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-5.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-5.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 6/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-6.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-6.md index 45e2e073f..a25d37dfe 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-6.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-6.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 7/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-7.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-7.md index 02e30ddad..907574185 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-7.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-7.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 8/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-8.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-8.md index e8ffaa479..77b500b9a 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-8.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-8.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 9/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-9.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-9.md index 9e08edbbc..aece5c04e 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-9.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution-9.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 10/15 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:45.280733+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:26.533990+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odic_force-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odic_force-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..73e9f67c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odic_force-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +--- +title: "Odic force" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odic_force" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:27.771379+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Odic force (also called Od , Odyle, Önd, Odes, Odylic, Odyllic, or Odems) was a hypothetical vital energy or life force believed in by some in the mid-19th century. The name was coined by Baron Carl von Reichenbach in 1845 in reference to the Germanic god Odin. + + +== History == +As von Reichenbach was investigating the manner in which the human nervous system could be affected by various substances, he conceived the existence of a new force allied to electricity, magnetism, and heat, a force which he thought was radiated by most substances, and to the influence of which different people are variously sensitive. He named this vitalist concept Odic force. Proponents say that Odic force permeates all plants, animals, and humans. +Believers in Odic force said that it was visible in total darkness as colored auras surrounding living things, crystals, and magnets, but that viewing it required hours first spent in total darkness, and only very sensitive people had the ability to see it. They also said that it resembles the Asian concepts prana and qi. However, they regarded the Odic force as not associated with breath (like India's prana and the qi of Chinese martial arts) but rather mainly with biological electromagnetic fields. +Von Reichenbach did not tie Odic force into other vitalist theories. Baron von Reichenbach expounded the concept of Odic force in detail in a book-length article, Researches on Magnetism, Electricity, Heat and Light in their Relations to Vital Forces, which appeared in a special issue of a respected scientific journal, Annalen der Chemie und Physik. He said that (1) the Odic force had a positive and negative flux, and a light and dark side; (2) individuals could forcefully "emanate" it, particularly from the hands, mouth, and forehead; and (3) the Odic force had many possible applications. +The Odic force was conjectured to explain the phenomenon of hypnotism. In Britain, impetus was given to this view of the subject following the translation of Reichenbach's Researches by William Gregory, professor of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh. These later researches tried to show many of the Odic phenomena to be of the same nature as those described previously by Franz Mesmer and even long before Mesmer by Emanuel Swedenborg. +The French parapsychologists Hippolyte Baraduc and Albert de Rochas were influenced by the concept of the Odic force. +Von Reichenbach hoped to develop scientific proof for a universal life force; however, his experiments relied on perceptions reported by individuals who claimed to be "sensitive", as he himself could not observe any of the reported phenomena. The "sensitives" had to work in total or near-total darkness to be able to observe the phenomena. Reichenbach stated that, through experimentation, possibly one-third of the population could view the phenomenon, but far less otherwise. + + +== Scientific reception == +The concept of Odic force was criticized by the scientific community as there was no reliable or replicable data for its existence. It was described as quackery by critics and is regarded today as an example of pseudoscience. +Science writer Martin Gardner in his book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1957) noted that "scientists were unable to duplicate the baron's experiments." +Robert Todd Carroll in The Skeptic's Dictionary has written: + +The baron had no training in psychology or psychopathology and no training in devising experiments involving people. He applied many standard scientific techniques and followed standard practices of data collection and recording, including graphs and charts. But he seems to have had no sense of how to do a controlled experiment with so-called "sensitives," people who might better be described as neurotics or delusional. (Jastrow says that for the most part, his subjects were "neurotic young women.") Given the fact that he deceived himself so thoroughly over such a long period of time, it seems reasonable to assume that he was (at the very least) unconsciously suggesting behaviors to his subjects. His enthusiasm for the project undoubtedly biased his subjective observations. That he came to think that the odic force could explain dozens of disparate phenomena, while being unable to convince other scientists that he had discovered anything, signifies the pathological nature of his investigations. Reichenbach's pursuit of the odic force is a classic example of pathological science. +Scientists have abandoned concepts such as the Odic force. In western popular culture the name is used in a similar way to qi or prana to refer to spiritual energies or the vital force associated with living things. In Europe, the Odic force has been mentioned in books on dowsing, for example. + + +== See also == +Aether (classical element) +Aether theories +Energy (esotericism) +Kirlian photography +Mana +Orgone +Óðr, also known as Od, Norse god +Seid +Vril +Éliphas Lévi—astral light +Wilhelm Reich—"orgone" energy + + +== References == + + +== External links == +Researches on Magnetism, Electricity, Heat and Light in their relations to Vital Forces or here \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8ea5d4ff4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Of Pandas and People" +chunk: 1/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:28.944697+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins is a controversial 1989 (2nd edition 1993) school-level supplementary textbook written by Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon, edited by Charles Thaxton and published by the Texas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE). The textbook endorses the pseudoscientific notion of intelligent design – the argument that life shows evidence of being designed by an intelligent agent. Although this agent is not named specifically in the book, proponents understand that it refers to the Christian God. +They present various polemical arguments against the scientific theory of evolution. Before publication, early drafts used cognates of "creationist". After the Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court ruling that creationism is religion and not science, these were changed to refer to "intelligent design". +The overview chapter was written by young Earth creationist Nancy Pearcey. +The second edition published in 1993 included a contribution written by Michael Behe. +A third edition of the book was published in 2007 under the title The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems. +The book argues that the origin of new organisms is "in an immaterial cause: in a blueprint, a plan, a pattern, devised by an intelligent agent". The text remains non-committal on the age of the Earth, commenting that some "take the view that the earth's history can be compressed into a framework of thousands of years, while others adhere to the standard old earth chronology". The book raises a number of objections to the theory of evolution, such as the alleged lack of transitional fossils, gaps in the fossil record and the apparent sudden appearance ex nihilo of "already intact fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc". The book makes no explicit reference to the identity of the intelligent designer implied in the "blueprint" metaphor. +In 1989 the National Center for Science Education published three reviews of the book: Kevin Padian, a biologist at University of California, Berkeley, called it "a wholesale distortion of modern biology". Michael Ruse, a professor of philosophy and biology, said the book was "worthless and dishonest". In the third of these reviews, Gerald Skoog, Professor of Education at Texas Tech University, wrote that the book reflected a creationist strategy to focus their "attack on evolution", interpreting the Edwards v. Aguillard ruling as though it legitimized "teaching a variety of scientific theories", but the book did not contain a scientific theory or model to "balance" against evolution, and was "being used as a vehicle to advance sectarian tenets and not to improve science education". + +== Editions == +There are currently two editions of the book, the 1989 first edition edited by Charles Thaxton, a chemist who earned his PhD in physical chemistry from Iowa State University, and the 1993 second edition, which included a "Note to Teachers" by Mark D. Hartwig and Stephen C. Meyer. A third edition was retitled The Design of Life. Jon Buell, the president of the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, said that the ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that intelligent design was religious would make the textbook "radioactive" in public schools and would be "catastrophic" for the marketability of both the (then) present (second) edition and the (then) forthcoming third edition, citing possible losses of around US$500,000. The renaming of the book is viewed by some as way of mitigating this and at the same time distancing the book from past controversy. +For the 1993 edition, Michael Behe wrote a chapter on blood clotting, presenting arguments which he later presented in very similar terms as "irreducible complexity" in a chapter in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box. Behe later agreed that they were essentially the same when he defended intelligent design at the Dover trial. + +== Origins and publication == +The book is published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE), a non-profit organization founded by ordained minister Jon Buell in Richardson, Texas, in 1980 as a tax-exempt charitable and educational organization, with articles of incorporation which stated that its purpose includes "proclaiming, publishing, preaching [and] teaching…the Christian Gospel and understanding of the Bible and the light it sheds on the academic and social issues of the day". In the original Internal Revenue Service tax-exemption submission, Buell described the foundation as a "Christian think-tank" and stated that the organization's first activity would be the editing of a book "showing the scientific evidence for creation". Co-author Percival Davis later acknowledged that religious concerns underlay the writing of the book; in a November 1994 interview with The Wall Street Journal, he commented: "Of course my motives were religious. There's no question about it." + +=== Creation Biology === +In 1981, the FTE advertised in a creationist newspaper, seeking authors for a textbook that would be "sensitively written to present both evolution and creation". Their first production was Unlocking the secrets: The Mystery of Life's Origin by creationist Charles Thaxton (a chemist), Walter L. Bradley, and Roger L. Olsen. +In this book, Thaxton presented arguments for "Special Creation by a creator beyond the cosmos", and described Special Creation as holding "that the source that produced life was intelligent". +Thaxton approached Dean H. Kenyon to write the foreword. When Mystery was ready to go to the printers late in 1982, work began on the textbook, written by Kenyon and Percival Davis with Thaxton as editor. +A draft dated 1983 was entitled Creation Biology Textbook Supplements, and was stated in the language of creationism, including the following statement: + +The basic metabolic pathways of nearly all organisms are the same. Is this because of descent from a common ancestor, or because only these pathways (and their variations) can sustain life? Evolutionists think the former is correct; creationists because of all the evidence discussed in this book, conclude the latter is correct. +A 1986 draft with the title Biology and Creation included a similar statement, and defined "creation" using the classic creationist concept of "abrupt appearance": \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4237368b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Of Pandas and People" +chunk: 2/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:28.944697+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. +A 1987 draft entitled Biology and Origins made only minor grammatical alterations to these statements. +The FTE sought a publisher for the book, sending a Boston firm a prospectus which indicated that the draft had been sent to school districts for testing as well as to prospective publishers. In the prospectus, Buell stated that a "new independent scientific poll... shows almost half of the nation's biology teachers include some creation in their view of biological origins. Many more who don't still believe it should be included in science curriculum." Additionally, he enclosed projections showing expected revenue of over $6.5 million in five years based upon "modest expectations for the market." If creationist teaching in schools was explicitly permitted by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Louisiana "Balanced Treatment Act" case that was then ongoing, the FTE's founder Jon Buell wrote that "you can throw out these projections, the nationwide market would be explosive!" + +=== From creationism to intelligent design: Pandas and "cdesign proponentsists" === +The Louisiana "Balanced Treatment Act" case – Edwards v. Aguillard – was decided by the Supreme Court in 1987. The court determined that teaching creationism in public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution, but that alternative scientific theories could be taught. While the decision ruled out any return to teaching traditional Young Earth creationism in science classes, it did offer an opening for those willing to recast creationist doctrine in the language of science. +In 1987 a further draft of the book was produced with the new title Of Pandas and People, which still had the definition "creation means that various forms of life began abruptly", and used the term "creationists": + +The basic metabolic pathways (reaction chains) of nearly all organisms are the same. Is this because of descent from a common ancestor, or because only these pathways (and their variations) can sustain life? Evolutionists think the former is correct, creationists accept the latter view. +The outcome of the case prompted significant editorial changes to the book. Dean H. Kenyon had presented an affidavit to the court in which he defined "creation science" as meaning "origin through abrupt appearance in complex form", which did "not include as essential parts... catastrophism, a world-wide flood, a recent inception of the earth or life,... the concept of kinds, or any concepts from Genesis or other religious texts", but this attempt to re-define creation science did not succeed in the Edwards case. Both authors had previously written young Earth creationist publications referring to biological design: a 1967 book co-written by Percival Davis referred to "design according to which basic organisms were created", and in a 1984 article as well as in his affidavit to Edwards v. Aguillard, Kenyon defended creation science by stating that "biomolecular systems require intelligent design and engineering know-how". According to the Discovery Institute's account published in December 2005, Charles Thaxton as editor of the Pandas book needed a new term after the Supreme Court case, and found it in a phrase he "picked up from a NASA scientist – intelligent design". He thought: "That's just what I need, it's a good engineering term….. it seemed to jibe... And I went back through my old copies of Science magazine and found the term used occasionally." In a new draft of Pandas prepared shortly after the 1987 Supreme Court ruling, approximately 150 uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "creationist", were systematically changed to refer to intelligent design. The definition remained essentially the same, with "intelligent design" substituted for "creation", and "intelligent creator" changed to "intelligent agency": + +Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc. +The term "creationists" was changed to "design proponents", but in one case the beginning and end of the original word "creationists" were accidentally retained, so that "creationists" became "cdesign proponentsists". + +The basic metabolic pathways (reaction chains) of nearly all organisms are the same. Is this because of descent from a common ancestor, or because only these pathways (and their variations) can sustain life? Evolutionists think the former is correct, cdesign proponentsists accept the latter view. +FTE founder Jon Buell says that the word creationism was a "placeholder term" whose definition "changed to include a religious context after the draft was written, so the writers changed the word." However, the proof that intelligent design was creationism re-labeled played a significant part in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, and "cdesign proponentsists" has been described as "the missing link between creationism and intelligent design." \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..98510a580 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Of Pandas and People" +chunk: 3/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:28.944697+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Publication and promotion === +Of Pandas and People was published in 1989 by "Haughton Publishing Co." This was the assumed name of a Mesquite, Texas, printing firm, Horticultural Printers, Inc., which mainly served the agricultural industry and had no other books in print, nor any in-house writers or science advisors. (It should not be confused with the well-known children's and school textbook publisher, Houghton Mifflin). Printing costs were met by donations to the FTE, whose members were told in a December 1988 fundraising letter that donors would receive an enameled box with a panda on the lid as a gift. The box would "become a pleasant reminder to pray for our work", as Buell put it. +Following the book's publication in 1989, the FTE embarked on a lengthy campaign to get the book into use in schools across the United States. Previous creationist efforts to dilute or overturn the teaching of evolutionary theory had relied largely on a "top-down" approach of pro-creationist legislators passing laws to regulate science education in schools. However, these had repeatedly failed to survive court challenges. The FTE took a "bottom-up" approach instead, mobilizing local Christian conservative groups to push school boards and individual teachers to adopt the book and also to get themselves elected to school boards and local educational committees. +Buell told supporters: + +Biology teachers are generally easy to contact, available for a meeting on short notice, and receptive. If you would like to be a part of this 'quiet army', please let us know right away. Those choosing not to enlist may wish to support those who do by their prayers. +The FTE provided publicity materials to its supporters to assist them in promoting the adoption of the book. These included a video of testimonials by pro-ID scientists and a promotional script, including "lines to take" on contentious issues. +For instance, on the controversial issue of ID's perceived overlap with religion, the FTE's suggested response read: + +I agree that personal beliefs should not be taught in science classrooms, but intelligent design is not a personal belief; it is accepted science, a view that is held by many highly qualified scientists. +The FTE was aided in this effort by "traditional" creationist organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research, which sells Of Pandas and People through its own online shop and catalogue. The book was explicitly marketed by retailers as a creationist work; in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case, donated copies of the book were accompanied by a catalog which listed Pandas under "creation science". + +== The Design of Life == +Discovery Institute Senior Fellows William A. Dembski and Jonathan Wells are the listed authors of this edition, presented as a sequel. The preface of The Design of Life is by Jon A. Buell, president of the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, which is the publisher of The Design of Life. +The book tries to address some novel areas. For example, it states that intelligent design does not require miracles or the supernatural, but still does not rely on "materialistic explanations". The book states that "Supernatural explanations invoke miracles and therefore are not properly part of science", and that "[e]xplanations that call on intelligent causes require no miracles but cannot be reduced to materialistic explanations." It includes 100 pages of footnotes and notes. +Also, the book tries to explain away the loss of intelligent design in the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision: "In the end, not any court rulings or public policies or Hollywood films, will decide the merit of intelligent design." +A blog associated with the book began on December 17, 2007. + +=== Reception === +Dembski wrote in his blog, Uncommondescent, that The Design of Life had 9 five star reviews, and only a single one star review on Amazon.com on December 5, 2007. California State University emeritus professor Mark Perakh has written that he believes Dembski and his associates at the Discovery Institute are deceitfully manipulating the Amazon.com review system to promote their own work and denigrate the work of their adversaries. +The Discovery Institute's blog, Evolution News and Views, also gave the book a positive. Evolution News and Views says that The Design of Life describes how evolution cannot account for the necks of giraffes, how the transition from reptiles to mammals took place, how whales evolved from land animals, and how all evolutionary explanations of the bacterial flagellum are fallacious. In addition, the review asserts that this book exposes substantial holes in abiogenesis and common descent, as well as refuting SETI objections to intelligent design and discussions of the shortcomings of ocular design. +Dembski was interviewed about the book by Focus on the Family's Citizenlink in December, 2007. Dembski described the book as accessible, but noted that it also includes a CD and endnotes that delve deeper into the technical issues. Dembski said the book corrects many of the misrepresentations and biased descriptions of intelligent design that have appeared. Dembski also revealed that he believes that the "intelligent designer" is the Christian God. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0994a8546 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Of Pandas and People" +chunk: 4/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:28.944697+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Analysis == +Many of the book's arguments are identical to those raised by creationists, which have been dismissed by the scientific community. A comparison of an early draft of Of Pandas and People to a later 1987 draft showed how in hundreds of instances the word "creationism" had been replaced by "intelligent design" and "creationist" replaced by "intelligent design proponent", while "creator" was replaced by "agency" or "designer". In his 2007 book Monkey Girl Edward Humes describes how this change was made after Edwards v. Aguillard settled that teaching "Creation Science" in public schools was unconstitutional. +Scientific and education professional groups have strongly criticized Of Pandas and People and have opposed its use in schools. Science educator Gerald Skoog described it as "a vehicle to advance sectarian tenets and not to improve science education" and said "This book has no potential to improve science education and student understanding of the natural world." +A review of Of Pandas and People by paleontologist Kevin Padian of the University of California at Berkeley for the National Center for Science Education's Bookwatch Reviews in 1989 called the book a "wholesale distortion of modern biology", and says that FTE's writers had misrepresented such topics as the Cambrian explosion, the history of birds, and the concept of homology. Padian described the treatment of homology in Of Pandas and People as "shameful", citing: + +They pretend that the Tasmanian wolf, a marsupial, would be placed [classified] with the placental wolf if evolutionists were not so hung up on the single character of their reproductive mode by which marsupials and placentals are traditionally separated. This is a complete falsehood, as anyone with access to the evidence knows. It is not a matter of a single reproductive character, but dozens of characters in the skull, teeth, post-cranial bones (including the marsupial pelvic bones), soft anatomy, and biochemistry, to say nothing of their respective fossil records, that separate the two mammals. About the closest similarity they have going for them is that they are both called "wolf" in English. The same criticism can be applied seriatim to the authors' mystifying discussion of the red and giant "pandas". +Padian's conclusion was: "It is hard to say what is worst in this book: the misconceptions of its sub-text, the intolerance for honest science, or the incompetence with which science is presented. In any case, teachers should be warned against using this book." + +== History == +The FTE's activist approach has produced heated controversies in several US states as Christian conservatives and school boards sought to adopt Of Pandas and People in public schools, against the opposition of mainstream scientists, educators and civil liberties organizations. This has caused several notable controversies, culminating in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case in Pennsylvania in which the contents and antecedents of the book came under scrutiny. + +=== 1989–1993 === + +In Alabama, 11,800 people signed a petition which was presented to Alabama's school textbook committee, endorsing intelligent design and urging the adoption of Of Pandas and People as a class textbook. In January 1990 the book was withdrawn from consideration by its publishers, the Haughton Publishing Co., who said that they "backed off because they weren't given [the] chance to defend [the] book." +By 1990, a public campaign was mounted in Idaho to urge the state school board to adopt Of Pandas and People. However, the book was rejected by the board. +In March 1990, the school board in Pinellas County, Florida, rejected an appeal by a retired minister "to adopt the textbook Of Pandas and People that would offer a creationist's view". +In January 1993, right-wing members of the school board of Vista, California, sought to include Of Pandas and People in the school science curriculum. A teachers' committee voted unanimously to reject the book saying it lacked scientific merit. The board eventually backed away from plans to require creation science to be taught in science classes. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d7e4e4be8 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +title: "Of Pandas and People" +chunk: 5/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:28.944697+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== 1994–1998 === +In September 1994, residents of Louisville, Ohio, voted 121–2 to urge the local school board to adopt Of Pandas and People. Creationism had been taught openly in district schools until a lawsuit forced a change of policy in 1993. In the wake of the decision, the district was given 150 copies of the book. +In October 1994, school officials in St. Lucie County, Florida, distributed copies of the book to every high school and one middle school in the county to be reviewed by teachers and principals for use as a possible supplement for science classes. The response from teachers was negative but county school officials still planned to distribute the books to school libraries so teachers and students could use it as a resource. According to the local Civic, Business and Ministry Coalition, copies of the book were purchased by the Coalition from the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, California, and were sent to school administrators on the grounds that it was "a good, science-based text appropriate for school children". The Coalition was reported to have met administrators on several occasions to promote creation science. However, the county school board did not find out about the matter until January 1995. +The Wall Street Journal reported in November that according to the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, 22,500 copies of the book had been printed and teachers and curriculum buyers in 48 states had bought it. Fifteen school districts had ordered quantities large enough to indicate classroom use, but had not been identified "for fear of embroiling them in controversy". +In January 1995, conservative members of the Plano, Texas, school trust proposed to adopt Of Pandas and People as a supplement to the existing curriculum course materials. The district school board unanimously voted to bar the book's acquisition following an outcry from local residents, many of whom attended the board's meeting wearing buttons with a red "X" over a panda. Two of the proponents of the book subsequently lost their seats on the Plano school board. +In a 1996 Time magazine article it was reported that "school boards in Washington State and Ohio" were considering whether to adopt Of Pandas and People as a school textbook. +In April 1997, the school board of Chesapeake, Virginia, purchased copies of the book for the libraries of each of the district's 15 high schools and middle schools. The acquisition was made on the recommendation of School Superintendent W. Randolph Nichols, but the board stated that the book was intended for use "as a resource book, not as a science book" and that it was not endorsing creationism. + +=== 1999–2003 === +In June 1999, the school district in Burlington, Washington, approved a local science teacher's proposal to use extracts from Of Pandas and People in the classroom "so long as he balances it with enough support for teachings on evolution which he always included in his courses but about which he says he has doubts – especially in terms of the origin of the human race". The decision followed an earlier demand by the American Civil Liberties Union, that the teacher, Roger DeHart, should cease his years-long practice of teaching intelligent design in his classes. He stated that he needed to counterbalance the inclusion of information that was "at best wrong and at worst fraudulent" in the standard textbooks used in Burlington schools. +That same year, another attempt to introduce Of Pandas and People into Idaho schools was reported to have been rejected by the state textbook committee. +In March 2000, the science curriculum director of the Kanawha County, West Virginia, school district selected Of Pandas and People as a textbook "that presents Darwin's Theory of Evolution as theory, not fact" following pressure from the local community and teachers. A committee of science teachers unanimously voted to purchase copies of the book, but ultimately decided to abandon the idea for fear of litigation. A Christian conservative legal group, the Thomas More Law Center, offered to represent the county for free if any litigation arose but its offer was rejected. A proposal to buy the book for school libraries was eventually rejected by the school board, though a conservative member of the board pledged to pay for at least 14 copies out of her own pocket. +In August 1999, the local school board in Pratt, Kansas, voted to remove any mention of macroevolution, the age of the Earth, and the origin of the Universe from science curriculum, but rejected a bid to adopt Of Pandas and People for educational purposes. + +=== 2004–2005: Dover, Pennsylvania === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4dcc1d0c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +--- +title: "Of Pandas and People" +chunk: 6/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:28.944697+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Of Pandas and People became the focus of a litigation and controversy in Dover, Pennsylvania in 2004 after the Dover Area School Board endorsed it as a reference book. The ensuing court case was dubbed the "Panda Trial" by the media in an allusion to the famous "Monkey Trial" of 1925. +Although the board did not actually purchase the book, 60 copies were donated to the district by an anonymous party. It was revealed in court that a school board member asked his church for donations for the purchase of those books although that board member had denied all knowledge of the source of donation in an earlier deposition. Amid an international controversy, the board also became the first in the US to promote the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom, sparking a lawsuit, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, by the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs. +The FTE became involved in the Dover controversy when it became clear that Of Pandas and People would be a major focus of litigation. The foundation filed a motion to join the defending side in June 2005, arguing that a finding that intelligent design was religious would destroy FTE's ability to market its textbooks within the district, and affect its ability to market the textbooks to any public school in the United States. Had the motion been granted, the FTE would have become a co-defendant with the Dover Area School Board, and able to bring its own lawyers and expert witnesses to the case. However, William A. Dembski, co-author of the new Pandas edition, and the Discovery Institute withdrew from the case. The Judge told the defendants: "To me it looks like Mr. Dembski was dropped as an expert because he didn't want to produce, or because his employer didn't want to produce the manuscript [on subpoena to the court] of The Design of Life." +In his decision on the motion, Judge John E. Jones III ruled that FTE was not entitled to intervene in the case because its motion to intervene was not timely, describing FTE's excuses for not trying to become involved earlier as "both unavailing and disingenuous". Judge Jones also held that FTE failed to demonstrate that it has "a significantly protectable interest in the litigation warranting intervention as a party" and that its interests will not be adequately represented by the defendants. +While FTE did not become a party, Jon A. Buell, the director of FTE testified on July 14, 2005, at the Dover Trial. Buell denied having known about actions of the Thomas More Law Center to which the Judge said it "strains credulity". +In November 2005, eight of the nine members of the Dover school board were voted out of office and replaced with candidates who opposed the previous board's decision to introduce intelligent design and lay doubts on evolution. +On December 20, 2005, the US District Court ruled that intelligent design is not science and is essentially religious in nature, and the board's requirement endorsing intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in science classes, unconstitutional on the grounds that its inclusion violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. +The judge in the Dover trial specifically referred to Pandas in his decision, stating: + +As Plaintiffs meticulously and effectively presented to the Court, Pandas went through many drafts, several of which were completed prior to and some after the Supreme Court's decision in Edwards, which held that the Constitution forbids teaching creationism as science. By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge: (1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID; (2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times, were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and (3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards. This word substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words was effected without any corresponding change in content .... The weight of the evidence clearly demonstrates, as noted, that the systemic change from "creation" to "intelligent design" occurred sometime in 1987, after the Supreme Court's important Edwards decision. +The newly elected board unanimously rescinded the policy on January 3, 2006. + +== Further reading == +Forrest, Barbara (2004). Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. OUP. pp. 416. ISBN 978-0195157420. +Humes, Edward (2007). Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul. Ecco. pp. 380. ISBN 978-0060885489. +Bell, John ( 1 June 2010). Angels, Apes and Pandas: An Analysis of the Intelligent Design Movement. pp. 27–39. + +== Notes == + +== References == + +== External links == + +=== Intelligent design advocates === +A Report on the ASA Conference Debate on Pandas and People Textbook by Paul Nelson, Access Research Network. + +=== Intelligent design critics === +The Elusive Scientific Basis of Intelligent Design Theory, by George W. Gilchrist, National Center for Science Education +Critique: Of Pandas and People from the National Center for Science Education +Production of "Design of Life" from the National Center for Science Education +The Foundation for Thought and Ethics NCSE Reports, 10(4) (July–August 1990), pp. 18–19. +Of Pandas and People: A Brief Critique by Kenneth R. Miller +A Reader's Guide to Of Pandas and People by Richard P. Aulie, National Association of Biology Teachers, via archive.org. +1995 annual meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation +The Panda's Thumb, an article which explains the significance of panda evolution in the debate. +Fundamentalists Launch Bogus "Supplemental Text" by William J. Bennetta, The Textbook League + +=== Media === +Textbook publisher wants to join lawsuit: Says company is not a religious organization The York Dispatch, York (PA), July 15, 2005 +PBS/NOVA website for the documentary "Judgement Day:Intelligent Design On Trial" Documentary on Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a4d7a041c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: "Offender profiling" +chunk: 1/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:30.090119+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrator. +There are multiple approaches to offender profiling, including the FBI's typological method, geographic profiling, and investigative psychology, each utilizing different techniques to analyze offender behavior. Profiling is primarily applied in cases involving violent crimes such as serial murder, sexual offenses, and arson, where behavioral patterns may provide investigative leads. +Despite its use in law enforcement, offender profiling remains controversial, with critics arguing that it often lacks empirical validation, relies heavily on subjective interpretation, and may contribute to cognitive biases in criminal investigations. Advances in forensic psychology and data-driven methodologies continue to shape the field, integrating psychological theories with statistical analysis to improve reliability and accuracy. +The originator of modern profiling was FBI agent Robert Ressler. He defined profiling as the process of identifying all psychological characteristics of an individual and forming a general description of their personality based on an analysis of crimes they have committed. + +== History == +The earliest reference to the use of profiling, according to R.S. Feldman, is Quintilian's essay "Instruction to the Speaker", written in the 1st century AD. It included information about gestures used by people at that time. M. Woodworth and S. Porter believe that the first development on the topic of profiling that should be considered is the notorious Malleus Maleficarum ("Hammer of Witches"), written in the 15th century, since it contains psychological profiles of alleged witches. +There is also an opinion that the first "professional profiler", albeit a fictional one, was C. August Dupin, the protagonist of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), who constructed a psychological portrait of the killer. A factual work related to profiling with a scientific approach was Charles Darwin's book, The Expression of Emotions in humans and animals (1872). It contained only a description of external manifestations, but it was a systemization, and thus the beginning of a scientific study of the subject. +An Italian psychologist Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was a criminologist who attempted to formally classify criminals based on age, gender, physical characteristics, education, and geographic region. When comparing these similar characteristics, he better understood the origin of motivation of criminal behavior, and in 1876, he published the book The Criminal Man. Lombroso studied 383 Italian inmates. Based on his studies, he suggested that there were three types of criminals: born criminals, degenerate criminals and insane criminals who suffered from mental illness. Also, he studied and found specific physical characteristics; some examples included asymmetry of the face, eye defects and peculiarities, ears of unusual size, etc. +One of the first offender profiles was assembled by detectives of the Metropolitan Police on the personality of Jack the Ripper, a serial killer who had murdered a series of prostitutes in the 1880s. Police surgeon Thomas Bond was asked to give his opinion on the extent of the murderer's surgical skill and knowledge. Bond's assessment was based on his own examination of the most extensively mutilated victim and the post mortem notes from the four previous canonical murders. In his notes, dated November 10, 1888, Bond mentioned the sexual nature of the murders coupled with elements of apparent misogyny and rage. Bond also tried to reconstruct the murder and interpret the behavior pattern of the offender. Bond's basic profile included that "The murderer must have been a man of physical strength and great coolness and daring... subject to periodic attacks of homicidal and erotic mania. The characters of the mutilations indicate that the man may be in a condition sexually, that may be called Satyriasis." +In 1912, a psychologist in Lackawanna, New York delivered a lecture in which he analyzed the unknown murderer of a local boy named Joey Joseph, dubbed "The Postcard Killer" in the press. +In 1932, Dr. Dudley Schoenfeld gave the authorities his predictions about the personality of the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby. +In 1943, at the request of the US Office of Strategic Services, psychiatrist Walter C. Langer developed a profile of Adolf Hitler that hypothesized the Nazi dictator's response to various scenarios, including losing World War II. After the war, British psychologist Lionel Haward, while working for the Royal Air Force police, drew up a list of characteristics that high-ranking war criminals might display. These characteristics were used to identify high-ranking war criminals amongst captured soldiers and airmen. +James Brussel was a psychiatrist who rose to fame after his profile of New York City's "Mad Bomber" George Metesky was published in the New York Times in 1956. The media dubbed him "The Sherlock Holmes of the Couch." In his 1968 book, Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist, Brussel relates how he predicted that the bomber would wear a buttoned-up double-breasted suit, but removed the many incorrect predictions he had made in his profile, claiming he had successfully predicted that the bomber would be a Slav who lived in Connecticut, when in fact, he had actually predicted he would be "born and educated in Germany," and live in White Plains, New York. In 1964, Brussel profiled the Boston Strangler for the Boston Police Department. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5a3eef6f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +title: "Offender profiling" +chunk: 2/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:30.090119+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Modern developments === +Offender profiling was first introduced to the FBI in the 1960s, when several classes were taught to the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. +In 1972, after the death of J. Edgar Hoover, who was skeptical of psychiatry, the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) of the FBI was formed by Patrick Mullany and Howard Teten in 1972, leading to the rapid development of the field. At the BSU, Robert Ressler and John Douglas began an informal series of ad hoc interviews with 36 convicts starting in early 1978. +The BSU later became the Behavioral Analysis Unit. It led to the establishment of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime in 1984, of which the BAU is now a part, after Douglas and Ressler created a typology of sexually motivated violent offenders. The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program was launched in 1985. +The March 1980 issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin invited local police to request profiles from the FBI. An article in the April 1980 issue, "The Lust Murderer," introduced the dichotomy of "organized" and "disorganized" offenders. The August 1985 issue described a third, "mixed" category. +Investigations of serial killers Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway were performed in 1984 by Robert Keppel and psychologist Richard Walter. They went on to develop the four subtypes of violent crime and the Hunter Integrated Telemetry System (HITS) database, which compiled characteristics of violent crime for research. +In 1985, Dr. David Canter in the United Kingdom profiled "Railway Rapists" John Duffy and David Mulcahy. David Canter assisted police detectives from the mid-1980s with an offender who had carried out a series of serious attacks, but Canter saw the limitations of offender profiling – in particular, the subjective, personal opinion of a psychologist. He and a colleague coined the term investigative psychology and began trying to approach the subject from what they saw as a more scientific point of view. +The Crime Classification Manual was published in 1992, and introduced the term "criminal investigative analysis." +There was little public knowledge of offender profiling until it was publicized on TV. Later, films based on the fictional works of author Thomas Harris caught the public eye as a profession, in particular Manhunter (1986) and Silence of the Lambs (1991). + +== Theory == + +Psychological profiling is described as a method of suspect identification that seeks to identify a person's mental, emotional, and personality characteristics based on things done or left at the crime scene. There are two major assumptions made when it comes to offender profiling: behavioral consistency and homology. Behavior consistency is the idea that an offender's crimes will tend to be similar to one another. Homology is the idea that similar crimes are committed by similar offenders. +Fundamental assumptions that offender profiling relies upon, such as the homology assumption, have been proven outdated by advances in psychology and behavioral science. The majority of profiling approaches assume that behavior is primarily determined by personality, not situational factors, an assumption that psychological research has recognized as a mistake since the 1960s. Profilers have been noted to be very reluctant to participate in studies of profiling's accuracy. In a 2021 article it was noted that out of 243 cases, around 188 were solved with the help of criminal profiling. +A widely cited study by Mokros and Alison (2002) tested the homology assumption using a sample of convicted rapists and found no significant correlation between similarities in crime scene behavior and similarities in offender characteristics such as age, occupation, or criminal history. This research provided strong evidence that offenders with comparable behavioral patterns do not necessarily resemble one another in terms of psychological or demographic profiles. These findings increased doubt on the reliability of using crime scene behaviors to infer specific traits about an unknown offender, calling into question the scientific basis of many profiling practices. + +== Criticism == +As of 2021, although the practice of offender profiling is widely used, publicized and researched globally, there is a significant lack of empirical research or evidence to support the validity of psychological profiling in criminal investigations. Critics question the reliability, validity, and utility of criminal profiles generally provided in police investigations. Even over the years common criminal profiling methods have changed and been looked down upon due to weak definitions that differentiate the criminal's behaviors, assumptions and their psychodynamic process of the offender actions and characteristics that occur. In other words, this leads to poor and misleading profiles on offenders because they are based on opinions and decisions made up from one profiler conducting research on the offender. Research in 2007-2008 into profiling's effectiveness have prompted some researchers to label the practice as pseudoscientific. At the time, Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell, writing in The New Yorker, compared profiling to astrology and cold reading. Other critics described criminal profiling as an investigative tool hiding behind a lack of scientific evidence and support. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a739cdfb0 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +title: "Offender profiling" +chunk: 3/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:30.090119+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Lack of regulation === +The profession of criminal profiling is unregulated. There is no governing body which determines who is and who is not qualified to be a criminal profiler, and therefore those who identify themselves as criminal profilers may range from someone with minimal experience to someone with extensive experience in the realm of criminal investigation. In addition to the lack of criteria as to what makes an expert in the field of criminal profiling, there is little empirical evidence supporting the accuracy of criminal profiling. There is an abundance of anecdotal support for criminal profiling, much of which originates from reports made by police officers and investigators regarding the performance of criminal profilers. +Law enforcement agents have been found to greatly support the use of criminal profiling, but studies have shown that detectives are poor profilers themselves. One study presented police officers with two different profiles for the same perpetrator, each of which varied greatly from the officers' own description. It was found that the officers were unable to determine whether one profile was more accurate than the other, and felt that all profiles accurately described the perpetrator. Officers were able to find truth in whichever profile they viewed, believing it accurately described the perpetrator, demonstrating the presence of the Barnum effect. +In addition, an investigator's judgement of the accuracy of a profile is impacted by the perceived source of the information; if the officer believes that the profile was written by an "expert" or "professional", they are likely to perceive it as more accurate than a profile written by someone who is identified as a consultant. This poses a genuine problem when considering that there are no true criteria which determine who may be considered a "professional" criminal profiler, and when considering that support for criminal profiling is largely based on the opinion of police officers. + +== Typologies == +The most routinely used typology in profiling is categorizing crime scenes, and by extension offender's personalities, as either "organized" or "disorganized". The idea of classifying crime scenes according to organized/disorganized dichotomy is credited to the FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood. +A typology of serial sexual homicides advocated by Robert Keppel and Richard Walter categorizes them as either power–assertive, power–reassurance, anger–retaliatory, or anger–excitation. +Criminal profiling can also be ex-ante or ex-post. Descriptive profiling of a perpetrator is a type of ex-post profiling, and can be used to prevent a serial killer from striking again. +Other profiling typologies have been developed over time, including distinctions based on motivation, method of attack, or psychological state. While typologies can provide investigators with a framework for understanding offender behavior, they are often based on clinical judgment and are not always supported by empirical research. Alternative approaches, such as Behavioral Evidence Analysis (BEA), focus on reconstructing the offender's actions and decision-making based on physical evidence, victimology, and crime scene dynamics, rather than relying on general typologies. + +== Approaches == +There are three leading approaches in the area of offender profiling: the criminal investigative approach, the clinical practitioner approach, and the scientific statistical approach. The criminal investigative approach is what is used by law enforcement and more specifically by the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) within the FBI. The BAU "assists law enforcement agencies by their review and assessment of a criminal act, by interpreting the offender's behavior during the crime and the interactions between the offender and the victim during the commission of the crime and as expressed in the crime scene." The clinical practitioner approach focuses on looking at each case as unique, making the approach very individualistic. +One practitioner, Turco, believed that all violent crimes were a result of the mother-child struggle where female victims represent the offender's mother. This is also recognized as the psychodynamic approach. Another practitioner, Copson, outlined some principles for profiling that include being custom made, interactive and reflexive. By following these principles, the profile should include advice that is unique and not from a stereotype, should be easy to understand for all levels of intelligence, and all elements in the profile should influence one another. The Scientific approach relies heavily on the multivariate analysis of behaviors and any other information from the crime scene that could lead to the offender's characteristics or psychological processes. According to this approach, elements of the profile are developed by comparing the results of the analysis to those of previously caught offenders. +Wilson, Lincon and Kocsis list three main paradigms of profiling: diagnostic evaluation, crime scene analysis, and investigative psychology. Ainsworth identified four: clinical profiling (synonymous with diagnostic evaluation), typological profiling (synonymous with crime scene analysis), investigative psychology, and geographical profiling. +Five steps in profiling include: + +1. Analyzing the criminal act and comparing it to similar crimes in the past. +2. An in-depth analysis of the actual crime scene. +3. Considering the victim's background and activities for possible motives and connections. +4. Considering other possible motives. +5. Developing a description of the possible offender that can be compared with previous cases. +One type of criminal profiling is referred to as linkage analysis. Gerard N. Labuschagne defines linkage analysis as "a form of behavioral analysis that is used to determine the possibility of a series of crimes as having been committed by one offender." Gathering many aspects of the offender's crime pattern such as modus operandi (MO), ritual or fantasy-based behaviors exhibited, and the signature of the offender, help to establish a basis for a linkage analysis. An offender's modus operandi is the habits or tendencies during the killing of the victim. An offender's signature is the unique similarities in each of the kills. Mainly, linkage analysis is used when physical evidence, such as DNA, cannot be collected. +Labuschagne states that in gathering and incorporating these aspects of the offender's crime pattern, investigators must engage in five assessment procedures: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ba6fc497d --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,49 @@ +--- +title: "Offender profiling" +chunk: 4/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:30.090119+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +1. Obtaining data from multiple sources. +2. Reviewing the data and identifying significant features of each crime across the series. +3. Classifying the significant features as either modus operandi or ritualistic. +4. Comparing the combination of modus operandi and ritual or fantasy-based features across the series to determine if a signature exists. +5. Compiling a written report highlighting the findings. + +=== FBI method === + +There are six stages to developing a criminal profile: profiling inputs, decision process models, crime assessment, criminal profiling, investigation, and apprehension. The FBI and BAU tend to study specific categories of crimes such as white collar and serial murder. + +== Popularity == +Profiling has continuously gotten more +accurate throughout the years. In 2008, only 42% of cases were solved using criminal profiling. In 2019 the FBI was able to solve 56% of the cases that were not solved back in the year 2008. +Profiling as an investigative tool has a high level of acceptance among both the general public and police. +In the United States, between 1971 and 1981, the FBI had only profiled cases on 192 occasions. By 1986, FBI profilers were requested in 600 investigations in a single year. By 1996, 12 FBI profilers were applying profiling to approximately 1,000 cases per year. +In the United Kingdom, 29 profilers provided 242 instances of profiling advice between 1981 and 1994; its usage increasing steadily over that period. +The usage of profiling has been documented in Sweden, Finland, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, Russia, Zimbabwe, and the Netherlands. +Surveys of police officers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada have found that an overwhelming majority consider profiling to be useful. A 2007 meta-analysis of existing research into offender profiling noted that there was "a notable incongruity between [profiling's] lack of empirical foundation and the degree of support for the field." +Profiling's continued popularity has been speculatively attributed to broad use of anecdotes and testimonials, a focus on correct predictions over the number of incorrect ones, ambiguous profiles benefiting from the Barnum effect, and the popular appeal of the fantasy of a sleuth with deductive powers like Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. +According to the BAU, the probability of a profiler being used as "expert testimony" in court and leading to a guilty verdict is 85%. +There is a difference between the hard sciences and the social sciences related to testimony and evidence in the courtroom. Some experts contend that offender profiling should not be used in court until such processes can be reliably validated, but as seen, it is still used successfully to this day. + +== Notable profilers == +Notable profilers include Roy Hazelwood, who profiled sexual predators; Ernst Gennat, a German criminologist, who developed an early profiling scheme for the police of Berlin; Walter Charles Langer, who predicted Hitler's behavior and eventual suicide, Howard Teten, who worked on the case of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, and John E. Douglas, who worked on a wave of child murders in Atlanta in the 1980s. +One of the earliest documented cases of offender profiling was used during the investigation of the "Mad Bomber" in 1950s New York. Psychiatrist Dr. James A. Brussel created a detailed psychological profile of the unknown suspect, accurately predicting traits such as his age, mental health history, social isolation, and even his habit of wearing a double-breasted suit. Brussel's work helped to narrow the investigation and eventually led to the arrest of George Metesky in 1957, marking a pivotal moment in the development of modern criminal profiling. + +== Research == + +In a review of the literature by Eastwood et al. (2006), one of the studies according to, Pinizzotto and Finkel (1990), showed that trained criminal profilers did not do any better than non-profilers in producing an accurate profile. A 2000 study also showed that profilers were not significantly better at creating a profile than any other participating groups. +A survey of statements made in offender profiles done for major cases from 1992 to 2001 found that "72% included repetition of the details of what occurred in the offence (factual statements already known by the police), references to the profiler's competence [...] or caveats about using the material in the investigation." Over 80% of the remaining statements, which made claims about the offender's characteristics, gave no justification for their conclusion. +A 2003 study that asked two different groups of police to rate how accurately a profile matched a description of the apprehended offender, with one group given a description of a completely fabricated offender instead of the real one, found that the profile was rated equally accurate in both cases. +There is a lack of clear, quantifiable evidence of a link between crime scene actions (A) and offender characteristics (C), a necessary supposition of the A to C paradigm proposed by Canter (1995). A 2002 review by Alison et al. concluded, "The notion that particular configurations of demographic features can be predicted from an assessment of particular configurations of specific behaviors occurring in short-term, highly traumatic situations seems an overly ambitious and unlikely possibility. Thus, until such inferential processes can be reliably verified, such claims should be treated with great caution in investigations and should be entirely excluded from consideration in court." + +== See also == + +== References == +Notes + +Bibliography \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..13275d559 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Offender profiling" +chunk: 5/5 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:30.090119+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Alison, Laurence; Rainbow, Lee (2011). Professionalizing Offender Profiling: Forensic and Investigative Psychology in Prectice. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-66878-1. +Canter, David; Youngs, Donna (2008). Principles of Geographical Offender Profiling. New York: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-754-62549-0 +Douglas, John; Olshaker, Mark (1997). Journey Into Darkness: The FBI's Premier Investigator Penetrates the Minds and Motives of the Most Terrifying Serial Killers. London: Arrow Books. ISBN 978-1-439-19981-7 +Evans, Colin (1996). The Casebook of Forensic Detection: How Science Solved 100 of the World's Most Baffling Crimes. New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc. ISBN 978-0-471-07650-6. +Jeffers, H. Paul (1991). Profiles in Evil: Chilling Case Histories from the FBI's Violent Crime Unit. London: Warner Books. ISBN 978-0-708-85449-5. +Ressler, Robert; Schachtman, Tom (1992). Whoever Fights Monsters: The True Story of the Brilliant FBI Detective Behind Silence of the Lambs. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-671-71561-8. +Further reading + +Turvey, Brent E. (2022). Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis (5th ed.). Academic Press. ISBN 9780128155837. + +== External links == +Criminal Investigative Research and Analysis (CiR&A) Group: Current research on evidence-based behavioural investigative practice in police investigations +Swiss scientific research site on criminal profiling +University of Liverpool Forensic Psychology – with articles +History of Criminal Profiling – with links to other sites +Offender Profiling: An Introduction to the Sociopsychological Analysis of Violent Crime +Dangerous Minds: Criminal profiling made easy, by Malcolm Gladwell \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_constant-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_constant-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..724231191 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_constant-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +--- +title: "Oil constant" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_constant" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:31.259857+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The term crude oil constant (Erdölkonstante in German) has been used as an inside joke and pun in the German petroleum industry, pointing out that the reserves-to-production ratio has been observed as roughly constant in the past decades, whereas oil constant (Ölkonstante in German) is a term describing various material properties of (vegetable and mineral) oils. + + +== Reasons for reserve expansion == + +The so-called crude oil constant refers to the approximately constant estimate of available petroleum reserves to production ratio R/P. The estimated duration until the available petroleum reserves are depleted at current production has remained around 40 years since the late 80s. Prewar and immediately postwar estimates were sometimes lower, in 1919 as low as 9 years (USA) and in 1948 around 20 years (world) and rose up to 35 years until the 1970s. However, since then the duration value of static production T=R/P has been rather constant for decades despite rising oil consumption. + + +=== Price elasticity of reserves === +One factor contributing to the apparent constancy of the R/P ratio is a neglect or misunderstanding of the fact that the term "proven reserves" does not refer to some absolute quantity of remaining oil that is thought to exist, but rather to the quantity of oil that can be economically extracted given the current price of oil and current oil-extraction technologies. Thus, either an increase in the price of oil or improvements in oil-extraction technologies can lead to an increase in the estimate of "proven reserves" since more-expensive-to-mine deposits such as tight oil become economically viable at a higher oil price, and because newer or more expensive enhanced oil recovery processes such as gas injection, steam injection, and hydraulic fracturing allow continued extraction of oil from fields that would have been considered worth to abandon at a lower price or using older technologies. Thus, it is possible for the "proven reserves of oil" (i.e., economically extractable reserves of oil) to keep pace with or even pull ahead of oil consumption at the current rate. + + +=== Unconventional oil === + +On the other hand, the reserves to production ratio is only one mathematical indicator for the geological inventory. More important than the size of the tank is the production rate (e.g. the size of the spigot of a barrel), and with many capital-intensive technologies for extracting oil from non-conventional sources, also the flow rate is getting smaller. A large expansion of global reserves took place in the 2000s, when Athabasca oil sands (Canada) and the heavy oil of the Orinoco Belt (Venezuela) were reclassified from (physically in place) ressource to (producible) reserve. While the oil reserves are sizeable and in the same range as the reserves of Saudi Arabia, oil production is growing slowly in Canada and declining in Venezuela. + + +=== OPEC quota wars === + +Another contributing factor for the steady P/R-ratio is the large expansion of OPEC reserves, that were booked in the years around 1988. The OPEC quota system had been amended, allowing a production which relates to the reported reserves. Within a few years, OPEC members raised their reserves on paper without reporting any major new discoveries. + + +=== SEC reporting rules === +Oil companies which were listed at US stock exchanges or elsewhere are obliged to report their reserves on the principle of carefulness. This led to the effect that a new discovery was first reported by its lowest estimate (P90 = high confidence). Later, during production when the reservoir data became more detailed, the most likely estimate (P50) was reported but without backdating this reserve expansion to the year of the discovery. Enhanded oil recovery techniques made it possible to produce the P10 value (10% probability), but again the backdating was forgotten and it seemed as if new discoveries have been made. + + +== Analogous use == +A similar pun has been used about the feasibility of fusion power: Since the 1950s, feasible technological means of using fusion for electricity production have constantly been predicted as being 30–40 years ahead, so the "fusion constant" exhibits a similar range to the "oil constant". + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_pulling-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_pulling-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7047440af --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_pulling-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Oil pulling" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_pulling" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:32.675756+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Oil pulling is an alternative medical practice in which an edible oil is swished around the mouth for a period of time and then spat out, similar to mouthwash. It originates from Ayurvedic medicine. +Practitioners of oil pulling claim it is capable of improving oral health. Its promoters claim it works by pulling out toxins, but there is no credible evidence to support this. + + +== History == +Oil pulling stems from traditional Ayurvedic medicine, whose practitioners may use sunflower oil, coconut oil, olive oil, or other herbal oils. + + +== Criticism == +There is no high-quality research on oil pulling, no understanding of a possible mechanism explaining how it would work, and no evidence that it provides any benefit. The American Dental Association agrees that there are no reliable scientific studies supporting the practice of oil pulling for any benefit to oral hygiene or overall wellbeing. +The Canadian Dental Association assessed the practice of oil pulling in 2014 stating: "We sense oil pulling won't do any harm, we're not convinced there are any particular benefits to it." + + +== See also == +Traditional medicine +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience + + +== References == + + +== Further reading == +Dunning, Brian (8 April 2014). "Skeptoid #409: Oil Pulling". Skeptoid. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontogenetic_depth-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontogenetic_depth-0.md index 517aef766..11f2b9447 100644 --- a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontogenetic_depth-0.md +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontogenetic_depth-0.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1 source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontogenetic_depth" category: "reference" tags: "science, encyclopedia" -date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:09:51.371375+00:00" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:33.924994+00:00" instance: "kb-cron" --- diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychomancy-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychomancy-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1c8535c17 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychomancy-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +--- +title: "Onychomancy" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychomancy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:35.089672+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Onychomancy or onymancy (from Greek onychos, 'fingernail', and manteia, 'fortune-telling') is an ancient form of divination using fingernails as a "crystal ball" or "scrying mirror" and is considered a subdivision of palmistry (also called chiromancy). As with palmistry, the contradictions between different interpretations and the lack of evidence for the predictions have led onychomancy to be viewed as a pseudoscience by academics. +It consists of gazing in bright sunlight at one's own fingernails or another person's fingernails that often are coated in oil and then interpreting the "symbols" that appear on them. In medieval times onychomancy was performed by gazing at the fingernails of a prepubescent (unspoiled) boy. +The symbols are interpreted in relation to chakra points, reflexology points, astrological planetary interpretations or tarot card representations. The fingers on which symbols appear and the position of the symbols on the fingernails are interpreted as indications of health conditions, changes in fortune and wealth, the character of the person being "read" and other typical subjects covered by divinations. +A separate subdivision of onychomancy interprets personalities based on the artificial nails the person has chosen to wear. + + +== Interpretation == + +Practitioners of onychomancy relate patterns observed on the fingernails with chakras, reflexology points, astrological interpretations of planets and Tarot. Furthermore, stimulation of the fingers by rubbing or massage is believed to have beneficial effects on the related body part(s). +Chakras: The hands are supposed to represent the central chakra points. For example, the base of the nail corresponds to the root chakra. This point also corresponds with the reproductive organs in the reflexology systems, hence massage of the base of the nail is believed to stimulate the reproductive organs. It is also believed that the longer the nails are the larger the crown and 3rd eye chakra regions are and hence the more intuitive and receptive the person. "Growing your nails out is like getting a bigger satellite dish for better reception. They literally pick up on the vibrations around you." +Astrology: Each finger is "ruled by one of the planets" in the astrological system; the thumb is Mars (and the head), the index finger is Jupiter (expansion of consciousness, philosophy), the middle finger is Saturn (restriction of consciousness, discipline), the ring finger is Apollo (pleasure and creativity), the small finger is Mercury (communication, exchange of ideas). +Reflexology: Massage of any of the fingers is believed to stimulate the sinuses, while the thumb also relieves headaches, the index finger is believed to stimulate the hair, and the small finger is believed to stimulate the ears. +Tarot: Each of the ten fingers is assigned a card from the Major Arcana, and each pair of fingers (right and left thumbs, right and left index fingers, etc.) are assigned another tarot card. Broken nails are interpreted as reversed cards. The appearance of a pattern on a finger would be equivalent to that card being drawn in a tarot card reading session. +A subdivision of onychomancy, called Kikimancy, relates the shape of the nails to the classical elements (earth, air, fire and water), Yin and yang and personality types. Kikimancy considers not only the natural nail but also the choice of artificial nail as indicator of personality traits. + + +== References == + + +== See also == +Phrenology +Physiognomy +Metoposcopy +Mien Shiang \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optography-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optography-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6b32683e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optography-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Optography" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optography" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:36.341609+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Optography is the process of viewing or retrieving an optogram, an image on the retina of the eye. A belief that the eye "recorded" the last image seen before death was widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was a frequent plot device in fiction of the time, to the extent that police photographed the victims' eyes in several real-life murder investigations, in case the theory was true. The concept has been repeatedly debunked as a forensic method. + +== Scientific basis == +Much of the scientific work on optography was performed by the German physiologist Wilhelm Kühne. Inspired by Franz Christian Boll's discovery of rhodopsin (or "visual purple")—a photosensitive pigment present in the rods of the retina—Kühne discovered that, under ideal circumstances, the rhodopsin could be "fixed" like a photographic negative. +Kühne experimented on numerous animals to refine the process and determine the chemicals used to fix the image on the retina. His most successful optogram was obtained from an albino rabbit, with its head fastened to face a barred window. The rabbit's head was covered for several minutes to allow rhodopsin to accumulate on the retina. It was then uncovered for three minutes to expose it to the light, then decapitated and its eyeball sliced from top to bottom. The rear half of the eye was placed in an alum solution to enable fixation of the bleached rhodopsin, which resulted in a distinct image of the barred windows. + +=== Optography in the human eye === + +Kühne was eager to demonstrate the technique in a human subject, and in 1880, got the opportunity. On 16 November, Erhard Gustav Reif was executed by guillotine for the murder of his children in the nearby town of Bruchsal. Reif's eyes were extracted and delivered to Kühne's laboratory at the University of Heidelberg, where he set about dissecting them in a darkened room with filtered windows. After ten minutes, Kühne showed his colleagues an image on the left retina, but his sketch of the image did not appear to match any object visible to the subject at the time of his death—although the outline of the image resembled a guillotine blade, Reif was blindfolded at the time of his beheading. +An issue that Kühne encountered when attempting to produce an image from a human eye is that the size of the fovea centralis, the actual focal point of the image on the retina, is very small (about 1.5 millimetres). Kühne had considerably more success producing optograms from animals such as rabbits and frogs, and the Reif image ended up being the only known "human optogram". The original image from Reif's eye no longer exists, apart from a simple line drawing of the shape in Kühne's 1881 paper "Observations for Anatomy and Physiology of the Retina". + +== Forensic optography == +With the theory that the eye retained an image at the moment of death rampant in the Victorian imagination, police investigators in the late 1800s began considering optography as an investigative technique in murder cases. One of the earliest known attempts at forensic optography occurred in 1877, when Berlin police photographed the eyes of murder victim Frau von Sabatzky, on the chance that the image would assist in solving the crime. +In 1888, London police officer Walter Dew—later known for catching the murderer Dr Crippen—recalled optography being attempted on Mary Jane Kelly in what he called a "forlorn hope" of catching her suspected killer, Jack the Ripper. Ripperologist James Stewart-Gordon believed the technique was attempted on Annie Chapman as well. +W.C. Ayres, an American physician who assisted Kühne in his laboratory and translated his papers into English, dismissed the theory that optography on a human eye could yield a usable image for forensic purposes. In an 1881 article in the New York Medical Journal, Ayres stated that his own repeated experiments in the field had produced some optogram images, but they were not distinct enough to be useful, and he declared it "utterly idle to look for the picture of a man's face, or of the surroundings, on the retina of a person who has met with a sudden death, even in the most favorable circumstances". +A rare case of forensic optography being admitted as evidence occurred in late 1924, after German merchant Fritz Angerstein had been charged with killing eight members of his family and household staff. Doehne, a professor at the University of Cologne photographed the retinas of two of the victims, yielding what he claimed were images of Angerstein's face and an axe used to kill the gardener. Angerstein was tried, convicted and executed, with Doehne's optographic images included amongst other evidence in the case. According to the Sunday Express newspaper, when told of the "incriminating" optograms, Angerstein confessed to the murders. The American Mercury magazine called Doehne's testimony "scientific confirmation" of the theory of optography, although in 2011, the German Legal Tribune Online called the use of optographic evidence in the Angerstein case "absurde Kriminalistik" ("absurd forensics"). +The most recent serious research into the use of optography in criminology occurred in 1975, when police in Heidelberg asked Evangelos Alexandridis at the University of Heidelberg to reevaluate Kühne's experiments and findings with modern scientific techniques, knowledge and equipment. Like Kühne, Alexandridis successfully produced a number of distinct high-contrast images from the eyes of rabbits, but conclusively negatively assessed the technique as a forensic tool. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optography-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optography-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..049a4a252 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optography-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Optography" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optography" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:36.341609+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Optography in fiction == +The first apparent description of optography in fiction was in Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's 1867 short story "Claire Lenoir", later expanded into the novel Tribulat Bonhomet in 1887. Like the reference in Rudyard Kipling's 1891 short story "At the End of the Passage", Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's story portrays the optogram in a metaphysical sense, rather than scientific. +Jules Verne's 1902 novel, Les Frères Kip (The Brothers Kip), contains a reference to optography as a key plot point. The Kip brothers of the title are arrested and imprisoned for the murder of a ship's captain. When the victim's son examines an enlarged photograph of his late father's head, he discerns in the eyes the faces of the true murderers—two of the captain's shipmates—and the brothers are exonerated. Verne explained the scientific basis of the conclusion in the book's final chapter: + +For some time now it has been known—as a result of various interesting ophthalmological experiments done by certain ingenious scientists, authoritative observers that they are—that the image of exterior objects imprinted upon the retina of the eye are conserved there indefinitely. The organ of vision contains a particular substance, retinal purple, on which is imprinted in their exact form these images. They have even been perfectly reconstituted when the eye, after death, is removed and soaked in an alum bath. +In H.P. Lovecraft's short story "Out of the Aeons", the image of the Great Old One Ghatanothoa was kept on priest T'yog's retina after his death. +The 1936 Universal film The Invisible Ray features a scene in which Dr. Felix Benet (Bela Lugosi) uses an ultra-violet camera to photograph the dead eyes of Sir Francis Stevens (Walter Kingsford), who was murdered by Dr. Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff). The image developed by Benet shows Rukh to be the killer, but Benet drops the photographic plate, accidentally destroying the evidence. +Randall Garrett's 1964 fantasy story The Eyes Have It has an image magically developed from the retina of a corpse in a murder investigation. The image is said to be the result of the victim's visual system "backfiring" due to extreme shock, causing the picture in his mind to be returned to the retina. +Jim Morrison mentions Kuhne's experiments on rabbits in his text "Jim Morrison Raps" published in "Eye" magazine, October 1, 1968. +Italian film-maker Dario Argento's 1971 film Four Flies on Grey Velvet has characters use optography in an attempt to catch a murderer, with the description of the resulting image lending the film its title. +In the 1972 film Horror Express, various unearthly murders aboard a trans-Siberian train are investigated with a couple of autopsies, during which it is discovered that images are retained in a liquid found inside the eyeball of the corpse, which reveal a prehistoric Earth and a view of the planet seen from space and it is deduced that the threat is somehow a formless extraterrestrial that inhabited the body of the creature and now resides within a police inspector—the intelligence can "jump" from victim to victim via the eye—leaving the eyeball white and opaque (like that of a boiled fish.) +In the 1975 Doctor Who serial "The Ark in Space", the Fourth Doctor applies the theory with some of the ocular tissue of the alien Wirrn to project not just still images, but moving, video footage of the last moments of life of the Wirrn Queen thousands of years in the past. The Doctor likens it to an old Gypsy belief of the "eye retaining the last image after death", something not "too far from the truth". Thirty-eight years later, the 2013 Doctor Who episode "The Crimson Horror", set in Victorian England, portrays the character of Madame Vastra dismissing the validity of optography, until shown an image of the Eleventh Doctor in a dead man's eye. The image is explained as having registered after the victim was submerged in a chemical substance which caused his eyes to retain a latent image. +In the 1986 Manga Saint Seiya, there's an episode in which Ikki receives a warning from Black Cygnus' eye. +In the 1994 RoboCop: The Series, the first episode "The Future of Law Enforcement" Robocop takes a blurred image from a corpse's retina and then enhances it using a computer. +In Caleb Carr's 1994 book The Alienist optography is attempted, unsuccessfully, to identify a serial killer. +The 1999 film Wild Wild West features a scene where Artemis Gordon obtains a clue by projecting the optograms of a dead scientist on to a wall (much to the disgust of his colleague James West). +In 2007, the visual artist Derek Ogbourne created his 'Museum of Optography', after the trauma of being thumped in the eye a few years earlier. +A series of art exhibitions that had at their central core the idea of 'The Last Image' bleached on to the retina at the moment of death. His museum consisted of 300 works, four catalogues and his Encyclopedia of Optography that imperceptibly blended historical fact with fiction. +In the 2008 series Fringe ("The Same Old Story", season 1 episode 2), Walter uses an optographic image taken from the optic nerve of a woman killed whilst under the effect of a paralytic toxin to track down and arrest her murderer. +In the 2018 cyberpunk film Upgrade, the hitman Fisk Brantner uses a cybernetic implant embedded within his index finger to watch a playback of Tolan's (an associate of Fisk) final moments before being killed by Grey, recorded via optical implants within of Tolan's lenses. + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d8637e6d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +--- +title: "Orgone" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:37.581532+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Orgone ( OR-gohn) is a pseudoscientific concept variously described as an esoteric energy or hypothetical universal life force. Originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich, and developed by Reich's student Charles Kelley after Reich's death in 1957, orgone was conceived as the anti-entropic principle of the universe, a creative substratum in all of nature comparable to Mesmer's animal magnetism (1779), to the Odic force (1845) of Carl Reichenbach and to Henri Bergson's élan vital (1907). Orgone was seen as a massless, omnipresent substance, similar to luminiferous aether, but more closely associated with living energy than with inert matter. It could allegedly coalesce to create organization on all scales, from the smallest microscopic units—called "bions" in orgone theory—to macroscopic structures like organisms, clouds, or even galaxies. +Reich argued that deficits or constrictions in bodily orgone were at the root of many diseases, most prominently cancer, much as deficits or constrictions in the libido could produce neuroses in Freudian theory. Reich founded the Orgone Institute ca. 1942 +to pursue research into orgone energy after he immigrated to the US in 1939; he used it to publish literature and distribute material relating to the topic for over a decade. Reich designed special "orgone energy accumulators"—devices ostensibly collecting orgone energy from the environment—to enable the study of orgone energy and to be applied medically to improve general health and vitality. Ultimately, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) obtained a federal injunction barring the interstate distribution of orgone-related materials because Reich and his associates were making false and misleading claims. But an associate of Reich violated the injunction, and a judge later sentenced Reich to jail and ordered the banning and destruction of all orgone-related materials at the institute. +Reich denied the assertion that orgone accumulators could improve sexual health by providing orgastic potency. +The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health lists orgone as a type of "putative energy", writing that "putative energy fields (also called biofields) have defied measurement to date by reproducible methods. Therapies involving putative energy fields are based on the concept that human beings are infused with a subtle form of energy. This proposed vital energy or life force is known under different names in different cultures, such as qi ... prana, etheric energy, fohat, orgone, odic force, mana, and homeopathic resonance". +After Reich's death, research into the concept of orgone passed to some of his students, such as Kelley, and later to a new generation of researchers. An Institute for Orgonomic Science was founded in New York in 1982, dedicated to the continuation of Reich's work; it publishes a digital journal and collects corresponding works. However, there was no empirical support for the concept of orgone in medicine or the physical sciences, and research into the concept concluded with the end of the institute. +Nevertheless, Stefan Muschenich, a psychiatrist in Germany keen to discover an empirical basis for the orgone hypothesis, did publish some positive results in the 1980s and 90s. + +== History == +The concept of orgone belongs to Reich's later work after he emigrated to the US. Reich's early work was based on the Freudian concept of the libido, though influenced by sociological understandings with which Freud disagreed but which were to some degree followed by other prominent theorists such as Herbert Marcuse and Carl Jung. While Freud had focused on a solipsistic conception of mind in which unconscious and inherently selfish primal drives (primarily the sexual drive, or libido) were suppressed or sublimated by internal representations (cathexes) of parental figures (the superego), for Reich libido was a life-affirming force repressed by society directly. For example, in one of his better-known analyses, Reich observes a workers' political rally, noting that participants were careful not to violate signs that prohibited walking on the grass; Reich saw this as the state co-opting unconscious responses to parental authority as a means of controlling behavior. He was expelled from the Institute of Psycho-analysis because of these disagreements over the nature of the libido and his increasingly political stance. He was forced to leave Germany soon after Hitler came to power. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..db2e88839 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +--- +title: "Orgone" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:37.581532+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Reich took an increasingly bioenergetic view of libido, perhaps influenced by his tutor Paul Kammerer and another biologist, Otto Heinrich Warburg. In the early 20th century, when molecular biology was in its infancy, developmental biology in particular still presented mysteries that made the idea of a specific life energy respectable, as was articulated by theorists such as Hans Driesch. As a psycho-analyst, Reich aligned such theories with the Freudian libido, while as a materialist, he believed such a life force must be susceptible to physical experiments. +Reich wrote in his best-known book, The Function of the Orgasm: "Between 1919 and 1921, I became familiar with Driesch's 'Philosophie des Organischen' and his 'Ordnungslehre'… Driesch's contention seemed incontestable to me. He argued that, in the sphere of the life function, the whole could be developed from a part, whereas a machine could not be made from a screw… However, I couldn't quite accept the transcendentalism of the life principle. Seventeen years later I was able to resolve the contradiction on the basis of a formula pertaining to the function of energy. Driesch's theory was always present in my mind when I thought about vitalism. The vague feeling I had about the irrational nature of his assumption turned out to be justified in the end. He landed among the spiritualists." +The concept of orgone resulted from this work in the psycho-physiology of libido. After Reich migrated to the US, he began to speculate about biological development and evolution and then branched into much broader speculations about the nature of the universe. This led him to the conception of "bions," self-luminescent sub-cellular vesicles that he believed were observable in decaying materials and presumably present universally. Initially, he thought of bions as electrodynamic or radioactive entities, as had the Russian biologist Alexander Gurwitsch, but later concluded that he had discovered an entirely unknown but measurable force, which he then named "orgone": a neologism probably formed from the Greek root org- "impulse, excitement" (as in org-asm), plus the Greek neutral suffix -one (as in ozone). +For Reich, neurosis became a physical manifestation he called "body armor"—deeply seated tensions and inhibitions in the physical body that were not separated from any mental effects that might be observed. He developed a therapeutic approach he called vegetotherapy that was aimed at opening and releasing this body armor so that free instinctive reflexes—which he considered a token of psychic well-being—could take over. + +== Evaluation == +Orgone was closely associated with sexuality: Reich, following Freud, saw nascent sexuality as the primary energetic force of life. The term itself was chosen to share a root with the word orgasm, which both Reich and Freud took as a fundamental expression of psychological health. This focus on sexuality, while acceptable in the clinical perspective of Viennese psychoanalytic circles, scandalized the conservative American public even as it appealed to countercultural figures like William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. +In some cases, Reich's experimental techniques do not appear to have been very careful or include precautions to remove experimental bias. Reich was concerned with experimental verification from other scientists. Albert Einstein agreed to participate, but thought Reich's research lacked scientific detachment and experimental rigor, and concluded that the effect was simply due to the temperature gradient inside the room. "Through these experiments I regard the matter as completely solved," he wrote to Reich on 7 February 1941. Upon further correspondence from Reich, Einstein replied that he could not devote any additional time to the matter and asked that his name not be misused for advertising purposes. +Orgone and its related concepts were quickly denounced in the post-World War II American press. Reich and his students were seen as a "cult of sex and anarchy", at least in part because orgone was linked with the title of his book The Function of the Orgasm, and this led to numerous investigations as a communist and denunciation under a wide variety of other pretexts. The psychoanalytical community of the time saw his approach to healing diseases as quackery of the worst sort. In 1954, the US Food and Drug Administration obtained an injunction to prevent Reich from making medical claims relating to orgone, which prevented him from shipping "orgone devices" across state lines, among other stipulations. Reich resisted the order to cease interstate distribution of orgone and was jailed, and the FDA destroyed Reich's books, research materials, and devices at his institute relating to orgone. +Some psychotherapists and psychologists practicing various kinds of body psychotherapy and somatic psychology have continued to use Reich's proposed emotional-release methods and character-analysis ideas. + +== In popular culture == +Dušan Makavejev opened his 1971 satirical film W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism with documentary coverage of Reich and his development of orgone accumulators, combining this with other imagery and a fictional sub-plot in a collage mocking sexual and political authorities. Scenes include one of only "ten or fifteen orgone boxes left in the country" at that time. +The 2025 first-person shooter video game Psycho Patrol R references Reich's ideas. In the game's setting, orgone has been scientifically verified and is used as a power source for advanced technologies. + +== See also == +Alexander Gurwitsch +Animal magnetism of Franz Anton Mesmer +Energy (spiritual) +Energy medicine +Fringe science +Integratron +List of ineffective cancer treatments +Odic force of Carl Reichenbach +Rupert Sheldrake +Scientific skepticism +Thetan +Vitalism +Vril + +== References == + +== External links == + +Quackwatch article \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3cd27ae3d --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Orion correlation theory" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:38.746320+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Orion correlation theory is a fringe theory in Egyptology attempting to explain the arrangement of the Giza pyramid complex. +It posits that there is a correlation between the location of the three largest pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex and Orion's Belt of the constellation Orion, and that this correlation was intended as such by the original builders of the Giza pyramid complex. The stars of Orion were associated with Osiris, the god of rebirth and afterlife by the ancient Egyptians. Depending on the version of the idea, additional pyramids can be included to complete the picture of the Orion constellation, and the Nile river can be included to match with the Milky Way. +The idea was first published in 1989 in Discussions in Egyptology, volume 13. It was the subject of the book The Orion Mystery, in 1994, as well as a BBC documentary, The Great Pyramid: Gateway to the Stars (February 1994), and appears in some New Age books. + +== History == +The Orion correlation theory was put forward by Robert Bauval, and mentioned that Mintaka, the dimmest and most westerly of the stars making up Orion's belt, was offset slightly from the others. Bauval then made a connection between the layout of the three main stars in Orion's belt and the layout of the three main pyramids in the Giza pyramid complex. He published this idea in 1989 in the journal Discussions in Egyptology, volume 13. The idea has been further expounded by Bauval in collaboration with pseudoscientific authors Adrian Gilbert (The Orion Mystery, 1994) and Graham Hancock (Keeper of Genesis, 1996), as well as in their separate publications. The basis of this idea concerns the proposition that the relative positions of three main Ancient Egyptian pyramids on the Giza plateau was by design correlated with the relative positions of the three stars in the constellation of Orion which make up Orion's Belt, as these stars appeared in 10,000 BC. +Their initial ideas regarding the alignment of the Giza pyramids with Orion: "...the three pyramids were a terrestrial map of the three stars of Orion's belt" are later joined with speculation about the age of the Great Sphinx. According to these works, the Great Sphinx was constructed c. 10,500 BC (Upper Paleolithic), and its lion-shape is maintained to be a definitive reference to the constellation of Leo. Furthermore, the orientation and dispositions of the Sphinx, the Giza pyramids and the Nile River relative to one another on the ground is put forward as an accurate reflection or "map" of the constellations of Leo, Orion (specifically, Orion's Belt) and the Milky Way respectively. As Hancock puts it in 1998's The Mars Mystery (co-authored with Bauval): + + ...we have demonstrated with a substantial body of evidence that the pattern of stars that is "frozen" on the ground at Giza in the form of the three pyramids and the Sphinx represents the disposition of the constellations of Orion and Leo as they looked at the moment of sunrise on the spring equinox during the astronomical "Age of Leo" (i.e., the epoch in which the Sun was "housed" by Leo on the spring equinox.) Like all precessional ages this was a 2,160-year period. It is generally calculated to have fallen between the Gregorian calendar dates of 10,970 and 8810 BC. +The allusions to dates circa 12,500 years ago are significant to Hancock since this is the era he seeks to assign to the advanced progenitor civilization, now vanished, but which he contends through most of his works had existed and whose advanced technology influenced and shaped the development of the world's known civilizations of antiquity. Egyptology and archaeological science maintain that available evidence indicates that the Giza pyramids were constructed during the Fourth dynasty period (3rd millennium BC), while the exact date of the Great Sphinx is still unclear. + +== Critique == +Arguments made by Hancock, Bauval, Anthony West and others concerning the significance of the proposed correlations have been described as a form of pseudoarchaeology. +Among these are critiques from two astronomers, Ed Krupp of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and Tony Fairall of the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Using planetarium equipment, Krupp and Fairall independently investigated the angle between the alignment of Orion's Belt and north during the era cited by Hancock, Bauval, et al. (which differs from the angle seen today or in the third millennium BC, because of the precession of the equinoxes). They found that the angle was somewhat different from the "perfect match" thought to exist by Bauval and Hancock in the Orion correlation theory. They estimate 47–50 degrees per the planetarium measurements, compared to the 38-degree angle formed by the pyramids. + +Krupp pointed out that the slightly bent line formed by the three pyramids was deviated towards the north, whereas the slight "kink" in the line of Orion's Belt was deformed to the south, and to match them up one or the other of them had to be turned upside-down. Indeed, this is what was done in the original book by Bauval and Gilbert (The Orion Mystery), which compares images of the pyramids and Orion without revealing that the pyramids' map had been inverted. Krupp and Fairall found other problems with their arguments, including noting that if the Sphinx is meant to represent the constellation of Leo, then it should be on the opposite side of the Nile (the "Milky Way") from the pyramids ("Orion"), that the vernal equinox c. 10,500 BC was in Virgo and not Leo, and that in any case the constellations of the Zodiac originate from Mesopotamia and were completely unknown in Egypt until the much later Graeco-Roman era. Ed Krupp repeated this "upside down" statement in the BBC documentary Atlantis Reborn (1999). \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..021817600 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: "Orion correlation theory" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:38.746320+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== BBC documentary == +On 4 November 1999, the BBC broadcast a documentary entitled Atlantis Reborn which tested the ideas of Robert Bauval and his colleague, Graham Hancock. Bauval and Hancock afterwards complained to the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC) that they had been treated unfairly. +A hearing followed and in November 2000 the BSC ruled in favour of the documentary makers on all but one of the ten principal complaints brought by Hancock and Bauval. The one complaint upheld regarded the omission of their rebuttal of a specific argument against the Orion Correlation Theory. In regard of the nine remaining principal complaints, the BSC ruled against Hancock and Bauval, concluding that they had not been treated unfairly in the criticism of their theories concerning carbon-dating, the Great Sphinx of Egypt, Cambodia's Angkor temples, Japan's Yonaguni formation and the mythical land of Atlantis. +The BBC offered to broadcast a revised version of the documentary, which was welcomed by Hancock and Bauval. It was broadcast as Atlantis Reborn Again on 14 December 2000. The revised documentary continued to present serious doubts about Bauval and Hancock's ideas, as held by astronomer Anthony Fairall, Ed Krupp of the Griffith Observatory, Egyptologist Kate Spence of Cambridge University and Eleanor Mannikka of the University of Michigan. + +== Leo and the Sphinx == + +The Great Sphinx of Giza is commonly accepted by Egyptologists to represent the likeness of King Khafre who is often credited as the builder as well. This would place the time of construction somewhere between 2520 BC and 2494 BC. Because the limited evidence giving provenance to Khafre is ambiguous, the idea of who built the Sphinx, and when, continues to be the subject of debate. +An argument put forward by Bauval and Hancock to support the Orion Correlation Theory is that the construction of the Great Sphinx was begun in 10,500 BC; that the Sphinx's lion-shape is a definitive reference to the constellation of Leo; and that the layout and orientation of the Sphinx, the Giza pyramid complex and the Nile River are an accurate reflection or "map" of the constellations of Leo, Orion (specifically, Orion's Belt) and the Milky Way, respectively. +A date of 10,500 BC is chosen because they maintain this is the only time in the precession of the equinoxes when the astrological age was Leo and when that constellation rose directly east of the Sphinx at the vernal equinox. They also suggest that in this epoch the angles between the three stars of Orion's Belt and the horizon were an "exact match" to the angles between the three main Giza pyramids. These propositions and other theories are used to support the overall belief in an advanced and ancient, but now vanished, global progenitor civilization. +The proposition that the Sphinx was constructed in 10,500 BC lacks support from geologists. While Robert M. Schoch's Sphinx water erosion hypothesis suggests an earlier carving date between 7000–5000 BC, this hypothesis is largely dismissed as pseudoscientific. Colin Reader has suggested a date only several hundred years prior to the commonly accepted date for construction. These views have been almost universally rejected by mainstream Egyptologists who, together with a number of geologists including James Harrell, Lal Gauri, John J. Sinai, and Jayanta K. Bandyopadhyay, stand by the conventional dating for the monument. Their analyses attribute the apparently accelerated wear on the Sphinx variously to modern industrial pollution, qualitative differences between the layers of limestone in the monument itself, scouring by wind-borne sand, or temperature changes causing the stone to crack. + +== References == + +== External links == + +"The Giza Pyramids as a Stellar Representation of Orion's Belt" by Robert Bauval +"The Orion Correlation and Air-Shaft Theories" Archived 2012-07-12 at the Wayback Machine by John A.R. Legon +"Pyramid Marketing Schemes" by E. C. Krupp +"The Fundamental Flaws in the Orion-Giza Correlation Theory" by Ian Lawton \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5ae97069a --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +--- +title: "Osteopathy" +chunk: 1/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:40.057202+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Osteopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine that emphasizes physical manipulation of the body's muscle tissue and bones. In most countries, practitioners of osteopathy are not medically trained and are referred to as osteopaths. It is distinct from osteopathic medicine, which is a branch of the medical profession in the United States. +Osteopathic manipulation is the core set of techniques in osteopathy. Parts of osteopathy, such as craniosacral therapy, have been described by Quackwatch as having no therapeutic value and have been labeled by them as pseudoscience and quackery. The techniques are based on an ideology created by Andrew Taylor Still (1828–1917) that posits the existence of a "myofascial continuity"—a tissue layer that "links every part of the body with every other part". Osteopaths attempt to diagnose and treat what was originally called "the osteopathic lesion", but which is now named "somatic dysfunction", by manipulating a person's bones and muscles. Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (OMT) techniques are most commonly used to treat back pain and other musculoskeletal issues. +Osteopathic manipulation is still included in the curricula of osteopathic physicians or Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) training in the US; however, the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree became a medical degree and is no longer a degree of non-medical osteopathy. + +== History == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..41eefdfef --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +--- +title: "Osteopathy" +chunk: 2/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:40.057202+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The practice of osteopathy (from Ancient Greek ὀστέον (ostéon) 'bone' and πάθος (páthos) 'pain, suffering') began in the United States in 1874. The profession was founded by Andrew Taylor Still, a 19th-century American physician (MD), Civil War surgeon, and Kansas territorial and state legislator. He lived near Baldwin City, Kansas, during the American Civil War and it was there that he founded the practice of osteopathy. Still claimed that human illness was rooted in problems with the musculoskeletal system, and that osteopathic manipulations could solve these problems by harnessing the body's own self-repairing potential. Still's patients were forbidden from treatment by conventional medicine, as well as from other practices such as drinking alcohol. These practices derive from the belief, common in the early 19th century among proponents of alternative medicine, that the body's natural state tends toward health and inherently contains the capacity to battle any illness. This was opposed to orthodox practitioners, who held that intervention by a physician was necessary to restore health in the patient. Still established the basis for osteopathy, and the division between alternative medicine and traditional medicine had already been a major conflict for decades. +The foundations of this divergence may be traced back to the mid-18th century when advances in physiology began to localize the causes and nature of diseases to specific organs and tissues. Doctors began shifting their focus from the patient to the internal state of the body, resulting in an issue labeled as the problem of the "vanishing patient". A stronger movement towards experimental and scientific medicine was then developed. In the perspective of the DO physicians, the sympathy and holism that were integral to medicine in the past were left behind. Heroic medicine became the convention for treating patients, with aggressive practices like bloodletting and prescribing chemicals such as mercury, becoming the forefront in therapeutics. Alternative medicine had its beginnings in the early 19th century, when gentler practices in comparison to heroic medicine began to emerge. As each side sought to defend its practice, a schism began to present itself in the medical marketplace, with both practitioners attempting to discredit the other. The osteopathic physicians—those who are now referred to as DOs—argued that the non-osteopathic physicians had an overly mechanistic approach to treating patients, treated the symptoms of disease instead of the original causes, and were blind to the harm they were causing their patients. Other practitioners had a similar argument, labeling osteopathic medicine as unfounded, passive, and dangerous to a disease-afflicted patient. This was the medical environment that pervaded throughout the 19th century, and the setting Still entered when he began developing his idea of osteopathy. +After experiencing the loss of his wife and three daughters to spinal meningitis and noting that the current orthodox medical system could not save them, Still may have been prompted to shape his reformist attitudes towards conventional medicine. Still set out to reform the orthodox medical scene and establish a practice that did not so readily resort to drugs, purgatives, and harshly invasive therapeutics to treat a person suffering from ailment, similar to the mindset of the irregulars in the early 19th century. Thought to have been influenced by spiritualist figures such as Andrew Jackson Davis and ideas of magnetic and electrical healing, Still began practicing manipulative procedures that intended to restore harmony in the body. Over the course of the next twenty five years, Still attracted support for his medical philosophy that disapproved of orthodox medicine, and shaped his philosophy for osteopathy. Components included the idea that structure and function are interrelated and the importance of each piece of the body in the harmonious function of its whole. +Still sought to establish a new medical school that could produce physicians trained under this philosophy, and be prepared to compete against the orthodox physicians. He established the American School of Osteopathy on 20 May 1892, in Kirksville, Missouri, with twenty-one students in the first class. Still described the foundations of osteopathy in his book "The Philosophy and Mechanical Principles of Osteopathy" in 1892. He named his new school of medicine "osteopathy", reasoning that "the bone, osteon, was the starting point from which [he] was to ascertain the cause of pathological conditions". He would eventually claim that he could "shake a child and stop scarlet fever, croup, diphtheria, and cure whooping cough in three days by a wring of its neck." +When the state of Missouri granted the right to award the MD degree, he remained dissatisfied with the limitations of conventional medicine and instead chose to retain the distinction of the DO degree. In the early 20th century, osteopaths across the United States sought to establish law that would legitimize their medical degree to the standard of the modern medic. The processes were arduous, and not without conflict. In some states, it took years for the bills to be passed. Osteopaths were often ridiculed and in some cases arrested, but in each state, osteopaths managed to achieve the legal acknowledgement and action they set out to pursue. In 1898 the American Institute of Osteopathy started the Journal of Osteopathy and by that time four states recognized osteopathy as a profession. + +== Practice == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..77aa635c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +--- +title: "Osteopathy" +chunk: 3/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:40.057202+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +According to the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) is considered to be only one component of osteopathic medicine and may be used alone or in combination with pharmacotherapy, rehabilitation, surgery, patient education, diet, and exercise. OMT techniques are not necessarily unique to osteopathic medicine; other disciplines, such as physical therapy or chiropractic, use similar techniques. Indeed, many DOs do not practice OMT at all, and, over time, DOs in general practice use OMT less and less and instead apply the common medical treatments. +One integral tenet of osteopathy is that problems in the body's anatomy can affect its proper functioning. Another tenet is the body's innate ability to heal itself. Many of osteopathic medicine's manipulative techniques are aimed at reducing or eliminating the impediments to proper structure and function so the self-healing mechanism can assume its role in restoring a person to health. Osteopathic medicine defines a concept of health care that embraces the concept of the unity of the living organism's structure (anatomy) and function (physiology). The AOA states that the four major principles of osteopathic medicine are the following: + +The body is an integrated unit of mind, body, and spirit. +The body possesses self-regulatory mechanisms, having the inherent capacity to defend, repair, and remodel itself. +Structure and function are reciprocally interrelated. +Rational therapy is based on consideration of the first three principles. +These principles are not held by Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine to be empirical laws; they serve, rather, as the underpinnings of the osteopathic approach to health and disease. + +=== Muscle energy === + +Muscle energy techniques address somatic dysfunction through stretching and muscle contraction. For example, if a person is unable to fully abduct their arm, the treating physician raises the patient's arm near the end of the patient's range of motion, also called the edge of the restrictive barrier. The patient then tries to lower their arm, while the physician provides resistance. This resistance against the patient's motion allows for isotonic contraction of the patient's muscle. Once the patient relaxes, their range of motion increases slightly. The repetition of alternating cycles of contraction and subsequent relaxation help the treated muscle improve its range of motion. Muscle energy techniques are contraindicated in patients with fractures, crush injuries, joint dislocations, joint instability, severe muscle spasms or strains, severe osteoporosis, severe whiplash injury, vertebrobasilar insufficiency, severe illness, and recent surgery. + +=== Counterstrain === + +Counterstrain is a system of diagnosis and treatment that considers the physical dysfunction to be a continuing, inappropriate strain reflex, which is inhibited during treatment by applying a position of mild strain in the direction exactly opposite to that of the reflex. After a counterstrain point tender to palpation has been diagnosed, the identified tender point is treated by the osteopathic physician who, while monitoring the tender point, positions the patient such that the point is no longer tender to palpation. This position is held for ninety seconds and the patient is subsequently returned to their normal posture. Most often this position of ease is usually achieved by shortening the muscle of interest. Improvement or resolution of the tenderness at the identified counterstrain point is the desired outcome. The use of counterstrain technique is contraindicated in patients with severe osteoporosis, pathology of the vertebral arteries, and in patients who are very ill or cannot voluntarily relax during the procedure. + +=== High-velocity, low-amplitude manipulation === +High velocity, low amplitude (HVLA) manipulation is a technique which employs a rapid, targeted, therapeutic force of brief duration that travels a short distance within the anatomic range of motion of a joint and engages the restrictive barrier in one or more places of motion to elicit release of restriction. The use of HVLA is contraindicated in patients with Down syndrome due to instability of the atlantoaxial joint which may stem from ligamentous laxity, and in pathologic bone conditions such as fracture, history of a pathologic fracture, osteomyelitis, osteoporosis, and severe cases of rheumatoid arthritis. HVLA is also contraindicated in patients with vascular disease such as aneurysms, or disease of the carotid arteries or vertebral arteries. People taking ciprofloxacin or anticoagulants, or who have local metastases should not receive HVLA. + +=== Myofascial release === + +Myofascial release is a form of alternative treatment. The practitioners claim to treat skeletal muscle immobility and pain by relaxing contracted muscles. Palpatory feedback by the practitioner is said to be an integral part to achieving a release of myofascial tissues, accomplished by relaxing contracted muscles, increasing circulation and lymphatic drainage, and stimulating the stretch reflex of muscles and overlying fascia. +Practitioners who perform myofascial release consider the fascia and its corresponding muscle to be the main targets of their procedure, but assert that other tissue may be affected as well, including other connective tissue. Fascia is the soft tissue component of the connective tissue that provides support and protection for most structures within the human body, including muscle. This soft tissue can become restricted due to psychogenic disease, overuse, trauma, infectious agents, or inactivity, often resulting in pain, muscle tension, and corresponding diminished blood flow. +Some osteopaths search for small lumps of tissue, called "Chapman release points" as part of their diagnostic procedure. + +=== Lymphatic pump treatment === + +Lymphatic pump treatment (LPT) is a manual technique intended to encourage lymph flow in a person's lymphatic system. The first modern lymphatic pump technique was developed in 1920, although osteopathic physicians used various forms of lymphatic techniques as early as the late 19th century. +Relative contraindications for the use of lymphatic pump treatments include fractures, abscesses or localized infections, and severe bacterial infections with body temperature elevated higher than 102 °F (39 °C). \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f53818b89 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Osteopathy" +chunk: 4/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:40.057202+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Effectiveness == +A 2005 Cochrane review of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) in asthma treatment concluded that there was insufficient evidence that OMT can be used to treat asthma. +In 2013, a Cochrane review reviewed six randomized controlled trials which investigated the effect of four types of chest physiotherapy (including OMT) as adjunctive treatments for pneumonia in adults and concluded that "based on current limited evidence, chest physiotherapy might not be recommended as routine additional treatment for pneumonia in adults." Techniques investigated in the study included paraspinal inhibition, rib raising, and myofascial release. The review found that OMT did not reduce mortality and did not increase cure rate, but that OMT slightly reduced the duration of hospital stay and antibiotic use. A 2013 systematic review of the use of OMT for treating pediatric conditions concluded that its effectiveness was unproven. +In 2014, a systematic review and meta-analysis of 15 randomized controlled trials found moderate-quality evidence that OMT reduces pain and improves functional status in acute and chronic nonspecific low back pain. The same analysis also found moderate-quality evidence for pain reduction for nonspecific low back pain in postpartum women and low-quality evidence for pain reduction in nonspecific low back pain in pregnant women. A 2013 systematic review found insufficient evidence to rate osteopathic manipulation for chronic nonspecific low back pain. In 2011, a systematic review found no compelling evidence that osteopathic manipulation was effective for the treatment of musculoskeletal pain. +A 2018 systematic review found that there is no evidence for the reliability or specific efficacy of the techniques used in visceral osteopathy. +The New England Journal of Medicine's 4 November 1999 issue concluded that patients with chronic low back pain can be treated effectively with manipulation. The United Kingdom's National Health Service says there is "limited evidence" that osteopathy "may be effective for some types of neck, shoulder or lower limb pain and recovery after hip or knee operations", but that there is no evidence that osteopathy is effective as a treatment for health conditions unrelated to the bones and muscles. Others have concluded that there is insufficient evidence to suggest efficacy for osteopathic style manipulation in treating musculoskeletal pain. + +== Criticism == +The American Medical Association listed DOs as "cultists" and deemed MD consultation of DOs unethical from 1923 until 1962. MDs regarded that osteopathic treatments were rooted in "pseudoscientific dogma", and although physicians from both branches of medicine have been able to meet on common ground, tensions between the two continue. +In 1988, Petr Skrabanek classified osteopathy as one of the "paranormal" forms of alternative medicine, commenting that it has a view of disease which had no meaning outside its own closed system. +In a 1995 conference address, the president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, Jordan J. Cohen, pinpointed OMT as a defining difference between MDs and DOs; while he saw there was no quarrel in the appropriateness of manipulation for musculoskeletal treatment, the difficulty centered on "applying manipulative therapy to treat other systemic diseases"—at that point, Cohen maintained, "we enter the realm of skepticism on the part of the allopathic world." +In 1998, Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch said that the worth of manipulative therapy had been exaggerated and that the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) was acting unethically by failing to condemn craniosacral therapy. The article attracted a letter from the law firm representing the AOA accusing Barrett of libel and demanding an apology to avert legal action. In response, Barrett made some slight modifications to his text, while maintaining its overall stance; he queried the AOA's reference to "the body's natural tendency toward good health", and challenged them to "provide [him] with adequate scientific evidence showing how this belief has been tested and demonstrated to be true." Barrett has been quoted as saying, "the pseudoscience within osteopathy can't compete with the science". +In 1999, Joel D. Howell noted that osteopathy and medicine as practiced by MDs were becoming increasingly convergent. He suggested that this raised a paradox: "if osteopathy has become the functional equivalent of allopathy, what is the justification for its continued existence? And if there is value in therapy that is uniquely osteopathic – that is, based on osteopathic manipulation or other techniques – why should its use be limited to osteopaths?" +In 2004, the osteopathic physician Bryan E. Bledsoe, a professor of emergency medicine, wrote disparagingly of the "pseudoscience" at the foundation of OMT. In his view, "OMT will and should follow homeopathy, magnetic healing, chiropractic, and other outdated practices into the pages of medical history." +In 2010, Steven Salzberg wrote that OMT was promoted as a special distinguishing element of DO training, but that it amounted to no more than "'extra' training in pseudoscientific practices." It has been suggested that osteopathic physicians may be more likely than MDs to be involved in questionable practices such as orthomolecular therapy and homeopathy. +Science writer Harriet Hall stated that DOs trained in the U.S. are Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine and are legally equivalent to MDs. "They must be distinguished from 'osteopaths', members of a less regulated or unregulated profession that is practiced in many countries. Osteopaths get inferior training that can't be compared to that of DOs." \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..96dd8a922 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +--- +title: "Osteopathy" +chunk: 5/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:40.057202+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Regulation and legal status == +The osteopathic profession has evolved into two branches: non-physician manual medicine osteopaths and full-scope medical practice osteopathic physicians. The two groups are so distinct that in practice they function as separate professions. The regulation of non-physician manual medicine osteopaths varies greatly between jurisdictions. In Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Switzerland, the UAE and the UK, non-physician manual medicine osteopaths are regulated by statute; their practice of osteopathy requires registration with the relevant regulatory authority. The Osteopathic International Alliance (OIA) publishes a country guide that details registration and practice rights, while the International Osteopathic Association maintains a list of all accredited osteopathic colleges. +Several international and national organizations are involved in osteopathic education and political advocacy. The OIA is an international body that oversees national osteopathic and osteopathic medical associations, statutory regulators, and universities or medical schools offering osteopathic and osteopathic medical education. +The following sections describe the legal status of osteopathy and osteopathic medicine in each country listed. + +=== Australia === + +A majority of osteopaths work in private practice, with osteopaths working within aged care, traffic and workers compensation schemes or co-located with medical practitioners. Osteopaths are not considered physicians or medical doctors in Australia, rather as allied health professionals offering private practice care. The majority of private health insurance providers cover treatment performed by osteopaths, as do many government based schemes such as veteran's affairs or workers compensations schemes In addition, treatment performed by osteopaths is covered by the public healthcare system in Australia (Medicare) under the Chronic Disease Management plan. +Osteopathy Australia (formerly the Australian Osteopathic Association) is a national organization representing the interests of Australian osteopaths, osteopathy as a profession in Australia, and consumers' right to access osteopathic services. Founded in 1955 in Victoria, the Australian Osteopathic Association became a national body in 1991 and became Osteopathy Australia in 2014. and is a member of the Osteopathic International Alliance. +The Osteopathy Board of Australia is part of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency which is the regulatory body for all recognized health care professions in Australia. The Osteopathic Board of Australia is separate from the Medical Board of Australia which is the governing body that regulates medical practitioners. Osteopaths trained internationally may be eligible for registration in Australia, dependent on their level of training and following relevant competency assessment. +Students training to be an osteopath in Australia must study in an approved program in an accredited university. Current accredited courses are either four or five years in length. To achieve accreditation universities courses must demonstrate the capabilities of graduates. The capabilities are based on the CanMEDS competency framework that was developed by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. +A 2018 large scale study, representing a response rate of 49.1% of the profession indicated the average age of the participants was 38.0 years, with 58.1% being female and the majority holding a Bachelor or higher degree qualification for osteopathy. The study also estimated a total of 3.9 million patients consulted osteopaths every year in Australia. Most osteopaths work in referral relationships with a range of other health services, managing patients primarily with musculoskeletal disorders. + +=== Canada === +In Canada, the titles "osteopath" and "osteopathic physician" are protected in some provinces by the medical regulatory college for physicians and surgeons. As of 2011, there were approximately 20 U.S.-trained osteopathic physicians, all of which held a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree, practicing in all of Canada. As of 2014, no training programs have been established for osteopathic physicians in Canada. +The non-physician manual practice of osteopathy is practiced in most Canadian provinces. As of 2014, manual osteopathic practice is not a government-regulated health profession in any province, and those interested in pursuing osteopathic studies must register in private osteopathy schools. It is estimated that there are over 1,300 osteopathic manual practitioners in Canada, most of whom practice in Quebec and Ontario. Some sources indicate that there are between 1,000 and 1,200 osteopaths practicing in the province of Quebec, and although this number might seem quite elevated, many osteopathy clinics are adding patients on waiting lists due to a shortage of osteopaths in the province. + +==== Quebec ==== +Beginning in 2009, Université Laval in Quebec City was working with the Collège d'études ostéopathiques in Montreal on a project to implement a professional osteopathy program consisting of a bachelor's degree followed by a professional master's degree in osteopathy as manual therapy. However, due to the many doubts concerning the scientific credibility of osteopathy from the university's faculty of medicine, the program developers decided to abandon the project in 2011, after 2+1⁄2 years of discussion, planning, and preparation for the program implementation. There was some controversy with the final decision of the university's committee regarding the continuous undergraduate and professional graduate program in osteopathy because the Commission of studies, which is in charge of evaluating new training programs offered by the university, had judged that the program had its place at Université Laval before receiving the unfavourable support decision from the faculty of medicine. Had the program been implemented, Université Laval would have been the first university institution in Quebec to offer a professional program in osteopathy as a manual therapy. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a593f4e67 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ +--- +title: "Osteopathy" +chunk: 6/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:40.057202+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Egypt and the Middle East === +Hesham Khalil introduced osteopathy in the Middle East at a local physical therapy conference in Cairo, Egypt in 2005 with a lecture titled "The global Osteopathic Concept / Holistic approach in Somatic Dysfunction". Since then he has toured the Middle East to introduce osteopathy in other Middle Eastern and North African countries, including Sudan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Oman. +In December 2007 the first Workshop on Global osteopathic approach was held at the Nasser Institute Hospital for Research and Treatment, sponsored by the Faculty of Physical Therapy, University of Cairo, Egypt. On 6 August 2010, the Egyptian Osteopathic Society (OsteoEgypt) was founded. OsteoEgypt promotes a two-tier model of osteopathy in Egypt and the Middle East. The event was timed to coincide with the birthday of A.T. Still. + +=== European Union === +There is no European regulatory authority for the practice of osteopathy or osteopathic medicine within the European Union; each country has its own rules. The UK's General Osteopathic Council, a regulatory body set up under the country's Osteopaths Act 1993, issued a position paper on European regulation of osteopathy in 2005. + +==== Belgium ==== +Since the early 1970s, osteopaths have been practicing in Belgium, during which time several attempts have been made to obtain an official status of health care profession. In 1999, a law was voted (the 'Colla-Law') providing a legal framework for osteopathy, amongst three other non-conventional medical professions. +In 2011, the former Belgian Minister Onkelinx set up the Chambers for Non-Conventional Medicines and the Joint Commission provided for in the "Colla-law" (1999). Their goal was to discuss and reach an agreement between the various medical professions to rule on these practices. In February 2014, only one practice, homeopathy, received its recognition. The others, including osteopathy, remain unresolved. + +==== Finland ==== +Osteopathy has been a recognized health profession since 1994 in Finland. It is regulated by law along with chiropractors and naprapaths. These professions require at least a four-year education. Currently there are three osteopathic schools in Finland, one which is public and two private ones. + +==== France ==== +Osteopathy is a governmentally recognized profession and has title protection, autorisation d'utiliser le titre d'ostéopathe. The most recent decree regarding osteopathy was enacted in 2014. + +==== Germany ==== +Germany has both osteopathy and osteopathic medicine. There is a difference in the osteopathic education between non-physician osteopaths, physiotherapists, and medical physicians. +Physiotherapists are a recognized health profession and can achieve a degree of "Diploma in Osteopathic Therapy (D.O.T.)". Non-physician osteopaths are not medically licensed. They have an average total of 1200 hours of training, roughly half being in manual therapy and osteopathy, with no medical specialization before they attain their degree. Non-physician osteopaths in Germany officially work under the "Heilpraktiker" law. Heilpraktiker is a separate profession within the health care system. There are many schools of osteopathy in Germany; most are moving toward national recognition although such recognition does not currently exist. In Germany, there are state level rules governing which persons (non-physicians) may call themselves osteopaths. + +==== Portugal ==== +Osteopathy is a governmentally recognized health profession and the title of Osteopath is protected by Law (Act 45/2003, of 22 October, and Act 71/2013, of 2 September). Currently there are eight faculties that teach the four-year degree course of osteopathy (BSc Hon in Osteopathy). + +=== India === +Sri Sri University offers BSc and MSc Osteopathy programmes. + +=== New Zealand === +The practice of osteopathy is regulated by law, under the terms of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 which came into effect on 18 September 2004. Under the act, it is a legal requirement to be registered with the Osteopathic Council of New Zealand (OCNZ), and to hold an annual practicing certificate issued by them, in order to practice as an osteopath. Each of the fifteen health professions regulated by the HPCA act work within the "Scope of Practice" determined and published by its professional board or council. Osteopaths in New Zealand are not fully licensed physicians. In New Zealand, in addition to the general scope of practice, osteopaths may also hold the Scope of Practice for Osteopaths using western medical acupuncture and related needling techniques. +In New Zealand a course is offered at the Unitec Institute of Technology (Unitec). Australasian courses consist of a bachelor's degree in clinical science (osteopathy) followed by a master's degree. The Unitec double degree programme is the OCNZ prescribed qualification for registration in the scope of practice: Australian qualifications accredited by the Australian and New Zealand Osteopathic Council are also prescribed qualifications. +Osteopaths registered and in good standing with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency – Osteopathy Board of Australian are eligible to register in New Zealand under the mutual recognition system operating between the two countries. Graduates from programs in every other country are required to complete an assessment procedure. +The scope of practice for US-trained osteopathic physicians is unlimited on an exceptions basis. Full licensure to practice medicine is awarded on an exceptions basis following a hearing before the licensing authorities in New Zealand. Both the Medical Council of New Zealand and the OCNZ regulate osteopathic physicians in New Zealand. Currently, the country has no recognized osteopathic medical schools. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-6.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-6.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4ab9086b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy-6.md @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +--- +title: "Osteopathy" +chunk: 7/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:40.057202+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== United Kingdom === +The British School of Osteopathy (now the University College of Osteopathy) was the first school of osteopathy in Britain, established in London in 1917 by John Martin Littlejohn, a pupil of A.T. Still, who had been Dean of the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. After many years of existing outside the mainstream of health care provision, the osteopathic profession in the United Kingdom was accorded formal recognition by Parliament by the Osteopaths Act 1993. This legislation provides the profession of osteopathy with the same legal framework of statutory self-regulation as other healthcare professions, such as medicine and dentistry. The Act provides for "protection of title": a person who expressly or implicitly describes themself as an osteopath, osteopathic practitioner, osteopathic physician, osteopathist, osteotherapist, or any kind of osteopath, is guilty of an offence unless registered as an osteopath. +The General Osteopathic Council (GOsC) regulates the practice of osteopathy under the terms of the Act. Under British law, an osteopath must be registered with the GOsC to practice in the United Kingdom. More than 5,300 osteopaths were registered in the UK as of 2021. The GOsC has a statutory duty to promote, develop and regulate the profession of osteopathy in the UK and to protect the interests of the public by ensuring that all osteopaths maintain high standards of safety, competence and professional conduct throughout their professional lives. In order to be registered, an osteopath must hold a recognized qualification that meets the standards as set out by law in the GOsC's Osteopathic Practice Standards. +Practising osteopaths will usually have a BS or MSc in osteopathy. Accelerated courses leading to accreditation are available for those with a medical degree and physiotherapists. The London College of Osteopathic Medicine teaches osteopathy only to those who are already physicians. + +=== United States === + +An osteopathic physician in the United States is a physician trained in the full scope of medical practice, with a degree of Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO). With the increased internationalization of osteopathy, the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) recommended in 2010 that the older terms osteopathy and osteopath be reserved for "informal or historical discussions and for referring to previously named entities in the profession and foreign-trained osteopaths", and replaced in the US by osteopathic medicine and osteopathic physician. The American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine made a similar recommendation. +Those trained only in manual osteopathic treatment, generally to relieve muscular and skeletal conditions, are referred to as osteopaths, and are not permitted to use the title DO in the United States to avoid confusion with osteopathic physicians. + +== See also == +Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine +List of medical schools in the United States +List of osteopathic colleges +Osteopathic medicine in the United States +Spinal manipulation + +== References == + +== Further reading == +American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (2011); Glossary of Osteopathic Terminology Archived 2 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine. +Collins, Martin (2005). Osteopathy in Britain: The First Hundred Years. London: Martin Collins. ISBN 978-1-4196-0784-4. +Crislip M (4 October 2013). "Pump it up: osteopathic manipulation and influenza". Science-based Medicine. Retrieved 7 February 2014. +DiGiovanna, Eileen; Schiowitz, S; Dowling, DD (2005). An Osteopathic Approach to Diagnosis and Treatment (3rd ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. ISBN 978-0-7817-4293-1. +Savarese, Robert G.; Copabianco, John D.; Cox, James J. (2009). OMT review. Robert G. Savarese. ISBN 978-0-9670090-1-8. +Smith, J.C. (2009). "Manipulative and Body-based Practices". Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical Thinker's Toolkit. John Wiley & Sons. p. 342. ISBN 978-1-4443-1013-9 – via Google Books. +Stone, Caroline (2002). Science in the Art of Osteopathy: Osteopathic Principles and Practice. Cheltenham, UK: Nelson Thornes. ISBN 978-0-7487-3328-6. +Ward, Robert C. (2002). Foundations for Osteopathic Medicine (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. ISBN 0-7817-3497-5. + +== External links == + Media related to Osteopathy at Wikimedia Commons \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_therapy-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_therapy-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..90d1c1652 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_therapy-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Ozone therapy" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_therapy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:41.272056+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Ozone therapy is an alternative medical treatment that introduces ozone or ozonides to the body. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibits all medical uses of ozone "in any medical condition for which there is no proof of safety and effectiveness", stating "ozone is a toxic gas with no known useful medical application in specific, adjunctive, or preventive therapy. For ozone to be germicidal, it must be present in a concentration far greater than that which can be safely tolerated by man and animals." +Ozone therapy has been sold as an unproven treatment for various illnesses, including cancer, a practice which has been characterized as "pure quackery". The therapy can cause serious adverse effects, including death. + +== Proposed uses == + +Ozone therapy consists of the introduction of ozone into the body via various methods, usually involving its mixture with various gases and liquids before injection, with potential routes including the vagina, rectum, into a muscle, under the skin, or directly into a vein. Ozone can also be introduced via autohemotherapy, in which blood is drawn from the patient, exposed to ozone, and re-injected into the patient. +This therapy has been proposed as a primary or adjunct therapy for various diseases, including osteoarthritis, herniated disk, chronic wounds, hepatitis B and C, herpes zoster, human papillomavirus infection, HIV-AIDS, multiple sclerosis, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's dementia, and Lyme disease, though supportive evidence for some of these applications is limited. The American Cancer Society warned in 2010 that evidence for the efficacy of ozone therapy against cancer is inconclusive, and the therapy may be dangerous. For treatment of HIV/AIDS, although ozone deactivates the viral particles in vitro, well-designed studies have shown there is no benefit for living patients. +The United States Food and Drug Administration initially stated in 1976, and reiterated its position in 2006, that when inhaled, ozone is a toxic gas that has no demonstrated safe medical application, though their position statements primarily deal with its potential for causing inflammation and pulmonary edema in the lungs. They also emphasize that for ozone to be effective as a germicide, it must be present at concentrations far greater than can be safely tolerated by humans or other animals. More recent reviews have highlighted that different routes of administration may result in different therapeutic and side-effect profiles. +Some reviews have suggested ozone as a potential treatment for herniated discs and diabetic neuropathy. There is some controversy about its use by athletes to increase performance despite numerous adverse side effects within the pulmonary and/or skeletal muscle systems. Although its use is not disallowed in and of itself, it can be mixed with banned substances for administration prior to injection. + +== Safety == +Ozone therapy has potentially serious adverse effects, and as of 2012 at least five deaths had been reported due to the therapy's use on people with cancer. From 1975 to 1983 in Germany, research revealed six deaths, four cases of visual disturbance, three cases of paraplegias, four gas embolisms in the pulmonary circuit, two myocardial infarction, four pulmonary embolisms, two cases of apoplexy paralysis, and two cases of cardiac arrhythmia following ozone therapy. More commonly, pulmonary edema is the most prevalent adverse effect of ozone treatment. In the muscular system, many cases of tendon rupture, osteoarthritis, myositis, synovitis, joint infections, and muscle tears have been documented as results of ozone therapy. In the integumentary system, benign skin discoloration is most common. These all occurred following direct injection of O2/O3 gas: a method now regarded as malpractice by most ozone practitioners. In each case, the clinical picture corresponded either to gas embolism, or allergic shock. The fact that one case of apparent allergic shock followed the injection of a minute quantity of gas raises the unknown possibility that other methods of administration might also carry the risk of allergic shock. +Much of the concern related to ozone therapy revolves around the safety of blood ozonation. When inhaled by mammals in high levels, ozone reacts with compounds in tissues lining the lungs and triggers a cascade of pathological effects, including pulmonary edema, however, ozone therapy does not usually involve inhalation of ozone gas. It has been argued that while peroxides (a product of ozone) are naturally generated inside phagocyte cells to kill bacteria, outside the cell they can damage tissue. Proponents suggest that its effects are tissue-dependent, though the subject is still debated. +Other serious incidents reported include transmission of hepatitis C. Ozone-based treatments can be associated with central nervous system toxicity, termed Ozone Induced Encephalopathy (OIE). + +== Regulation and ethics == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_therapy-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_therapy-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..573f1cabe --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_therapy-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Ozone therapy" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_therapy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:41.272056+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The FDA prohibits the medical use of ozone "in any medical condition for which there is no proof of safety and effectiveness", stating that "ozone is a toxic gas with no known useful medical application in specific, adjunctive, or preventive therapy. For ozone to be germicidal, it must be present in a concentration far greater than that which can be safely tolerated by man and animals." +Beginning in 1991 the FDA has prosecuted and sent to jail several people presenting themselves as medical doctors and selling ozone therapy products as a medical cure or operating medical clinics using ozone therapy for healing human illness. Arrests following similar activity have been made in other countries as well, including Uganda and Thailand. +Ozone therapy is sold as an expensive alternative cancer treatment in Germany. David Gorski has described the practice as "pure quackery". Proponents of the therapy falsely claim it is a recognized therapy there, but the German medical establishment has not approved ozone therapy. +In 2009, a panel of experts consulted by Forbes recommended that ozone therapy be included on a "list of the most egregious, dangerous, aggressively marketed health scams." +Ozone therapy was banned in Malaysia in 2017. The Malaysian Health Ministry determined that the treatment could cause serious harm and had no scientific support as a treatment for any condition. +On 7 August 2023, the Brazilian government legalized ozone therapy as a complementary therapy, ignoring a request for veto due to lack of scientific evidence made in an open letter from the Brazilian National Academy of Medicine. + +== History == +In 1856, just 16 years after its discovery, ozone was first used in a healthcare setting to disinfect operating rooms and sterilize surgical instruments. By the end of the 19th century the use of ozone to disinfect drinking water of bacteria and viruses was well established in mainland Europe. +In 1892 The Lancet published an article describing the administration of ozone for treatment of tuberculosis. During World War I, ozone was tested at Queen Alexandra Military Hospital in London as a possible disinfectant for wounds. The gas was applied directly to wounds for as long as 15 minutes. This resulted in damage to both bacterial cells and human tissue. Other sanitizing techniques, such as irrigation with antiseptics, were preferable. +The psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich was a proponent of ozone therapy, which was supposed to enhance an imaginary life force he called orgone. Reich developed a device utilizing ozonides in his work on bioenergetic analysis. + +== See also == +Ozone health effects +Air ioniser +Gerson therapy - which can involve the use of ozone solutions for enemas +List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments + +== References == + +== External links == +Ozone Generators that are Sold as Air Cleaners - factsheet at US EPA \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0dae45ab6 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Paleolithic diet" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:43.730781+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Paleolithic diet, Paleo diet, caveman diet, or Stone Age diet is a modern fad diet consisting of foods thought by its proponents to mirror those eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era. +The diet avoids food processing and typically includes vegetables, fruits, nuts, roots, and meat and excludes dairy products, grains, sugar, legumes, processed oils, salt, alcohol, and coffee. Historians can trace the ideas behind the diet to "primitive" diets advocated in the 19th century. In the 1970s, Walter L. Voegtlin popularized a meat-centric "Stone Age" diet; in the 21st century, the best-selling books of Loren Cordain popularized the "Paleo diet". As of 2019 the Paleolithic diet industry was worth approximately US$500 million. +In the 21st century, the sequencing of the human genome and DNA analysis of the remains of anatomically modern humans have found evidence that humans evolved rapidly in response to changing diet. This evidence undermines a core premise of the Paleolithic diet—that human digestion has remained essentially unchanged over time. Paleoanthropological evidence has indicated that prehistoric humans ate plant-heavy diets that regularly included grains and other starchy vegetables, in contrast to the claims made by proponents of the Paleolithic diet. +Advocates promote the Paleolithic diet as a way of improving health. There is some evidence that following it may lead to improvements in body composition and metabolism compared with the typical Western diet or compared with diets recommended by some European nutritional guidelines. On the other hand, following the diet can lead to nutritional deficiencies, such as an inadequate calcium intake, and side effects can include weakness, diarrhea, and headaches. + +== History and terminology == +Adrienne Rose Johnson writes that the idea that the primitive diet was superior to current dietary habits dates back to the 1890s with such writers as Emmet Densmore and John Harvey Kellogg, the founder of the eponymous breakfast cereal company. Densmore proclaimed that "bread is the staff of death", while Kellogg supported a diet of starchy and grain-based foods in accord with "the ways and likings of our primitive ancestors". Arnold DeVries advocated an early version of the Paleolithic diet in his 1952 book, Primitive Man and His Food. In 1958, Richard Mackarness authored Eat Fat and Grow Slim, which proposed a low-carbohydrate "Stone Age" diet. +In his 1975 book The Stone Age Diet, gastroenterologist Walter L. Voegtlin advocated a meat-based diet, with low proportions of vegetables and starchy foods, based on his declaration that humans were "exclusively flesh-eaters" until 10,000 years ago. +In 1985 Stanley Boyd Eaton and Melvin Konner published a controversial article in the New England Journal of Medicine proposing that modern humans were biologically very similar to their primitive ancestors and so "genetically programmed" to consume pre-agricultural foods. Eaton and Konner proposed a "discordance hypothesis" by which the mismatch between modern diet and human biology gave rise to lifestyle diseases, such as obesity and diabetes. +The diet started to become popular in the 21st century, where it attracted a largely internet-based following using web sites, forums and social media. +This diet's ideas were further popularized by Loren Cordain, a health scientist with a Ph.D. in physical education, who trademarked the words "The Paleo Diet" and who wrote a 2002 book of that title. +In 2012 the Paleolithic diet was described as being one of the "latest trends" in diets, based on the popularity of diet books about it; in 2013 and 2014 the Paleolithic diet was Google's most searched weight-loss method. +The Paleolithic or Paleo diet is also sometimes referred to as the caveman or Stone Age diet. + +== Foodstuffs == + +The basis of the diet is a re-imagining of what Paleolithic people ate, and different proponents recommend different diet compositions. Eaton and Konner, for example, wrote a 1988 book The Paleolithic Prescription with Marjorie Shostak, and it described a diet that is 65% plant based. This is not typical of more recently devised paleo diets; Loren Cordain's – probably the most popular – instead emphasizes animal products and avoidance of processed food. Diet advocates concede the modern Paleolithic diet cannot be a faithful recreation of what Paleolithic people ate, and instead aim to "translate" that into a modern context, avoiding such likely historical practices as cannibalism. +Foodstuffs that have been described as permissible include: + +"vegetables, fruits, nuts, roots, meat, and organ meats"; +"vegetables (including root vegetables), fruit (including fruit oils, e.g., olive oil, coconut oil, and palm oil), nuts, fish, meat, and eggs, and it excluded dairy, grain-based foods, legumes, extra sugar, and nutritional products of industry (including refined fats and refined carbohydrates)"; and +"avoids processed foods, and emphasizes eating vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, eggs, and lean meats". +The diet forbids the consumption of all dairy products. This is because milking did not exist until animals were domesticated after the Paleolithic era. + +=== Ancestral diet === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..455667b80 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: "Paleolithic diet" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:43.730781+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Adopting the Paleolithic diet assumes that modern humans can reproduce the hunter-gatherer diet. Molecular biologist Marion Nestle argues that "knowledge of the relative proportions of animal and plant foods in the diets of early humans is circumstantial, incomplete, and debatable and that there are insufficient data to identify the composition of a genetically determined optimal diet. The evidence related to Paleolithic diets is best interpreted as supporting the idea that diets based largely on plant foods promote health and longevity, at least under conditions of food abundance and physical activity." Ideas about Paleolithic diet and nutrition are at best hypothetical. +The data for Cordain's book came from six contemporary hunter-gatherer groups, mainly living in marginal habitats. One of the studies was on the !Kung, whose diet was recorded for a single month, and one was on the diet of the Inuit. Due to these limitations, the book has been criticized as painting an incomplete picture of the diets of Paleolithic humans. It has been noted that the rationale for the diet does not adequately account for the fact that, due to the pressures of artificial selection, most modern domesticated plants and animals differ drastically from their Paleolithic ancestors; likewise, their nutritional profiles are very different from their ancient counterparts. For example, wild almonds produce potentially fatal levels of cyanide, but this trait has been bred out of domesticated varieties using artificial selection. Many vegetables, such as broccoli, did not exist in the Paleolithic period; broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and kale are modern cultivars of the ancient species Brassica oleracea. +Trying to devise an ideal diet by studying contemporary hunter-gatherers is difficult because of the great disparities that exist; for example, the animal-derived calorie percentage ranges from 25% for the Gwi people of southern Africa to 99% for the Alaskan Nunamiut. Descendants of populations with different diets have different genetic adaptations to those diets, such as the ability to digest sugars from starchy foods. Modern hunter-gatherers tend to exercise considerably more than modern office workers, protecting them from heart disease and diabetes, though highly processed modern foods also contribute to diabetes when those populations move into cities. +A 2018 review of the diet of hunter-gatherer populations found that the dietary provisions of the Paleolithic diet had been based on questionable research, and were "difficult to reconcile with more detailed ethnographic and nutritional studies of hunter-gatherer diet". +Researchers have proposed that cooked starches met the energy demands of an increasing brain size, based on variations in the copy number of genes encoding amylase. + +== Health effects == +The methodological quality of research into the Paleolithic diet has been described as "poor to moderate". Some of the paleo diet's proponents have made exaggerated health claims, such as the claim that the diet can reverse diabetes and cure autoimmune diseases, miring the diet in controversy. +Following the Paleolithic diet results in the consumption of fewer processed foods, less sugar, and less salt. Reduced consumption of such is consistent with mainstream advice about diet. Diets reflecting a Paleolithic pattern of nutrition also share some similarities with traditional ethnic diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, which has been found to result in more health benefits than the Western diet. Following the paleolithic diet can lead to nutritional deficiencies, such as those of vitamin D and calcium, which can in turn lead to compromised bone health. The increased fish consumption suggested by the diet can also lead to an elevated risk of exposure to toxins. +There is some evidence that the diet can help in achieving weight loss, due to the increased satiety from the foods typically eaten. One trial of obese postmenopausal women found improvements in weight and fat loss after six months, but the benefits had ceased by 24 months. Side effects among these participants included "weakness, diarrhea, and headaches". As with any other diet regime, the Paleolithic diet leads to weight loss because of overall decreased caloric intake, rather than any specific feature of the diet itself. +There is no good evidence that following a Paleolithic diet reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease or metabolic syndrome, nor is there any evidence that the Paleolithic diet is effective in treating inflammatory bowel disease. +The Paleolithic diet is similar to the Atkins diet, in that it encourages the consumption of large amounts of red meat, especially meats high in saturated fat. Increased consumption of red meat can lead to a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease. + +== Proposed rationale and reception == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5de267e07 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +--- +title: "Paleolithic diet" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:43.730781+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The stated rationale for the Paleolithic diet is that human genes today are not different from human genes of 10,000 years ago, and that the diet of that time is therefore the best fit with humans today. Loren Cordain has described the paleo diet as "the one and only diet that ideally fits our genetic makeup". +The argument is that modern humans have not been able to biologically adapt to contemporary circumstances. According to Cordain, before the agricultural revolution, hunter-gatherer diets rarely included grains, and obtaining milk from wild animals would have been "nearly impossible". Advocates of the diet argue that the increase in diseases of affluence after the dawn of agriculture was caused by these changes in diet. Others, however, have countered that it may be that pre-agricultural hunter-gatherers did not suffer from the diseases of affluence because they did not live long enough to develop them. +According to the model from the evolutionary discordance hypothesis, "many chronic diseases and degenerative conditions evident in modern Western populations have arisen because of a mismatch between Stone Age genes and modern lifestyles." Advocates of the modern paleo diet have formed their dietary recommendations based on this hypothesis. They argue that modern humans should follow a diet that is nutritionally closer to that of their Paleolithic ancestors. +The evolutionary discordance is incomplete, since it is based mainly on the genetic understanding of the human diet and a unique model of human ancestral diets, without taking into account the flexibility and variability of the human dietary behaviors over time. Studies of a variety of populations around the world show that humans can live healthily with a wide variety of diets and that humans have evolved to be flexible eaters. Lactase persistence, which confers lactose tolerance into adulthood, is an example of how some humans have adapted to the introduction of dairy into their diet. While the introduction of grains, dairy, and legumes during the Neolithic Revolution may have had some adverse effects on modern humans, if humans had not been nutritionally adaptable, these technological developments would have been dropped. +Since the publication of Eaton and Konner's paper in 1985, analysis of the DNA of primitive human remains has provided evidence that evolving humans were continually adapting to new diets, thus challenging the hypothesis underlying the Paleolithic diet. Evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk writes that the idea that our genetic makeup today matches that of our ancestors is misconceived, and that in debate Cordain was "taken aback" when told that 10,000 years was "plenty of time" for an evolutionary change in human digestive abilities to have taken place. On this basis Zuk dismisses Cordain's claim that the paleo diet is "the one and only diet that fits our genetic makeup". +Paleoanthropologist Peter Ungar has written that the paleo diet is a "myth", on account both of its invocation of a single suitable diet when in reality humans have always been a "work in progress", and because diet has always been varied because humans were spread widely over the planet. +Anthropological geneticist Anne C. Stone has said that humans have adapted in the last 10,000 years in response to radical changes in diet. In 2016, she was quoted as saying "It drives me crazy when Paleo-diet people say that we've stopped evolving—we haven't." +Melvin Konner has said the challenge to the hypothesis is not greatly significant since the real challenges to human non-adaptation have occurred with the rise of ever-more refined foodstuffs in the last 300 years. + +== Environmental impact == +A 2019 analysis of diets in the United States ranked consumption of a Paleolithic diet as more environmentally harmful than consumption of an omnivorous diet, though not so harmful as a ketogenic diet. +Elizabeth Kolbert has written the Paleolithic diet's emphasis on meat consumption is a "disaster" on account of meat's comparatively high energy production costs. + +== Popularity == +A lifestyle and ideology have developed around the diet. "Paleolithic" products include clothing, smartphone apps, and cookware. Many Paleolithic cookery books have been bestsellers. +As of 2019 the market for products with the word "Paleo" in their name was worth approximately $US500 million, with strong growth prospects despite pushback from the scientific community. Some products were taking advantage of the trend by touting themselves as "paleo-approved" despite having no apparent link to the movement's tenets. +Like many other diets, some proponents promote the Paleolithic diet by an appeal to nature and a narrative of conspiracy theories about how nutritional research, which does not support the supposed benefits of the paleolithic diet, is controlled by a malign food industry. Paleolithic diet advocate John Durant has blamed suppression of the truth about diet in the United States on "the vegetarian lobby". + +== See also == + +== Citations == + +== References == + +== Further reading == + +== External links == +Human Timeline (Interactive) – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History (August 2016). \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmistry-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmistry-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1a81c61ec --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmistry-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,80 @@ +--- +title: "Palmistry" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmistry" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:44.945429+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Palmistry is the pseudoscientific practice of fortune-telling through the study of the palm. Also known as palm reading, chiromancy, chirology or cheirology, the practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations. Those who practice palmistry are generally called palmists, palm readers, hand readers, hand analysts, or chirologists. +There are many—and often conflicting—interpretations of various lines and palmar features across various teachings of palmistry. Palmistry is widely viewed as a pseudoscience due to various contradictions between different interpretations and the lack of evidence for palmistry's predictions. + + +== History == + + +=== Ancient palmistry === +Palmistry is a practice common to many different places on the Eurasian landmass; it has been practiced in the cultures of Sumer, Babylonia, Arabia, Canaan, Persia, India, Nepal, Tibet and China. +The acupuncturist Yoshiaki Omura describes its roots in Hindu astrology (known in Sanskrit as jyotish), Chinese Yijing (I Ching), and Romani fortune tellers. In medieval times, Sanskrit texts on palmistry start to be written, locating themselves as a branch of Sāmudrika Śāstra (Sanskrit: सामुद्रिक शास्त्र) which included the studies of marks all over a person's body such as astrology and palmistry (Hast-rekhā), as well as phrenology (kapāl-sāmudrik) and face reading (physiognomy, mukh-samudrik). From India, the art of palmistry spread to China, Tibet and to other countries in Europe. +Palmistry also progressed independently in Greece where Anaxagoras practiced it. Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) reportedly discovered a treatise on the subject of palmistry on an altar of Hermes, which he then presented to Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.E.), who took great interest in examining the character of his officers by analyzing the lines on their hands. A chapter of a 17th-century sex manual, misattributed to Aristotle, is occasionally incorrectly cited as being the treatise in question. The text is not contained in his canonical works. + +In Renaissance magic, palmistry (known as "chiromancy") was classified as one of the seven "forbidden arts", along with necromancy, geomancy, aeromancy, pyromancy, hydromancy, and spatulamancy (scapulimancy). During the 16th century the art of palmistry was actively suppressed by the Catholic Church. Both Pope Paul IV and Pope Sixtus V issued papal edicts against various forms of divination, including palmistry. + + +=== Modern palmistry === +Palmistry experienced a revival in the modern era starting with Captain Casimir Stanislas D'Arpentigny's publication La Chirognomie in 1839. The Chirological Society of Great Britain was founded in London by Katharine St. Hill in 1889 with the stated aim to advance and systematise the art of palmistry and to prevent charlatans from abusing the art. Edgar de Valcourt-Vermont (Comte C. de Saint-Germain) founded the American Chirological Society in 1897. +A pivotal figure in the modern palmistry movement was the Irish William John Warner, known by his sobriquet, Cheiro. After studying under gurus in India, he set up a palmistry practice in London and enjoyed a wide following of famous clients from around the world, including famous celebrities like Mark Twain, W. T. Stead, Sarah Bernhardt, Mata Hari, Oscar Wilde, Grover Cleveland, Thomas Edison, the Prince of Wales, General Kitchener, William Ewart Gladstone, and Joseph Chamberlain. So popular was Cheiro as a "society palmist" that even those who were not believers in the occult had their hands read by him. The skeptical Mark Twain wrote in Cheiro's visitor's book that he had "exposed my character to me with humiliating accuracy". +Edward Heron-Allen, an English polymath, published various works including the 1883 book, Palmistry: A Manual of Cheirosophy, which is still in print. There were attempts at formulating some sort of scientific basis for the art, most notably in the 1900 publication The Laws of Scientific Hand Reading by William Gurney Benham. +In 1970, Parker Brothers published a game designed by Maxine Lucille Fiel called "Touch-Game of Palmistry" which allowed players to do "palm reading and analysis" through selecting cards that matched designated palm features. + + +== Relationship between Palmistry and Dermatoglyphics == +Dermatoglyphics and palmistry both study the intricate features of the human palm, like fingerprints, creases, shapes, and mounts, but their purposes differ greatly. Dermatoglyphics is a scientific field examining these patterns for genetic and medical insights, while palmistry interprets them to reveal personality traits and predict future events. The former relies on empirical data, whereas the latter is based on the 12th-century text Samudrika Shastra. + + +== Criticism == +Scientific literature regards palmistry as a pseudoscientific or superstitious belief. Psychologist and noted skeptic Ray Hyman has written: + +I started reading palms in my teens as a way to supplement my income from doing magic and mental shows. When I started I did not believe in palmistry. But I knew that to "sell" it I had to act as if I did. After a few years I became a firm believer in palmistry. One day the late Stanley Jaks, who was a professional mentalist and a man I respected, tactfully suggested that it would make an interesting experiment if I deliberately gave readings opposite to what the lines indicated. I tried this out with a few clients. To my surprise and horror my readings were just as successful as ever. Ever since then I have been interested in the powerful forces that convince us, reader and client alike, that something is so when it really isn't. +Skeptics often include palmists on lists of alleged psychics who practice cold reading. Cold reading is the practice that allows readers of all kinds, including palmists, to appear psychic by using high-probability guessing and inferring details based on signals or cues from the other person. Although some Christians condemn palmistry as a form of divination, Jewish and Christian traditions are largely ambivalent about divination in general. During the 16th century the Catholic Church condemned the practice of palmistry. However, there is a long tradition of practicing palmistry within both Jewish and Christian mysticism, and some practitioners, such as Comte C. de Saint-Germain, have argued that the Bible does not oppose it. + + +== See also == + +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience +Methods of divination +Alectryomancy +Chironomia +Digit ratio +Graphology +Onychomancy +Phrenology +Physiognomy +Reflexology +Single transverse palmar crease +Tarot +Tasseography + + +== References == + + +== Further reading == +Beamish, Richard. The psychonomy of the hand: or, The hand an index of mental development according to Mm. d'Arpentigny and Desbarrolles +Chauran, Alexandra (2013). Palmistry Every Day. Llewellyn Worldwide. ISBN 978-0-7387-3494-1. + +Cheiro (1916). Palmistry for All at Project Gutenberg +Chinn, Sarah E. (2000). 'Technology and the logic of American racism'. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-4750-0. +de Saint-Germain, Comte C. (1897). Practical Palmistry. Chicago: Laird & Lee Publishers. +Dwivedi, Bhorai (1970). Wonders of Palmistry. New Delhi: Diamond Pocket Books. ISBN 978-81-284-0099-5. +Heron-Allen, Edward (2008). Palmistry – A Manual of Cheirosophy (reprint ed.). Baltzell Press. ISBN 978-1-4437-6535-0. +Omura, Yoshiaki (2003). Acupuncture Medicine: Its Historical and Clinical Background. Dover Publications Inc. ISBN 978-0-486-42850-5. +Sharma, Hari Dutta (1995). The A–Z of Palmistry. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd. ISBN 978-81-207-1661-2. +van Dijk-Rijneke, Magda. Universal Hand Analysis, 2017 Elmar Publishers ISBN 978-9038925912 + + +== External links == + +Palmistry – Skeptic's Dictionary \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchagavya-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchagavya-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1882e58e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchagavya-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +--- +title: "Panchagavya" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchagavya" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:46.156128+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Panchagavya or panchakavyam is a mixture used in traditional Hindu rituals that is prepared by mixing five ingredients. The three direct constituents are cow dung, cow urine, and milk; the two derived products are curd and ghee. These are mixed and then allowed to ferment. The Sanskrit word panchagavya means "five cow-derivatives". When used in Ayurvedic medicine, it is also called cowpathy. + + +== Risks == +Proponents claim that cow urine therapy is capable of curing several diseases, including certain types of cancer, although these claims have no scientific backing. In fact, studies concerning ingesting individual components of panchagavya, such as cow urine, have shown no positive benefit, and significant side effects, including convulsion, depressed respiration, and death. Cow urine can also be a source of harmful bacteria and infectious diseases, including leptospirosis. + + +== Non-medicinal applications == +Panchgavya is used as a fertilizer and pesticide in agricultural operations. Proponents claim that it is a growth promoter in the poultry diet, that it is capable of increasing the growth of plankton for fish feed, and that it increases the production of milk in cows, increases the weight of pigs, and increases the egg laying capacity of poultry. It is sometimes used as a base in cosmetic products. + + +== Religious customs == +It was reported by the Indian Antiquary in June 1895 (pages 168-169) that cow-dung had general use in Brahman purifications and was eaten by Hindus as an atonement for sin: + + "Cow-dung and cow-urine, with milk, curds and butter, form the five cow-products, which are worshipped in South India. New earthen pots, are cleansed by pouring into them the five cow products - milk, curds, butter, dung and urine. The five pots are set on darba grass and worshipped. They are called the god Panchgavia, and the worshipper thinks on their merit and good qualities, lays flowers on them, and mentally presents them with a golden throne. Water is sprinkled and waved over them. They are crowned with coloured rice, and are mentally presented with jewels, rich dresses, and sandal wood. Flowers, incense, a burning lamp, plantains, and betel are offered, a low bow is made, and the following prayer repeated: +"Panchgaviâ, forgive our sins and the sins of all beings who sacrifice to you and who drink you. You have come from the body of the cow; therefore I pray you to forgive my sins and to cleanse my body. Cleanse me, who offer you worship, from my sins. Pardon and save me." + +After a second bow and the meditation of Hari, the five products are mixed in one cup; the priest drinks a little, pours it into the hollow hands of the worshippers and they drink. Nothing is so cleansing as this mixture. All Indians often drink it. The five nectars - milk, curds, butter, sugar and honey - are good, but much less powerful." +The ancient Mahabharata epic relates that Shri, the Hindu goddess of fortune and prosperity, invisibly resides in the urine and dung of cows. +The Panch Gangotri Temple in Gangotri instituted mandatory Panchagavya consumption for pilgrims from 19 April 2026. + + +== See also == +List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments +Prasada +Traditional Knowledge Digital Library +Urine therapy + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangamic_acid-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangamic_acid-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7e7849777 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangamic_acid-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +--- +title: "Pangamic acid" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangamic_acid" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:47.310674+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Pangamic acid, also called pangamate, is the name given to a chemical compound discovered by Ernst T. Krebs Sr. His son, Ernst T. Krebs Jr., promoted it as a medicinal compound for use in treatment of a wide range of diseases. They also termed this chemical "vitamin B15", though it is not a true vitamin, has no nutritional value, has no known use in the treatment of any disease, and has been called a "quack remedy". Although a number of compounds labelled "pangamic acid" have been studied or sold (including the 1951 d-gluconodimethylamino acetic acid), no chemical compound, including those claimed by the Krebses to be pangamic acid, has been scientifically verified to have the characteristics that defined the original description of the compound. +The Krebses derived the term "pangamic" to describe this compound which they asserted to be ubiquitous and highly concentrated in seeds (pan meaning "universal" and gamic meaning "seed"). + + +== Chemistry == +Pangamic acid is the name given to the chemical compound with the empirical formula C10H19O8N and a molecular weight of 281 which appeared to be an ester derived from d-gluconic acid and dimethylglycine. In 1943, the Krebses applied for a patent for a process for extracting this chemical compound which they reported had been previously isolated from apricot seeds, and received the patent in 1949. A 1951 paper by the Krebses reported the first isolation of this compound using this patented process, but did not include enough information to confirm that this compound was actually isolated. In 1955, the Krebses received a patent for another synthesizing process for "N-substituted glycine esters of gluconic acid", but the patent contained no supporting data to confirm the process was able to synthesize compounds described by the patent, including pangamic acid. +Subsequent attempts at synthesizing this ester by other researchers found Krebs' purported methods of producing pangamic acid were not reproducible, and research into pangamic acid have focused on compounds of various chemical compositions. A review noted that of all the chemicals described in research about pangamic acid, "[n]ot a single product labeled 'pangamate' or 'B15' has been established in a scientifically verifiable manner to conform to the empiric formula" described by the Krebses. Analysis of a sample of a compound called "pangamic acid" which was provided by a co-worker of the Krebses in the 1950s showed only lactose upon further evaluation by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Thus, "pangamic acid" is more a label used to describe one of any number of chemical compounds rather than a particular substance. +Chemical compounds sold as "pangamic acid" for medicinal purposes have also had various chemical compositions, and suppliers of "pangamic acid" have regularly changed the identity of the chemical compounds sold under this label. One anecdote noted that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has seized lots of "calcium pangamate" sold by General Nutrition Center (GNC), which agreed to stop selling the compound in those bottles after the FDA filed suit to stop sales. Afterwards, it was noted that GNC was still selling something in the same bottles with the same labels, likely a different compound. Due to ambiguity in situations like this, the FDA considers it "not an identifiable substance". +To summarize, substances that have been claimed to be pangamic acid include: + +d-gluconodimethylamino acetic acid (Krebes 1951), never synthesized. Alternative Soviet synthesis of calcium salt also fails to reproduce. +Variety of mixtures containing dimethylamine. Result of attempts to synthesize the 1951 compound. Possibly mutagenic. +Diisopropylamine dichloroacetate (Krebes 1955 patent "analogue"), synthesized. Readily hydrolyzes to known-toxic compounds. +Pharmacologically inert materials, ranging from "synthesis attempts" containing calcium gluconate to pure lactose. + + +== Clinical claims and research == +The Krebses' original patent claimed pangamic acid could be used for detoxification as well as treatment of asthma, skin conditions, joint pain, and nerve pain, with none of these claims supported by evidence in the patent application. Early promotion for pangamic acid included use by race horses as well as humans. Although given the name "Vitamin B15" by the Krebses, there is no evidence that it meets the definition of a vitamin as there is no evidence it is a nutrient needed by the body. +Much of the clinical research on pangamic acid took place in the former Soviet Union, though that research often did not describe which of the many compounds called "pangamic acid" was used in the study. This research was also of limited quality due to being overwhelmingly anecdotal in nature (as opposed to controlled experimentation) and ignoring short and long term safety in human use. +Although more recent claims include treatment of a wide variety of conditions including cancer, heart disease, schizophrenia as well as providing improvement in oxygen utilization, there is no significant evidence for any of these claims or that it is safe for human use. One review noted that it meets "the criteria that define a quack remedy". + + +== Safety == +Positive results from mutagenicity analysis via the Ames test of compounds commonly found in preparations labelled "pangamic acid" including diisopropylamine dichloroacetate, diisopropylamine, dichloroacetate, as well as dimethylglycine mixed with sodium nitrite suggests there may be concern for the development of cancer with the use of these substances. + + +== Legal status == +The FDA has recommended seizing any chemicals advertised as pangamic acid and restraining the importation and interstate shipment of pangamic acid on the grounds that pangamic acid and pangamic acid products are unsafe for use and have no known nutritional properties. Pangamic acid's distribution in Canada has been prohibited by the then-named Canadian Food and Drug Directorate. + + +== See also == +List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..38a46208b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +--- +title: "Paranormal" +chunk: 1/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:48.478006+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Paranormal events are purported or imagined phenomena described in popular culture, folklore, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Notable paranormal beliefs include those that pertain to extrasensory perceptions (for example, telepathy), and the pseudosciences of ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology. +Proposals regarding the paranormal are different from scientific hypotheses, or speculations extrapolated from scientific evidence, because scientific ideas are grounded in empirical observations and experimental data gained through the scientific method. In contrast, those who argue for the existence of the paranormal explicitly do not base their arguments on empirical evidence but rather on anecdote, testimony, and suspicion. The standard scientific models give the explanation that what appears to be paranormal phenomena is usually a misinterpretation, misunderstanding, or anomalous variation of natural phenomena. + +== Etymology == +The term paranormal has existed in the English language since at least 1920. The word consists of two parts: para and normal. The definition implies that the scientific explanation of the world around us is normal and anything that is above, beyond, or contrary to that is para. + +== Paranormal subjects == +On the classification of paranormal subjects, psychologist Terence Hines said in his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003): + +The paranormal can best be thought of as a subset of pseudoscience. What sets the paranormal apart from other pseudosciences is a reliance on explanations for alleged phenomena that are well outside the bounds of established science. Thus, paranormal phenomena include extrasensory perception (ESP), telekinesis, ghosts, poltergeists, life after death, reincarnation, faith healing, human auras, and so forth. The explanations for these allied phenomena are phrased in vague terms of "psychic forces", "human energy fields", and so on. This is in contrast to many pseudoscientific explanations for other nonparanormal phenomena, which, although very bad science, are still couched in acceptable scientific terms. + +=== Ghost hunting === + +Ghost hunting is the investigation of locations that are reportedly haunted by ghosts. Typically, a ghost-hunting team will attempt to collect evidence supporting the existence of paranormal activity. +In traditional ghostlore and fiction featuring ghosts, a ghost is a manifestation of the spirit or soul of a person. Alternative theories expand on that idea and include belief in the ghosts of deceased animals. Sometimes the term "ghost" is used synonymously with any spirit or demon; however, in popular usage, the term typically refers to the spirit of a deceased person. +The belief in ghosts as souls of the departed is closely tied to the concept of animism, an ancient belief that attributed souls to everything in nature. As the 19th-century anthropologist George Frazer explained in his classic work, The Golden Bough (1890), souls were seen as the 'creature within' which animated the body. Although the human soul was sometimes symbolically or literally depicted in ancient cultures as a bird or other animal, it was widely held that the soul was an exact reproduction of the body in every feature, even down to the clothing worn by the person. This is depicted in artwork from various ancient cultures, including such works as the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (c. 1550 BCE), which shows deceased people in the afterlife appearing much as they did before death, including the style of dress. + +=== Ufology === + +The possibility of extraterrestrial life is not, in itself, a paranormal subject. Many scientists are actively engaged in the search for unicellular life within the Solar System, carrying out studies on the surface of Mars and examining meteors that have fallen to Earth. Projects such as SETI are conducting an astronomical search for radio activity that would show evidence of intelligent life outside the Solar System. Scientific theories of how life developed on Earth allow for the possibility that life also developed on other planets. The paranormal aspect of extraterrestrial life centers largely around the belief in unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and the phenomena said to be associated with them. +Early in the history of UFO culture, believers divided themselves into two camps. The first held a rather conservative view of the phenomena, interpreting them as unexplained occurrences that merited serious study. They began calling themselves "ufologists" in the 1950s and felt that logical analysis of sighting reports would validate the notion of extraterrestrial visitation. +The second camp held a view that coupled ideas of extraterrestrial visitation with beliefs from existing quasi-religious movements. Typically, these individuals were enthusiasts of occultism and the paranormal. Many had backgrounds as active Theosophists or spiritualists, or were followers of other esoteric doctrines. In contemporary times, many of these beliefs have coalesced into New Age spiritual movements. +Both secular and spiritual believers describe UFOs as having abilities beyond what are considered possible according to known aerodynamic constraints and physical laws. The transitory events surrounding many UFO sightings preclude any opportunity for the repeat testing required by the scientific method. Acceptance of UFO theories by the larger scientific community is further hindered by the many possible hoaxes associated with UFO culture. + +=== Cryptozoology === + +Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that aims to prove the existence of entities from the folklore record, such as Bigfoot, chupacabras, or Mokele-mbembe. Cryptozoologists refer to these entities as cryptids, a term coined by the subculture. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..14267b09b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Paranormal" +chunk: 2/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:48.478006+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Paranormal research == +Approaching the paranormal from a research perspective is often difficult because of the lack of acceptable physical evidence from most of the purported phenomena. By definition, the paranormal (or supernatural) does not conform to conventional expectations of nature. Therefore, a phenomenon cannot be confirmed as paranormal using the scientific method because, if it could be, it would no longer fit the definition. (However, confirmation would result in the phenomenon being reclassified as part of science.) Despite this problem, studies on the paranormal are periodically conducted by researchers from various disciplines. Some researchers simply study the beliefs in the paranormal regardless of whether the phenomena are considered to objectively exist. This section deals with various approaches to the paranormal: anecdotal, experiment, al, and participant-observer approaches and the skeptical investigation approach. + +=== Anecdotal approach === + +An anecdotal approach to the paranormal involves the collection of stories told about the paranormal. +Charles Fort (1874–1932) is perhaps the best-known collector of paranormal anecdotes. Fort is said to have compiled as many as 40,000 notes on unexplained paranormal experiences, though there were no doubt many more. These notes came from what he called "the orthodox conventionality of Science", which were odd events originally reported in magazines and newspapers such as The Times and scientific journals such as Scientific American, Nature and Science. From this research Fort wrote seven books, though only four survive: The Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931) and Wild Talents (1932); one book was written between New Lands and Lo!, but it was abandoned and absorbed into Lo! +Reported events that he collected include teleportation (a term Fort is generally credited with coining); poltergeist events; falls of frogs, fishes, and inorganic materials of an amazing range; crop circles; unaccountable noises and explosions; spontaneous fires; levitation; ball lightning (a term explicitly used by Fort); unidentified flying objects; mysterious appearances and disappearances; giant wheels of light in the oceans; and animals found outside their normal ranges (see phantom cat). He offered many reports of OOPArts, the abbreviation for "out of place" artifacts: strange items found in unlikely locations. He is perhaps the first person to explain strange human appearances and disappearances by the hypothesis of alien abduction and was an early proponent of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. +Fort is considered by many to be the father of modern paranormalism, which is the study of the paranormal. +The magazine Fortean Times continues Charles Fort's approach, regularly reporting anecdotal accounts of the paranormal. +Such anecdotal collections, lacking the reproducibility of empirical evidence, are not amenable to scientific investigation. The anecdotal approach is not a scientific approach to the paranormal because it leaves verification dependent on the credibility of the party presenting the evidence. Nevertheless, it is a common approach to investigating paranormal phenomena. + +=== Parapsychology === + +Experimental investigation of the paranormal has been conducted by parapsychologists. J. B. Rhine popularized the now famous methodology of using card-guessing and dice-rolling experiments in a laboratory in the hopes of finding evidence of extrasensory perception. However, it was revealed that Rhine's experiments contained methodological flaws and procedural errors. +In 1957, the Parapsychological Association was formed as the preeminent society for parapsychologists. In 1969, they became affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Criticisms of the field were focused in the creation (in 1976) of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (now called the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) and its periodical, the Skeptical Inquirer. Eventually, more mainstream scientists became critical of parapsychology as an endeavor, and statements by the National Academies of Science and the National Science Foundation cast a pall on the claims of evidence for parapsychology. Today, many cite parapsychology as an example of a pseudoscience. Parapsychology has been criticized for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide convincing evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research. +By the 2000s, the status of paranormal research in the United States had greatly declined from its height in the 1970s, with the majority of work being privately funded and only a small amount of research being carried out in university laboratories. In 2007, Britain had a number of privately funded laboratories in university psychology departments. Publication remained limited to a small number of niche journals, and to date there have been no experimental results that have gained wide acceptance in the scientific community as valid evidence of the paranormal. + +=== Participant-observer approach === + +While parapsychologists look for quantitative evidence of the paranormal in laboratories, a great number of people immerse themselves in qualitative research through participant-observer approaches to the paranormal. Participant-observer methodologies have overlaps with other essentially qualitative approaches, including phenomenological research that seeks largely to describe subjects as they are experienced, rather than to explain them. +Participant observation suggests that by immersing oneself in the subject that is being studied, a researcher is presumed to gain an understanding of the subject. Criticisms of participant observation as a data-gathering technique are similar to criticisms of other approaches to the paranormal, but also include an increased threat to the scientific objectivity of the researcher, unsystematic gathering of data, reliance on subjective measurement, and possible observer effects (i.e. observation may distort the observed behavior). Specific data-gathering methods, such as recording EMF (electromagnetic field) readings at haunted locations, have their own criticisms beyond those attributed to the participant-observer approach itself. +Participant observation, as an approach to the paranormal, has gained increased visibility and popularity through reality television programs like Ghost Hunters, and the formation of independent ghost hunting groups that advocate immersive research at alleged paranormal locations. One popular website for ghost hunting enthusiasts lists over 300 of these organizations throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. + +== Skeptical scientific investigation == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e0bbd73a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: "Paranormal" +chunk: 3/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:48.478006+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Scientific skeptics advocate critical investigation of claims of paranormal phenomena: applying the scientific method to reach a rational, scientific explanation of the phenomena to account for the paranormal claims, taking into account that alleged paranormal abilities and occurrences are sometimes hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. A way of summarizing this method is by the application of Occam's razor, which suggests that the simpler solution is usually the correct one. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is an organization that aims to publicize the scientific, skeptical approach. It carries out investigations aimed at understanding paranormal reports in terms of scientific understanding, and publishes its results in the Skeptical Inquirer magazine. +CSI's Richard Wiseman draws attention to possible alternative explanations for perceived paranormal activity in his article, The Haunted Brain. While he recognizes that approximately 15% of people believe they have experienced an encounter with a ghost, he reports that only 1% report seeing a full-fledged ghost, while the rest report strange sensory stimuli, such as seeing fleeting shadows or wisps of smoke, or the sensation of hearing footsteps or feeling a presence. Wiseman makes the claim that, rather than experiencing paranormal activity, it is activity within our own brains that creates these strange sensations. +Michael Persinger proposed that ghostly experiences could be explained by stimulating the brain with weak magnetic fields. Swedish psychologist Pehr Granqvist and his team, attempting to replicate Persinger's research, determined that the paranormal sensations experienced by Persinger's subjects were merely the result of suggestion, and that brain stimulation with magnetic fields did not result in ghostly experiences. Oxford University Justin Barrett has theorized that "agency"—being able to figure out why people do what they do—is so important in everyday life that it is natural for our brains to work too hard at it, thereby detecting human or ghost-like behavior in everyday meaningless stimuli. +James Randi, an investigator with a background in illusion, felt that the simplest explanation for those claiming paranormal abilities is often trickery, illustrated by demonstrating that the spoon bending abilities of psychic Uri Geller can easily be duplicated by trained stage magicians. He was also the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation and its million dollar challenge that offered a prize of $1,000,000 to anyone who could demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event, under test conditions agreed to by both parties. Despite many declarations of supernatural ability, the prize was never claimed. + +=== Psychology === + +In "anomalistic psychology", paranormal phenomena have naturalistic explanations resulting from psychological and physical factors, which have sometimes given the impression of paranormal activity to some people, in fact, where there have been none. The psychologist David Marks wrote that paranormal phenomena can be explained by magical thinking, mental imagery, subjective validation, coincidence, hidden causes, and fraud. According to studies, some people tend to hold paranormal beliefs because they possess psychological traits that make them more likely to misattribute paranormal causation to normal experiences. Research has also discovered that cognitive bias is a factor underlying paranormal belief. +Many studies have found a link between personality and psychopathology variables correlating with paranormal belief. Some studies have also shown that fantasy proneness correlates positively with paranormal belief. +Bainbridge (1978) and Wuthnow (1976) found that the most susceptible people to paranormal belief are those who are poorly educated, unemployed, or have roles that rank low among social values. The alienation of these people due to their status in society is said to encourage them to appeal to paranormal or magical beliefs. +Research has associated paranormal belief with low cognitive ability, low IQ, and a lack of science education. Intelligent and highly educated participants involved in surveys have proven to have less paranormal belief. Tobacyk (1984) and Messer and Griggs (1989) discovered that college students with better grades have less belief in the paranormal. +In a case study (Gow, 2004) involving 167 participants, the findings revealed that psychological absorption and dissociation were higher for believers in the paranormal. Another study involving 100 students had revealed a positive correlation between paranormal belief and proneness to dissociation. A study (Williams et al. 2007) discovered that "neuroticism is fundamental to individual differences in paranormal belief, while paranormal belief is independent of extraversion and psychoticism". A correlation has been found between paranormal belief and irrational thinking. +In an experiment Wierzbicki (1985) reported a significant correlation between paranormal belief and the number of errors made on a syllogistic reasoning task, suggesting that believers in the paranormal have lower cognitive ability. A relationship between narcissistic personality and paranormal belief was discovered in a study involving the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale. +De Boer and Bierman wrote: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c50c46b4d --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +title: "Paranormal" +chunk: 4/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:48.478006+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In his article 'Creative or Defective', Radin (2005) asserts that many academics explain the belief in the paranormal by using one of the three following hypotheses: Ignorance, deprivation, or deficiency. 'The ignorance hypothesis asserts that people believe in the paranormal because they're uneducated or stupid. The deprivation hypothesis proposes that these beliefs exist to provide a way to cope in the face of psychological uncertainties and physical stressors. The deficiency hypothesis asserts that such beliefs arise because people are mentally defective in some way, ranging from low intelligence or poor critical thinking ability to a full-blown psychosis (Radin). The deficiency hypothesis gets some support from the fact that the belief in the paranormal is an aspect of a schizotypical personality (Pizzagalli, Lehman, and Brugger, 2001). +A psychological study involving 174 members of the Society for Psychical Research completed a delusional ideation questionnaire and a deductive reasoning task. As predicted, the study showed that "individuals who reported a strong belief in the paranormal made more errors and displayed more delusional ideation than skeptical individuals". There was also a reasoning bias, which was limited to people who reported a belief in, rather than experience of, paranormal phenomena. The results suggested that reasoning abnormalities may have a causal role in the formation of paranormal beliefs. +Research has shown that people reporting contact with aliens have higher levels of absorption, dissociativity, fantasy proneness and tendency to hallucinate. +Findings have shown in specific cases that paranormal belief acts as a psychodynamic coping function and serves as a mechanism for coping with stress. Survivors from childhood sexual abuse, violent and unsettled home environments have reported having higher levels of paranormal belief. A study of a random sample of 502 adults revealed paranormal experiences were common in the population which were linked to a history of childhood trauma and dissociative symptoms. Research has also suggested that people who perceive themselves as having little control over their lives may develop paranormal beliefs to help provide an enhanced sense of control. The similarities between paranormal events and descriptions of trauma have also been noted. +Gender differences in surveys on paranormal belief have reported women scoring higher than men overall and men having greater belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials. Surveys have also investigated the relationship between ethnicity and paranormal belief. In a sample of American university students (Tobacyk et al. 1988) it was found that people of African descent have a higher level of belief in superstitions and witchcraft while belief in extraterrestrial life forms was stronger among people of European descent. Otis and Kuo (1984) surveyed Singapore university students and found Chinese, Indian and Malay students to differ in their paranormal beliefs, with the Chinese students showing greater skepticism. +According to American surveys analysed by Bader et al (2011) African Americans have the firmest belief in the paranormal, and while the findings are not uniform, the "general trend is for whites to show lesser belief in most paranormal subjects". Polls show that about fifty percent of the United States population believes in the paranormal. Robert L. Park says a lot of people believe in it because they "want it to be so". +A 2013 study that utilized a biological motion perception task discovered a "relation between illusory pattern perception and supernatural and paranormal beliefs and suggest that paranormal beliefs are strongly related to agency detection biases". +A 2014 study discovered that schizophrenic patients have more belief in psi than healthy adults. + +=== Neuroscience === +Some scientists have investigated possible neurocognitive processes underlying the formation of paranormal beliefs. In a study (Pizzagalli et al, 2000), data demonstrated that "subjects differing in their declared belief in and experience with paranormal phenomena as well as in their schizotypal ideation, as determined by a standardized instrument, displayed differential brain electric activity during resting periods." Another study (Schulter and Papousek, 2008) wrote that paranormal belief can be explained by patterns of functional hemispheric asymmetry that may be related to perturbations during fetal development. +It was also realized that people with higher dopamine levels have the ability to find patterns and meanings where there are none. This is why scientists have connected high dopamine levels with paranormal belief. + +=== Criticism === +Some scientists have criticized the media for promoting paranormal claims. In a report by Singer and Benassi in 1981, they wrote that the media may account for much of the near universality of paranormal belief, as the public is constantly exposed to films, newspapers, documentaries, and books endorsing paranormal claims, while critical coverage is largely absent. According to Paul Kurtz, "Regarding the many talk shows that constantly deal with paranormal topics, the skeptical viewpoint is rarely heard; and when it is permitted to be expressed, it is usually sandbagged by the host or other guests." Kurtz described the popularity of public belief in the paranormal as a "quasi-religious phenomenon", a manifestation of a transcendental temptation, a tendency for people to seek a transcendental reality that cannot be known by using the methods of science. Kurtz compared this to a primitive form of magical thinking. +Terence Hines has written that on a personal level, paranormal claims could be considered a form of consumer fraud as people are "being induced through false claims to spend their money—often large sums—on paranormal claims that do not deliver what they promise" and uncritical acceptance of paranormal belief systems can be damaging to society. + +== Belief polls == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b4eba08ff --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +--- +title: "Paranormal" +chunk: 5/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:48.478006+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +While the existence of paranormal phenomena is controversial and debated passionately by both proponents of the paranormal and by skeptics, surveys are useful in determining the beliefs of people regarding paranormal phenomena. These opinions, while not constituting scientific evidence for or against, may give an indication of the mindset of a certain portion of the population (at least among those who answered the polls). The number of people worldwide who believe in parapsychological powers has been estimated to be 3 to 4 billion. +A survey conducted in 2006 by researchers from Australia's Monash University sought to determine the types of phenomena that people claim to have experienced and the effects these experiences have had on their lives. The study was conducted as an online survey with over 2,000 respondents from around the world participating. The results revealed that around 70% of the respondents believe they have had an unexplained paranormal event that changed their life, mostly in a positive way. About 70% also claimed to have seen, heard, or been touched by an animal or person that they knew was not there; 80% have reported having a premonition, and almost 50% stated they recalled a previous life. +Polls were conducted by Bryan Farha at Oklahoma City University and Gary Steward of the University of Central Oklahoma in 2006. They found fairly consistent results compared to the results of a Gallup poll in 2001. + +A survey by Jeffrey S. Levin, associate professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School, found that more than two-thirds of the United States population reported having at least one mystical experience. A 1996 Gallup poll estimated that 71% of the people in the U.S. believed that the government was covering up information about UFOs. A 2002 Roper poll conducted for the Sci Fi channel reported that 56% thought UFOs were real craft and 48% that aliens had visited the Earth. +A 2001 National Science Foundation survey found that 9% of people polled thought astrology was very scientific, and 31% thought it was somewhat scientific. About 32% of Americans surveyed stated that some numbers were lucky, while 46% of Europeans agreed with that claim. About 60% of all people polled believed in some form of Extra-sensory perception, and 30% thought that "some of the unidentified flying objects that have been reported are really space vehicles from other civilizations." +In 2017, the Chapman University Survey of American Fears asked about seven paranormal beliefs and found that "the most common belief is that ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis once existed (55%). Next was that places can be haunted by spirits (52%), aliens have visited Earth in our ancient past (35%), aliens have come to Earth in modern times (26%), some people can move objects with their minds (25%), fortune tellers and psychics can survey the future (19%), and Bigfoot is a real creature. Only one-fourth of respondents didn't hold at least one of these beliefs." + +== Paranormal challenges == + +In 1922, Scientific American offered two US$2,500 offers: (1) for the first authentic spirit photograph made under test conditions, and (2) for the first psychic to produce a "visible psychic manifestation". Harry Houdini was a member of the investigating committee. The first medium to be tested was George Valiantine, who claimed that in his presence spirits would speak through a trumpet that floated around a darkened room. For the test, Valiantine was placed in a room, the lights were extinguished, but unbeknownst to him, his chair had been rigged to light a signal in an adjoining room if he ever left his seat. Because the light signals were tripped during his performance, Valiantine did not collect the award. The last to be examined by Scientific American was Mina Crandon in 1924. +Since then, many individuals and groups have offered similar monetary awards for proof of the paranormal in an observed setting. These prizes have a combined value of over $2.4 million. +The James Randi Educational Foundation offered a prize of a million dollars to a person who could prove that they had supernatural or paranormal abilities under appropriate test conditions. Several other skeptic groups also offer a monetary prize for proof of the paranormal, including the largest group of paranormal investigators, the Independent Investigations Group, which has chapters in Hollywood, Atlanta, Denver, Washington, D.C., Alberta, B.C., and San Francisco. The IIG offers a $100,000 prize and a $5,000 finders fee if a claimant can prove a paranormal claim under 2 scientifically controlled tests. Founded in 2000, no claimant has passed the first (and lower odds) of the test. + +== See also == + +=== Paranormal === + +=== By location === + +=== Authors === + +=== Skepticism === + +== Notes == + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e7e06d130 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: "Paranormal" +chunk: 6/6 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:48.478006+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Further reading == +French, Chris. The Science of Weird Shit: Why Our Minds Conjure the Paranormal. United States, MIT Press, 2024. +Bader, Christopher D.; Mencken, F. Carson; Baker, Joseph O. (2017). Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture (Second ed.). New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-1965-2. +Bell, V.; Halligan, P. W. (2013). "The Neural Basis of Abnormal Personal Belief". In Krueger, Frank; Grafman, Jordan (eds.). The Neural Basis of Human Belief Systems (First ed.). Hove: Psychology Press. ISBN 978-1-84169-881-6. +Cohen, Daniel (1989). The Encyclopedia of the Strange (Hardcover ed.). New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 978-0-88029-451-5. +Crawley, S.E. (2001). "Psychic or fantasy-prone?". The Skeptic. 14 (1): 11–12. +French, Christopher C. (March 1992). "Population stereotypes and belief in the paranormal: Is there a relationship?". Australian Psychologist. 27 (1): 57–58. doi:10.1080/00050069208257576. +French, Christopher C. (January 1992). "Factors underlying belief in the paranormal: Do sheep and goats think differently?". The Psychologist. 5: 295–299. +Hatton, K. (2001). "Developmental origins of magical beliefs". The Skeptic. 14 (1): 18–19. +Hines, Terence (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2nd Revised ed.). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-57392-979-0. +Holden, K.J.; French, C.C. (2002). "Alien abduction experiences: Clues from neuropsychology and neuropsychiatry". In Spence, Sean A.; Halligan, Peter W. (eds.). Pathologies of Body, Self and Space (1st ed.). Hove: Psychology Press. ISBN 978-1-84169-933-2. +Irwin, Harvey J. (2009). The Psychology of Paranormal Belief: A Researcher's Handbook (1st ed.). Hatfield, Herts: University of Hertfordshire Press. ISBN 978-1-902806-93-8. +Jinks, Tony (2011). An Introduction to the Psychology of Paranormal Belief and Experience (Illustrated ed.). Jefferson, NC: Mcfarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-6544-6. +Lange, R.; Houran, J. (October 1998). "Delusions of the paranormal: A haunting question of perception". Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 186 (10): 637–645. doi:10.1097/00005053-199810000-00008. PMID 9788641. +Marks, David F. (April 1988). "The psychology of paranormal beliefs". Experientia. 44 (4): 332–337. doi:10.1007/BF01961272. PMID 3282908. S2CID 20803932. +Stein, Gordon (1996). The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal (Illustrated ed.). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-57392-021-6. +Thalbourne, Michael A.; French, Christopher C. (February 1995). "Paranormal belief, manic-depressiveness, and magical ideation: A replication". Personality and Individual Differences. 18 (2): 291–292. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(94)00146-J. +Wilson, Krissy; French, Christopher C. (2006). "The relationship between susceptibility to false memories, dissociativity, and paranormal belief and experience". Personality and Individual Differences. 41 (8): 1493–1502. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2006.06.008. S2CID 144569464. +Wiseman, Richard J.; Watt, Caroline A. (August 2006). "Belief in psychic ability and the misattribution hypothesis: A qualitative review". British Journal of Psychology. 97 (3): 323–338. doi:10.1348/000712605X72523. PMID 16848946. + +== External links == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal_television-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal_television-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a6e3a402f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal_television-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +--- +title: "Paranormal television" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal_television" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:49.718089+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Paranormal television is a genre of reality television that purports to document factual investigations of the paranormal rather than fictional representations seen in traditional narrative films and TV. Over the years, the genre has grown to be a staple of television and even changed the programming focus of networks like the History Channel and the Travel Channel. By highlighting beliefs in topics ranging from Bigfoot to aliens, paranormal television continues to elevate popular interest in the paranormal. + + +== History == + + +=== Early precursors (1950s–1999) === +Accounts of supernatural occurrences have always been common in the print media. The 1705 pamphlet "A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs Veal" by Daniel Defoe is a well-known example. Paranormal television proper can trace its genesis to local TV news programs in the UK and US, which have featured ghost stories since the 1960s. The earliest TV show devoted exclusively to the paranormal was One Step Beyond which broadcast 96 episodes on the ABC network from 1959 to 1961. The stories were promoted as being based on actual real-life experiences, including historically well-known events such as sinking of RMS Titanic, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. +It was followed 15 years later by In Search of..., hosted by Leonard Nimoy which ran for six years from 1977 to 1982. Rod Serling was originally slated to host the series, but he died in 1975. In Search of... explored many paranormal topics, including UFOs, cryptozoological creatures (cryptids), lost civilizations, and other mysteries. Though the subject matter gradually lost popularity, the show gave way to future TV series following the same genre. +Unsolved Mysteries, which began airing in 1987 and ended in 2002, would feature paranormal cases from time to time, and further popularised the documentary aspect of paranormal television. Ghostwatch, a fictional news broadcast about a haunted house in the UK that aired in 1992, created controversy when a majority of viewers believed the televised show was real. Discovery Channel started to explore the genre with some success from 1996. The Fox Broadcasting Company aired a news-style oriented show Sightings which lasted for six years. + + +=== Reality Television (2000–present) === +In 2000, MTV's Fear premiered, merging nascent reality television with the storytelling of traditional horror films. The innovative show established the visual look, music and editing style of the paranormal reality television genre; most iconically, the format of investigators filming themselves with portable cameras as they become frightened exploring dark, unnerving environments. By the end of 2000, shows inspired by MTV's Fear began production for a growing range of networks, starting with Fox Family's Scariest Places on Earth, followed by Murder in Small Town X in 2001, Scare Tactics in 2003. To-date, the genre has grown into a staple of television. +Ghost Hunters premiered in 2004 on Sci Fi (later Syfy) Sci Fi broadened into other paranormal shows, including Destination Truth. Ghost Adventures, another ghost-hunting program, which premiered on the Discovery Networks-owned Travel Channel in 2008, was the successor to a documentary film of the same name that aired on Sci Fi in 2007. A&E aired the prominent ghost-hunting series Paranormal State from 2007 to 2011, and History Channel began to compete in the general paranormal genre around this time with series such as UFO Files, MonsterQuest, UFO Hunters and the documentary special Ancient Aliens, which led to a successor series that began airing in 2010. +Syfy abandoned their focus on paranormal programming by 2015, and Ghost Hunters itself left the network in 2016 after 11 seasons. Around that time, Travel Channel moved completely into airing exclusively paranormal television series (the network initially centering programming around Ghost Adventures) frequently featuring ghost hunting, including series related to Ghost Adventures, as well as later productions featuring former Ghost Hunters members such as Kindred Spirits (2014–present) and Ghost Nation (2019–2021). Destination America planned to compete with Travel Channel's paranormal programming (seasons 1-2 of Kindred Spirits aired on DA and TLC), but reversed course after it and TLC were reacquired by Discovery Networks during their acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive in 2018. In 2019, Ghost Hunters was revived by A&E and aired a 12th season on the channel with a 13th season coming in 2020. + + +=== Reactions/critics === +Noting the recent trend in reality shows that take the paranormal at face value, The New York Times Culture editor Mike Hale characterized ghost hunting shows as "pure theater" and compared the genre to professional wrestling or soft core pornography for its formulaic, teasing approach. +Los Angeles Times staff writer Ed Stockly wrote that "the paranormal/supernatural-investigation subgenre that has cropped up on cable television over the last few years, which includes Ghost Hunters, Destination Truth, Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters International and a few others" promises to "take a skeptical approach in its investigations and to rely on science to confirm or disprove paranormal claims. So far not one has been able to consistently keep that promise." +Writer Diane Dorby proposes that paranormal reality TV shows provide "plausibility structures" that people use for "interpreting the meaning and experience of death". +According to science writer Sharon A. Hill, "Paranormal reality TV shows are designed as entertainment for the curious, not science documentaries to discover truths. If the tempo is too slow it will be sped up by giving "reality" a boost". + + +== Programs == + + +== See also == +List of ghost films + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..686d3ec48 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 1/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it. Parapsychology has been criticized for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide reproducible evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research. +Parapsychology research rarely appears in mainstream scientific journals; a few niche journals publish most papers about parapsychology. + +== Terminology == +The term parapsychology was coined in 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir as the German parapsychologie. It was adopted by J. B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research to indicate a significant shift toward experimental methodology and academic discipline. The term originates from the Greek: παρά para meaning "alongside", and psychology. +In parapsychology, psi is the unknown factor in extrasensory perception and psychokinesis experiences that is not explained by known physical or biological mechanisms. The term is derived from ψ psi, the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet and the initial letter of the Greek: ψυχή psyche, "mind, soul". The term was coined by biologist Bertold Wiesner, and first used by psychologist Robert Thouless in a 1942 article published in the British Journal of Psychology. +The Parapsychological Association divides psi into two main categories: psi-gamma for extrasensory perception and psi-kappa for psychokinesis. In popular culture, "psi" has become more and more synonymous with extraordinary psychic, mental, and "psionic" abilities and powers. + +== History == + +=== Early psychical research === + +In 1853, chemist Robert Hare conducted experiments with mediums and reported positive results. Other researchers such as Frank Podmore highlighted flaws in his experiments, such as lack of controls to prevent trickery. Agenor de Gasparin conducted early experiments into table-tipping. For five months in 1853, he declared the experiments a success, being the result of an "ectenic force". Critics noted that the conditions were insufficient to prevent trickery. For example, the sitters may have moved the table with their knees, and no experimenter was simultaneously watching above and below the table. +The German astrophysicist Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner tested the medium Henry Slade in 1877. According to Zöllner, some of the experiments were successful. However, flaws in the experiments were discovered, and critics have suggested that Slade was a fraud who performed trickery in the experiments. +The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in London in 1882. Its formation was the first systematic effort to organize scientists and scholars to investigate paranormal phenomena. Early membership included philosophers, scholars, scientists, educators and politicians, such as Henry Sidgwick, Arthur Balfour, William Crookes, Rufus Osgood Mason, and Nobel Laureate Charles Richet. Presidents of the Society included, in addition to Richet, Eleanor Sidgwick and William James, and subsequently Nobel Laureates Henri Bergson and Lord Rayleigh, and philosopher C. D. Broad. +Areas of study included telepathy, hypnotism, Reichenbach's phenomena, apparitions, hauntings, and the physical aspects of Spiritualism such as table-tilting, materialization, and apportation. In the 1880s, the Society investigated apparitional experiences and hallucinations in the sane. Among the first important works was the two-volume publication in 1886, Phantasms of the Living, which was largely criticized by scholars. In 1894, the Census of Hallucinations was published which sampled 17,000 people. Out of these, 1,684 persons admitted to having experienced a hallucination of an apparition. The SPR became the model for similar societies in other European countries and the United States during the late 19th century. +Early clairvoyance experiments were reported in 1884 by Charles Richet. Playing cards were enclosed in envelopes, and a subject was put under hypnosis to identify them. The subject was reported to have succeeded in a series of 133 trials, but the results dropped to the chance level when performed before a group of scientists in Cambridge. J. M. Peirce and E. C. Pickering reported a similar experiment in which they tested 36 subjects over 23,384 trials, which did not obtain above-chance scores. +In 1881, Eleanor Sidgwick revealed the fraudulent methods that spirit photographers such as Édouard Isidore Buguet, Frederic Hudson, and William H. Mumler had utilized. During the late nineteenth century, many fraudulent mediums were exposed by SPR investigators. +Largely due to the support of psychologist William James, the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) opened its doors in Boston in 1885, moving to New York City in 1905 under the leadership of James H. Hyslop. Notable cases investigated by Walter Franklin Prince of the ASPR in the early 20th century included Pierre L. O. A. Keeler, the Great Amherst Mystery and Patience Worth. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8590942eb --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 2/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Rhine era === +In 1911, Stanford University became the first academic institution in the United States to study extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK) in a laboratory setting. The effort was headed by psychologist John Edgar Coover and funded by Thomas Welton Stanford, brother of the university's founder. After conducting approximately 10,000 experiments, Coover concluded that "statistical treatments of the data fail to reveal any cause beyond chance." +In 1930, Duke University became the second major U.S. academic institution to engage in the critical study of ESP and psychokinesis in the laboratory. Under the guidance of psychologist William McDougall, and with the help of others in the department—including psychologists Karl Zener, Joseph B. Rhine, and Louisa E. Rhine—laboratory ESP experiments using volunteer subjects from the undergraduate student body began. As opposed to the approaches of psychical research, which generally sought qualitative evidence for paranormal phenomena, the experiments at Duke University proffered a quantitative, statistical approach using cards and dice. As a consequence of the ESP experiments at Duke, standard laboratory procedures for the testing of ESP were developed and adopted by interested researchers worldwide. +George Estabrooks conducted an ESP experiment using cards in 1927. Harvard students were used as the subjects. Estabrooks acted as the sender, with the guesser in an adjoining room. Estabrooks conducted a total of 2,300 trials. When Estabrooks sent the subjects to a distant room with insulation, the scores dropped to chance level. Attempts to repeat the experiment also failed. +The publication of J. B. Rhine's book, New Frontiers of the Mind (1937), brought the laboratory's findings to the general public. In his book, Rhine popularized the word "parapsychology", coined by psychologist Max Dessoir over 40 years earlier, to describe the research conducted at Duke. Rhine also founded an autonomous Parapsychology Laboratory within Duke and started the Journal of Parapsychology, which he co-edited with McDougall. + +Rhine, along with associate Karl Zener, had developed a statistical system of testing for ESP that involved subjects guessing what symbol, out of five possible symbols, would appear when going through a special deck of cards designed for this purpose. A percentage of correct guesses (or hits) significantly above 20% was perceived as higher than chance and indicative of psychic ability. Rhine stated in his first book, Extrasensory Perception (1934), that after 90,000 trials, he felt ESP is "an actual and demonstrable occurrence". +Irish medium and parapsychologist Eileen J. Garrett was tested by Rhine at Duke University in 1933 with Zener cards. Rhine placed certain symbols on the cards, sealed them in an envelope, and asked Garrett to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order. The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May 1937. Soal conducted most experiments in the Psychological Laboratory at University College London. Soal recorded over 12,000 guesses, but Garrett failed to produce above chance level. In his report Soal wrote "In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place." +The parapsychology experiments at Duke evoked much criticism from academics and others who challenged the concepts and evidence of ESP. Many psychological departments attempted to repeat Rhine's experiments with failure. W. S. Cox (1936) from Princeton University, with 132 subjects, produced 25,064 trials in a playing card ESP experiment. Cox concluded, "There is no evidence of extrasensory perception either in the 'average man' or of the group investigated or in any particular individual of that group. The discrepancy between these results and those obtained by Rhine is due either to uncontrollable factors in experimental procedure or to the difference in the subjects." Four other psychological departments failed to replicate Rhine's results. After thousands of card runs, James Charles Crumbaugh failed to duplicate the results of Rhine. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-10.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-10.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7d18a6aa0 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-10.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 11/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Physics === +The ideas of psi (precognition, psychokinesis and telepathy) violate well-established laws of physics. Psychokinesis violates the inverse-square law, the second law of thermodynamics, and the conservation of momentum. There is no known mechanism for psi. +On the subject of psychokinesis, the physicist Sean M. Carroll has written that both human brains and the spoons they try to bend are made, like all matter, of quarks and leptons; everything else they do emerges as properties of the behavior of quarks and leptons. The quarks and leptons interact through the four forces: strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational. Thus, either it is one of the four known forces, or it is a new force, and any new force with a range over 1 millimeter must be at most a billionth the strength of gravity, or it will have been captured in experiments already done. This leaves no physical force that could account for psychokinesis. +Physicist John G. Taylor, who investigated parapsychological claims, wrote that an unknown fifth force causing psychokinesis would have to transmit a great deal of energy. The energy would have to overcome the electromagnetic forces binding the atoms together. The atoms would need to respond more strongly to the fifth force while it is operative than to electric forces. Therefore, such an additional force between atoms should exist all the time and not only during alleged paranormal occurrences. Taylor wrote there is no scientific trace of such a force in physics, down to many orders of magnitude; thus, if a scientific viewpoint is to be preserved, the idea of any fifth force must be discarded. Taylor concluded there is no possible physical mechanism for psychokinesis, and it is in complete contradiction to established science. +Felix Planer, a professor of electrical engineering, has written that if psychokinesis were real, then it would be easy to demonstrate by getting subjects to depress a scale on a sensitive balance, raise the temperature of a water bath which could be measured with an accuracy of a hundredth of a degree Celsius or affect an element in an electrical circuit such as a resistor which could be monitored to better than a millionth of an ampere. Planer writes that such experiments are extremely sensitive and easy to monitor but are not utilized by parapsychologists as they "do not hold out the remotest hope of demonstrating even a minute trace of PK" because the alleged phenomenon is non-existent. Planer has written that parapsychologists fall back on studies that involve only unrepeatable statistics, owing their results to poor experimental methods, recording mistakes, and faulty statistical mathematics. +According to Planer, "all research in medicine and other sciences would become illusionary, if the existence of PK had to be taken seriously; for no experiment could be relied upon to furnish objective results, since all measurements would become falsified to a greater or lesser degree, according to his PK ability, by the experimenter's wishes." Planer concluded the concept of psychokinesis is absurd and has no scientific basis. +Philosopher and physicist Mario Bunge has written that "psychokinesis, or PK, violates the principle that mind cannot act directly on matter. (If it did, no experimenter could trust his readings of measuring instruments.) It also violates the principles of conservation of energy and momentum. The claim that quantum mechanics allows for the possibility of mental power influencing randomizers—an alleged case of micro-PK—is ludicrous since that theory respects the said conservation principles, and it deals exclusively with physical things." +The physicist Robert L. Park questioned if the mind really could influence matter, then it would be easy for parapsychologists to measure such a phenomenon by using the alleged psychokinetic power to deflect a microbalance which would not require any dubious statistics but "the reason, of course, is that the microbalance stubbornly refuses to budge." Park has suggested the reason statistical studies are so popular in parapsychology is because they introduce opportunities for uncertainty and error, which are used to support the biases of the experimenter. Park wrote, "No proof of psychic phenomena is ever found. In spite of all the tests devised by parapsychologists like Jahn and Radin, and huge amounts of data collected over a period of many years, the results are no more convincing today than when they began their experiments." + +=== Pseudoscience === + +Parapsychological theories are viewed as pseudoscientific by the scientific community as incompatible with well-established laws of science. As there is no repeatable evidence for psi, the field is often regarded as a pseudoscience. +The philosopher Raimo Tuomela summarized why the majority of scientists consider parapsychology to be a pseudoscience in his essay "Science, Protoscience, and Pseudoscience". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-11.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-11.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0bd084bfd --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-11.md @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 12/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Parapsychology relies on an ill-defined ontology and typically shuns exact thinking. +The hypotheses and theories of parapsychology have not been proven and are in bad shape. +Extremely little progress has taken place in parapsychology on the whole and parapsychology conflicts with established science. +Parapsychology has poor research problems, being concerned with establishing the existence of its subject matter and having practically no theories to create proper research problems. +While in parts of parapsychology there are attempts to use the methods of science there are also unscientific areas; and in any case parapsychological research can at best qualify as prescientific because of its poor theoretical foundation. +Parapsychology is a largely isolated research area. +The methods of parapsychologists are regarded by critics, including those who wrote the science standards for the California State Board of Education, to be pseudoscientific. Some of the more specific criticisms state that parapsychology does not have a clearly defined subject matter, an easily repeatable experiment that can demonstrate a psi effect on demand, nor an underlying theory to explain the paranormal transfer of information. James Alcock has stated that few of parapsychology's experimental results have prompted interdisciplinary research with more mainstream sciences such as physics or biology and that parapsychology remains an isolated science to such an extent that its very legitimacy is questionable, and as a whole is not justified in being labeled "scientific". +Alcock wrote, "Parapsychology is indistinguishable from pseudo-science, and its ideas are essentially those of magic... There is no evidence that would lead the cautious observer to believe that parapsychologists and paraphysicists are on the track of a real phenomenon, a real energy or power that has so far escaped the attention of those people engaged in "normal" science." +The scientific community considers parapsychology a pseudoscience because it continues to explore the hypothesis that psychic abilities exist despite a century of experimental results that fail to demonstrate that hypothesis conclusively. A panel commissioned by the United States National Research Council to study paranormal claims concluded that "despite a 130-year record of scientific research on such matters, our committee could find no scientific justification for the existence of phenomena such as extrasensory perception, mental telepathy or 'mind over matter' exercises... Evaluation of a large body of the best available evidence simply does not support the contention that these phenomena exist." +There is also an issue of non-falsifiability associated with psi. On this subject Terence Hines has written: + +The most common rationale offered by parapsychologists to explain the lack of a repeatable demonstration of ESP or other psi phenomena is to say that ESP in particular and psi phenomena in general are elusive or jealous phenomena. This means the phenomena go away when a skeptic is present or when skeptical "vibrations" are present. This argument seems nicely to explain away some of the major problems facing parapsychology until it is realized that it is nothing more than a classic nonfalsifiable hypothesis... The use of the nonfalsifiable hypothesis is permitted in parapsychology to a degree unheard of in any scientific discipline. To the extent that investigators accept this type of hypothesis, they will be immune to having their belief in psi disproved. No matter how many experiments fail to provide evidence for psi and no matter how good those experiments are, the nonfalsifiable hypothesis will always protect the belief. +Mario Bunge has written that research in parapsychology for over a hundred years has produced no firm findings or testable predictions. All parapsychologists can do is claim alleged data is anomalous and beyond the reach of ordinary science. The aim of parapsychologists "is not that of finding laws and systematizing them into theories in order to understand and forecast" but to "buttress ancient spiritualist myths or to serve as a surrogate for lost religions." +The psychologist David Marks has written that parapsychologists have failed to produce a single repeatable demonstration of the paranormal and described psychical research as a pseudoscience, an "incoherent collection of belief systems steeped in fantasy, illusion and error." However, Chris French, who is not convinced that parapsychology has demonstrated evidence for psi, has argued that parapsychological experiments still adhere to the scientific method and should not be completely dismissed as pseudoscience. "Sceptics like myself will often point out that there's been systematic research in parapsychology for well over a century, and so far the wider scientific community is not convinced." French has noted his position is "the minority view among critics of parapsychology". +Philosopher Bradley Dowden characterized parapsychology as a pseudoscience because parapsychologists have no valid theories to test or reproducible data from their experiments. + +=== Fraud === + +There have been instances of fraud in the history of parapsychology research. In the late 19th century, the Creery Sisters (Mary, Alice, Maud, Kathleen, and Emily) were tested by the Society for Psychical Research and believed them to have genuine psychic ability; however, during a later experiment they were caught utilizing signal codes and they confessed to fraud. George Albert Smith and Douglas Blackburn were claimed to be genuine psychics by the Society for Psychical Research, but Blackburn confessed to fraud: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-12.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-12.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f9f4fd978 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-12.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 13/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +For nearly thirty years the telepathic experiments conducted by Mr. G. A. Smith and myself have been accepted and cited as the basic evidence of the truth of thought transference... +...the whole of those alleged experiments were bogus, and originated in the honest desire of two youths to show how easily men of scientific mind and training could be deceived when seeking for evidence in support of a theory they were wishful to establish. +The experiments of Samuel Soal and K. M. Goldney of 1941–1943 (suggesting the precognitive ability of a single participant) were long regarded as some of the best in the field because they relied upon independent checking and witnesses to prevent fraud. However, many years later, statistical evidence, uncovered and published by other parapsychologists in the field, suggested that Soal had cheated by altering some of the raw data. +In 1974, many experiments by Walter J. Levy, J. B. Rhine's successor as director of the Institute for Parapsychology, were exposed as fraudulent. Levy had reported on a series of successful ESP experiments involving computer-controlled manipulation of non-human subjects, including rats. His experiments showed very high positive results. However, Levy's fellow researchers became suspicious about his methods. They found that Levy interfered with data-recording equipment, manually creating fraudulent strings of positive results. Levy confessed to the fraud and resigned. +In 1974, Rhine published the paper Security versus Deception in Parapsychology in the Journal of Parapsychology, which documented 12 cases of fraud that he had detected from 1940 to 1950 but refused to give the names of the participants in the studies. Massimo Pigliucci has written: + +Most damning of all, Rhine admitted publicly that he had uncovered at least twelve instances of dishonesty among his researchers in a single decade, from 1940 to 1950. However, he flaunted standard academic protocol by refusing to divulge the names of the fraudsters, which means that there is unknown number of published papers in the literature that claim paranormal effects while in fact they were the result of conscious deception. +Martin Gardner claimed to have inside information that files in Rhine's laboratory contain material suggesting fraud on the part of Hubert Pearce. Pearce was never able to obtain above-chance results when persons other than the experimenter were present during an experiment, making it more likely that he was cheating in some way. Rhine's other subjects could only obtain non-chance levels when they could shuffle the cards, which suggested they used tricks to arrange the order of the Zener cards before the experiments started. +A researcher from Tarkio College in Missouri, James D. MacFarland, was suspected of falsifying data to achieve positive psi results. Before the fraud was discovered, MacFarland published two articles in the Journal of Parapsychology (1937 & 1938) supporting the existence of ESP. Presumably speaking about MacFarland, Louisa Rhine wrote that in reviewing the data submitted to the lab in 1938, the researchers at the Duke Parapsychology Lab recognized the fraud. "...before long they were all certain that Jim had consistently falsified his records... To produce extra hits, Jim had to resort to erasures and transpositions in the records of his call series." MacFarland never published another article in the Journal of Parapsychology after the fraud was discovered. +Some instances of fraud amongst spiritualist mediums were exposed by early psychical researchers such as Richard Hodgson and Harry Price. In the 1920s, magician and escapologist Harry Houdini said that researchers and observers had not created experimental procedures that preclude fraud. + +=== Criticism of experimental results === +Critical analysts, including some parapsychologists, are unsatisfied with experimental parapsychology studies. Some reviewers, such as psychologist Ray Hyman, contend that apparently successful experimental results in psi research are more likely due to sloppy procedures, poorly trained researchers, or methodological flaws rather than to genuine psi effects. Fellow psychologist Stuart Vyse hearkens back to a time of data manipulation, now recognized as "p-hacking", as part of the issue. Within parapsychology there are disagreements over the results and methodology as well. For example, the experiments at the PEAR laboratory were criticized in a paper published by the Journal of Parapsychology in which parapsychologists independent from the PEAR laboratory concluded that these experiments "departed from criteria usually expected in formal scientific experimentation" due to "problems with regard to randomization, statistical baselines, application of statistical models, agent coding of descriptor lists, feedback to percipients, sensory cues, and precautions against cheating." They felt that the originally stated significance values were "meaningless". +In 1979, magician and debunker James Randi engineered a hoax, now referred to as Project Alpha to encourage a tightening of standards within the parapsychology community. Randi recruited two young magicians and sent them undercover to Washington University's McDonnell Laboratory, where they "fooled researchers ... into believing they had paranormal powers." The aim was to expose poor experimental methods and the credulity thought to be common in parapsychology. Randi has stated that both of his recruits deceived experimenters for three years with demonstrations of supposedly psychic abilities: blowing electric fuses sealed in a box, causing a lightweight paper rotor perched atop a needle to turn inside a bell jar, bending metal spoons sealed in a glass bottle, etc. The hoax by Randi raised ethical concerns in the scientific and parapsychology communities, eliciting criticism even among skeptical communities such as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), which he helped found, but also positive responses from the President of the Parapsychological Association Stanley Krippner. Psychologist Ray Hyman, a CSICOP member, called the results "counterproductive". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-13.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-13.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..71235c7fb --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-13.md @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 14/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== The psi assumption === +A typical measure of psi phenomena is a statistical deviation from chance expectation. However, critics point out that statistical deviation is, strictly speaking, only evidence of a statistical anomaly, and the cause of the deviation is not known. Hyman contends that even if psi experiments that regularly reproduce similar deviations from chance could be designed, they would not necessarily prove psychic functioning. Critics have coined the term The psi assumption to describe "the assumption that any significant departure from the laws of chance in a test of psychic ability is evidence that something anomalous or paranormal has occurred...[in other words] assuming what they should be proving." These critics hold that concluding the existence of psychic phenomena based on chance deviation in inadequately designed experiments is affirming the consequent or begging the question. + +=== Selection bias and meta-analysis === +Selective reporting has been offered by critics as an explanation for the positive results reported by parapsychologists. Selective reporting is sometimes called a "file drawer" problem, which arises when only positive study results are made public, while studies with negative or null results are not made public. Selective reporting has a compounded effect on meta-analysis, which is a statistical technique that aggregates the results of many studies to generate sufficient statistical power to demonstrate a result that the individual studies themselves could not demonstrate at a statistically significant level. For example, a recent meta-analysis combined 380 studies on psychokinesis, including data from the PEAR lab. It concluded that, although there is a statistically significant overall effect, it is inconsistent, and relatively few negative studies would cancel it out. Consequently, biased publication of positive results could be the cause. +Numerous researchers have criticized the popularity of meta-analysis in parapsychology, and is often seen as troublesome even within parapsychology. Critics have said that parapsychologists misuse meta-analysis to create the incorrect impression that statistically significant results have been obtained that indicate the existence of psi phenomena. Physicist Robert Park states that parapsychology's reported positive results are problematic because most such findings are invariably at the margin of statistical significance and that might be explained by a number of confounding effects; Park states that such marginal results are a typical symptom of pathological science as described by Irving Langmuir. +Researcher J. E. Kennedy has said that concerns over meta-analysis in science and medicine also apply to problems present in parapsychological meta-analysis. As a post-hoc analysis, critics emphasize the opportunity the method presents to produce biased outcomes via selecting cases chosen for study, methods employed, and other key criteria. Critics say that analogous problems with meta-analysis have been documented in medicine, where it has been shown different investigators performing meta-analyses of the same set of studies have reached contradictory conclusions. + +=== Anomalistic psychology === + +In anomalistic psychology, paranormal phenomena have naturalistic explanations resulting from psychological and physical factors, which have sometimes given the impression of paranormal activity to some people when, in fact, there have been none. According to the psychologist Chris French: + +The difference between anomalistic psychology and parapsychology is in terms of the aims of what each discipline is about. Parapsychologists typically are actually searching for evidence to prove the reality of paranormal forces, to prove they really do exist. So the starting assumption is that paranormal things do happen, whereas anomalistic psychologists tend to start from the position that paranormal forces probably don't exist and that therefore we should be looking for other kinds of explanations, in particular the psychological explanations for those experiences that people typically label as paranormal. +While parapsychology has declined, anomalistic psychology has risen. It is now offered as an option in some psychology degree programs. It is also an option on the A2 psychology syllabus in the UK. + +=== Skeptic organizations === +Organizations that encourage a critical examination of parapsychology and parapsychological research include the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer; the James Randi Educational Foundation, founded by illusionist and skeptic James Randi, and the Occult Investigative Committee of the Society of American Magicians a society for professional magicians/illusionists that seeks "the promotion of harmony among magicians, and the opposition of the unnecessary public exposure of magical effects." + +== See also == +Outline of parapsychology +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience + +== References == + +== Further reading == + +== External links == + +The Division of Perceptual Studies (Archived 2014-05-08 at the Wayback Machine) at the University of Virginia School of Medicine +Institute of Noetic Sciences – a nonprofit organization that sponsors research in parapsychology. +Parapsychological Association – an organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of psychic phenomena, affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1969. +Rhine Research Center – a historical parapsychological research center featuring the first building ever made for experimental work in parapsychology. The Rhine Research Center is a hub for research and education in Parapsychology. +Society for Psychical Research – founded in 1882, the SPR was the first society to conduct organized scholarly research into parapsychology and other human experiences that challenge contemporary scientific models and continues its work today. +Committee for Skeptical Inquiry – organization formed in 1976 to promote scientific skepticism and encourage the critical investigation of paranormal claims and parapsychology. +James Randi Educational Foundation – JREF was founded to promote critical thinking in the areas of the supernatural and paranormal. The JREF has provided skeptical views in the area of parapsychology. +FindArticles.com Index – a large number of articles about parapsychology, from publications such as the Journal of Parapsychology and the Skeptical Inquirer. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4250b34d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 3/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In 1938, the psychologist Joseph Jastrow wrote that much of the evidence for extrasensory perception collected by Rhine and other parapsychologists was anecdotal, biased, dubious and the result of "faulty observation and familiar human frailties". Rhine's experiments were discredited due to the discovery that sensory leakage or cheating could account for all his results, such as the subject being able to read the symbols from the back of the cards and being able to see and hear the experimenter to note subtle clues. +Illusionist Milbourne Christopher wrote years later that he felt "there are at least a dozen ways a subject who wished to cheat under the conditions Rhine described could deceive the investigator". When Rhine took precautions in response to criticisms of his methods, he failed to find any high-scoring subjects. Another criticism, made by chemist Irving Langmuir, among others, was one of selective reporting. Langmuir stated that Rhine did not report scores of subjects that he suspected were intentionally guessing wrong and that this, he felt, biased the statistical results higher than they should have been. +Rhine and his colleagues attempted to address these criticisms through new experiments described in the book Extrasensory Perception After Sixty Years (1940). Rhine described three experiments: the Pearce-Pratt experiment, the Pratt-Woodruff experiment, and the Ownbey-Zirkle series, which he believed demonstrated ESP. However, C. E. M. Hansel wrote, "It is now known that each experiment contained serious flaws that escaped notice in the examination made by the authors of Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years". Joseph Gaither Pratt was the co-experimenter in the Pearce-Pratt and Pratt-Woodruff experiments at the Duke campus. Hansel visited the campus where the experiments took place and discovered the results could have originated through a trick, so they could not supply evidence for ESP. +In 1957, Rhine and Joseph Gaither Pratt wrote Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind. Because of the methodological problems, parapsychologists no longer utilize card-guessing studies. Rhine's experiments into psychokinesis (PK) were also criticized. John Sladek wrote: + +His research used dice, with subjects 'willing' them to fall a certain way. Not only can dice be drilled, shaved, falsely numbered and manipulated, but even straight dice often show bias in the long run. Casinos for this reason retire dice often, but at Duke, subjects continued to try for the same effect on the same dice over long experimental runs. Not surprisingly, PK appeared at Duke and nowhere else. + +Parapsychologists and skeptics criticized the Ownbey-Zirkle ESP experiment at Duke. Ownbey would attempt to send ESP symbols to Zirkle, who would guess what they were. The pair were placed in adjacent rooms, unable to see each other, and an electric fan was used to prevent the pair from communicating by sensory cues. Ownbey tapped a telegraph key to Zirkle to inform him when she was trying to send him a symbol. The door separating the two rooms was open during the experiment, and after each guess, Zirkle would call out his guess to Ownbey, who recorded his choice. Critics pointed out the experiment was flawed as Ownbey acted as both the sender and the experimenter; nobody controlled the experiment, so Ownbey could have cheated by communicating with Zirkle or made recording mistakes. +The Turner-Ownbey long-distance telepathy experiment was also flawed. May Frances Turner positioned herself in the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, while Sara Ownbey claimed to receive transmissions 250 miles away. For the experiment, Turner would think of a symbol and write it down, while Ownbey would write her guesses. The scores were highly successful and both records were supposed to be sent to J. B. Rhine, however, Ownbey sent them to Turner. Critics pointed out this invalidated the results as she could have simply written her own record to agree with the other. When the experiment was repeated and the records were sent to Rhine, the scores dropped to average. +Lucien Warner and Mildred Raible performed a famous ESP experiment at Duke University. Warner and Raible locked a subject in a room with a switch controlling a signal light elsewhere, which she could signal to guess the card. Ten runs with ESP packs of cards were used, and she achieved 93 hits (43 more than chance). Weaknesses with the experiment were later discovered. The duration of the light signal could be varied so that the subject could call for specific symbols. Certain symbols in the experiment appeared far more often than others, indicating poor shuffling or card manipulation. The experiment was not repeated. +Duke's administration grew less sympathetic to parapsychology, and after Rhine's retirement in 1965, parapsychological links with the university were broken. Rhine later established the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man (FRNM) and the Institute for Parapsychology as a successor to the Duke laboratory. In 1995, the centenary of Rhine's birth, the FRNM was renamed the Rhine Research Center. Today, the Rhine Research Center is a parapsychology research unit, stating that it "aims to improve the human condition by creating a scientific understanding of those abilities and sensitivities that appear to transcend the ordinary limits of space and time". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4201854ce --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 4/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Establishment of the Parapsychological Association === +The Parapsychological Association (PA) was created in Durham, North Carolina, on June 19, 1957. J. B. Rhine proposed its formation at a parapsychology workshop held at the Parapsychology Laboratory of Duke University. Rhine proposed that the group form itself into the nucleus of an international professional society in parapsychology. The aim of the organization, as stated in its Constitution, became "to advance parapsychology as a science, to disseminate knowledge of the field, and to integrate the findings with those of other branches of science". +In 1969, under the direction of anthropologist Margaret Mead, the Parapsychological Association became affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest general scientific society in the world. In 1979, physicist John A. Wheeler said that parapsychology is pseudoscientific and that the affiliation of the PA to the AAAS needed to be reconsidered. +His challenge to parapsychology's AAAS affiliation was unsuccessful. Today, the PA consists of about three hundred full, associate, and affiliated members worldwide. + +=== Stargate Project === +Beginning in the early 1950s, the CIA started extensive research into behavioral engineering. The findings from these experiments led to the formation of the Stargate Project, which handled ESP research for the U.S. federal government. +The Stargate Project was terminated in 1995 with the conclusion that it was never useful in any intelligence operation. The information was vague and included a lot of irrelevant and erroneous data. There was also reason to suspect that the research managers had adjusted their project reports to fit the known background cues. + +=== 1970s and 1980s === +The affiliation of the Parapsychological Association (PA) with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, along with a general openness to psychic and occult phenomena in the 1970s, led to a decade of increased parapsychological research. During this period, other related organizations were also formed, including the Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine (1970), the Institute of Parascience (1971), the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research, the Institute of Noetic Sciences (1973), the International Kirlian Research Association (1975), and the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (1979). Parapsychological work was also conducted at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) during this time. +The scope of parapsychology expanded during these years. Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson conducted much of his research into reincarnation during the 1970s, and the second edition of his Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation was published in 1974. Psychologist Thelma Moss studied Kirlian photography at UCLA's parapsychology laboratory. The influx of spiritual teachers from Asia and their claims of abilities produced by meditation led to research on altered states of consciousness. American Society for Psychical Research Director of Research, Karlis Osis, conducted experiments in out of body experiences. Physicist Russell Targ coined the term remote viewing for use in some of his work at SRI in 1974. +The surge in paranormal research continued into the 1980s: the Parapsychological Association reported members working in more than 30 countries. For example, research was carried out and regular conferences held in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union although the word parapsychology was discarded in favor of the term psychotronics. While Soviet Psychotronics included many fantastical and ineffectual methods, much like Parapsychology, it enjoyed more comprehensive state backing and explored a wide variety of both scientific and pseudo-scientific means for influencing consciousness. +The main promoter of psychotronics was Czech scientist Zdeněk Rejdák, who described it as a physical science, organizing conferences and presiding over the International Association for Psychotronic Research. +In 1985, the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh established a Chair of Parapsychology, awarding it to Robert Morris, an experimental parapsychologist from the United States. Morris and his research associates and PhD students pursued research on topics related to parapsychology. + +=== Modern era === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2570e94e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 5/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Since the 1980s, contemporary parapsychological research has waned considerably in the United States. Early research was considered inconclusive, and parapsychologists faced strong skepticism from their academic colleagues. Some effects thought to be paranormal, for example, the effects of Kirlian photography (thought by some to represent a human aura), disappeared under more stringent controls, leaving those avenues of research at dead-ends. Most parapsychology research in the US is now confined to private institutions funded by private sources. After 28 years of research, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (PEAR), which studied psychokinesis, closed in 2007. +Two universities in the United States have academic parapsychology laboratories. The Division of Perceptual Studies, a unit at the University of Virginia's Department of Psychiatric Medicine, studies the possibility of survival of consciousness after bodily death, near-death experiences, and out-of-body experiences. Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona's Veritas Laboratory conducted laboratory investigations of mediums, criticized by scientific skeptics. Several private institutions, including the Institute of Noetic Sciences, conduct and promote parapsychological research. +Over the last two decades, some new sources of funding for parapsychology in Europe have seen a "substantial increase in European parapsychological research so that the center of gravity for the field has swung from the United States to Europe". The United Kingdom has the largest number of active parapsychologists of all nations. In the UK, researchers work in conventional psychology departments and do studies in mainstream psychology to "boost their credibility and show that their methods are sound". It is thought that this approach could account for the relative strength of parapsychology in Britain. +As of 2007, parapsychology was researched in some 30 countries, and some universities worldwide continue academic parapsychology programs. Among these are the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh; the Parapsychology Research Group at Liverpool Hope University (this closed in April 2011); the SOPHIA Project at the University of Arizona; the Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology Research Unit of Liverpool John Moores University; the Center for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes at the University of Northampton; and the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. +Research and professional organizations include the Parapsychological Association; the Society for Psychical Research, publisher of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and Psi Encyclopedia; the American Society for Psychical Research, publisher of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (last published in 2004); the Rhine Research Center and Institute for Parapsychology, publisher of the Journal of Parapsychology; the Parapsychology Foundation, which published the International Journal of Parapsychology (between 1959 and 1968 and 2000–2001) and the Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research, publisher of the Australian Journal of Parapsychology. The European Journal of Parapsychology ceased publishing in 2010. +Parapsychological research has also included other sub-disciplines of psychology. These related fields include transpersonal psychology, which studies transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human mind, and anomalistic psychology, which examines paranormal beliefs and subjective anomalous experiences in traditional psychological terms. + +== Research == + +=== Scope === +Parapsychologists study some ostensible paranormal phenomena, including but not limited to: + +Telepathy: Transfer of information of thoughts or feelings between individuals by means other than the five classical senses. +Precognition: Perception of information about future places or events before they occur. +Clairvoyance: Obtaining information about places or events at remote locations by means unknown to current science. +Psychokinesis: The ability of the mind to influence matter, time, space, or energy by means unknown to current science. +Near-death experiences: An experience reported by a person who nearly died or who experienced clinical death and then revived. +Reincarnation: The rebirth of a soul or other non-physical aspect of human consciousness in a new physical body after death. +Apparitional experiences: Phenomena often attributed to ghosts and encountered in places a deceased individual is thought to have frequented or in association with the person's former belongings. +The definitions for the terms above may not reflect their mainstream usage nor the opinions of all parapsychologists and their critics. +According to the Parapsychological Association, parapsychologists do not study all paranormal phenomena, nor are they concerned with astrology, UFOs, cryptozoology, paganism, vampires, alchemy, or witchcraft. +Journals dealing with parapsychology include the Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of Near-Death Studies, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, and Journal of Scientific Exploration. + +=== Experimental research === + +==== Ganzfeld ==== + +The Ganzfeld (German for "whole field") is a technique used to test individuals for telepathy. The technique—a form of moderate sensory deprivation—was developed to quickly quiet mental "noise" by providing mild, unpatterned stimuli to the visual and auditory senses. The visual sense is usually isolated by creating a soft red glow which is diffused through half ping-pong balls placed over the recipient's eyes. The auditory sense is usually blocked by playing white noise, static, or similar sounds to the recipient. The subject is also seated in a reclined, comfortable position to minimize the sense of touch. +In the typical Ganzfeld experiment, a "sender" and a "receiver" are isolated. The receiver is put into the Ganzfeld state, or Ganzfeld effect and the sender is shown a video clip or still picture and asked to send that image to the receiver mentally. While in the Ganzfeld, experimenters ask the receiver to continuously speak aloud all mental processes, including images, thoughts, and feelings. At the end of the sending period, typically about 20 to 40 minutes, the receiver is taken out of the Ganzfeld state and shown four images or videos, one of which is the actual target and three non-target decoys. The receiver attempts to select the target, using perceptions experienced during the Ganzfeld state as clues to what the mentally "sent" image might have been. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..44cb3143f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 6/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Ganzfeld experiment studies that were examined by Ray Hyman and Charles Honorton had methodological problems that were well documented. Honorton reported only 36% of the studies used duplicate target sets of pictures to avoid handling cues. Hyman discovered flaws in all of the 42 Ganzfeld experiments, and to assess each experiment, he devised a set of 12 categories of flaws. Six of these concerned statistical defects, and the other six covered procedural flaws such as inadequate documentation, randomization, security, and possibilities of sensory leakage. Over half of the studies failed to safeguard against sensory leakage, and all of the studies contained at least one of the 12 flaws. Because of the flaws, Honorton agreed with Hyman the 42 Ganzfeld studies could not support the claim for the existence of psi. +Possibilities of sensory leakage in the Ganzfeld experiments included the receivers hearing what was going on in the sender's room next door as the rooms were not soundproof and the sender's fingerprints to be visible on the target object for the receiver to see. Hyman reviewed the autoganzfeld experiments and discovered a pattern in the data that implied a visual cue may have taken place. Hyman wrote the autoganzfeld experiments were flawed because they did not preclude the possibility of sensory leakage. +In 2010, Lance Storm, Patrizio Tressoldi, and Lorenzo Di Risio analyzed 29 Ganzfeld studies from 1997 to 2008. Of the 1,498 trials, 483 produced hits, corresponding to a hit rate of 32.2%. This hit rate is statistically significant with p < .001. Participants selected for personality traits and personal characteristics thought to be psi-conducive were found to perform significantly better than unselected participants in the Ganzfeld condition. Hyman (2010) published a rebuttal to Storm et al. According to Hyman, "Reliance on meta-analysis as the sole basis for justifying the claim that an anomaly exists and that the evidence for it is consistent and replicable is fallacious. It distorts what scientists mean by confirmatory evidence." Hyman wrote that the Ganzfeld studies were not independently replicated and failed to produce evidence for psi. Storm et al. published a response to Hyman stating that the Ganzfeld experimental design has proved to be consistent and reliable, that parapsychology is a struggling discipline that has not received much attention, and that therefore further research on the subject is necessary. Rouder et al. 2013 wrote that critical evaluation of Storm et al.'s meta-analysis reveals no evidence for psi, no plausible mechanism and omitted replication failures. + +==== Remote viewing ==== + + Remote viewing is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using subjective means, in particular, extrasensory perception. A remote viewer is typically expected to give information about an object, event, person, or location hidden from physical view and separated at some distance. Several hundred such trials have been conducted by investigators over the past 25 years, including those by the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory (PEAR) and by scientists at SRI International and Science Applications International Corporation. Many of these were under contract by the U.S. government as part of the espionage program Stargate Project, which terminated in 1995 having failed to document any practical intelligence value. +The psychologists David Marks and Richard Kammann attempted to replicate Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff's remote viewing experiments that were carried out in the 1970s at SRI International. In a series of 35 studies, they could not replicate the results, motivating them to investigate the procedure of the original experiments. Marks and Kammann discovered that the notes given to the judges in Targ and Puthoff's experiments contained clues as to the order in which they were carried out, such as referring to yesterday's two targets or having the session date written at the top of the page. They concluded that these clues were the reason for the experiment's high hit rates. Marks was able to achieve 100 percent accuracy without visiting any of the sites himself but by using cues. James Randi wrote controlled tests in collaboration with several other researchers, eliminating several sources of cueing and extraneous evidence present in the original tests; Randi's controlled tests produced negative results. Students could also solve Puthoff and Targ's locations from the cues included in the transcripts. +In 1980, Charles Tart claimed that rejudging the transcripts from one of Targ and Puthoff's experiments revealed an above-chance result. Targ and Puthoff again refused to provide copies of the transcripts and it was not until July 1985 that they were made available for study, when it was discovered they still contained sensory cues. Marks and Christopher Scott (1986) wrote, "Considering the importance for the remote viewing hypothesis of adequate cue removal, Tart's failure to perform this basic task seems beyond comprehension. As previously concluded, remote viewing has not been demonstrated in the experiments conducted by Puthoff and Targ, only the repeated failure of the investigators to remove sensory cues." +PEAR closed its doors at the end of February 2007. Its founder, Robert G. Jahn, said of it, "For 28 years, we've done what we wanted to do, and there's no reason to stay and generate more of the same data." Statistical flaws in his work have been proposed by others in the parapsychological and general scientific communities. The physicist Robert L. Park said of PEAR, "It's been an embarrassment to science, and I think an embarrassment for Princeton". + +==== Psychokinesis on random number generators ==== \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-6.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-6.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f29f73149 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-6.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 7/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The advent of powerful and inexpensive electronic and computer technologies has allowed the development of fully automated experiments studying possible interactions between mind and matter. In the most common experiment of this type, a random number generator (RNG), based on electronic or radioactive noise, produces a data stream that is recorded and analyzed by computer software. A subject attempts to mentally alter the distribution of the random numbers, usually in an experimental design that is functionally equivalent to getting more "heads" than "tails" while flipping a coin. In the RNG experiment, design flexibility can be combined with rigorous controls while collecting a large amount of data quickly. This technique has been used both to test individuals for psychokinesis and to test the possible influence on RNGs of large groups of people. +Major meta-analyses of the RNG database have been published every few years since appearing in the journal Foundations of Physics in 1986. PEAR founder Robert G. Jahn and his colleague Brenda Dunne say that the experiments produced "a very small effect" not significant enough to be observed over a brief experiment but over a large number of trials resulted in a tiny statistical deviation from chance. According to Massimo Pigliucci, the results from PEAR can be explained without invoking the paranormal because of two problems with the experiment: "the difficulty of designing machines capable of generating truly random events and the fact that statistical "significance" is not at all a good measure of the importance or genuineness of a phenomenon." Pigluicci has written that the statistical analysis used by the Jahn and the PEAR group relied on a quantity called a "p-value", but a problem with p-values is that if the sample size (number of trials) is very large, like the PEAR tests, then one is guaranteed to find artificially low p-values indicating a statistically significant result even though nothing was occurring other than small biases in the experimental apparatus. +Two German independent scientific groups have failed to replicate the PEAR results. Pigliucci has written this was "yet another indication that the simplest hypothesis is likely to be true: there was nothing to replicate." The most recent meta-analysis on psychokinesis was published in Psychological Bulletin, along with several critical commentaries. It analyzed the results of 380 studies; the authors reported an overall positive effect size that was statistically significant but very small relative to the sample size and could, in principle, be explained by publication bias. + +==== Direct mental interactions with living systems ==== +Formerly called bio-PK, "direct mental interactions with living systems" (DMILS) studies the effects of one person's intentions on a distant person's psychophysiological state. One type of DMILS experiment looks at the commonly reported "feeling of being stared at". The "starer" and the "staree" are isolated in different locations, and the starer is periodically asked to simply gaze at the staree via closed-circuit video links. Meanwhile, the staree's nervous system activity is automatically and continuously monitored. +Parapsychologists have interpreted the cumulative data on this and similar DMILS experiments to suggest that one person's attention directed towards a remote, isolated person can significantly activate or calm that person's nervous system. In a meta-analysis of these experiments published in the British Journal of Psychology in 2004, researchers found a small but significant overall DMILS effect. However, the study also found that the effect size was insignificant when a small number of the highest-quality studies from one laboratory were analyzed. The authors concluded that although the existence of some anomaly related to distant intentions cannot be ruled out, there was also a shortage of independent replications and theoretical concepts. + +=== Dream telepathy === + +Parapsychological studies into dream telepathy were carried out at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York led by Stanley Krippner and Montague Ullman. They concluded the results from some of their experiments supported dream telepathy. However, the results have not been independently replicated. +The picture target experiments that Krippner and Ullman conducted were criticized by C. E. M. Hansel. According to Hansel, there were weaknesses in the design of the experiments in the way in which the agents became aware of their target picture. Only the agent should have known the target, and no other person should have known until the targets were judged; however, an experimenter was with the agent when the target envelope was opened. Hansel also wrote that the experiment had poor controls as the main experimenter could communicate with the subject. In 2002, Krippner denied Hansel's accusations, claiming the agent did not communicate with the experimenter. +Edward Belvedere and David Foulkes attempted to replicate the picture-target experiments. The finding was that neither the subject nor the judges matched the targets with dreams above chance level. Results from other experiments by Belvedere and Foulkes were also negative. +In 2003, Simon Sherwood and Chris Roe wrote a review that claimed support for dream telepathy at Maimonides. However, James Alcock noted that their review was based on "extreme messiness" of data. Alcock concluded the dream telepathy experiments at Maimonides have failed to provide evidence for telepathy and "lack of replication is rampant". + +=== Near-death experiences === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-7.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-7.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..42f18e2a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-7.md @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 8/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + + A near-death experience (NDE) is an experience reported by a person who nearly died, or who experienced clinical death and then revived. NDEs include one or more of the following experiences: a sense of being dead; an out-of-body experience; a sensation of floating above one's body and seeing the surrounding area; a sense of overwhelming love and peace; a sensation of moving upwards through a tunnel or narrow passageway; meeting deceased relatives or spiritual figures; encountering a being of light, or a light; experiencing a life review; reaching a border or boundary; and a feeling of being returned to the body, often accompanied by reluctance. +Interest in the NDE was spurred initially by the research of psychiatrists Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, George G. Ritchie, and Raymond Moody. In 1975, Moody wrote the best-selling book Life After Life and in 1977, he wrote a second book, Reflections on Life After Life. In 1998, Moody was appointed chair in "consciousness studies" at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The International Association for Near-death Studies (IANDS) was founded in 1978 to meet the needs of early researchers and experiencers within this field of research. Later researchers, such as psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, psychologist Kenneth Ring, and cardiologist Michael Sabom, introduced the study of near-death experiences to the academic setting. + +=== Reincarnation research === + +Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, from the University of Virginia, conducted more than 2,500 case studies over 40 years and published twelve books. He wrote that childhood memories ostensibly related to reincarnation normally occurred between the ages of three and seven years and then faded shortly afterward. He compared the memories with reports of people known to the deceased, attempting to do so before any contact between the child and the deceased's family had occurred, and searched for disconfirming evidence that could provide alternative explanations for the reports aside from reincarnation. +Some 35 percent of the subjects examined by Stevenson had birthmarks or congenital disabilities. Stevenson believed that the existence of birthmarks and deformities on children, when they occurred at the location of fatal wounds in the deceased, provided the best evidence for reincarnation. However, Stevenson has never claimed that he had proved the existence of reincarnation, and cautiously referred to his cases as being "of the reincarnation type" or "suggestive of reincarnation". Researchers who believe in the evidence for reincarnation have been unsuccessful in getting the scientific community to consider it a serious possibility. +Ian Wilson argued that a large number of Stevenson's cases consisted of poor children remembering wealthy lives or belonging to a higher caste. He speculated that such cases may represent a scheme to obtain money from the family of the alleged former incarnation. Philosopher Keith Augustine has written, "The vast majority of Stevenson's cases come from countries where a religious belief in reincarnation is strong, and rarely elsewhere, seems to indicate that cultural conditioning (rather than reincarnation) generates claims of spontaneous past-life memories." Philosopher Paul Edwards wrote that reincarnation invokes logically dubious assumptions and is inconsistent with modern science. + +== Scientific reception == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-8.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-8.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..92f8751d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-8.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 9/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Evaluation === +The scientific consensus is that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of psi phenomena. +Scientists critical of parapsychology state that its extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence if they are to be taken seriously. Scientists who have evaluated parapsychology have written the entire body of evidence is of poor quality and not adequately controlled. In support of this view, critics cite instances of fraud, flawed studies, and cognitive biases (such as clustering illusion, availability error, confirmation bias, illusion of control, magical thinking, and the bias blind spot) as ways to explain parapsychological results. Research has also shown that people's desire to believe in paranormal phenomena causes them to discount strong evidence that it does not exist. +The psychologists Donovan Rawcliffe (1952), C. E. M. Hansel (1980), Ray Hyman (1989), and Andrew Neher (2011) have studied the history of psi experiments from the late 19th century up until the 1980s. Flaws and weaknesses were discovered in every experiment investigated, so the possibility of sensory leakage and trickery were not ruled out. The data from the Creery sister and the Soal-Goldney experiments were proven to be fraudulent, one of the subjects from the Smith-Blackburn experiments confessed to fraud, the Brugmans experiment, the experiments by John Edgar Coover and those conducted by Joseph Gaither Pratt and Helmut Schmidt had flaws in the design of the experiments, did not rule out the possibility of sensory cues or trickery and have not been replicated. +According to critics, psi is negatively defined as any effect that cannot be currently explained in terms of chance or normal causes, and this is a fallacy as it encourages parapsychologists to use any peculiarity in the data as a characteristic of psi. Parapsychologists have admitted it is impossible to eliminate the possibility of non-paranormal causes in their experiments. There is no independent method to indicate the presence or absence of psi. Persi Diaconis has written that the controls in parapsychological experiments are often loose with possibilities of subject cheating and unconscious sensory cues. +In 1998, physics professor Michael W. Friedlander noted that parapsychology has "failed to produce any clear evidence for the existence of anomalous effects that require us to go beyond the known region of science." Philosopher and skeptic Robert Todd Carroll has written research in parapsychology has been characterized by "deception, fraud, and incompetence in setting up properly controlled experiments and evaluating statistical data." The psychologist Ray Hyman has pointed out that some parapsychologists such as Dick Bierman, Walter Lucadou, J. E. Kennedy, and Robert Jahn have admitted the evidence for psi is "inconsistent, irreproducible, and fails to meet acceptable scientific standards." Richard Wiseman has criticized the parapsychological community for widespread errors in research methods including cherry-picking new procedures which may produce preferred results, explaining away unsuccessful attempted replications with claims of an "experimenter effect", data mining, and retrospective data selection. +Independent evaluators and researchers dispute the existence of parapsychological phenomena and the scientific validity of parapsychological research. In 1988, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences published a report on the subject that concluded that "no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena." No accepted theory of parapsychology currently exists, and many competing and often conflicting models have been advocated by different parapsychologists in an attempt to explain reported paranormal phenomena. Terence Hines in his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003), wrote, "Many theories have been proposed by parapsychologists to explain how psi takes place. To skeptics, such theory building seems premature, as the phenomena to be explained by the theories have yet to be demonstrated convincingly." Skeptics such as Antony Flew have cited the lack of such a theory as their reason for rejecting parapsychology. +In a review of parapsychological reports, Hyman wrote, "randomization is often inadequate, multiple statistical testing without adjustment for significance levels is prevalent, possibilities for sensory leakage are not uniformly prevented, errors in use of statistical tests are much too common, and documentation is typically inadequate". Parapsychology has been criticized for making no precise predictions. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-9.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-9.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ed22abaf4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology-9.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +--- +title: "Parapsychology" +chunk: 10/14 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:50.897577+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In 2003, James Alcock Professor of Psychology at York University published Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance: Reasons to Remain Doubtful about the Existence of Psi, where he claimed that parapsychologists never seem to take seriously the possibility that psi does not exist. Because of that, they interpret null results as indicating only that they were unable to observe psi in a particular experiment rather than taking it as support for the possibility that there is no psi. The failure to take the null hypothesis as a serious alternative to their psi hypotheses leads them to rely upon many arbitrary "effects" to excuse failures to find predicted effects, excuse the lack of consistency in outcomes, and excuse failures to replicate. +Fundamental endemic problems in parapsychological research include, amongst others: insufficient definition of the subject matter, total reliance on negative definitions of their phenomena (e.g., psi is said to occur only when all known normal influences are ruled out); failure to produce a single phenomenon that neutral researchers can independently replicate; the invention of "effects" such as the psi-experimenter effect to explain away inconsistencies in the data and failures to achieve predicted outcomes; unfalsifiability of claims; the unpredictability of effects; lack of progress in over a century of formal research; methodological weaknesses; reliance on statistical procedures to determine when psi has supposedly occurred, even though statistical analysis does not in itself justify a claim that psi has occurred; and failure to jibe with other areas of science. Overall, he argues that there is nothing in parapsychological research that would ever lead parapsychologists to conclude that psi does not exist. So, even if it does not, the search will likely continue for a long time. "I continue to believe that parapsychology is, at bottom, motivated by belief in search of data, rather than data in search of explanation." +Alcock and cognitive psychologist Arthur S. Reber have criticized parapsychology broadly, writing that if psi effects were true, they would negate fundamental principles of science such as causality, time's arrow, thermodynamics, and the inverse square law. According to Alcock and Reber, "parapsychology cannot be true unless the rest of science isn't. Moreover, if psi effects were real, they would have already fatally disrupted the rest of the body of science". +Richard Land has written that from what is known about human biology, it is implausible that evolution has provided humans with ESP as research has shown the recognized five senses are adequate for the evolution and survival of the species. Michael Shermer, in the article "Psychic Drift: Why most scientists do not believe in ESP and psi phenomena" for Scientific American, wrote "the reason for skepticism is that we need replicable data and a viable theory, both of which are missing in psi research." +In January 2008, the results of a study using neuroimaging were published. To provide what are purported to be the most favorable experimental conditions, the study included appropriate emotional stimuli and had biologically or emotionally related participants, such as twins. The experiment was designed to produce positive results if telepathy, clairvoyance or precognition occurred. Still, despite this, no distinguishable neuronal responses were found between psychic and non-psychic stimuli, while variations in the same stimuli showed anticipated effects on brain activation patterns. The researchers concluded, "These findings are the strongest evidence yet obtained against the existence of paranormal mental phenomena." Other studies have attempted to test the psi hypothesis by using functional neuroimaging. A neuroscience review of the studies (Acunzo et al. 2013) discovered methodological weaknesses that could account for the reported psi effects. +A 2014 study discovered that schizophrenic patients have more belief in psi than healthy adults. +Some researchers have become skeptical of parapsychology, such as Susan Blackmore and John Taylor, after years of study and no progress in demonstrating the existence of psi by the scientific method. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasilalinic-sympathetic_compass-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasilalinic-sympathetic_compass-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4c4f248e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasilalinic-sympathetic_compass-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +--- +title: "Pasilalinic-sympathetic compass" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasilalinic-sympathetic_compass" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:52.066068+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The pasilalinic-sympathetic compass, also referred to as the snail telegraph, was a device built to test the hypothesis that snails create a permanent telepathic link when they mate. The device was developed by French occultist Jacques-Toussaint Benoît (de l'Hérault), with the supposed assistance of an American colleague, Monsieur Biat-Chrétien in the 1850s. + + +== The hypothesis == +Benoit claimed that when snails mate, an etheric escargotic fluid forms a permanent telepathic link between them. This fluid forms an invisible thread that keeps the snails in "sympathetic communication" by using animal magnetism similar to an electric current pulsating along it. They claimed that this method would work instantly, wirelessly, over any distance, and be more reliable than a telegraph. +This was not the first attempt to create a form of sympathetic communication. There are stories of Rosicrucians cutting pieces off the flesh of their arm and transplanting it with another person, with the alphabet tattooed on the flesh. By using a magnetized needle to prick the letters they wished to communicate, telepathy would be achieved. It was upon these stories that Benoit built his theory. William Brooke O'Shaughnessy is one prominent telegrapher who experimented with using human skin to send and receive messages. + + +== The apparatus == +Benoit did not have enough financial capital to build his design. Benoit persuaded Monsieur Triat, manager of a Paris gymnasium, to give him lodgings and an allowance, having impressed upon him the importance of his discovery. After a year Triat's patience grew thin, and he demanded to see a working model. +The apparatus consisted of a scaffold of 10-foot-long wooden beams supporting zinc bowls lined with a cloth soaked in a copper sulphate solution; the cloth was held in place by a line of copper. At the bottom of each of the 24 basins was a snail, glued in place, and each associated with a different letter of the alphabet. An identical second device held the paired snails. To transmit a letter, the operator touched one of the snails. This was supposed to cause a reaction in the corresponding snail, which could then be read by the receiving operator. + + +== Demonstration == +On 2 October 1850 Benoit invited Triat and friend Jules Allix, a journalist from La Presse. He first asked Triat and then Allix to stand at one station and to spell out a word – he would then tell them what the word was by reading from the receiving end. However, the transmission was inaccurate, with him supposedly receiving errors such as “gymoate” instead of “gymnase”, and he continually walked between the two devices, claiming that it was necessary to supervise his assistants to ensure that they were touching and reading the snails correctly. Triat began to suspect that it was a hoax. Allix, however, was convinced by the demonstration and wrote an article full of praise for Benoit's creation, which appeared in La Presse on 25 and 26 of October 1850. Among other praise, Allix suggested that ladies might wear the device on their "waist-chains". Triat demanded a second, stricter test, to which Benoit agreed. When the time came, though, Benoit had vanished. He was subsequently seen wandering the streets of Paris and died at the beginning of the year 1852. + + +== Influence == +During the 1871 uprising in the Paris Commune, the need to send and receive secured messages prompted a revival of the idea by Marquis Rochefort, president of the barricades commission. However, it proved to be as unreliable then as it had originally been. +The device also provided inspiration for the Japanese manga series One Piece, which includes Den Den Mushi 'transponder snails' that function as telephones, fax machines, and surveillance cameras. Along with the Allix article in La Presse the story of the pasilalinic-sympathetic compass was covered by the 1889 book Historic Oddities and Strange Events by Sabine Baring-Gould. + + +== See also == +Sympathetic alphabet + + +== Explanatory notes == + + +== References == + + +== External links == +The Internet of Snails: Escargotic commotion and the wood-wide web, Cabinet Magazine +The Extraordinary Escargotism of the Pasilalinic Phoney +Translation of key passages from Allix article published in La Presse \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penta_Water-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penta_Water-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..9fd9a6c2f --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penta_Water-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +--- +title: "Penta Water" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penta_Water" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:54.438628+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Penta Water is a brand of bottled water produced by United Beverage, based in Southern California. Penta Water undergoes a patented process which the company claims to result in specific health benefits. These claims have been heavily contested by scientists and regulators and do not have any genuine scientific basis. + + +== History == +Penta Water was created by Bill Holloway in Carlsbad, California. Holloway says that he was diagnosed with fibromyalgia which he contracted due to working with mercury at a previous job. His son, Mike Holloway, then came up with the formula for the highly purified water by accident, and the resulting water "caused him to feel better and to lead a relatively normal life." At this point he realized that he should manufacture and sell this water. +Southern California-based United Beverage acquired the patent for Penta Water in 2009, and is still manufacturing and distributing the water as of 2019. + + +== Claims == +Founder Bill Holloway claimed that "the water formula actually saved his life." He also claimed to have thousands of written testimonials from people with such conditions as cancer, arthritis, cirrhosis, heart disease, and teenage acne who claim to receive relief from his purified water as it allegedly reduces swelling. +In a 2004 interview with Tom Morrow of The San Diego Union-Tribune, Holloway states "our water protects DNA. It acts as a sort of anti-aging process. Heck, it may even be the fountain of youth.” +Press releases from March 2008 announced that Penta Water would be releasing a new study run by dermatologist Jean Krutmann and the Environmental Health Research Institute. This study allegedly demonstrated "that human skin cells cultured in Penta water had significantly less damage from ultraviolet radiation than skin cells cultured in plain water." The press releases claim that this suggests Penta Water may have anti-aging and antioxidant effects. Penta Water also claims to have commissioned UC Davis to continue this study into the hydration abilities and antioxidant effects of Penta Water. + + +== Criticism and challenge == +A 2003 US class action lawsuit, led by San Diego lawyer Stephen Morris, against Penta Water on the grounds of false advertising and unfair business practice, resulted in the company no longer being allowed to claim the water has health benefits. +In response to the lawsuit, the makers of Penta said that scientists from UC San Diego as well as the Scripps Research Institute "had confirmed the health benefits of their water". +Morris said that he contacted one scientist who was listed as a collaborator on the study and "she told him she disagreed with the study’s conclusions and wanted her name removed from it." +In 2016, San Diego news radio station KPBS contacted UC San Diego chemistry professor Andy Kummel, who coauthored the report on Penta Water's claims. They concluded that Penta Water's claims were "not only wrong, but absurd". +In March 2005 a public complaint was filed with the Advertising Standards Authority in the United Kingdom regarding a promotional leaflet on the qualities of Penta Water. The leaflet claimed that "it's no ordinary water" and that the water is "ultra-purified", "restructured", and can provide the consumer with something called "bio-hydration". The leaflet claimed this process, which was granted a patent for a 13 step water purification process by The US Patent Office, was proven at UC San Diego, Moscow University, and again proven by the General Physic Institute. The complaint alleged that the leaflet implied the product contained health benefits beyond those of plain water, and that it claimed water was "restructured", which the complainant did not believe was possible. +According to the Advertising Standards Authority, + +The advertisers asserted that Penta was a new form of water that was restructured. They submitted research papers that they believed showed scientific evidence of restructuring and several works in preparation, including studies from UK universities, that they believed showed increased performance and recovery levels after exercise with Penta when compared with ordinary water. The advertisers argued that, because Penta could hydrate more efficiently than tap water, it was better for health; they said they had not, however, made any medicinal claims for the product. +Based on the scientific evidence presented to the Advertising Standards Authority they "concluded that the information submitted was not sufficient to prove Penta water had health benefits over and above those of ordinary water or was structured differently from ordinary water". Thus, the ASA "told the advertisers not to repeat claims that implied the product was chemically unique, had been restructured or molecularly redesigned, or hydrated cells and improved physical performance better than tap water. +In 2005 Ben Goldacre, investigating for his "Bad Science" column in The Guardian, examined Penta's website and found that Penta Water had many health claims and testimonials on their website. When he reached out to Penta for scientific evidence, he was told that there exists an in vitro study on liposomes with aquaporins in artificial membranes that demonstrates this water is absorbed faster, although this study was never produced. +Ben Goldacre received threatening messages from Penta Water in the form of a message to his Bad Science column that read "Sleep well tonight and think about how and why you tried to fuck us over and practice keeping one eye open", but they also apologized for this remark. +Penta Water claimed that seeds could germinate in half the time in Penta Water, compared to normal water. Because of this testable claim they were encouraged to attempt James Randi's million dollar challenge. Penta Water announced that they would accept the challenge. As they further discussed the terms for verification of the experiment, Penta Water declined to continue with the challenge, stating they did not have the appropriate resources at the time to provide someone to oversee the experiment. + + +== See also == +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience +Hexagonal water aka "Structured Water" + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3fe24afc2 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +--- +title: "Perpetual motion" +chunk: 1/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:55.586701+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Perpetual motion is the motion of bodies that continues forever in an unperturbed system. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work indefinitely without an external energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, since its existence would violate the first and/or second laws of thermodynamics. These laws of thermodynamics apply regardless of the size of the system. Thus, machines that extract energy from finite sources cannot operate indefinitely because they are driven by the energy stored in the source, which will eventually be exhausted. A common example is devices powered by ocean currents, whose energy is ultimately derived from the Sun, which itself will eventually burn out. + +== History == + +The history of perpetual motion machines dates back to the Middle Ages. For millennia, it was not clear whether perpetual motion devices were possible or not, until the development of modern theories of thermodynamics showed that they were impossible. Despite this, many attempts have been made to create such machines, continuing into modern times. Modern designers and proponents often use other terms, such as "over unity", to describe their inventions. + +== Basic principles == + +Oh ye seekers after perpetual motion, how many vain chimeras have you pursued? Go and take your place with the alchemists. +There is a scientific consensus that perpetual motion in an isolated system violates either the first law of thermodynamics, the second law of thermodynamics, or both. The first law of thermodynamics is a version of the law of conservation of energy. The second law can be phrased in several different ways, the most intuitive of which is that heat flows spontaneously from hotter to colder places; relevant here is that the law observes that in every macroscopic process, there is friction or something close to it; another statement is that no heat engine (an engine which produces work while moving heat from a high temperature to a low temperature) can be more efficient than a Carnot heat engine operating between the same two temperatures. +In other words: + +In any isolated system, one cannot create new energy (law of conservation of energy). As a result, the thermal efficiency—the produced work power divided by the input heating power—cannot be greater than one. +The output work power of heat engines is always smaller than the input heating power. The rest of the heat energy supplied is wasted as heat to the ambient surroundings. The thermal efficiency therefore has a maximum, given by the Carnot efficiency, which is always less than one. +The efficiency of real heat engines is even lower than the Carnot efficiency due to irreversibility arising from the speed of processes, including friction. +Statements 2 and 3 apply to heat engines. Other types of engines that convert e.g. mechanical into electromagnetic energy, cannot operate with 100% efficiency, because it is impossible to design any system that is free of energy dissipation. +Machines that comply with both laws of thermodynamics by accessing energy from unconventional sources are sometimes referred to as perpetual motion machines, although they do not meet the standard criteria for the name. By way of example, clocks and other low-power machines, such as Cox's timepiece, have been designed to run on the differences in barometric pressure or temperature between night and day. These machines have a source of energy, albeit one which is not readily apparent, so that they only seem to violate the laws of thermodynamics. +Even machines that extract energy from long-lived sources - such as ocean currents - will run down when their energy sources inevitably do. They are not perpetual motion machines because they are consuming energy from an external source and are not isolated systems. + +=== Classification === +One classification of perpetual motion machines refers to the particular law of thermodynamics the machines purport to violate: + +A perpetual motion machine of the first kind produces work without the input of energy. It thus violates the law of conservation of energy. +A perpetual motion machine of the second kind is a machine that spontaneously converts thermal energy into mechanical work. When the thermal energy is equivalent to the work done, this does not violate the law of conservation of energy. However, it does violate the more subtle second law of thermodynamics in a cyclic process (see also entropy). The signature of a perpetual motion machine of the second kind is that there is only one heat reservoir involved, which is being spontaneously cooled without involving a transfer of heat to a cooler reservoir. This conversion of heat into useful work, without any side effect, is impossible, according to the second law of thermodynamics. +A perpetual motion machine of the third kind is defined as one that completely eliminates friction and other dissipative forces, to maintain motion forever due to its mass inertia (third in this case refers solely to the position in the above classification scheme, not the third law of thermodynamics). It is impossible to make such a machine, as dissipation can never be completely eliminated in a mechanical system, no matter how close a system gets to this ideal (see examples at § Low friction below). + +=== Impossibility === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..bf38c3a6e --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Perpetual motion" +chunk: 2/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:55.586701+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +"Epistemic impossibility" describes things which absolutely cannot occur within our current formulation of the physical laws. This interpretation of the word "impossible" is what is intended in discussions of the impossibility of perpetual motion in a closed system. +The conservation laws are particularly robust from a mathematical perspective. Noether's theorem, which was proven mathematically in 1915, states that any conservation law can be derived from a corresponding continuous symmetry of the action of a physical system. The symmetry which is equivalent to conservation of energy is the time invariance of physical laws. Therefore, if the laws of physics do not change with time, then the conservation of energy follows. For energy conservation to be violated to allow perpetual motion would require that the foundations of physics would change. +Scientific investigations as to whether the laws of physics are invariant over time use telescopes to examine the universe in the distant past to discover, to the limits of our measurements, whether ancient stars were identical to stars today. Combining different measurements such as spectroscopy, direct measurement of the speed of light in the past and similar measurements demonstrates that physics has remained substantially the same, if not identical, for all of observable time spanning billions of years. +The principles of thermodynamics are so well established, both theoretically and experimentally, that proposals for perpetual motion machines are universally dismissed by physicists. Any proposed perpetual motion design offers a potentially instructive challenge to physicists: one is certain that it cannot work, so one must explain how it fails to work. The difficulty (and the value) of such an exercise depends on the subtlety of the proposal; the best ones tend to arise from physicists' own thought experiments and often shed light upon certain aspects of physics. So, for example, the thought experiment of a Brownian ratchet as a perpetual motion machine was first discussed by Gabriel Lippmann in 1900 but it was not until 1912 that Marian Smoluchowski gave an adequate explanation for why it cannot work. However, during that twelve-year period scientists did not believe that the machine was possible. They were merely unaware of the exact mechanism by which it would inevitably fail. + +The law that entropy always increases – the second law of thermodynamics – holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation. +In the mid-19th-century Henry Dircks investigated the history of perpetual motion experiments, writing a vitriolic attack on those who continued to attempt what he believed to be impossible: + +There is something lamentable, degrading, and almost insane in pursuing the visionary schemes of past ages with dogged determination, in paths of learning which have been investigated by superior minds, and with which such adventurous persons are totally unacquainted. The history of Perpetual Motion is a history of the fool-hardiness of either half-learned, or totally ignorant persons. + +=== Techniques === + +Some common ideas recur repeatedly in perpetual motion machine designs. Many ideas that continue to appear today were stated as early as 1670 by John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester and an official of the Royal Society. He outlined three potential sources of power for a perpetual motion machine, "Chymical [sic] Extractions", "Magnetical Virtues" and "the Natural Affection of Gravity". +The seemingly mysterious ability of magnets to influence motion at a distance without any apparent energy source has long appealed to inventors. One of the earliest examples of a magnetic motor was proposed by Wilkins and has been widely copied since: it consists of a ramp with a magnet at the top, which pulled a metal ball up the ramp. Near the magnet was a small hole that was supposed to allow the ball to drop under the ramp and return to the bottom, where a flap allowed it to return to the top again. However, if the magnet is to be strong enough to pull the ball up the ramp, it cannot then be weak enough to allow gravity to pull it through the hole. Faced with this problem, more modern versions typically use a series of ramps and magnets, positioned so the ball is to be handed off from one magnet to another as it moves. The problem remains the same. + +Gravity also acts at a distance, without an apparent energy source, but to get energy out of a gravitational field (for instance, by dropping a heavy object, producing kinetic energy as it falls) one has to put energy in (for instance, by lifting the object up), and some energy is always dissipated in the process. A typical application of gravity in a perpetual motion machine is Bhaskara's wheel in the 12th century, whose key idea is itself a recurring theme, often called the overbalanced wheel: moving weights are attached to a wheel in such a way that they fall to a position further from the wheel's center for one half of the wheel's rotation, and closer to the center for the other half. Since weights further from the center apply a greater torque, it was thought that the wheel would rotate forever. However, since the side with weights further from the center has fewer weights than the other side, at that moment, the torque is balanced and perpetual movement is not achieved. The moving weights may be hammers on pivoted arms, or rolling balls, or mercury in tubes; the principle is the same. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ae2bf55b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +--- +title: "Perpetual motion" +chunk: 3/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:55.586701+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Another theoretical machine involves a frictionless environment for motion. This involves the use of diamagnetic or electromagnetic levitation to float an object. This is done in a vacuum to eliminate air friction and friction from an axle. The levitated object is then free to rotate around its center of gravity without interference. However, this machine has no practical purpose because the rotated object cannot do any work as work requires the levitated object to cause motion in other objects, bringing friction into the problem. Furthermore, a perfect vacuum is an unattainable goal since both the container and the object itself would slowly vaporize, thereby degrading the vacuum. +To extract work from heat, thus producing a perpetual motion machine of the second kind, the most common approach (dating back at least to Maxwell's demon) is unidirectionality. Only molecules moving fast enough and in the right direction are allowed through the demon's trap door. In a Brownian ratchet, forces tending to turn the ratchet one way are able to do so while forces in the other direction are not. A diode in a heat bath allows through currents in one direction and not the other. These schemes typically fail in two ways: either maintaining the unidirectionality costs energy (requiring Maxwell's demon to perform more thermodynamic work to gauge the speed of the molecules than the amount of energy gained by the difference of temperature caused) or the unidirectionality is an illusion and occasional big violations make up for the frequent small non-violations (the Brownian ratchet will be subject to internal Brownian forces and therefore will sometimes turn the wrong way). + +Buoyancy is another frequently misunderstood phenomenon. Some proposed perpetual-motion machines miss the fact that to push a volume of air down in a fluid takes the same work as to raise a corresponding volume of fluid up against gravity. These types of machines may involve two chambers with pistons, and a mechanism to squeeze the air out of the top chamber into the bottom one, which then becomes buoyant and floats to the top. The squeezing mechanism in these designs would not be able to do enough work to move the air down, or would leave no excess work available to be extracted. + +== Patents == +Proposals for such inoperable machines have become so common that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has made an official policy of refusing to grant patents for perpetual motion machines without a working model. The USPTO Manual of Patent Examining Practice states: + +With the exception of cases involving perpetual motion, a model is not ordinarily required by the Office to demonstrate the operability of a device. If operability of a device is questioned, the applicant must establish it to the satisfaction of the examiner, but he or she may choose his or her own way of so doing. +And, further, that: + +A rejection [of a patent application] on the ground of lack of utility includes the more specific grounds of inoperativeness, involving perpetual motion. A rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 for lack of utility should not be based on grounds that the invention is frivolous, fraudulent or against public policy. +The filing of a patent application is a clerical task, and the USPTO will not refuse filings for perpetual motion machines; the application will be filed and then most probably rejected by the patent examiner, after he has done a formal examination. Even if a patent is granted, it does not mean that the invention actually works, it just means that the examiner believes that it works, or was unable to figure out why it would not work. +The United Kingdom Patent Office has a specific practice on perpetual motion; Section 4.05 of the UKPO Manual of Patent Practice states: + +Processes or articles alleged to operate in a manner which is clearly contrary to well-established physical laws, such as perpetual motion machines, are regarded as not having industrial application. +Examples of decisions by the UK Patent Office to refuse patent applications for perpetual motion machines include: + +Decision BL O/044/06, John Frederick Willmott's application no. 0502841 +Decision BL O/150/06, Ezra Shimshi's application no. 0417271 +The European Patent Classification (ECLA) has classes including patent applications on perpetual motion systems: ECLA classes "F03B17/04: Alleged perpetua mobilia" and "F03B17/00B: [... machines or engines] (with closed loop circulation or similar : ... Installations wherein the liquid circulates in a closed loop; Alleged perpetua mobilia of this or similar kind". + +== Apparent perpetual motion machines == +As a perpetual motion machine can only be defined in a finite isolated system with discrete parameters, and since true isolated systems do not exist (among other things, due to quantum uncertainty), "perpetual motion" in the context of this article is better defined as a "perpetual motion machine", since a machine is a "a mechanically, electrically, or electronically operated device for performing a task", whereas "motion" is simply movement (such as Brownian motion). Distinctions aside, on the macro scale, there are concepts and technical drafts that propose "perpetual motion", but on closer analysis it is revealed that they actually "consume" some sort of natural resource or latent energy, such as the phase changes of water or other fluids or small natural temperature gradients, or simply cannot sustain indefinite operation. In general, extracting work from these devices is impossible. + +=== Resource consuming === + +Some examples of such devices include: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b8bd522ff --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ +--- +title: "Perpetual motion" +chunk: 4/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:55.586701+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The drinking bird toy functions using small ambient temperature gradients and evaporation. It runs until all water is evaporated. +A capillary action-based water pump functions using small ambient temperature gradients and vapour pressure differences. With the "capillary bowl", it was thought that the capillary action would keep the water flowing in the tube, but since the cohesion force that draws the liquid up the tube in the first place holds the droplet from releasing into the bowl, the flow is not perpetual. +A Crookes radiometer consists of a partial vacuum glass container with a lightweight propeller moved by (light-induced) temperature gradients. +Any device picking up minimal amounts of energy from the natural electromagnetic radiation around it, such as a solar-powered motor. +Any device powered by changes in air pressure, such as some clocks (Cox's timepiece, Beverly Clock). The motion leeches energy from moving air which in turn gained its energy from being acted on. +A heat pump, due to it having a COP above 1: the energy it consumes as work is less than the energy it moves as heat. +The Atmos clock uses changes in the vapor pressure of ethyl chloride with temperature to wind the clock spring. +A device powered by induced nuclear reactions or by radioactive decay from an isotope with a relatively long half-life; such a device could plausibly operate for hundreds or thousands of years. +The Oxford Electric Bell and the Karpen Pile are driven by dry pile batteries. + +=== Low friction === +In flywheel energy storage, "modern flywheels can have a zero-load rundown time measurable in years". +Once spun up, objects in the vacuum of space—stars, black holes, planets, moons, spin-stabilized satellites, etc.—dissipate energy very slowly, allowing them to spin for long periods. Tides on Earth are dissipating the gravitational energy of the Moon/Earth system at an average rate of about 3.75 terawatts. + +=== Quantum effects === +In 2016, new states of matter, time crystals, were discovered in which, on a microscopic scale, the component atoms are in continual repetitive motion, thus satisfying the literal definition of "perpetual motion". However, these do not constitute perpetual motion machines in the traditional sense, or violate thermodynamic laws, because they are in their quantum ground state, so no energy can be extracted from them; they exhibit motion without energy. + +=== Thought experiments === +In some cases a thought experiment appears to suggest that perpetual motion may be possible through accepted and understood physical processes. However, in all cases, a flaw has been found when all of the relevant physics is considered. Examples include: + +Maxwell's demon: This was originally proposed to show that the second law of thermodynamics applied in the statistical sense only, by postulating a "demon" that could select energetic molecules and extract their energy. Subsequent analysis (and experiment) have shown there is no way to physically implement such a system that does not result in an overall increase in entropy. +Brownian ratchet: In this thought experiment, one imagines a paddle wheel connected to a ratchet. Brownian motion would cause surrounding gas molecules to strike the paddles, but the ratchet would only allow it to turn in one direction. A more thorough analysis showed that when a physical ratchet was considered at this molecular scale, Brownian motion would also affect the ratchet and cause it to randomly fail resulting in no net gain. Thus, the device would not violate the laws of thermodynamics. +Vacuum energy and zero-point energy: In order to explain effects such as virtual particles and the Casimir effect, many formulations of quantum physics include a background energy which pervades empty space, known as vacuum or zero-point energy. The ability to harness zero-point energy for useful work is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community at large. Inventors have proposed various methods for extracting useful work from zero-point energy, but none have been found to be viable, no claims for extraction of zero-point energy have ever been validated by the scientific community, and there is no evidence that zero-point energy can be used in violation of conservation of energy. +Ellipsoid paradox: This paradox considers a perfectly reflecting cavity with two black bodies at points A and B. The reflecting surface is composed of two elliptical sections E1 and E2 and a spherical section S, and the bodies at A and B are located at the joint foci of the two ellipses and B is at the center of S. This configuration is such that the black body at B heats up relative to A: the radiation originating from the black body at A will land on and be absorbed by the blackbody at B. Similarly, rays originating from point B that land on E1 and E2 will be reflected to A. However, a significant proportion of rays that start from B will land on S will be reflected back to B. This paradox is solved when the black bodies' finite sizes are considered instead of pointlike black bodies. + +== Conspiracy theories == + +Despite being dismissed as pseudoscientific, perpetual motion machines have become the focus of conspiracy theories, alleging that they are being hidden from the public by corporations or governments, who would lose economic control if a power source capable of producing energy cheaply was made available. + +== See also == +Anti-gravity +Faster-than-light +Incredible utility +Johann Bessler +Pathological science +Time travel + +== Notes == + +== References == + +== External links == + +The Museum of Unworkable Devices Archived 2018-09-14 at the Wayback Machine +Maruyama, Koji; Nori, Franco; Vedral, Vlatko (2009). "Colloquium: The physics of Maxwell's demon and information". Reviews of Modern Physics. 81 (1): 1–23. arXiv:0707.3400. Bibcode:2009RvMP...81....1M. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.81.1. S2CID 18436180. +"Perpetual Motion - Just Isn't." Popular Mechanics, January 1954, pp. 108–111. +In Our Time: Perpetual Motion, BBC discussion with Ruth Gregory, Frank Close and Steven Bramwell, hosted by Melvyn Bragg, first broadcast 24 September 2015. +What is known about perpetual motion in detail, Published on USC.NEWS May 21, 2023 \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_psychic-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_psychic-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..51588f941 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_psychic-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Pet psychic" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_psychic" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:56.779448+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +A pet psychic is a person who claims to communicate by psychic means with animals, either living or dead. They are also known as animal communicators, and their practice as intuitive animal communication or intuitive interspecies communication. +The term psychic refers to the claimed ability to perceive information unavailable to the normal senses by what is claimed to be extrasensory perception. It is the opinion of scientific skeptics that people believe in such abilities due to cognitive biases and the use of various techniques by the practitioners, including intentional deception. + + +== Claims == +Pet psychics rely on different techniques when doing an animal "reading". These psychics allegedly communicate with animals and connect with an animal's spirit. Some claim that the readings are done by communicating with their electromagnetic energy, similar to reiki and/or therapeutic touch healing. Others claim the animal does not need to be alive or physically close to the psychic, as phone readings are sometimes done. +In the early twentieth century, the Association for Research and Enlightenment began researching paranormal and psychic abilities in humans. The first animal communicators claimed they could communicate telepathically with animals living or dead. + + +== Scientific analysis == +Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell reported on this topic in the Skeptical Inquirer in 2002. He reported that cold reading can explain why so many pet psychics appear to communicate with animals. Pet psychics like Gerri Leigh and Animal Planet's Sonya Fitzpatrick work in front of audiences with the pets and owners present at the same time. Although appearing to be impressive, the conclusions and pronouncements are "validated" by the pet owners and not the pets themselves. Furthermore, linguistic professor Karen Stollznow tested a pet psychic with a cat named Jed. Not only was the psychic "completely inaccurate in her reading of Jed's age, place of birth, background, behavior, health, and my health ...", she was unable to tell that Jed was not her cat. Stollznow concluded that "language is human-species specific. We don't and can't 'know' what animals think." +Skeptic Robert Todd Carroll has described the claims of pet psychics as quackery. According to Carroll "the king of the animal quackers has to be Rupert Sheldrake, who thinks he's proved that some pets are psychic." +Skeptical investigator Benjamin Radford wrote about this topic in 2012 and said: + +Even though thousands of people claim to be able to communicate with animals, there hasn't been a single scientific test proving their abilities. Professional pet psychics often sell books and teach seminars about their power, but don't prove that they can actually do what they claim. +Radford also outlined a simple 3-step test that would provide proof of this claimed ability, but predicted that pet psychics would always fail such a test. He also reported that "The problem of pet psychics taking advantage of grieving pet owners plagues people like Dr. Wally Sife, founder of The Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to providing grief counseling for people who have lost beloved animals." +In 2012, the hosts of the Oh No, Ross and Carrie! podcast investigated the efficacy of pet psychics and were unimpressed. + + +== See also == + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phiten-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phiten-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f7e2397b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phiten-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Phiten" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phiten" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:57.975988+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Company Phiten, headquartered in Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan, sells quasi-drugs, cosmetics, hair care products, sports-related products, health foods, and health goods. + + +== Overview == +AQUA TITAN/AQUA-TITANIUM products worn as necklaces (such as RAKUWA Neck) are well known and used by many famous athletes. Some of the athletes who have made endorsement agreements with Phiten are Yuzuru Hanyu, Hideki Matsuyama,Tomoaki Kanemoto, Yoshio Itoi, Yoshihiro Maru, Tetsuto Yamada, Daichi Osera, Katsuya Kakunaka, Sora Matsushima, Hina Hayata and Hikari Fujita. Athletes who have signed agreements with Phiten in the past include Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yu Darvish, Yukari Baba, Shintaro Fujinami, Yasuyuki Kataoka, Toshiaki Imae, Yuki Saito, Kengo Nakamura, Tsuyoshi Shinjo, Shinnosuke Abe, Shingo Katayama, Randy Johnson, Paula Radcliffe and Naoko Takahashi. +The company makes endorsement agreements exclusively with athletes who need and enjoy Phiten products. +The company also develops and sells sportswear, although the variety and production numbers are very small. The company is also involved in the development of health food products with functional claims. +In 2007, it became the first Japanese company to sign the MLB/Major League Baseball Authentication Program. + + +== Aqua Metal == +There is still a lack of scientific evidence to support the efficacy of Aqua Titan/Aqua-Titanium, and there has been criticism that Aqua Titan/Aqua-Titanium is nothing more than a placebo effect or a pseudo-science. In 2009, Biomarker Science, Inc. published the results of experiments conducted by Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto Prefectural University, University of California, Los Angeles/UCLA and Professor Martin Corte at Technical University of Braunschweig, which showed that Aqua Titan/Aqua-Titanium material had a certain relaxing effect. In 2013, Professor Toshikazu Yoshikawa of Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, who has supported Aqua Titan/Aqua-Titanium research, published a hypothesis that Aqua Titan/Aqua-Titanium may have a balancing effect on the autonomic nervous system. + + +== Scientific testing of product == +Instructors at the United States Air Force Academy conducted a double-blind study of the Phiten claim. Initially the instructors became interested in this product because of the company's claims that it could cause relaxation, maximize strength and energy. When looking into the product before testing they flagged several concerns; Most studies supporting Phiten were also funded by Phiten. The claims sound like the definition of pseudoscience with no mechanism to show how it could work and the claims are unfalsifiable. The packaging claims that '"not all users will experience the intended benefits."' Leaving the user to believe that it will work or it will not work. Also the instructors felt that the Phiten product was similar to other pseudoscientific medical accessories like copper bracelets, crystals and magnetic bands. +Forty-eight Academy cadets wore a tape-covered necklace for 48-hours, half were necklaces purchased from the Phiten website and the other half were clothesline purchased from The Home Depot. All necklaces were the same length and wrapped in masking tape. The cadets selected a necklace from a bin and they and the instructors did not know who wore a clothesline and who wore a Phiten necklace. At the end of the 48-hours each cadet was asked to fill out a survey rating from one to nine, if they felt relaxed, angry or energized? The conclusion was that there was no "statistically significant difference" between the clothesline and the Phiten necklace. +Furthermore, the instructors procured soil samples from a baseball field and analyzed the results checking for titanium. They also asked the Phiten company what the weight percent of titanium is in their necklaces, but were told it is a "corporate secret". The academy instructors learned that titanium was plentiful in the soil samples, and also learned that titanium is "the ninth most-abundant element on the planet". This led the instructors to state that baseball players "are purchasing Phiten necklaces to receive the purported benefits... when they are routinely performing... on playing fields that contain titanium." + + +== Notes == + + +== External links == +Official Corporate Website \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6848bb9b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +--- +title: "Phrenology" +chunk: 1/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:59.145844+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Phrenology is a pseudoscience that involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits. It is based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules. It was said that the brain was composed of different muscles, so those that were used more often were bigger, resulting in the different skull shapes. This provided reasoning for the common presence of bumps on the skull in different locations. The brain "muscles" not being used as frequently remained small and were therefore not present on the exterior of the skull. Although both of those ideas have a basis in reality, phrenology generalizes beyond empirical knowledge in a way that departs from science. The central phrenological notion that measuring the contour of the skull can predict personality traits is discredited by empirical research. Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796, the discipline was influential in the 19th century, especially from about 1810 until 1840. The principal British centre for phrenology was Edinburgh, where the Edinburgh Phrenological Society was established in 1820. +Phrenology is today recognized as pseudoscientific. The methodological rigor of phrenology was doubtful even for the standards of its time, since many authors already regarded phrenology as pseudoscience in the 19th century. There have been various studies conducted that discredited phrenology, most of which were done with ablation techniques. Marie Jean Pierre Flourens demonstrated through ablation that the cerebrum and cerebellum accomplish different functions. He found that the impacted areas never carried out the functions that were proposed through phrenology. Paul Broca also discredited the idea when he discovered and named the "Broca's area": the patient's ability to produce language was lost while their ability to understand language remained intact, due to a lesion on the left frontal lobe. He concluded that this area of the brain was responsible for language production. Between Flourens and Broca, the claims to support phrenology were dismantled. Phrenological thinking was influential in the psychiatry and psychology of the 19th century. Gall's assumption that character, thoughts, and emotions are located in specific areas of the brain is considered an important historical advance toward neuropsychology. He contributed to the idea that the brain is spatially organized, but not in the way he proposed. There is a clear division of labor in the brain but none of which even remotely correlates to the size of the head or the structure of the skull. It contributed to some advancements in understanding the brain and its functions. + +While phrenology itself has long been discredited, the study of the inner surface of the skulls of archaic human species allows modern researchers to obtain information about the development of various areas of the brains of those species, and thereby infer information about their cognitive and communicative abilities, and possibly even about their social lives. Due to its limitations, this technique is sometimes criticized as "paleo-phrenology". + +== Etymology == +The term phrenology, from Ancient Greek φρήν (phrēn) 'mind' and λόγος (logos) 'knowledge', was used in the early 19th century to refer to what would now be considered psychology: a broader study of the mind and human mental faculties. This meaning has been eclipsed by the more specific study of the skull shape to infer psychological traits. +Other terms historically used to discuss this specific relationship between the skull and the mind, and especially Gall's study of them, include craniology, cranioscopy, zoonomy, organology, bumpology and functionalism. Craniology and cranioscopy became detached from the specific sense of phrenology, and were later used to refer merely to the study of the skull, as in anthropology. Many of the other words had or have meanings in other sciences, and their use to refer to the study of phrenology is now archaic. + +== Mental faculties == +Phrenologists believe that the human mind has a set of various mental faculties, each one represented in a different area of the brain. For example, the faculty of "philoprogenitiveness", from the Greek for "love of offspring", was located centrally at the back of the head (see illustration of the chart from Webster's Academic Dictionary). +These areas were said to be proportional to a person's propensities. The importance of an organ was derived from relative size compared to other organs. It was believed that the cranial skull—like a glove on the hand—accommodates to the different sizes of these areas of the brain, so that a person's capacity for a given personality trait could be determined simply by measuring the area of the skull that overlies the corresponding area of the brain. +Phrenology, which focuses on personality and character, is distinct from craniometry, which is the study of skull size, weight and shape, and physiognomy, the study of facial features. + +== Method == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..049199a05 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: "Phrenology" +chunk: 2/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:59.145844+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Phrenology is a process that involves observing and/or feeling the skull to determine an individual's psychological attributes. Franz Joseph Gall believed that the brain was made up of 27 individual organs that determined personality, the first 19 of these "organs" he believed to exist in other animal species. Phrenologists would run their fingertips and palms over the skulls of their patients to feel for enlargements or indentations. The phrenologist would often take measurements with a tape measure of the overall head size and more rarely employ a craniometer, a special version of a caliper. In general, instruments to measure sizes of cranium continued to be used after the mainstream phrenology had ended. The phrenologists put emphasis on using drawings of individuals with particular traits, to determine the character of the person and thus many phrenology books show pictures of subjects. From absolute and relative sizes of the skull the phrenologist would assess the character and temperament of the patient. +Gall's list of the "brain organs" was specific. An enlarged organ meant that the patient used that particular "organ" extensively. The number—and more detailed meanings—of organs were added later by other phrenologists. The 27 areas varied in function, from sense of color, to religiosity, to being combative or destructive. Each of the 27 "brain organs" was located under a specific area of the skull. As a phrenologist felt the skull, he would use his knowledge of the shapes of heads and organ positions to determine the overall natural strengths and weaknesses of an individual. Phrenologists believed the head revealed natural tendencies but not absolute limitations or strengths of character. The first phrenological chart gave the names of the organs described by Gall; it was a single sheet, and sold for a cent. Later charts were more expansive. + +== History == + +Among the first to identify the brain as the major controlling center for the body were Hippocrates and his followers, inaugurating a major change in thinking from Egyptian, biblical and early Greek views, which based bodily primacy of control on the heart. This belief was supported by the Greek physician Galen, who concluded that mental activity occurred in the brain rather than the heart, contending that the brain, a cold, moist organ formed of sperm, was the seat of the animal soul—one of three "souls" found in the body, each associated with a principal organ. +The Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) introduced the idea that physiognomy related to the specific character traits of individuals, rather than general types, in his Physiognomische Fragmente, published between 1775 and 1778. His work was translated into English and published in 1832 as The Pocket Lavater, or, The Science of Physiognomy. He believed that thoughts of the mind and passions of the soul were connected with an individual's external frame. + +Of the forehead, When the forehead is perfectly perpendicular, from the hair to the eyebrows, it denotes an utter deficiency of understanding. (p. 24) +In 1796 the German physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828) began lecturing on organology: the isolation of mental faculties and later cranioscopy which involved reading the skull's shape as it pertained to the individual. It was Gall's collaborator Johann Gaspar Spurzheim who would popularize the term "phrenology". +In 1809 Gall began writing his principal work, The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular, with Observations upon the possibility of ascertaining the several Intellectual and Moral Dispositions of Man and Animal, by the configuration of their Heads. It was not published until 1819. In the introduction to this main work, Gall makes the following statement in regard to his doctrinal principles, which comprise the intellectual basis of phrenology: + +The Brain is the organ of the mind +The brain is not a homogenous unity, but an aggregate of mental organs with specific functions +The cerebral organs are topographically localized +Other things being equal, the relative size of any particular mental organ is indicative of the power or strength of that organ +Since the skull ossifies over the brain during infant development, external craniological means could be used to diagnose the internal states of the mental characters +Through careful observation and extensive experimentation, Gall believed he had established a relationship between aspects of character, called faculties, with precise organs in the brain. +Johann Spurzheim was Gall's most important collaborator. He worked as Gall's anatomist until 1813 when for unknown reasons they had a permanent falling out. Publishing under his own name Spurzheim successfully disseminated phrenology throughout the United Kingdom during his lecture tours through 1814 and 1815 and the United States in 1832 where he would eventually die. +Gall was more concerned with creating a physical science, so it was through Spurzheim that phrenology was first spread throughout Europe and America. Phrenology, while not universally accepted, was hardly a fringe phenomenon of the era. George Combe would become the chief promoter of phrenology throughout the English-speaking world after he viewed a brain dissection by Spurzheim, convincing him of phrenology's merits. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7e860e2dd --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +--- +title: "Phrenology" +chunk: 3/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:59.145844+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The popularization of phrenology in the middle and working classes was due in part to the idea that scientific knowledge was important and an indication of sophistication and modernity. Cheap and plentiful pamphlets, as well as the growing popularity of scientific lectures as entertainment, also helped spread phrenology to the masses. Combe created a system of philosophy of the human mind that became popular with the masses because of its simplified principles and wide range of social applications that were in harmony with the liberal Victorian world view. George Combe's book On the Constitution of Man and its Relationship to External Objects sold more than 200,000 copies through nine editions. Combe also devoted a large portion of his book to reconciling religion and phrenology, which had long been a sticking point. Another reason for its popularity was that phrenology balanced between free will and determinism. A person's inherent faculties were clear, and no faculty was viewed as evil, though the abuse of a faculty was. Phrenology allowed for self-improvement and upward mobility, while providing fodder for attacks on aristocratic privilege. Phrenology also had wide appeal because of its being a reformist philosophy not a radical one. Phrenology was not limited to the common people, and both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert invited George Combe to read the heads of their children. + +The American brothers Lorenzo Niles Fowler (1811–1896) and Orson Squire Fowler (1809–1887) were leading phrenologists of their time. Orson, together with associates Samuel Robert Wells and Nelson Sizer, ran the phrenological business and publishing house Fowlers & Wells in New York City. Meanwhile, Lorenzo spent much of his life in England, where he initiated the famous phrenological publishing house L. N. Fowler & Co. and gained considerable fame with his phrenology head (a china head showing the phrenological faculties), which has become a symbol of the discipline. Orson Fowler was known for his octagonal house. +Phrenology came about at a time when scientific procedures and standards for acceptable evidence were still being codified. In the context of Victorian society, phrenology was a respectable scientific theory. The Phrenological Society of Edinburgh founded by George and Andrew Combe was an example of the credibility of phrenology at the time, and included a number of extremely influential social reformers and intellectuals, including the publisher Robert Chambers, the astronomer John Pringle Nichol, the evolutionary environmentalist Hewett Cottrell Watson, and asylum reformer William A. F. Browne. In 1826, out of the 120 members of the Edinburgh society an estimated one third were from a medical background. By the 1840s there were more than 28 phrenological societies in London with more than 1,000 members. Another important scholar was Luigi Ferrarese, the leading Italian phrenologist. He advocated that governments should embrace phrenology as a scientific means of conquering many social ills, and his Memorie Riguardanti La Dottrina Frenologica (1836), is considered "one of the fundamental 19th-century works in the field". +Traditionally the mind had been studied through introspection. Phrenology provided an attractive, biological alternative that attempted to unite all mental phenomena using consistent biological terminology. Gall's approach prepared the way for studying the mind that would lead to the downfall of his own theories. Phrenology contributed to development of physical anthropology, forensic medicine, knowledge of the nervous system and brain anatomy as well as contributing to applied psychology. +John Elliotson was a brilliant but erratic heart specialist who became a phrenologist in the 1840s. He was also a mesmerist and combined the two into something he called phrenomesmerism or phrenomagnatism. Changing behaviour through mesmerism eventually won out in Elliotson's hospital, putting phrenology in a subordinate role. Others amalgamated phrenology and mesmerism as well, such as the practical phrenologists Collyer and Joseph R. Buchanan. The benefit of combining mesmerism and phrenology was that the trance the patient was placed in was supposed to allow for the manipulation of his/her penchants and qualities. For example, if the organ of self-esteem was touched, the subject would take on a haughty expression. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..fb1807958 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Phrenology" +chunk: 4/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:59.145844+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Phrenology was mostly discredited as a scientific theory by the 1840s. This was due only in part to a growing amount of evidence against phrenology. Phrenologists had never been able to agree on the most basic mental organ numbers, going from 27 to over 40, and had difficulty locating the mental organs. Phrenologists relied on cranioscopic readings of the skull to find organ locations. Jean Pierre Flourens' experiments on the brains of pigeons indicated that the loss of parts of the brain either caused no loss of function, or the loss of a completely different function than what had been attributed to it by phrenology. Flourens' experiment, while not perfect, seemed to indicate that Gall's supposed organs were imaginary. Scientists had also become disillusioned with phrenology since its exploitation with the middle and working classes by entrepreneurs. The popularization had resulted in the simplification of phrenology and mixing in it of principles of physiognomy, which had from the start been rejected by Gall as an indicator of personality. Phrenology from its inception was tainted by accusations of promoting materialism and atheism, and being destructive of morality. These were all factors that led to the downfall of phrenology. Recent studies, using modern day technology like Magnetic Resonance Imaging have further disproven phrenology claims. +During the early 20th century, a revival of interest in phrenology occurred, partly because of studies of evolution, criminology and anthropology (as pursued by Cesare Lombroso). The most famous British phrenologist of the 20th century was the London psychiatrist Bernard Hollander (1864–1934). His main works, The Mental Function of the Brain (1901) and Scientific Phrenology (1902), are an appraisal of Gall's teachings. Hollander introduced a quantitative approach to the phrenological diagnosis, defining a method for measuring the skull, and comparing the measurements with statistical averages. +In Belgium, Paul Bouts (1900–1999) began studying phrenology from a pedagogical background, using the phrenological analysis to define an individual pedagogy. Combining phrenology with typology and graphology, he coined a global approach known as psychognomy. Bouts, a Roman Catholic priest, became the main promoter of renewed 20th-century interest in phrenology and psychognomy in Belgium. He was also active in Brazil and Canada, where he founded institutes for characterology. His works Psychognomie and Les Grandioses Destinées individuelle et humaine dans la lumière de la Caractérologie et de l'Evolution cérébro-cranienne are considered standard works in the field. In the latter work, which examines the subject of paleoanthropology, Bouts developed a teleological and orthogenetical view on a perfecting evolution, from the paleo-encephalical skull shapes of prehistoric man, which he considered still prevalent in criminals and savages, towards a higher form of mankind, thus perpetuating phrenology's problematic racializing of the human frame. Bouts died on March 7, 1999. His work has been continued by the Dutch foundation PPP (Per Pulchritudinem in Pulchritudine), operated by Anette Müller, one of Bouts' students. +During the 1930s, Belgian colonial authorities in Rwanda used phrenology to explain the purported superiority of Tutsis over Hutus. + +== Application == + +=== Racism === +Some scientists believed phrenology affirmed European superiority over other races. By comparing skulls of different ethnic groups it was thought to allow for ranking of races from least to most evolved. Broussais, a disciple of Gall, proclaimed that the Caucasians were the most beautiful, while peoples like the Australian Aboriginal and Māori would never become civilized since "they had no cerebral organ for producing great artists". Few phrenologists argued for the emancipation of the slaves, while many used it to advocate for slavery. Instead they argued that through education and interbreeding the "lesser peoples" could improve. Another argument was that the natural inequality of people could be used to situate them in the most appropriate place in society. + +=== Gender stereotyping === +Gender stereotyping was also common with phrenology. Women, whose heads were generally larger in the back with lower foreheads, were thought to have underdeveloped organs necessary for success in the arts and sciences while having larger mental organs relating to the care of children and religion. While phrenologists did not contest the existence of talented women, this minority did not provide justification for citizenship or participation in politics. +The popularly held phrenological belief in the Victorian era was that women's brains were smaller and weaker than those of men and as such were incapable of being practitioners themselves. Evidence from letters written by the phrenologists Johann Spurzheim to his wife, Honorine Spurzheim, suggest that he had a number of women attending his lectures that were interested in phrenology. He held the belief that women did not have necessary "superiority of intellectual powers". Despite this, many middle class women were just as captivated by the pseudoscience as their male counterparts. Contributions to the field of phrenology would be made by prominent figures such as Lydia Folger Fowler, the second American woman ever to receive a medical degree, who created character charts and lectured extensively on the subject. +Phrenology had an appeal to middle class women as a chance to understand their own minds and "know thyself" by creating charts that were very clear evidence for the organs of intellect being just as prominent in their brains as they were in men's. + +=== Education === +One of the considered practical applications of phrenology was education. Due to the nature of phrenology people were naturally considered unequal, as very few people would have a naturally perfect balance between organs. Thus education would play an important role in creating a balance through rigorous exercise of beneficial organs while repressing baser ones. One of the best examples of this is Félix Voisin, who, for approximately ten years, ran a reform school in Issy for the express purpose of correction of the mind of children who had suffered some hardship. Voisin focused on four categories of children for his reform school: + +Slow learners +Spoiled, neglected, or harshly treated children +Willful, disorderly children +Children at high risk of inheriting mental disorders \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1d0f8262b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Phrenology" +chunk: 5/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:59.145844+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Criminology === +Phrenology was one of the first to bring about the idea of rehabilitation of criminals instead of vindictive punishments that would not stop criminals, only with the reorganizing a disorganized brain would bring about change. Voisin believed along with others the accuracy of phrenology in diagnosing criminal tendencies. Diagnosis could point to the type of offender, the insane, an idiot or brute, and by knowing this an appropriate course of action could be taken. A strict system of reward and punishment, hard work and religious instruction, was thought to be able to correct those who had been abandoned and neglected with little education and moral ground works. Those who were considered intellectually disabled could be put to work and housed collectively while only criminals of intellect and vicious intent needed to be confined and isolated. Phrenology also advocated variable prison sentences, the idea being that those who were only defective in education and lacking in morals would soon be released while those who were "mentally deficient" could be watched and the truly abhorrent criminals would never be released. For other patients phrenology could help redirect impulses, one homicidal individual became a butcher to control his impulses, while another became a military chaplain so he could witness killings. Phrenology also provided reformist arguments for the lunatic asylums of the Victorian era. John Conolly, a physician interested in psychological aspects of disease, used phrenology on his patients in an attempt to use it as a diagnostic tool. While the success of this approach is debatable, Conolly, through phrenology, introduced a more humane way of dealing with the mentally ill. The first phrenological testimony in a court of law was solicited by American lawyer John Neal in Portland, Maine, in 1834. Neal argued unsuccessfully that the jury should take leniency on his client because the part of his brain associated with violent behavior was inflamed. + +=== Psychiatry === +In psychiatry, phrenology was proposed as a viable model in order to the disciplinary field. The South Italian psychiatrist Biagio Miraglia proposed a new classification of mental illness based on brain functions as they were described by Gall. In Miraglia's view, madness is consequent to dysfunctions of the cerebral organs: "The organs of the brain that may become ill in isolation or in complex get their activities infected through energy, or depression, or inertia or deficiency. So the madness can take the appearance of these three characteristic forms; i.e. for enhanced activity, or for depressed activity, or for inertia or deficiency of brain activities". + +=== Psychology === +In the Victorian era, phrenology as a psychology was taken seriously and permeated the literature and novels of the day. Many prominent public figures, such as the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher (a college classmate and initial partner of Orson Fowler) promoted phrenology actively as a source of psychological insight and self-knowledge. In Europe and the United States, many people visited phrenologists to have their heads analysed. After such an examination, clients received a written delineation of their character or a standardized chart with their score, combined with advice on how to improve themselves. People also consulted phrenologists for advice in matters such as hiring personnel or finding suitable marriage partners. As such, phrenology as a brain science waned but developed into the popular psychology of the 19th century. + +== Reception == + +=== Great Britain === +Phrenology was introduced at a time when the old theological and philosophical understanding of the mind was being questioned and no longer seemed adequate in a society that was experiencing rapid social and demographic changes. Phrenology became one of the most popular movements of the Victorian Era. In part phrenology's success was due to George Combe tailoring phrenology for the middle class. Combe's book On the Constitution of Man and its Relationship to External Objects was one of the most popular of the time, selling over two hundred thousand copies in a ten-year period. Phrenology's success was also partly because it was introduced at a time when scientific lectures were becoming a form of middle-class entertainment, exposing a large demographic of people to phrenological ideas who would not have heard them otherwise. As a result of the changing times, new avenues of exposure and its multifaceted appeal, phrenology flourished in popular culture although it was discredited as scientific theory by 1840. + +=== France === +While still not a fringe movement, there was not popular widespread support of phrenology in France. This was not only due to strong opposition to phrenology by French scholars but also once again accusations of promoting atheism, materialism and radical religious views. Politics in France also played a role in preventing rapid spread of phrenology. In Britain phrenology had provided another tool to be used for situating demographic changes; the difference was there was less fear of revolutionary upheaval in Britain compared with France. Given that most French supporters of phrenology were liberal, left-wing or socialist, it was an objective of the social elite of France, who held a restrained vision of social change, that phrenology remain on the fringes. Another objection was that phrenology seemed to provide a built in excuse for criminal behaviour, since in its original form it was essentially deterministic in nature. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..970560970 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,64 @@ +--- +title: "Phrenology" +chunk: 6/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:59.145844+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Ireland === +Phrenology arrived in Ireland in 1815, through Spurzheim. While Ireland largely mirrored British trends, with scientific lectures and demonstrations becoming a popular pastime of the age, by 1815 phrenology had already been ridiculed in some circles priming the audiences to its skeptical claims. Because of this the general public valued it more for its comic relief than anything else; however, it did find an audience in the rational dissenters who found it an attractive alternative to explain human motivations without the attached superstitions of religion. The supporters of phrenology in Ireland were relegated to scientific subcultures because the Irish scholars neglected marginal movements like phrenology, denying it scientific support in Ireland. In 1830 George Combe came to Ireland, his self-promotion barely winning out against his lack of medical expertise, still only drawing lukewarm crowds. This was due to not only the Vatican's decree that phrenology was subversive of religion and morality but also that, based on phrenology, the "Irish Catholics were sui generis a flawed and degenerate breed". Because of the lack of scientific support, along with religious and prejudicial reasons, phrenology never found a wide audience in Ireland. + +=== United States === + +The first publication in the United States in support of phrenology was published by John Bell, who reissued Combe's essays with an introductory discourse, in 1822. The following year, John G. Wells of Bowdoin College "commenced an annual exposition, and recommendation of its doctrines, to his class". In 1834, John D. Godman, professor of anatomy at Rutgers Medical College, emphatically defended phrenology when he wrote:It is, however, allowable to take as a principle, that there will be a relation betwixt vigour of intellect and perfection of form; and that, therefore, history will direct us to the original and chief family of mankind. We therefore ask, which are the nations that have excelled and figured in history, not only as conquerors, but as forwarding, by their improvements in arts and sciences, the progress of human knowledge?Phrenological teachings had become a widespread popular movement by 1834, when Combe came to lecture in the United States. Sensing commercial possibilities men like the Fowlers became phrenologists and sought additional ways to bring phrenology to the masses. Though a popular movement, the intellectual elite of the United States found phrenology attractive because it provided a biological explanation of mental processes based on observation, yet it was not accepted uncritically. Some intellectuals accepted organology while questioning cranioscopy. Gradually the popular success of phrenology undermined its scientific merits in the United States and elsewhere, along with its materialistic underpinnings, fostering radical religious views. There was increasing evidence to refute phrenological claims, and by the 1840s it had largely lost its credibility. In the United States, especially in the South, phrenology faced an additional obstacle in the antislavery movement. While phrenologists usually claimed the superiority of the European race, they were often sympathetic to liberal causes including the antislavery movement; this sowed skepticism about phrenology among those who were pro-slavery. The rise and surge in popularity in mesmerism, phrenomesmerism, also had a hand in the loss of interest in phrenology among intellectuals and the general public. +John Brown Jr., son of the abolitionist John Brown, travelled for a time as a lecturer on phrenology. + +=== South Africa === +Upon arrival in South Africa, phrenology clashed with the liberalist Cape residents, among whom were missionaries, merchants, and middle class, that held staunch beliefs in the equality of the human race in all varieties. They were advocates for theories of environmental racial differences rather than the phrenological held belief in innate differences of the mind between Africans and Europeans. Nonetheless, South Africa became the place where a lot of phrenologists, particularly in Britain, were receiving subjects to study the heads of Africans. Thomas Pringle was a friend of Combe and Mackenzie who was sending the skulls of Xhosa and Bushman indigenous tribes-people back to a friend in London, John Epps while doing field research in the Cape. Pringle was just one of many medical and military men on the frontier of the South Africa territory that were taking sample of local Africans and sending them back to Britain as patrons of phrenology. Liberals of South Africa would continue to remain skeptical of the validity of phrenology as it pertained to the pre-determining of ones character based on organs in their brain. Editor A.J. Ardine for the periodical A Catechism of Phrenology would add that he "remained unconvinced by the new science". +While residents of the Western coastal urban regions of South Africa were skeptical of the ideological beliefs behind phrenology, those on the inland frontier were very receptive to the ideas of "biological determinism". Andrew Smith, better known as the founder of zoology, as well as Robert Knox were among these frontiersmen who were supportive and adherent to the ethnological implications of phrenology. Many phrenologists who came to South Africa, or took example from the native people there, would use findings to fuel more racist implications of the pseudoscience. Bushmen and other African people that had the misfortune of living on the frontier were subject to being remarked as similar "to that of the monkey" in facial structure. They had effectively become targets for European imperialist that sought to prove the superiority of their civilization through one sided field work. The inherent issue with their world view was that they conceived these ideas in Europe before coming to Africa on a mission to seek confirmation bias for their rhetoric. + +== Specific phrenological modules == +From Combe: + +=== Propensities === + +Propensities do not form ideas; they solely produce propensities common to animals and man. + +Adhesiveness +Alimentiveness +Amativeness +Acquisitiveness +Causality +Cautiousness +Combativeness +Concentrativeness +Constructiveness +Destructiveness +Ideality +Love of life +Philoprogenitiveness +Secretiveness + +=== Sentiments === +Lower sentiments +These are common to man and animal. + +Cautiousness +Love of approbation +Self-esteem +Truthfulness +Superior sentiments +These produce emotion or feeling lacking in animals. + +Benevolence +Conscientiousness +Firmness +Hope +Ideality +Imitation +Veneration +Wit or Mirthfulness +Wonder \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-6.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-6.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e1cd47778 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology-6.md @@ -0,0 +1,85 @@ +--- +title: "Phrenology" +chunk: 7/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:59.145844+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Intellectual faculties === +These are to know the external world and physical qualities. + +Coloring +Eventuality +Form +Hearing +Individuality +Language +Locality +Number +Order +Sight +Size +Smell +Taste +Time +Touch +Tune +Weight + +=== Reflecting faculties === +These produce ideas of relation or reflect. They minister to the direction and gratification of all the other powers: + +Causality +Comparison + +== Phrenology as popular science == +Part of phrenology's rise in popularity was the availability of ideas from scholars that were shared throughout the nineteenth century. Various societies all over Europe and in the United States kept the middle class well informed on the developments in the pseudoscientific field of research by way of regularly publishing journals. +One of the earliest publications of phrenology was George Combe's Phrenological Journal which sat among other books, pamphlets, and articles he published in order to popularize the pseudoscience. As mentioned previously, phrenology had a wide reach and a multi-faceted appeal from nobility to working class, and this would be his breakthrough publication in Great Britain. The most compelling argument Combe would make for the superiority of European nations and people over that of the rest of the world would be in an article he published titled "On the Cerebral Development of Nations". In this publication he determined that the reason Africa, Asian, and American Indians had never had a superior civilization due to "their inherent mental deficiencies". +The Edinburgh Phrenological Society had their own scholarly journal called the Phrenological Journal and Miscellany which ran from 1823 to 1847. This was highly influential and the most highly sought after publication to read on phrenology in the British provinces in the early nineteenth century. + +== Influences on popular culture == +Several literary critics have noted the influence of phrenology (and physiognomy) in Edgar Allan Poe's fiction. +Phrenology (2002) by the Roots was named so after group member Black Thought saw an article in a scientific journal and the group "appropriated the term, not only for its political irony ..." +Phrenology, as well as physiognomy appears in a number of popular Victorian-era media and journal publications such as Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Gray. In both of these works, the villains are shown to have the face of evil and it is heavily implied that the facial structure of characters can lead to some sort of conclusion as to the nature of their character. Works such as these gave the pseudoscience validation, and shows how far spread and influential its implications about the way people act being connected to their head structure truly were. + +== Phrenology's decline in popularity == +A popular contemporary argument for the decline of phrenology was an inherent problem with its wider reach to groups of people that construed it for their own agenda. Each new iteration that it went through, as it was constantly being picked up and interpreted, it strayed farther from scientific structure. +As early as the 1840's, phrenology had its fair share of critics from other scientists and philosophical thinkers of the time. Clergymen in particular protested against the human mind being reduced to a secular, materialistic thing that could be understood without the notion of a soul. + +== See also == +Anthropometry – Measurement of the human individual +Boston Phrenological Society +Brodmann's areas – 52 distinct regions of the brain's cerebral cortexPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets +Characterology – Academic study of character +Localization of brain function – Theory that regions of the brain are specialized for functionsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets +Metoposcopy – Art of divining a person's future lines on their forehead +Moral insanity – Obsolete term for type of mental disorder +Neuroepistemology – Field of study +Neuro-imaging – Set of techniques to measure and visualize aspects of the nervous systemPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets +Onychomancy – Form of divination using fingernails +Palmistry – Foretelling the future through the study of the palm +Pathognomy – Study of expressed emotions +Phreno-magnetism – Pseudo-scientific phenomenon discovered by Robert Hanham Collyer in 1839 +Psychograph – Phrenology machine +Racial policy of Nazi Germany – Set of laws implemented in Nazi Germany +The Zoist – Academic journal devoted to pseudoscientific concepts + +== References == + +=== Bibliography === + +== External links == + +"Phrenology", North American Review, 1833 p. 59 +Manual of Phrenology. Open Content Alliance eBook Collection, Manual of phrenology: being an analytical summary of the system of Doctor Gall, on the faculties of man and the functions of the brain : translated from the 4th French ed +New illustrated self-instructor in phrenology and physiology. Open Content Alliance eBook Collection, Fowler, O. S. (Orson Squire) (1809–1887); Fowler, L. N. (Lorenzo Niles) (1811–1896) +The History of Phrenology on the Web by John van Wyhe, PhD. +Phrenology: an Overview includes The History of Phrenology by John van Wyhe, PhD. +Examples of phrenological tools can be seen in The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in Minneapolis, Minnesota +Historical Anatomies on the Web: Joseph Vimont: Traité de phrénologie humaine et comparée. (Paris, 1832–1835). Selected pages scanned from the original work. US National Library of Medicine. +Jean-Claude Vimont: Phrénologie à Rouen, les moulages du musée Flaubert d'histoire de la médecine +Phrenology: History of a Classic Pseudoscience – by Steven Novella MD +The Skeptic's Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6e2873ea4 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ +--- +title: "Physiognomy" +chunk: 1/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:00.325563+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Physiognomy or face reading, sometimes known by the later term anthroposcopy, is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. The term physiognomy can also refer to the general appearance of a person, object, or terrain without reference to its implied characteristics—as in the physiognomy of an individual plant (see plant life-form) or of a plant community (see vegetation). +Physiognomy as a practice meets the contemporary definition of pseudoscience and is regarded as such by academics because of its unsupported claims; popular belief in the practice of physiognomy is nonetheless still widespread and modern advances in artificial intelligence have sparked renewed interest in the field of study. The practice was well-accepted by ancient Greek philosophers, but fell into disrepute in the 16th century while practised by vagabonds and mountebanks. It revived and was popularised by Johann Kaspar Lavater, before falling from favour in the late 19th century. Physiognomy in the 19th century is particularly noted as a basis for scientific racism. Physiognomy as it is understood today is a subject of renewed scientific interest, especially as it relates to machine learning and facial recognition technology. The main interest for scientists today are the risks, including privacy concerns, of physiognomy in the context of facial recognition algorithms. + +== Ancient == + +Notions of the relationship between an individual's outward appearance and inner character date back to antiquity, and occasionally appear in early Greek poetry. Siddhars from ancient India defined Samudrika Shastra as identifying personal characteristics with body features. Chinese physiognomy or Chinese face reading (mianxiang) dates back to at least the Spring and Autumn period. +Early indications of a developed physiognomic theory appear in 5th century BC Athens, with the works of Zopyrus (featured in dialogue by Phaedo of Elis), an expert in the art. By the 4th century BC, the philosopher Aristotle frequently referred to theory and literature concerning the relationship of appearance to character. Aristotle was receptive to such an idea, evidenced by a passage in his Prior Analytics: + +It is possible to infer character from features, if it is granted the body and the soul are changed together by the natural affections: I say "natural", for although perhaps by learning music, a man made some change in his soul, this is not one of those affections natural to us; rather I refer to passions and desires when I speak of natural emotions. If then this were granted and also for each change, there is a corresponding sign, and we could state the affection and sign proper to each kind of animal, we shall be able to infer character from features. +The first systematic physiognomic treatise is a slim volume, Physiognomonica (Physiognomonics), ascribed to Aristotle, but probably of his "school", rather than created by Aristotle himself. The volume is divided into two parts, conjectured as originally two separate works. The first section discusses arguments drawn from nature and describes other races (non-Greek) and concentrates on the concept of human behavior. The second section focuses on animal behavior, dividing the animal kingdom into male and female types. From these are deduced correspondences between human form and character. +After Aristotle, the major extant works in physiognomy are: + +Polemo of Laodicea, de Physiognomonia (2nd century AD), in Greek +Adamantius the Sophist, Physiognomonica (4th century), in Greek +An anonymous Latin author, de Physiognomonia (about 4th century) +Ancient Greek mathematician, astronomer, and scientist Pythagoras—who some believe originated physiognomics—once rejected a prospective follower named Cylon because, to Pythagoras, his appearance indicated bad character. +After inspecting Socrates, a physiognomist announced he was given to intemperance, sensuality, and violent bursts of passion—which was so contrary to Socrates's image, his students accused the physiognomist of lying. Socrates put the issue to rest by saying, originally, he was given to all these vices, but had particularly strong self-discipline. + +== Middle Ages and Renaissance == + +During the Islamic Golden Age, the 12th-century Persian theologian and philosopher Fakhr al-Din al-Razi discussed physiognomy in his work Kitab al-Firasa (Book on Firasa), exploring the link between physical features and moral qualities. His contributions represent an early integration of physiognomic ideas within Arab thought. +The term 'physiognomy' was common in Middle English, often written as 'fisnamy' or 'visnomy', as in the Tale of Beryn, a spurious addition to The Canterbury Tales: "I knowe wele by thy fisnamy, thy kynd it were to stele". +Physiognomy's validity was once widely accepted. Michael Scot, a court scholar for Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, wrote Liber physiognomiae in the early 13th century concerning the subject. English universities taught physiognomy until Henry VIII of England outlawed "beggars and vagabonds playing 'subtile, crafty and unlawful games such as physnomye or 'palmestrye'" in 1530 or 1531. Around this time, scholastic leaders settled on the more erudite Greek form 'physiognomy' and began to discourage the entire concept of 'fisnamy'. +Leonardo da Vinci dismissed physiognomy in the early 16th century as "false", a chimera with "no scientific foundation". Nevertheless, da Vinci believed that facial lines caused by facial expressions could indicate personality traits. For example, he wrote that "those who have deep and noticeable lines between the eyebrows are irascible". + +== Modern == + +=== Johann Kaspar Lavater === + +The principal promoter of physiognomy in modern times was the Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) who was briefly a friend of Goethe. Lavater's essays on physiognomy were first published in German in 1772 and gained great popularity. These influential essays were translated into French and English, and influenced early criminological theory. + +=== Lavater's critics === \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7baf25b62 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +--- +title: "Physiognomy" +chunk: 2/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:00.325563+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Lavater received mixed reactions from scientists, with some accepting his research and others criticizing it. His harshest critic was scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who said pathognomy, or discovering the character of a person by observing their behavior, was more effective. English religious writer Hannah More (1745–1833) complained to her contemporary writer Horace Walpole, "In vain do we boast ... that philosophy had broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition; and yet, at this very time ... Lavater's physiognomy books sell at fifteen guineas a set." + +=== Thomas Browne === + +Lavater found confirmation of his ideas from the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), and the Italian Giambattista Della Porta (1535–1615). Browne in his Religio Medici (1643) discusses the possibility of the discernment of inner qualities from the outer appearance of the face, and wrote: + +there is surely a Physiognomy, which those experienced and Master Mendicants observe. ... For there are mystically in our faces certain Characters that carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C. may read our natures. +Browne reaffirmed his physiognomic beliefs in Christian Morals (circa 1675): + +Since the Brow speaks often true, since Eyes and Noses have Tongues, and the countenance proclaims the heart and inclinations; let observation so far instruct thee in Physiognomical lines ... we often observe that Men do most act those Creatures, whose constitution, parts, and complexion do most predominate in their mixtures. This is a corner-stone in Physiognomy ... there are therefore Provincial Faces, National Lips and Noses, which testify not only the Natures of those Countries, but of those which have them elsewhere. +Browne also introduced the word caricature into the English language, whence much of physiognomical belief attempted to entrench itself by illustrative means, in particular through visual political satire. +Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta's works are well represented in the Library of Sir Thomas Browne including Of Celestial Physiognomy, in which della Porta argued that it was not the stars but a person's temperament that influences their facial appearance and character. In De humana physiognomia (1586), della Porta used woodcuts of animals to illustrate human characteristics. Both della Porta and Browne adhered to the 'doctrine of signatures'—that is, the belief that the physical structures of nature such as a plant's roots, stem, and flower, were indicative keys (or 'signatures') to their medicinal potentials. + +== Period of popularity == + +The popularity of physiognomy grew throughout the first quarter of the 18th century and into the 19th century. It was discussed seriously by academics, who believed in its potential. + +=== Use in fiction and art === +Many European novelists used physiognomy in the descriptions of their characters, notably Balzac, Chaucer and portrait artists, such as Joseph Ducreux. A host of 19th-century English authors were influenced by the idea, notably evident in the detailed physiognomic descriptions of characters in the novels of Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and Charlotte Brontë. Descriptions over one's appearance in the written form was a way for one to gauge the character's intelligence, ability, morals, and social status. While it did provide some benefits like more accurate and detailed written descriptions of appearance, it also had a negative effect on gender, class, and race due to increased stereotyping and manipulation. +In addition to Thomas Browne, other literary authors associated with Norwich who made physiognomical observations in their writings include the romantic novelist Amelia Opie, and the travelogue author George Borrow. +Physiognomy is a central, implicit assumption underlying the plot of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. In 19th-century American literature, physiognomy figures prominently in the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. + +=== Phrenology === +Phrenology, a pseudoscience that measures the bumps on the skull in order to determine mental and personality characteristics, was created around 1800 by German physician Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Spurzheim, and was widely popular in the 19th century in Europe and the United States. In the U.S., physician James W. Redfield published his Comparative Physiognomy in 1852, illustrating with 330 engravings the "Resemblances between Men and Animals". He finds these in appearance and (often metaphorically) character, e.g. Germans to Lions, Negroes to Elephants and Fishes, Chinamen to Hogs, Yankees to Bears, Jews to Goats. While phrenology and physiognomy are separate from each other, they were so closely connected during the early nineteenth century that the terms were often used in place of each other. +A prominent nineteenth century physiognomist, Samuel Wells, published New Physiognomy, or, Signs of Character in 1867 as a way to explain the principles of physiognomy and phrenology, as well as showing the connection between the two concepts. Wells included four principles to introduced readers to the subject: + +The brain is the special organ of the mind. The essence and mode of operation of the mind itself are inscrutable; we can only study its manifestations. +The mind, though essentially a unit, is made up of about forty different faculties, each of which is manifested by means of a particular part of the brain, set apart exclusively for it and called its organ [...]. +When other conditions are the same, the larger the brain the stronger it is; and the larger portion of the brain occupied for the manifestation of a faculty, the stronger its manifestation. +Those portions of the brain used for faculties related to each other are located together. Thus the brain is divided into regions or groups, as well into organs. The location and boundaries of these organs and regions may be best learned from the Phrenological bust, and the accompanying diagram [..]. +In the late 19th century phrenology began to be taken less seriously which lead to physiognomy being regarded as a pseudoscience because of the close connection between the two. Nevertheless, the German physiognomist Carl Huter (1861–1912) became popular in Germany with his concept of physiognomy, called "psycho-physiognomy". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4936a5856 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +title: "Physiognomy" +chunk: 3/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:00.325563+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Criminology === +During the late 19th century, English psychometrician Sir Francis Galton attempted to define physiognomic characteristics of health, disease, beauty, and criminality, via a method of composite photography. Galton's process involved the photographic superimposition of two or more faces by multiple exposures. After averaging together photographs of violent criminals, he found that the composite image appeared "more respectable" than any of the faces comprising it; this was likely due to the irregularities of the skin across the constituent images being averaged out in the final blend. With the advent of computer technology during the early 1990s, Galton's composite technique has been adopted and greatly improved using computer graphics software. +Physiognomy also became of use in the field of Criminology through efforts made by Italian army doctor and scientist, Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso, during the mid-19th century, championed the notion that "criminality was inherited and that criminals could be identified by physical attributes such as hawk-like noses and bloodshot eyes". Lombroso took inspiration from Charles Darwin's recently released theories of evolution and carried many of the misunderstandings that he had regarding evolution into the propagation of the use of physiognomy in criminology. His logic stemmed from the idea that "criminals were 'throwbacks' in the phylogenetic tree to early phases of evolution". It is reasonable to conclude that "according to Lombroso, a regressive characteristic united the genius, the madman and the delinquent; they differed in the intensity of this characteristic and, naturally in the degree of development of the positive qualities". He believed that one could determine whether one was of savage nature just by their physical characteristics. Based on his findings, "Lombroso proposed that the "born criminal" could be distinguished by physical atavistic stigmata, such as: + +Large jaws, forward projection of jaw +Low sloping forehead +High cheekbones +Flattened or upturned nose +Handle-shaped ears +Hawk-like noses or fleshy lips +Hard shifty eyes +Scanty beard or baldness +Insensitivity to pain +Long arms relative to lower limbs +This interest in the relationship between criminology and physiognomy began upon Lombroso's first interaction with "a notorious Calabrian thief and arsonist" named Giuseppe Villella. Lombroso was particularly taken by many striking personality characteristics that Villella possessed; agility and cynicism being some of them. Villella's alleged crimes are disputed and Lombroso's research is seen by many as northern Italian racism toward southern Italians. Upon Villella's death, Lombroso "conducted a post-mortem and discovered that his subject had an indentation at the back of his skull, which resembled that found in apes". He later referred to this anomaly as the "median occipital depression". Lombroso used the term "atavism" to describe these primitive, ape-like behaviors that he found in many of those whom he deemed prone to criminality. As he continued analyzing the data he gathered from Villella's autopsy and compared and contrasted those results with previous cases, he inferred that certain physical characteristics allowed for some individuals to have a greater "propensity to offend and were also savage throwbacks to early man". +These sorts of examinations yielded far-reaching consequences for various scientific and medical communities at the time, and he wrote, "the natural genesis of crime implied that the criminal personality should be regarded as a particular form of psychiatric disease"., which is an idea still seen today in psychiatry's diagnostic manual, the DSM-5, in its description of antisocial personality disorder. Furthermore, these ideas promoted the concept that when a crime is committed, it is no longer seen as "free will" but instead a result of one's genetic pre-disposition to savagery. Lombroso had numerous case studies to corroborate many of his findings due to the fact that he was the head of an insane asylum at Pesaro. He was easily able to study people from various walks of life and was thus able to further define criminal types. Because his theories primarily focused on anatomy and anthropological information, the idea of degeneracy being a source of atavism was not explored till later on in his criminological theory endeavors. These "new and improved" theories led to the notion "that the born criminal had pathological symptoms in common with the moral imbecile and the epileptic, and this led him to expand his typology to include the insane criminal and the epileptic criminal". In addition, "the insane criminal type [was said to] include the alcoholic, the mattoid, and the hysterical criminal". +Lombroso's ideologies are now recognized as flawed and regarded as pseudo-science. Many have remarked on the overt sexist and racist overtones of his research, and denounce it for those reasons alone. In spite of many of his theories being discredited, he is still hailed as the father of "scientific criminology". + +=== 20th century === +In France, the concept was further developed in the 20th century under the name morphopsychology, developed by Louis Corman (1901–1995), a French psychiatrist who argued that the workings of vital forces within the human body resulted in different facial shapes and forms. The term "morphopsychology" is a translation of the French word morphopsychologie, which Louis Corman coined in 1937 when he wrote his first book on the subject, Quinze leçons de morphopsychologie (Fifteen Lessons of Morphopsychology). + +== Present day == + +=== Social media === +Since around 2023–2024, a resurgent discourse around physiognomy has been noted on social media among both male and female users, particularly with regards to memes, face filters, and anti-feminist and incel communities. Such content has raised concern about the normalization of pseudoscience and the idea that physical characteristics are inherently associated with one's actions and social status. Examples include the perception of leftists as being unattractive and women's femininity as dependent on their skull shape. An article in Dazed argued that these pseudosciences "[play] into the appetite to categorise ourselves". \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1a7a421a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +--- +title: "Physiognomy" +chunk: 4/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:00.325563+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Artificial intelligence === +Artificial intelligence (AI) has been reported to heavily employ physiognomy, such as the ability to predict homosexuality, criminality, and political affiliation from images of faces or other records of outwards appearance. Critics have said that this is a result of the biased databases that AI systems are trained on, and have noted its use and potential weaponization by governments and corporations. + +== Scientific investigation == + +Due to its legacy of racism and junk science masquerading as criminology, scientific study or discussion of the relationship between facial features and character has become taboo. It had previously posited many links. For example, there is evidence that character can influence facial appearance. Also, facial characteristics influence first impressions of others, which influences our expectations and behavior, which in turn influences character. Lastly, there are several biological factors that influence both facial appearance and character traits, such pre- and post-natal hormone levels and gene expression. +The relationship between facial features and character traits such as political or sexual orientation is complex, but involves the fact that facial features can shape social behavior, partially as a result of the self-fulfilling prophecy effect. The self-fulfilling prophesy effect asserts that people perceived to have a certain attribute will be treated accordingly, and over time may engage in behaviors consistent with others' expectations of them. Conversely, social behavior such as addictions to drugs or alcohol, can shape facial features. +A February 2009 article in New Scientist magazine reported that physiognomy is undergoing a small revival, with research papers trying to find links between personality traits and facial traits. A study of 90 ice hockey players found a statistically significant correlation between a wider face—a greater than average cheekbone-to-cheekbone distance relative to the distance between brow and upper lip—and the number of penalty minutes a player received for violent acts like slashing, elbowing, checking from behind, and fighting. +This revival has continued in the 2010s with the rise of machine learning for facial recognition. For instance, researchers have claimed that it is possible to predict upper body strength and some personality traits (propensity to aggression) only by looking at the width of the face. Political orientation can also be reliably predicted. In a study that used facial recognition technology by analyzing the faces of over one million individuals, political orientation was predicted correctly 74% of the time; considerably better than chance (50%), human ability (55%) or even personality questionnaires (68%). Other studies have used AI and machine learning techniques to identify facial characteristics that predict honesty, personality, and intelligence. +However, machine learning algorithms can classify faces according to other information than just facial features studied by physiognomy. This includes temporary changes to the face (makeup, facial hair style, glasses) and even circumstances completely unrelated to the face (image quality, background colors, lighting conditions). In 2017, a controversial study claimed that an AI algorithm could detect sexual orientation 'more accurately than humans' (in 81% of the tested cases for men and 71% for women), but further research showed it was this non-frenologic information that allowed for such a high accuracy. For more information on this sexual orientation issue in general, see gaydar. + +== In media == +In 2011, the South Korean news agency Yonhap published a physiognomical analysis of the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. +In the TV series Doctor Who, as the Fourth Doctor examines his new face after regenerating in Robot, he comments on his physiognomy saying "As for the physiognomy, well, nothing's perfect." +The newspaper Ukrainska Pravda reported, "The fact that Putin uses [body] doubles is suggested by the intelligence data of the Ukrainian secret services and conclusions made by several specialists, in particular physiognomists." + +== See also == +Sanpaku + +=== Related disciplines === + +== Notes == + +== References == + +=== Further reading === +Claudia Schmölders, Hitler's Face: The Biography of an Image. Translated by Adrian Daub. University of Pennsylvania Press: 2006. ISBN 0-8122-3902-4. +Liz Gerstein, About Face. SterlingHouse Publisher, Inc. ISBN 1-58501-088-X +Matthew Hertenstein (2015). The Tell: The Little Clues That Reveal Big Truths about Who We Are. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-03659-2. +Rüdiger Campe and Manfred Schndier, Geschichten der Physiognomik. Text-Bild-Wissen, (Freiburg: Rombach, 1996). + +== External links == + +Johann Kaspar Lavater On The Nature of Man, Which is the Foundation of the Science Which is called Physiognomy 1775 +Mocan, Naci; Tekin, Erdal (February 2010). "Ugly Criminals". Review of Economics and Statistics. 92 (1): 15–30. doi:10.1162/rest.2009.11757. S2CID 18154572. +Selected images from: Della Porta, Giambattista: De humana physiognomonia libri IIII (Vico Equense, 1586). Historical Anatomies on the Web. National Library of Medicine. +Women's traits 'written on face' (BBC News Wednesday, 11 February 2009) +"On Physiognomy" – An Essay by Arthur Schopenhauer +"Composite Portraits", by Francis Galton, 1878 (as published in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, volume 8). +"Enquiries into Human Faculty and its Development", book by Francis Galton, 1883. +French Society for Morphopsychology \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_Award-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_Award-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0e645821c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_Award-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +--- +title: "Pigasus Award" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_Award" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:01.599134+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Pigasus Award is the name of an annual tongue-in-cheek award, which was presented by the late James Randi, a skeptic. The purpose of the award was to expose parapsychological, paranormal, and psychic frauds whom Randi had noted over the previous year. Randi usually made his announcements of the awards from the previous year on April 1 (April Fools' Day). + +== History == +The award was originally called the Uri trophy, after Uri Geller, and was first announced in the appendix of Randi's book Flim-Flam!. The 1982 edition lists the award's "recipients" in 1979, 1980 and 1981. +In Flim-Flam!, Randi states: + +The trophy consists of a stainless-steel spoon bent in a pleasing curve (paranormally, of course) and supported by a base of plastic. Please note that the base is flimsy and quite transparent. I am personally responsible for the nomination of the candidates. The sealed envelopes are read by me, while blindfolded, at the official announcement ceremony on April 1. Any baseless claims are rationalized in approved parapsychological fashion, and the results will be published immediately without being checked in any way. Winners are notified telepathically and are allowed to predict their victory in advance. +The bent spoon trophy is a reference to Geller's claimed spoon-bending abilities. +The logo of a winged pig was designed for Randi's website by German artist Jutta Degener in 1996. The name "Pigasus" was chosen by Randi from suggestions e-mailed to him. The term is a portmanteau pun combining the word pig with the mythological Pegasus, a reference to the expression "when pigs fly". +Randi did not present any Uri Award for a number of years after its inception in Flim-Flam! In 1997, it was revived and the name was changed to "Pigasus" after the winged pig. Randi announced the recipients through his e-newsletter, SWIFT!, in which he said "The awards are announced via telepathy, the winners are allowed to predict their winning, and the Flying Pig trophies are sent via psychokinesis. We send; if they don't receive, that's probably due to their lack of paranormal talent." +There were no Pigasus Awards for 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002. + +== Categories == +Flim-Flam! specifies that the winner of the Pigasus Award falls in one of four possible categories: + +The scientist who said or did the silliest thing relating to parapsychology in the preceding twelve months. +The funding organization that supports the most useless parapsychological study during the year. +The media outlet that reported as fact the most outrageous paranormal claim. +The "psychic" performer who fools the greatest number of people with the least effort in that twelve-month period. +The 2003 Pigasus Awards featured only categories 1 and 4. The 2005 awards added a fifth category "for the most persistent refusal to face reality". + +== Recipients == + +=== Category 1 – Scientist === +1979 – William A. Tiller, who said that although the evidence for psychic events was very shaky and originates with persons of doubtful credibility, it should be taken seriously because there is so much of it. +1980 – Isaac Bashevis Singer, for declaring a belief in demons. +1981 – Charles Tart, for discovering that the further in the future events are, the more difficult it is to predict them. +1996 – Scientist/physicist Ed May, who headed the CIA "remote viewing" project. +1999 – The Kansas State Board of Education for removing the teaching of evolution from the state's educational agenda. +2001 – University of Arizona Psychology professor Gary Schwartz for studies in parapsychology. +2003 – South African Minister of Health Manto Tshabala-Msimang for endorsing alternative medicine for treating AIDS. +2004 – Rogerio Lobo, professor/chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University who co-signed a paper titled Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer? +2005 – Brenda Dunne, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab manager, for the doublespeak of promoting studies whose "experimental results display increases in information content that can only be attributed to the influence of the consciousness of the human operator", while simultaneously insisting that PEAR is "not in the business of demonstrating 'paranormal' abilities". +2006 – Biologist Rupert Sheldrake for research funded by Trinity College, Cambridge on his theory of "telephone telepathy", supposed precognition experienced by the recipients of telephone calls and e-mails, (i.e. knowing who is calling before picking up the phone or viewing the caller ID.) +2007 – Intelligent Design promoter and professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University Michael Behe for his book The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism. +2008 – Colin A. Ross, for claiming that he can shoot electromagnetic radiation from his eyes. +2009 – Mehmet Oz, for his promotion of energy therapies such as Reiki. +2010 – NASA engineer Richard B. Hoover and the Journal of Cosmology; Hoover for claiming unfounded evidence for microscopic life found on meteorites and the Journal of Cosmology for publishing articles advancing the scientifically unsupported idea that life began before the first stars formed and was spread throughout the early universe on meteors. +2011 – Daryl Bem, for his shoddy research that has been discredited on many accounts by prominent critics, such as Drs. Richard Wiseman, Steven Novella, and Chris French. +2013 – Stanislaw Burzynski, for "[selling] expensive cancer cures by administering ‘antineoplastons’, costing his customers tens of thousands of dollars, and which have never been shown to be efficacious in controlled trials." \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_Award-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_Award-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ffe1a0ead --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_Award-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,84 @@ +--- +title: "Pigasus Award" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_Award" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:01.599134+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Category 2 – Funding === +1979 – The McDonnell Foundation, who gave $500,000 to Washington University in St. Louis to study spoon-bending children. (See Project Alpha) +1980 – The Millennium Foundation for giving $1 million to parapsychological research. (The award was withdrawn in 1982 when the foundation decided, instead, to invest the million dollars in a "psychically discovered" oil site, which turned out to be dry.) +1981 – The Pentagon for spending $6 million to determine whether or not burning a photograph of a Soviet missile would destroy the missile. (Randi 1982, pp. 327–329) +1996 – Robert Bigelow for funding John E. Mack and Budd Hopkins, and for purchasing the so-called Skinwalker Ranch in Utah known for alleged UFO attacks, "interdimensional portals", and cattle mutilations. +1999 – The Human Resources Administration of the City of New York, for training welfare recipients to work as telephone psychics. +2001 – The University of Paris for awarding a doctorate in Sociology to Élizabeth Teissier for a 900-page thesis on the validity of astrology. +2004 – The United States Air Force Research Laboratory, who paid $25,000 to Eric W. Davis at a Las Vegas company called Warp Drive Metrics to study the "conveyance of persons by psychic means" and "transport through extra space dimensions or parallel universes." +2005 – City Council of Auckland, New Zealand, for a NZ$2,500 (US$1,800) grant to the Foundation For Spiritualist Mediums "to teach people to communicate with the dead". +2006 – Templeton Foundation for spending US$2.4 million and ten years research on a study researching the effectiveness of prayer. +2007 – The White House, described by Randi as "faith-based". +2008 – Logan Craft, Walt Ruloff, and John Sullivan, producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. +2009 – Iraq's Interior Ministry, for spending tens of millions on bomb-detecting dowsing rods, the ADE 651. +2010 – CVS/pharmacy, for their supporting of homeopathic medication. +2011 – Syracuse University, for their continuing promotion and support of facilitated communication. +2012 – Pumpkin Hollow Retreat Center, for their funding and promotion of the spurious "contemporary healing modality which evolved from the process of laying-on of hands" called Therapeutic Touch. + +=== Category 3 – Media === +1979 – Prentice Hall and American International Pictures, for The Amityville Horror, labeled as "A True story". +1980 – The reality television series That's Incredible!, for declaring a simple magic trick to be genuine. (The performer, James Hydrick, later admitted it to be false.) +1981 – TV station KNBC of Los Angeles, for accepting the Tamara Rand hoax as real without checking into it. +1996 – Awarded collectively to a number of media outlets for perpetuating the Roswell UFO incident. +1999 – Television host Bill Maher for endorsing a series of psychics. +2004 – The film What the Bleep Do We Know!?. +2005 – ABC's Primetime Live for its credulous "John of God" special, about Brazilian "psychic surgeon" João Teixeira +2006 & 2007 – Daytime talk show host Montel Williams for promotion of Sylvia Browne. +2008 – Late-night cable television, for carrying advertisements for pseudoscientific products and services, in particular, Enzyte. +2009 – The Oprah Winfrey Show +2010 – Mehmet Oz for his promotion of quack medical practices. +2011 – TLC, for airing a collection of shows that promote belief in the paranormal. +2012 – Syfy, for promoting paranormal fringe-belief through various shows on its network. + +=== Category 4 – Performer === +1979 – Philip Jordan, who was hired by Tioga County, New York, Public Defender R. L. Miller to assist in choosing jurors by their "auras". +1980 – Dorothy Allison, a psychic housewife who was called upon to solve a series of murders in Atlanta, Georgia. She failed to do anything but give the police 42 different names for the murderer. +1981 – Tamara Rand, professional psychic, who claimed she had predicted an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan months before the incident when she actually did it a day after the event. +1996 – Sheldan Nidle, who predicted the end of the world on December 17, 1996, then explained that it came, but we were all unaware of it. +1999 – Nostradamus +2001 – John Edward +2003 and 2004 – Sylvia Browne +2005 – Allison DuBois, inspiration of NBC TV show Medium. +2006 – Uri Geller +2007 – Swiss performer Vincent Raven for his tricks on The Next Uri Geller program. +2008 – Jenny McCarthy, for being a spokesperson for the anti-vaccination movement. +2009 – Chip Coffey, for his television show Psychic Kids. +2010 – Televangelist Peter Popoff, for offering "supernatural debt relief". +2011 – Theresa Caputo, for "engaging in utter nonsense". +2012 – Alex Jones, for his continued promotion of medical quackery and unfounded conspiracy theories on his radio show. + +=== Category 5 – Refusal to face reality === +2005 – Journal of Reproductive Medicine, for refusal to denounce the now-discredited Cha/Wirth paper, Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer, that JRM published. (Paper co-signer Rogerio Lobo won the 2004 Pigasus Scientist award.) +2008 – Kevin Trudeau +2009 – Scientologists +2010 – Andrew Wakefield, the researcher who launched the modern anti-vaccine panic with unfounded statements linking the MMR vaccine with autism that were not borne out by any research. +2011 – James Van Praagh, who pushes theories about ghosts despite being debunked by Randi several times. +2012 – Mehmet Oz, for his continued promotion of quack medical practices, paranormal belief, and pseudoscience. + +== See also == +Bent Spoon Award "presented to the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudoscientific piffle" +List of mocking awards + +== References == + +== External links == +The Pigasus Awards: +1996, +1999, +2001, +2003, +2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, +2009, +2010 +2012 +American Physical Society \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..846260b53 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +title: "Polygraph" +chunk: 1/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:02.796379+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a pseudoscientific device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked and answers a series of questions. The belief underpinning the use of the polygraph is that deceptive answers will produce physiological responses that can be differentiated from those associated with non-deceptive answers; however, there are no specific physiological reactions associated with lying, making it difficult to identify factors that separate those who are lying from those who are telling the truth. +In some countries, polygraphs are used as an interrogation tool with criminal suspects or candidates for sensitive public or private sector employment. Some United States law enforcement and federal government agencies, as well as many police departments, use polygraph examinations to interrogate suspects and screen new employees. Within the US federal government, a polygraph examination is also referred to as a psychophysiological detection of deception examination. +Assessments of polygraphy by scientific and government bodies generally suggest that polygraphs are highly inaccurate, may easily be defeated by countermeasures, and are an imperfect or invalid means of assessing truthfulness. A comprehensive 2003 review by the National Academy of Sciences of existing research concluded that there was "little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy", while the American Psychological Association has stated that "most psychologists agree that there is little evidence that polygraph tests can accurately detect lies." For this reason, the use of polygraphs to detect lies is considered a form of either pseudoscience or junk science. + +== Testing procedure == + +The examiner typically begins polygraph test sessions with a pre-test interview to gain some preliminary information which will later be used to develop diagnostic questions. Then the tester will explain how the polygraph is supposed to work, emphasizing that it can detect lies and that it is important to answer truthfully. Then a "stim test" is often conducted: the subject is asked to deliberately lie and then the tester reports that he was able to detect this lie. Guilty subjects are likely to become more anxious when they are reminded of the test's validity. However, there are risks of innocent subjects being equally or more anxious than the guilty. Then the actual test starts. Some of the questions asked are "irrelevant" ("Is your name Fred?"), others are "diagnostic" questions, and the remainder are the "relevant questions" that the tester is really interested in. The different types of questions alternate. The test is passed if the physiological responses to the diagnostic questions are larger than those during the relevant questions. +Criticisms have been given regarding the validity of the administration of the Control Question Technique. The CQT may be vulnerable to being conducted in an interrogation-like fashion. This kind of interrogation style would elicit a nervous response from innocent and guilty suspects alike. There are several other ways of administering the questions. +An alternative is the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT), or the Concealed Information Test, which is used in Japan. The administration of this test is given to prevent potential errors that may arise from the questioning style. The test is usually conducted by a tester with no knowledge of the crime or circumstances in question. The administrator tests the participant on their knowledge of the crime that would not be known to an innocent person. For example: "Was the crime committed with a .45 or a 9 mm?" The questions are in multiple choice and the participant is rated on how they react to the correct answer. If they react strongly to the guilty information, then proponents of the test believe that it is likely that they know facts relevant to the case. This administration is considered more valid by supporters of the test because it contains many safeguards to avoid the risk of the administrator influencing the results. + +== Effectiveness == +Assessments of polygraphy by scientific and government bodies generally suggest that polygraphs are inaccurate, may be defeated by countermeasures, and are an imperfect or invalid means of assessing truthfulness. Despite claims that polygraph tests are between 80% and 90% accurate by advocates, the National Research Council has found no evidence of effectiveness. In particular, studies have indicated that the relevant–irrelevant questioning technique is not ideal, as many innocent subjects exert a heightened physiological reaction to the crime-relevant questions. The American Psychological Association states "Most psychologists agree that there is little evidence that polygraph tests can accurately detect lies." +In 2002, a review by the National Research Council found that, in populations "untrained in countermeasures, specific-incident polygraph tests can discriminate lying from truth telling at rates well above chance, though well below perfection". The review also warns against generalization from these findings to justify the use of polygraphs—"polygraph accuracy for screening purposes is almost certainly lower than what can be achieved by specific-incident polygraph tests in the field"—and notes some examinees may be able to take countermeasures to produce deceptive results. +In the 1998 US Supreme Court case United States v. Scheffer, the majority stated that "There is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable [...] Unlike other expert witnesses who testify about factual matters outside the jurors' knowledge, such as the analysis of fingerprints, ballistics, or DNA found at a crime scene, a polygraph expert can supply the jury only with another opinion." The Supreme Court summarized their findings by stating that the use of polygraph was "little better than could be obtained by the toss of a coin." In 2005, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals stated that "polygraphy did not enjoy general acceptance from the scientific community". In 2001, William Iacono, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, concluded: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..c2dc1ab76 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: "Polygraph" +chunk: 2/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:02.796379+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Although the CQT [Control Question Test] may be useful as an investigative aid and tool to induce confessions, it does not pass muster as a scientifically credible test. CQT theory is based on naive, implausible assumptions indicating (a) that it is biased against innocent individuals and (b) that it can be beaten simply by artificially augmenting responses to control questions. Although it is not possible to adequately assess the error rate of the CQT, both of these conclusions are supported by published research findings in the best social science journals (Honts et al., 1994; Horvath, 1977; Kleinmuntz & Szucko, 1984; Patrick & Iacono, 1991). Although defense attorneys often attempt to have the results of friendly CQTs admitted as evidence in court, there is no evidence supporting their validity and ample reason to doubt it. Members of scientific organizations who have the requisite background to evaluate the CQT are overwhelmingly skeptical of the claims made by polygraph proponents. + +Polygraphs measure arousal, which can be affected by anxiety, anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), nervousness, fear, confusion, hypoglycemia, psychosis, depression, substance-induced states (nicotine, stimulants), substance-withdrawal state (alcohol withdrawal) or other emotions; polygraphs do not measure "lies". A polygraph cannot differentiate anxiety caused by dishonesty and anxiety caused by something else. +Since the polygraph does not measure lying, the Silent Talker Lie Detector inventors expected that adding a camera to film microexpressions would improve the accuracy of the evaluators. This did not happen in practice according to an article in the Intercept. + +=== US Congress Office of Technology Assessment === +In 1983, the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment published a review of the technology and found that + +there is at present only limited scientific evidence for establishing the validity of polygraph testing. Even where the evidence seems to indicate that polygraph testing detects deceptive subjects better than chance, significant error rates are possible, and examiner and examinee differences and the use of countermeasures may further affect validity. + +=== National Academy of Sciences === +In 2003, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a report entitled "The Polygraph and Lie Detection". The NAS found that "overall, the evidence is scanty and scientifically weak", concluding that 57 of the approximately 80 research studies that the American Polygraph Association relied on to reach their conclusions were significantly flawed. These studies did show that specific-incident polygraph testing, in a person untrained in counter-measures, could discern the truth at "a level greater than chance, yet short of perfection". However, due to several flaws, the levels of accuracy shown in these studies "are almost certainly higher than actual polygraph accuracy of specific-incident testing in the field". By adding a camera, the Silent Talker Lie Detector attempted to give more data to the evaluator by providing information about microexpressions. However adding the Silent Talker camera did not improve lie detection and was very expensive and cumbersome to include according to an article in the Intercept. +When polygraphs are used as a screening tool (in national security matters and for law enforcement agencies for example) the level of accuracy drops to such a level that "Its accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies." The NAS concluded that the polygraph "may have some utility but that there is "little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy". +The NAS conclusions paralleled those of the earlier United States Congress Office of Technology Assessment report "Scientific Validity of Polygraph Testing: A Research Review and Evaluation". Similarly, a report to Congress by the Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy concluded that "The few Government-sponsored scientific research reports on polygraph validity (as opposed to its utility), especially those focusing on the screening of applicants for employment, indicate that the polygraph is neither scientifically valid nor especially effective beyond its ability to generate admissions". +Despite the NAS finding of a "high rate of false positives," failures to expose individuals such as Aldrich Ames and Larry Wu-Tai Chin, and other inabilities to show a scientific justification for the use of the polygraph, it continues to be employed. + +== Countermeasures == +Several proposed countermeasures designed to pass polygraph tests have been described. There are two major types of countermeasures: "general state" (intending to alter the physiological or psychological state of the subject during the test), and "specific point" (intending to alter the physiological or psychological state of the subject at specific periods during the examination, either to increase or decrease responses during critical examination periods). + +General state: When asked how he passed the polygraph test, Central Intelligence Agency officer turned KGB mole Aldrich Ames explained that he sought advice from his Soviet handler and received the simple instruction to: "Get a good night's sleep, and rest, and go into the test rested and relaxed. Be nice to the polygraph examiner, develop a rapport, and be cooperative and try to maintain your calm". Additionally, Ames explained, "There's no special magic... Confidence is what does it. Confidence and a friendly relationship with the examiner... rapport, where you smile and you make him think that you like him". +Specific point: Other suggestions for countermeasures include for the subject to mentally record the control and relevant questions as the examiner reviews them before the interrogation begins. During the interrogation the subject is supposed to carefully control their breathing while answering the relevant questions, and to try to artificially increase their heart rate during the control questions, for example by thinking of something scary or exciting, or by pricking themselves with a pointed object concealed somewhere on the body. In this way the results will not show a significant reaction to any of the relevant questions. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..87ad2532c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +--- +title: "Polygraph" +chunk: 3/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:02.796379+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Use == +Law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies in the United States are by far the largest users of polygraph technology. In the United States alone most federal law enforcement agencies either employ their own polygraph examiners or use the services of examiners employed by other agencies. In 1978 Richard Helms, the eighth Director of Central Intelligence, stated: + +We discovered there were some Eastern Europeans who could defeat the polygraph at any time. Americans are not very good at it, because we are raised to tell the truth and when we lie it is easy to tell we are lying. But we find a lot of Europeans and Asiatics can handle that polygraph without a blip, and you know they are lying and you have evidence that they are lying. +Susan McCarthy of Salon said in 2000 that "The polygraph is an American phenomenon, with limited use in a few countries, such as Canada, Israel and Japan." + +=== Armenia === +In Armenia, government administered polygraphs are legal, at least for use in national security investigations. The National Security Service (NSS), Armenia's primary intelligence service, requires polygraph examinations of all new applicants. + +=== Australia === +Polygraph evidence became inadmissible in New South Wales courts under the Lie Detectors Act 1983. Under the same act, it is also illegal to use polygraphs for the purpose of granting employment, insurance, financial accommodation, and several other purposes for which polygraphs may be used in other jurisdictions. + +=== Canada === +In Canada, the 1987 decision of R v Béland, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the use of polygraph results as evidence in court, finding that they were inadmissible. The polygraph is still used as a tool in the investigation of criminal acts and sometimes employed in the screening of employees for government organizations. +In the province of Ontario, the Employment Standards Act, 2000 prohibits employers from asking or requiring employees to undergo a polygraph test. Police services are permitted to use polygraph tests as part of an investigation if the person consents. + +=== Europe === +In a majority of European jurisdictions, polygraphs are generally considered to be unreliable for gathering evidence, and are usually not used by local law enforcement agencies. Polygraph testing is widely seen in Europe to violate the right to remain silent. +In England and Wales a polygraph test can be taken, but the results cannot be used in a court of law to prove a case. However, the Offender Management Act 2007 put in place an option to use polygraph tests to monitor serious sex offenders on parole in England and Wales; these tests became compulsory in 2014 for high risk sexual offenders currently on parole in England and Wales. +The Supreme Court of Poland declared on January 29, 2015, that the use of polygraph in interrogation of suspects is forbidden by the Polish Code of Criminal Procedure. Its use might be allowed though if the suspect has been already accused of a crime and if the interrogated person consents to the use of a polygraph. Even then, the use of polygraph can never be used as a substitute for actual evidence. +As of 2017, the justice ministry and Supreme Court of both of the Netherlands and Germany had rejected use of polygraphs. +According to the 2017 book Psychology and Law: Bridging the Gap by psychologists David Canter and Rita Žukauskienė Belgium was the European country with the most prevalent use of polygraph testing by police, with about 300 polygraphs carried out each year in the course of police investigations. The results are not considered viable evidence in bench trials, but have been used in jury trials. +In Lithuania, polygraphs have been in use since 1992, with law enforcement utilizing the Event Knowledge Test (a "modification" of the Concealed Information Test) in criminal investigations. + +=== India === +In 2008, an Indian court adopted the Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature Profiling test as evidence to convict a woman who was accused of murdering her fiancé. It was the first time that the result of polygraph was used as evidence in court. On May 5, 2010, The Supreme Court of India declared use of narcoanalysis, brain mapping and polygraph tests on suspects as illegal and against the constitution if consent is not obtained and forced. Article 20(3) of the Indian Constitution states: "No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself." Polygraph tests are still legal if the defendant requests one. + +=== Israel === +The Supreme Court of Israel, in Civil Appeal 551/89 (Menora Insurance v. Jacob Sdovnik), ruled that the polygraph has not been recognized as a reliable device. In other decisions, polygraph results were ruled inadmissible in criminal trials. Polygraph results are only admissible in civil trials if the person being tested agrees to it in advance. + +=== Philippines === +The results of polygraph tests are inadmissible in court in the Philippines. The National Bureau of Investigation, however, uses polygraphs in aid of investigation. + +=== United States === + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..1fed38ecf --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +--- +title: "Polygraph" +chunk: 4/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:02.796379+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In 2018, Wired magazine reported that an estimated 2.5 million polygraph tests were given each year in the United States, with the majority administered to paramedics, police officers, firefighters, and state troopers. The average cost to administer the test is more than $700 and is part of a $2 billion industry. +In 2007, polygraph testimony was admitted by stipulation in 19 states, and was subject to the discretion of the trial judge in federal court. The use of polygraph in court testimony remains controversial, although it is used extensively in post-conviction supervision, particularly of sex offenders. In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993), the old Frye standard was lifted and all forensic evidence, including polygraph, had to meet the new Daubert standard in which "underlying reasoning or methodology is scientifically valid and properly can be applied to the facts at issue." While polygraph tests are commonly used in police investigations in the US, no defendant or witness can be forced to undergo the test unless they are under the supervision of the courts. In United States v. Scheffer (1998), the US Supreme Court left it up to individual jurisdictions whether polygraph results could be admitted as evidence in court cases. Nevertheless, it is used extensively by prosecutors, defense attorneys, and law enforcement agencies. In the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Delaware and Iowa it is illegal for any employer to order a polygraph either as conditions to gain employment, or if an employee has been suspected of wrongdoing. The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 (EPPA) generally prevents employers from using lie detector tests, either for pre-employment screening or during the course of employment, with certain exemptions. As of 2013, about 70,000 job applicants are polygraphed by the federal government on an annual basis. In the United States, the State of New Mexico admits polygraph testing in jury trials under certain circumstances. +In 2010 the NSA produced a video explaining its polygraph process. The video, ten minutes long, is titled "The Truth About the Polygraph" and was posted to the website of the Defense Security Service. Jeff Stein of The Washington Post said that the video portrays "various applicants, or actors playing them—it’s not clear—describing everything bad they had heard about the test, the implication being that none of it is true." AntiPolygraph.org argues that the NSA-produced video omits some information about the polygraph process; it produced a video responding to the NSA video. George Maschke, the founder of the website, accused the NSA polygraph video of being "Orwellian". +The polygraph was invented in 1921 by John Augustus Larson, a medical student at the University of California, Berkeley and a police officer of the Berkeley Police Department in Berkeley, California. The polygraph was on the Encyclopædia Britannica 2003 list of greatest inventions, described as inventions that "have had profound effects on human life for better or worse." In 2013, the US federal government had begun indicting individuals who stated that they were teaching methods on how to defeat a polygraph test. During one of those investigations, upwards of 30 federal agencies were involved in investigations of almost 5000 people who had various degrees of contact with those being prosecuted or who had purchased books or DVDs on the topic of beating polygraph tests. + +== Security clearances == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-4.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-4.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e8df705ac --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-4.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +--- +title: "Polygraph" +chunk: 5/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:02.796379+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +In 1995, Harold James Nicholson, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee later convicted of spying for Russia, had undergone his periodic five-year reinvestigation, in which he showed a strong probability of deception on questions regarding relationships with a foreign intelligence unit. This polygraph test later led to an investigation which resulted in his eventual arrest and conviction. In most cases, however, polygraphs are more of a tool to "scare straight" those who would consider espionage. Jonathan Pollard was advised by his Israeli handlers that he was to resign his job from American intelligence if he was ever told he was subject to a polygraph test. Likewise, John Anthony Walker was advised by his handlers not to engage in espionage until he had been promoted to the highest position for which a polygraph test was not required, to refuse promotion to higher positions for which polygraph tests were required, and to retire when promotion was mandated. +In 1983, CIA employee Edward Lee Howard was dismissed when, during a polygraph screening, he truthfully answered a series of questions admitting to minor crimes such as petty theft and drug abuse. In retaliation for his perceived unjust punishment for minor offenses, he later sold his knowledge of CIA operations to the Soviet Union. +Polygraph tests may not deter espionage. From 1945 to the present, at least six Americans have committed espionage while successfully passing polygraph tests. Notable cases of two men who created a false negative result with the polygraphs were Larry Wu-Tai Chin, who spied for China, and Aldrich Ames, who was given two polygraph examinations while with the CIA, the first in 1986 and the second in 1991, while spying for the Soviet Union/Russia. The CIA reported that he passed both examinations after experiencing initial indications of deception. According to a Senate investigation, an FBI review of the first examination concluded that the indications of deception were never resolved. +Ana Belen Montes, a Cuban spy, passed a counterintelligence scope polygraph test administered by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 1994. +Despite these errors, in August 2008, the DIA announced that it would subject each of its 5,700 prospective and current employees to polygraph testing at least once annually. This expansion of polygraph screening at DIA occurred while DIA polygraph managers ignored documented technical problems discovered in the Lafayette computerized polygraph system. The DIA uses computerized Lafayette polygraph systems for routine counterintelligence testing. The impact of the technical flaws within the Lafayette system on the analysis of recorded physiology and on the final polygraph test evaluation is currently unknown. +In 2012, a McClatchy investigation found that the National Reconnaissance Office was possibly breaching ethical and legal boundaries by encouraging its polygraph examiners to extract personal and private information from US Department of Defense personnel during polygraph tests that purported to be limited in scope to counterintelligence matters. Allegations of abusive polygraph practices were brought forward by former NRO polygraph examiners. + +== Alternative tests == +Most polygraph researchers have focused more on the exam's predictive value on a subject's guilt. However, there have been no empirical theories established to explain how a polygraph measures deception. A 2010 study indicated that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) may benefit in explaining the psychological correlations of polygraph exams. It could also explain which parts of the brain are active when subjects use artificial memories. Most brain activity occurs in both sides of the prefrontal cortex, which is linked to response inhibition. This indicates that deception may involve inhibition of truthful responses. Some researchers believe that reaction time (RT) based tests may replace polygraphs in concealed information detection. RT based tests differ from polygraphs in stimulus presentation duration and can be conducted without physiological recording as subject response time is measured via computer. However, researchers have found limitations to these tests as subjects voluntarily control their reaction time, deception can still occur within the response deadline, and the test itself lacks physiological recording. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-5.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-5.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..08697cf24 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-5.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Polygraph" +chunk: 6/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:02.796379+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== History == +Earlier societies utilized elaborate methods of lie detection which mainly involved torture. For instance, in the Middle Ages, boiling water was used to detect liars, as it was believed honest men would withstand it better than liars. Early devices for lie detection include an 1895 invention of Cesare Lombroso used to measure changes in blood pressure for police cases, a 1904 device by Vittorio Benussi used to measure breathing, the Mackenzie-Lewis Polygraph first developed by James Mackenzie in 1906 and an abandoned project by American William Moulton Marston which used blood pressure to examine German prisoners of war (POWs). Marston said he found a strong positive correlation between systolic blood pressure and lying. +Marston wrote a second paper on the concept in 1915, when finishing his undergraduate studies. He entered Harvard Law School and graduated in 1918, re-publishing his earlier work in 1917. Marston's main inspiration for the device was his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston. "According to Marston’s son, it was his mother Elizabeth, Marston's wife, who suggested to him that 'When she got mad or excited, her blood pressure seemed to climb'" (Lamb, 2001). Although Elizabeth is not listed as Marston’s collaborator in his early work, Lamb, Matte (1996), and others refer directly and indirectly to Elizabeth's work on her husband's deception research. She also appears in a picture taken in his polygraph laboratory in the 1920s (reproduced in Marston, 1938). +Despite his predecessors' contributions, Marston styled himself the "father of the polygraph". (Today he is often equally or more noted as the creator of the comic book character Wonder Woman and her Lasso of Truth, which can force people to tell the truth.) Marston remained the device's primary advocate, lobbying for its use in the courts. In 1938 he published a book, The Lie Detector Test, wherein he documented the theory and use of the device. In 1938 he appeared in advertising by the Gillette company claiming that the polygraph showed Gillette razors were better than the competition. +A device recording both blood pressure and breathing was invented in 1921 by John Augustus Larson of the University of California and first applied in law enforcement work by the Berkeley Police Department under its nationally renowned police chief August Vollmer. Further work on this device was done by Leonarde Keeler. As Larson's protege, Keeler updated the device by making it portable and added the galvanic skin response to it in 1939. His device was then purchased by the FBI, and served as the prototype of the modern polygraph. +Several devices similar to Keeler's polygraph version included the Berkeley Psychograph, a blood pressure-pulse-respiration recorder developed by C. D. Lee in 1936 and the Darrow Behavior Research Photopolygraph, which was developed and intended solely for behavior research experiments. +A device which recorded muscular activity accompanying changes in blood pressure was developed in 1945 by John E. Reid, who claimed that greater accuracy could be obtained by making these recordings simultaneously with standard blood pressure-pulse-respiration recordings. + +== Society and culture == + +=== Portrayals in media === +Lie detection has a long history in mythology and fairy tales; the polygraph has allowed modern fiction to use a device more easily seen as scientific and plausible. Notable instances of polygraph usage include uses in crime and espionage themed television shows and some daytime television talk shows, cartoons and films. Numerous TV shows have been called Lie Detector or featured the device. The first Lie Detector TV show aired in the 1950s, created and hosted by Ralph Andrews. In the 1960s Andrews produced a series of specials hosted by Melvin Belli. In the 1970s the show was hosted by Jack Anderson. In early 1983 Columbia Pictures Television put on a syndicated series hosted by F. Lee Bailey. In 1998 TV producer Mark Phillips with his Mark Phillips Philms & Telephision put Lie Detector back on the air on the FOX Network—on that program Ed Gelb with host Marcia Clark questioned Mark Fuhrman about the allegation that he "planted the bloody glove". In 2005 Phillips produced Lie Detector as a series for PAX/ION; some of the guests included Paula Jones, Reverend Paul Crouch accuser Lonny Ford, Ben Rowling, Jeff Gannon, and Swift Boat Vet Steve Garner. +In the UK, shows such as The Jeremy Kyle Show used polygraph tests extensively. The show was ultimately canceled when a participant committed suicide shortly after being polygraphed. The guest was slated by Kyle on the show for failing the polygraph, but no other evidence has come forward to prove any guilt. Producers later admitted in the inquiry that they were unsure on how accurate the tests performed were. +In the Fox game show The Moment of Truth, contestants are privately asked personal questions a few days before the show while hooked to a polygraph. On the show they asked the same questions in front of a studio audience and members of their family. In order to advance in the game they must give a "truthful" answer as determined by the previous polygraph exam. +Daytime talk shows, such as Maury Povich and Steve Wilkos, have used polygraphs to supposedly detect deception in interview subjects on their programs that pertain to cheating, child abuse, and theft. +In episode 93 of the US science show MythBusters, the hosts attempted to fool the polygraph by using pain when answering truthfully, in order to test the notion that polygraphs interpret truthful and non-truthful answers as the same. They also attempted to fool the polygraph by thinking pleasant thoughts when lying and thinking stressful thoughts when telling the truth, to try to confuse the machine. However, neither technique was successful for a number of reasons. Michael Martin correctly identified each guilty and innocent subject. Martin suggested that when conducted properly, polygraphs are correct 98% of the time, but no scientific evidence has been offered for this. +The history of the polygraph is the subject of the documentary film The Lie Detector, which first aired on American Experience on January 3, 2023. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-6.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-6.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..80604d62c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph-6.md @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +--- +title: "Polygraph" +chunk: 7/7 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:02.796379+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Hand-held lie detector for US military === +A hand-held lie detector is being deployed by the US Department of Defense according to a report in 2008 by investigative reporter Bill Dedman of NBC News. The Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System, or PCASS, captures less physiological information than a polygraph, and uses an algorithm, not the judgment of a polygraph examiner, to render a decision whether it believes the person is being deceptive or not. The device was first used in Afghanistan by US Army troops. The Department of Defense ordered its use be limited to non-US persons, in overseas locations only. + +=== Notable cases === +Polygraphy has been faulted for failing to trap known spies such as double-agent Aldrich Ames, who passed two polygraph tests while spying for the Soviet Union. Ames failed several tests while at the CIA that were never acted on. Other spies who passed the polygraph include Karl Koecher, Ana Montes, and Leandro Aragoncillo. CIA spy Harold James Nicholson failed his polygraph examinations, which aroused suspicions that led to his eventual arrest. Polygraph examination and background checks failed to detect Nada Nadim Prouty, who was not a spy but was convicted for improperly obtaining US citizenship and using it to obtain a restricted position at the FBI. +The polygraph also failed to catch Gary Ridgway, the "Green River Killer". Another suspect allegedly failed a given lie detector test, whereas Ridgway passed. Ridgway passed a polygraph in 1984; he confessed almost 20 years later when confronted with DNA evidence. Conversely, innocent people have been known to fail polygraph tests. In Wichita, Kansas in 1986, Bill Wegerle was suspected of murdering his wife Vicki Wegerle because he failed two polygraph tests (one administered by the police, the other conducted by an expert that Wegerle had hired), although he was neither arrested nor convicted of her death. In March 2004, evidence surfaced connecting her death to the serial killer known as BTK, and in 2005 DNA evidence from the Wegerle murder confirmed that BTK was Dennis Rader, exonerating Wegerle. +Prolonged polygraph examinations are sometimes used as a tool by which confessions are extracted from a defendant, as in the case of Richard Miller, who was persuaded to confess largely by polygraph results combined with appeals from a religious leader. In the Watts family murders, Christopher Watts failed one such polygraph test and subsequently confessed to murdering his wife. In the 2002 disappearance of seven-year-old Danielle van Dam of San Diego, police suspected neighbor David Westerfield; he became the prime suspect when he allegedly failed a polygraph test. + +== See also == + +Bogus pipeline +Cleve Backster +Doug Williams (polygraph critic) +Ecological fallacy +Ronald Pelton +Voice stress analysis +P300 (neuroscience)#Applications + +== References == + +== Further reading == +Aftergood, Steven (2000). "Essays on Science and Society: Polygraph Testing and the DOE National Laboratories". Science. 290 (5493): 939–940. doi:10.1126/science.290.5493.939. PMID 17749189. S2CID 153185280. +Alder, Ken (2007). The Lie Detectors. New York: Free Press. ISBN 978-0-7432-5988-0. +Bunn, Geoffrey C. The Truth Machine: A Social History of the Lie Detector (Johns Hopkins University Press; 2012) 256 pages +Blinkhorn, S. (1988) "Lie Detection as a psychometric procedure" In "The Polygraph Test" (Gale, A. ed. 1988) 29–39. +Cumming, Alfred (Specialist in Intelligence and National Security). "Polygraph Use by the Department of Energy: Issues for Congress." (Archive) Congressional Research Service. February 9, 2009. +Harris, Mark (October 1, 2018). "The Lie Generator: Inside the Black Mirror World of Polygraph Job Screenings". Wired. +Jones, Ishmael (2008). The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture. New York: Encounter Books. ISBN 978-1-59403-382-7. +Lykken, David (1998). A Tremor in the Blood. New York: Plenum Trade. ISBN 978-0-306-45782-1. +Maschke, G.W. & Scalabrini, G.J. (2018) The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. 5th ed. Available on-line at Learn How to Pass (or Beat) a Polygraph Test. +McCarthy, Susan. "Passing the polygraph." Salon. March 2, 2000. +Roese, N. J.; Jamieson, D. W. (1993). "Twenty years of bogus pipeline research: A critical review and meta-analysis". Psychological Bulletin. 114 (2): 363–375. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.114.2.363. +Sullivan, John (2007). Gatekeeper. Potomac Books Inc. ISBN 978-1-59797-045-7. +Taylor, Marisa (Tish Wells contributed). "Feds expand polygraph screening, often seeking intimate facts." McClatchy. December 6, 2012. +Woodrow, Michael J. "The Truth about the Psychophysiological Detection of Deception Examination 3rd Edition" Lulu Press. New York ISBN 978-1-105-89546-3 + +== External links == + +AntiPolygraph.org Archived 2019-09-05 at the Wayback Machine, a website critical of polygraph +The Polygraph Museum Historical photographs and descriptions of polygraph instruments. +The North American Polygraph and Psychophysiology: Disinterested, Uninterested, and Interested Perspectives by John J. Furedy, International Journal of Psychophysiology, Spring/Summer 1996 +Trial By Ordeal? Polygraph Testing In Australia +"Thought Wave Lie Detector Measures Current in Nerves" Popular Mechanics, July 1937 +Mikkelson, David (July 11, 2011). "Next case on the Legal Colander". Snopes. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ed1ecb77b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: "Polyvagal theory" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:03.987197+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Polyvagal theory (PVT) is a collection of proposed evolutionary, neuroscientific, and psychological constructs pertaining to the role of the vagus nerve in emotion regulation, social connection, and fear responses. The theory was introduced in 1994 by Stephen Porges. PVT is popular among some clinical practitioners and patients. However, multiple aspects of the theory are widely criticized for being at odds with known science. For example, neuroanatomists point out that the theory is incorrect in claiming direct communication between the brainstem branchiomotor nuclei and the visceromotor portion of the nucleus ambiguus. Evolutionary biologists consider the presence of myelinated vagus nerve fibers in lungfish leading from the nucleus ambiguus to the heart a contradiction of the theory's view of the mammalian nucleus ambiguus. +Polyvagal theory takes its name from the vagus nerve, a cranial nerve that forms a primary component of the parasympathetic nervous system. The traditional view of the autonomic nervous system presents a two-part system: the sympathetic nervous system, which is more activating ("fight or flight"), and the parasympathetic nervous system, which supports health, growth, and restoration ("rest and digest"). Polyvagal theory views the parasympathetic nervous system as being further split into two distinct branches: a "ventral vagal system" which supports social engagement, and a "dorsal vagal system" which supports immobilization behaviors, both "rest and digest" and defensive immobilization or "shutdown". This "social engagement system" is a hybrid state of activation and calming that plays a role in the ability to socially engage. + +== Theory == +The vagus, or tenth cranial nerve, is a primary component of the autonomic nervous system, which operates the internal organs. It transmits parasympathetic signals to and from the heart, lungs, and digestive tract. The vagal system is claimed to be inhibitory of primal instincts by being part of the parasympathetic nervous system, in opposition to the sympathetic-adrenal system, involved in mobilization behaviors. +Polyvagal theory was developed in 1994 by Porges, who at the time was director of the Brain-Body Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It focuses on the structure and function of the two efferent branches of the vagus cranial nerve, which originate from the medulla. Each branch is claimed to be associated with a different adaptive behavioral strategy; the ventral branches more restful in nature and the dorsal ones more active in nature. + +According to the theory, three organizational principles can be distinguished: +Hierarchy: The autonomic nervous system reacts in three reaction patterns, which are activated in a specific order. +Neuroception: In contrast to perception, it is here a cognition without awareness, triggered by a stimulus such as danger. +Co-regulation: The need to feel safe enough to allow oneself to be in relationships, which is difficult for traumatized people. +Porges describes the three neural circuits as regulators for reactive behavior. His findings were taken into account by some theorists of childhood trauma, with related techniques used by trauma therapists such as Bessel van der Kolk, Peter A. Levine and Marianne Bentzen. + +=== Anatomical hypothesis === +Polyvagal theory combines ideas from evolutionary biology and neurology, to claim that autonomic reactions have adapted to the phylogenetic development of neural circuits. It claims that the sympathetic nervous system, and two distinct branches of the parasympathetic nervous system, are phylogenetically ordered and activated for responses. The branches of the vagal nerve are claimed to serve different evolutionary stress responses in mammals: the more primitive branch is said to elicit immobilization behaviors (e.g., feigning death), whereas the more evolved branch is said to be linked to social communication and self-soothing behaviors. These functions are claimed to follow a phylogenetic hierarchy, where the most primitive systems are activated only when the more evolved functions fail. +According to the theory, these neural pathways regulate autonomic states and the expression of emotional and social behaviour. It claims that in mammals, facial expressions are connected to internal physical reactions, such as cardiac and digestive changes, and in general physiological state dictates the range of behaviour and psychological experience. +Claims about the nature of stress, emotion, and social behaviour are traditionally studied via peripheral indices of arousal such as heart rate, cortisol level and skin conductance. Polyvagal theory champions the measurement of vagal tone as a new index of stress vulnerability and reactivity, including in populations with affective disorders. + +=== Proposed dorsal vagal complex (DVC) === +The dorsal branch of the vagus nerve originates in the dorsal motor nucleus and is postulated by polyvagal theory to be the phylogenetically older branch. This branch is unmyelinated and exists in most vertebrates. Polyvagal theory calls this the "vegetative vagus" because it sees it as being associated with primal survival strategies of primitive vertebrates, reptiles, and amphibians. Under certain conditions, these animals "freeze" when threatened, conserving their metabolic resources. This draws on the simplifying claims of the triune brain theory which are no longer considered accurate due to the many exceptions to this rule (see Triune brain § Status of the model). +The DVC provides primary control of subdiaphragmatic visceral organs, such as the digestive tract. Under normal conditions, the DVC maintains regulation of these digestive processes. However, prolonged disinhibition can be lethal for mammals, as it results in apnea and bradycardia. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6f6d57307 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +--- +title: "Polyvagal theory" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:03.987197+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Proposed ventral vagal complex (VVC) === +With increased neural complexity as seen in mammals (due to phylogenetic development), there is said to have evolved a more sophisticated system to enrich behavioral and affective responses to an increasingly complex environment. The ventral branch of the vagus originates in the nucleus ambiguus and is myelinated to provide more speed in responding. Polyvagal theory calls this the "smart vagus" because it associates it with the regulation of sympathetic "fight or flight" behaviors by way of social affiliative behaviors. These behaviors are said to include social communication and self-soothing and calming. In other words, this branch of the vagus is said to inhibit or disinhibit defensive limbic circuits, depending on the situation. Note: Attributing defensive behaviours purely to the limbic system is an oversimplification, as these are triggered by perceived threats, thus requiring an interplay of brain areas performing sensory integration, memory, and semantic knowledge with the limbic system to be elicited. Similarly, the regulation of emotions requires a complex interplay of higher cognitive areas with limbic ones. +The vagus nerve mediates the control of supradiaphragmatic visceral organs, such as the esophagus, bronchi, pharynx, and larynx. It also exerts an important influence on the heart. When vagal tone to the heart's pacemaker is high, a baseline or resting heart rate is produced. In other words, the vagus acts as a restraint, or brake, limiting heart rate. However, when vagal tone is removed, there is little inhibition to the pacemaker, and according to polyvagal theory, rapid mobilization ("fight/flight") can be activated in times of stress, but without having to engage the sympathetic-adrenal system, as activation comes at a severe biological cost. Note: While the vagus nerve's role in downregulating the heart rate is well-established, the notion that a fight-or-flight response can be triggered without engaging the sympathetic nervous system is not substantiated by any evidence. + +=== Vagal tone as a marker of stress === +In order to maintain homeostasis, the central nervous system responds constantly, via neural feedback, to environmental cues. Stressful events disrupt the rhythmic structure of autonomic states, and subsequently, behaviors. Since the vagus plays such an integral role in the peripheral nervous system via regulation of heart rate, Porges suggests that the amplitude of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is a good index of parasympathetic nervous system activity via the cardiac vagus. That is, RSA is proposed as a measurable, noninvasive way to see how the vagus modulates heart rate activity in response to stress. If true, this method could be useful to measure individual differences in stress reactivity. +RSA is the widely used measure of the amplitude of heart rate rhythm associated with the rate of spontaneous breathing. Research has shown that amplitude of RSA is an accurate indicator of the efferent influence of the vagus on the heart. Since inhibitory effects of the VVC branch of the vagus allow for a wide range of adaptive, prosocial behaviors, it has been theorized that individuals with greater vagal tone are able to exhibit a greater range of such behaviors. On the other hand, decreased vagal tone is associated with illnesses and medical complications that compromise the CNS. These complications may reduce one's capacity to respond to stress appropriately. + +==== Clinical applications in the human fetus ==== +Healthy human fetuses have high variability in heart rate, which is mediated by the vagus. On the other hand, heart rate decelerations, which are also mediated by the vagus, are a sign of fetal distress. More specifically, prolonged withdrawal of vagal influence on the heart creates a physiological vulnerability to the influence of the dorsal vagal complex, which in turn produces bradycardia (very low heart rate). However, the onset of this deceleration is commonly preceded by transitory tachycardia, which is reflective of the immediate effects of ventral vagal complex withdrawal. + +== Therapeutic applications == +A 2024 review in Developmental Psychobiology analyzed polyvagal theory's neurobiological aspects in light of 25 years of research, examining both strengths and limitations through evidence from comparative anatomy, embryology, epigenetics, and neuroscience. A 2022 review in the Japanese journal Brain and Nerve described the theory's potential applications in psychotherapy, particularly regarding trauma pathophysiology and the role of social interaction in treatment. + +== Criticism == +In a 2021 publication, Porges stated that "the theory was not proposed to be either 'proven' or 'falsified', rather to be informed by research and modified". Falsifiability is a central tenet of the scientific method. +In a 2023 review of the literature, Paul Grossman lists five premises of polyvagal theory and states that "there is broad consensus among experts [...] that each basic physiological assumption of the polyvagal theory is untenable. Much of the existing evidence, upon which these consensuses are grounded, strongly indicates that the underlying polyvagal hypotheses have been falsified." +Although proponents like Bessel van der Kolk praise the theory's explanatory power, Grossman considers the explanations offered by the theory unsubstantiated. +In a 2025 paper in Clinical Neuropsychiatry, Porges responded to these critiques, stating that "contrary to claims that Polyvagal Theory lacks falsifiability, the theory has generated a range of specific, testable predictions," including hierarchical recruitment of autonomic states under threat, the influence of social cues on vagal tone, and the effects of acoustic interventions on emotion regulation. Porges characterized the critiques by Grossman and Taylor as "misrepresentations" that "overlook the hierarchical structure of the autonomic nervous system or misunderstand the role of neuroception in mediating physiological state shifts." \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d55bf4812 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +--- +title: "Polyvagal theory" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:03.987197+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Neuroscientific claims === +Neuhuber and Berthoud (2022) state that polyvagal theory's "basic phylogenetic and functional-anatomical tenets do not withstand closer scrutiny". They argue that polyvagal theory incorrectly portrays the role of the different vagal nuclei in mediating the freeze response. According to their analysis, the evidence "does not support a role of the 'dorsal vagal complex' in freezing as proposed by the PVT" and the dorsal vagal complex "should not be linked to passive defensive behavior". +Regarding the proposed "ventral vagal complex", they state that "the PVT, by construeing a 'new ventral vagal complex' encompassing the entire branchiomotor column ascribed to the vagus much more than it actually can serve." They see it as "misleading to propose that brainstem branchiomotor ('source') nuclei 'communicate directly with the visceromotor portion of the nucleus ambiguus'", and conclude that the relevant networks "should not be termed 'ventral vagal complex'. This terminology may insinuate that the vagus is a "prime mover". This not the case [...]". +Taylor, Wang & Leite (2022) similarly regard it as "invalid to refer to this as a 'vagal system' or to postulate the existence of a 'smart vagus'." + +=== Evolutionary claims === +Grossman and Taylor (2007) argue that there is no evidence that the dorsal motor nucleus (DMN) is an evolutionarily more primitive center of the brainstem parasympathetic system than the nucleus ambiguus (NA), and review evidence to the contrary. +A more recent paper by Monteiro et al. (2018) finding myelinated vagus nerve fibers of lungfish leading from the nucleus ambiguus to the heart also indicates that polyvagal theory's hypothesis that the nucleus ambiguus is unique to mammals is incorrect. They state that "the mechanisms [Porges] identifies as solely mammalian are undeniably present in the lungfish that sits at the evolutionary base of the air-breathing vertebrates." +Grossman (2023) concurs, stating that "the polyvagal notion that the ventral vagal area is unique to mammals is opposed by years of evidence" and that the "findings, as a whole, firmly and consistently contradict the polyvagal hypotheses that propose the [dorsal vagal motor nucleus] as the "source nucleus" of unmyelinated pathways and the [nucleus ambiguus] as the "source nucleus" of myelinated pathways in mammals". +Results reviewed by Taylor, Leite and Skovgaard (2010) also "refute the proposition that centrally controlled cardiorespiratory coupling is restricted to mammals, as propounded by the polyvagal theory of Porges". +In Taylor, Wang & Leite's 2022 review, the evidence for the presence of cardio-respiratory interactions similar to respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and their potential purpose in blood oxygenation in many vertebrate species (both air- and water-breathing) leads them to conclude that RSA may be a relic of older cardio-respiratory systems, contrary to polyvagal assumptions. +The dichotomy between asocial reptiles and social mammals subscribed to by polyvagal theory has been contested. Doody, Burghardt & Dinets consider several ways of assessing and classifying animal sociality and state that "Porges' dichotomy is incorrect. While many mammals (particularly humans) may show more complex social behavior than reptiles, there is considerable overlap in social tendencies between the two groups. The labels 'social' and 'asocial' are too crude to have utility in a comparative framework of social behavior and should not be used to describe taxa". Listing examples of social behavior in reptiles and other non-mammal vertebrates, they observe that "PT appears to rest upon 20th century folk interpretation of vertebrate evolutionary biology rather than on current scientific understanding of it." + +=== Claims regarding cardiac functioning === +Polyvagal theory proposes a relationship between RSA responses and forms of psychopathology, but a meta-analysis finds the empirical evidence to be inconclusive. +According to Grossman and Taylor, the existing research indicates that respiratory sinus arrhythmia is not a reliable marker of vagal tone, since it is subject to both respiratory variables and sympathetic (beta-adrenergic) influences in addition to vagal influences. In addition, they argue that the results of Porges' 2003 study on two species of lizard was flawed due to incorrect measurements of heart rate variability. +Reviewing more recent evidence, Paul Grossman again finds RSA not "a direct measure of cardiac vagal tone" due to confounding factors. In addition, he concludes that contrary to polyvagal claims "there is no credible evidence that the [dorsal vagal motor nucleus] plays any role in massive bradycardia", and that it "appears to have almost no effect upon vagal heart rate responses". In a 2025 paper in Clinical Neuropsychiatry, Porges responded to these critiques, stating that "contrary to claims that Polyvagal Theory lacks falsifiability, the theory has generated a range of specific, testable predictions," including hierarchical recruitment of autonomic states under threat, the influence of social cues on vagal tone, and the effects of acoustic interventions on emotion regulation. Porges characterized the critiques by Grossman and Taylor as "misrepresentations" that "overlook the hierarchical structure of the autonomic nervous system or misunderstand the role of neuroception in mediating physiological state shifts." + +== See also == + +== References == + +== Further reading == +Ulrich F. Lanius, Sandra L. Paulsen, Frank M. Corrigan: Neurobiology and Treatment of Traumatic Dissociation: Towards an Embodied Self. Springer Publishing Co., 2014 +Porges, S. W. (2006). "The Polyvagal Perspective". Biological Psychology. 74 (2): 116–143. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.06.009. PMC 1868418. PMID 17049418. (Review). +Porges, S. W. (2021, August). Polyvagal Theory Principles and Criticisms. Polyvagal Institute. https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org/criticaldiscussionofpolyvagaltheory +Holly Bridges: Reframe Your Thinking Around Autism: How the Polyvagal Theory and Brain Plasticity Help Us Make Sense of Autism ISBN 978-1849056724 Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 2015 +Robert Bright: The Polyvagal Theory: The Simplified Guide to Understanding the Autonomic Nervous System and the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve – Learn to Manage Emotional Stress and PTSD Through Neurobiology. White Publishing, Ltd., 2020, ISBN 978-1801119689 + +== External links == +The Polyvagal Theory – www.wam.umd.edu +After 20 years of "polyvagal" hypotheses, is there any direct evidence for the first 3 premises that form the foundation of the polyvagal conjectures? Paul Grossman, University Hospital of Basle, Switzerland, on ResearchGate, with references and some discussion starting January 2016 +Dunning, Brian (25 January 2022). "Skeptoid #816: The Dark Side of Polyvagal Theory". Skeptoid. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b3a70f45b --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +--- +title: "Postpartum confinement" +chunk: 1/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:05.181298+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Postpartum confinement is a traditional practice following childbirth. Those who follow these customs typically begin immediately after the birth, and the seclusion or special treatment lasts for a culturally variable length: typically for one month or 30 days, 26 days, up to 40 days, two months, or 100 days. This postnatal recuperation can include care practices in regards of "traditional health beliefs, taboos, rituals, and proscriptions." The practice used to be known as "lying-in", which, as the term suggests, centres on bed rest. In some cultures, it may be connected to taboos concerning impurity after childbirth. + +== Overview == + +Postpartum confinement refers both to the mother and the baby. Human newborns are so underdeveloped that pediatricians such as Harvey Karp refer to the first three months as the "fourth trimester". The weeks of rest while the mother heals also protect the infant as it adjusts to the world, and both learn the skills of breastfeeding. +Almost all countries have some form of maternity leave. Many countries encourage men to take some paternal leave, but even those that mandate that some of the shared parental leave must be used by the father ("father's quota") acknowledge that the mother needs time off work to recover from the childbirth and deal with the postpartum physiological changes. +A 2016 American book describes the difficulties of documenting those "global grandmotherly customs" but asserts that "like a golden rope connecting women from one generation to the next, the protocol of caring for the new mother by unburdening her of responsibilities and ensuring she rests and eats shows up in wildly diverse places". These customs have been documented in dozens of academic studies, and commonly include support for the new mother (including a release from household chores), rest, special foods to eat (and ones to avoid), specific hygiene practices, and ways of caring for the newborn. + +Martha Wolfenstein and Margaret Mead wrote in 1955 that the postpartum period meant a "woman can be cherished and pampered without feeling inadequate or shamed". The 2016 review that quoted them cites customs from around the world, from Biblical times to modern Greece: From the data it seems that women were housebound for a number of days after the birth and the length of this period of seclusion varied by caste or ethnic group [in Nepal]. This is a phenomenon found across the globe, including in high-income countries in the recent past. The length of time a woman is secluded or rested varied across different countries and the principles underpinning this isolation (to heal vs. being unclean) also seem to differ greatly. After the period of seclusion there is often a ceremony to purify women to publicly accept them back into daily life. The literature supports the concept of a resting – a lengthy lie-in or lying-in period, a period of seclusion, as women need to rest in order to heal, yet it may mean that they are neglected. + +== Health effects == +Research on the health effects of postpartum confinement has produced mixed findings. A 2009 systematic review of English-language studies on Chinese confinement practices concluded, "There is little consistent evidence that confinement practices reduce postpartum depression." +A more recent 2023 systematic review, which included sixteen quantitative studies from China and Chinese immigrant populations abroad, similarly found that "doing-the-month" failed to show a significant overall protective effect against postpartum depression. However, the review noted that four of the sixteen studies did find a reduced risk, suggesting that the quality of and satisfaction with confinement support—rather than mere adherence to the practice—may be a more important factor in maternal mental health outcomes. +A 2024 qualitative meta-synthesis examining postpartum Chinese women's lived experiences of confinement found that women valued the physical rest, social support, and structured recovery period, but that conflicts with caregivers—particularly mothers-in-law—over confinement rules could contribute to psychological distress. +A 2007 qualitative systematic review of traditional postpartum practices across multiple cultures found that common elements—including social support, rest, and special nutrition—were widely perceived as beneficial by mothers, though the review noted a lack of rigorous controlled studies to confirm specific health outcomes. + +== By region == + +=== Asia === + +==== China ==== + +Postpartum confinement is well-documented in China, where the tradition is known as "Sitting the month": 坐月子 "Zuò yuè zi" in Mandarin or 坐月 "Co5 Jyut2" in Cantonese. The earliest record of the Chinese custom of postpartum confinement dates back over 2,000 years ago in the Book of Rites, where it was known as yuè nèi (月内). Postpartum confinement is based on traditional Chinese medicine, with a special focus on eating foods considered to be nourishing for the body and helping with the production of breastmilk. Women are advised to stay indoors for recovery from the trauma of birth and for feeding the newborn baby. +The diets and traditions involved with postpartum confinement greatly vary across different Chinese cultural regions. The length of Chinese postpartum confinement ranges anywhere between 28 and 100 days. Medical opinion in China today generally recommends a confinement period of at least 42 days. In ancient China, the confinement period lasted for 100 days. This custom is still observed in parts of northern China, such as Shanxi province. After 100 days, the Hundred Days Banquet (百日宴) is held to celebrate the baby reaching 100 days old. In southern China, the confinement period is significantly shorter, and usually lasts 30 days. +Because Chinese society is patrilocal, women observing postpartum confinement are traditionally cared for by their mother-in-law. In contemporary times, it is also possible for the woman to be cared for her by her own mother or a hired female worker known as a "confinement nanny" (陪月). In Hong Kong, the mother and baby sometimes spend the month in special postpartum confinement clinics rather than at home. +In ancient China, women of certain ethnic groups in the South would resume work right after birth, and allow the men to practice postpartum confinement instead. (See Couvade). \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..10120a650 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +--- +title: "Postpartum confinement" +chunk: 2/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:05.181298+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +===== Everyday habits and personal hygiene practices ===== +Traditionally in China, the mother and child were kept separate from the rest of the household. The mother was not permitted to bathe, wash her hair, or weep, because these activities were believed to put the mother at risk of falling ill by catching cold and affect the quality of her breast milk. +Nowadays, however, new mothers may wash their hair or take a bath or shower infrequently during the postpartum period, but it is claimed to be important to dry their body immediately afterwards with a clean towel and their hair properly using a hair dryer. It is also claimed to be important for women to wrap up warm and minimize the amount of skin exposed, as it was believed that they may catch a cold during this vulnerable time. In Dalian, some women even take to wrapping themselves in plastic to avoid the wind. Ref + +===== Special foods ===== + +The custom of confinement advises new mothers to choose energy and protein-rich foods to recover energy levels, help shrink the uterus, and for the perineum to heal. This is also important for the production of breastmilk. Among the traditionally recommended galactogogues were rich porridge, fish soup, and hard-boiled eggs. Sometimes, new mothers only begin to consume special herbal foods after all the lochia is discharged. +In Guangdong, a common dish is pork knuckles with ginger and black vinegar as pork knuckles are believed to help replenish calcium levels in women. Ginger is featured in many dishes, as it is believed that it can remove the 'wind' accumulated in the body during pregnancy. Meat-based soup broths are also commonly consumed to provide hydration and added nutrients. +In Shanxi, new mothers consume high-quality millet porridge and soup made from chickens at specific ages. +In Singapore, confinement dishes are thoughtfully crafted to support postpartum recovery. Sesame Oil Chicken helps replenish blood and keep the body warm, while Green Papaya Soup is known to boost breast milk supply. Red Dates Tea restores vitality and maintains warmth, and Black Vinegar Pig Trotters provide calcium and collagen to strengthen bones and joints. + +===== Rituals ===== +In Guangdong province, new mothers are barred from visitors until the baby is 12 days old, marked by a celebration called 'Twelve mornings' (known as 十二朝). From this day onwards, Cantonese families with a new baby usually share their joy through giving away food gifts, while some families mark the occasion by paying tribute to their ancestors. When the "month is fulfilled" (manyue) after 30 days, the mother receives relatives and friends who bring special foods such as Chinese red eggs. + +==== Indian subcontinent ==== +In parts of India it is called jaappa (also transliterated japa); in North India and Pakistan, sawa mahina ("five weeks"). +Most traditional Indians follow the 40-day confinement and recuperation period also known as the jaappa (in Hindi). A special diet to facilitate milk production and increase hemoglobin levels is followed. Sex is not allowed during this time. In Hindu culture, this time after childbirth was traditionally considered a period of relative impurity (asaucham), and a period of confinement of 10–40 days (known as purudu) was recommended for the mother and the baby. During this period, she was exempted from usual household chores and religious rites. The father was purified by a ritual bath before visiting the mother in confinement. +In the event of a stillbirth, the period of impurity for both parents was 24 hours. +Many Indian subcultures have their own traditions after birth. This birth period is called Virdi (Marathi), which lasts for 10 days after birth and includes complete abstinence from puja or temple visits. +In Pakistan, postpartum tradition is known as sawa mahina ("five weeks"). + +==== Iran ==== +In Persian culture it is called chilla, i.e. "forty days". + +==== Japan ==== +In Japan, the traditional postpartum practice is known as satogaeri bunben (里帰り分娩, "homecoming birth"). In this custom, a pregnant woman returns to her parents' home in the late stages of pregnancy to give birth and recover, typically staying for one to two months after delivery. The new mother's own mother provides practical support including meals, household tasks, and newborn care assistance. +Unlike Chinese zuo yue zi or Korean sanhujori, Japanese postpartum care does not typically involve codified dietary restrictions based on traditional medicine or strict prohibitions on bathing or exposure to cold. Instead, the emphasis is on practical and emotional support from the maternal family. +A study examining the relationship between satogaeri bunben and postnatal depression found that the practice itself did not significantly reduce the incidence of postpartum depression, suggesting that the type and quality of support received may matter more than the setting. A subsequent single-center analysis similarly found no significant difference in postpartum depressive status based on the presence of grandparents or the place of delivery. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b251409f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +--- +title: "Postpartum confinement" +chunk: 3/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:05.181298+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +==== Korea ==== +In Korea, the traditional postpartum practice is known as sanhujori (산후조리), and women historically observed a confinement period called samchil-il (삼칠일, "three seven days," or 21 days). In the past, during the samchil-il period, geumjul (taboo rope) made with saekki and various symbolic objects, such as chili peppers (for a boy) and coal (for a girl), was hung over the gate to denote the childbirth and restrict visitor access. +Sanhujori practices traditionally include consuming warm foods believed to aid recovery, such as seaweed soup (miyeokguk), which is rich in iron and iodine and is considered essential for postpartum mothers. New mothers are also encouraged to keep warm, rest extensively, and avoid cold foods and environments. +Since the late 20th century, South Korea has seen the widespread establishment of specialized postpartum care facilities known as sanhujoriwon (산후조리원). These centers provide professional nursing care, newborn monitoring, lactation support, and traditional postpartum meals in a residential setting, typically for a stay of approximately two weeks. A 2023 study examining first-time mothers' satisfaction with sanhujoriwon found that both individual factors and environmental ecological factors influenced maternal satisfaction with these facilities. +The growth of sanhujoriwon parallels the development of postpartum care centers in Taiwan, reflecting a broader East Asian trend toward institutionalized postpartum recovery support. + +==== Taiwan ==== +Postpartum confinement is widely practiced in Taiwan, where it is commonly known as 做月內 (Tâi-lô: tsò-gue̍h-lāi). While the practice shares historical roots with broader East Asian postpartum traditions, postpartum confinement in Taiwan has developed its own distinct forms shaped by local medical culture, social structures, and modern healthcare systems. In Taiwan, postpartum confinement is understood as a period of structured recovery for both the mother and newborn, combining traditional beliefs with contemporary medical advice. +Unlike in China, postpartum confinement in Taiwan is strongly integrated into the modern healthcare system. Since the late 20th century, Taiwan has seen the rapid growth of specialized postpartum care centers (產後護理之家), which are licensed medical facilities regulated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. These centers provide professional nursing care, lactation support, neonatal monitoring, and nutritionally planned confinement meals, allowing new mothers to observe confinement outside the home. This institutionalized model has become a defining feature of Taiwanese postpartum confinement and is far less common in China. +The typical confinement period in Taiwan lasts approximately 30 to 40 days, aligning closely with medical recommendations for postpartum recovery. While some families may extend the period based on personal or familial beliefs, extended confinements of 100 days—historically documented in parts of China—are uncommon in contemporary Taiwanese practice. Taiwanese medical professionals generally emphasize flexibility, maternal comfort, and evidence-based care over strict ritual observance. + +===== Caregivers and living arrangements ===== +Traditionally, postpartum women in Taiwan were cared for by female relatives, particularly their mothers or mothers-in-law. However, changing family structures, lower fertility rates, and increased urbanization have led to a decline in multigenerational households. As a result, many families now rely on professional confinement nannies (月嫂) or postpartum care centers rather than extended family members. This shift has reduced the hierarchical dynamics historically associated with patrilocal caregiving and reflects broader social changes in Taiwanese society. + +===== Everyday practices and hygiene ===== +Traditional Taiwanese confinement customs emphasized keeping the mother warm and limiting exposure to wind, echoing humoral concepts shared across East Asia. In earlier generations, bathing and hair washing were discouraged. In modern Taiwan, however, these restrictions have largely been relaxed. Mothers are generally permitted to shower and wash their hair during confinement, provided that they maintain warmth and dry thoroughly afterward. + +===== Diet and confinement foods ===== +Diet plays a central role in Taiwanese postpartum confinement, with an emphasis on warmth, nourishment, and recovery rather than strict prohibitions. A defining feature of Taiwanese confinement cuisine is the extensive use of sesame oil, rice wine, and ginger. One of the most iconic dishes is sesame oil chicken, sio-tsiú-ke and ginger duck, which is commonly consumed throughout the confinement period. Other frequently served foods include liver dishes, fish soup, herbal broths, and rice wine-based meals, which are believed to support blood replenishment and uterine recovery. +Unlike in China, Taiwanese confinement diets are often carefully calibrated by dietitians, especially in postpartum care centers, to balance traditional principles with modern nutritional science. Alcohol content in rice wine-based dishes is frequently reduced or cooked off, particularly for breastfeeding mothers. + +===== Contemporary perspectives ===== +In Taiwan today, postpartum confinement is generally framed as a form of maternal care rather than a rigid cultural obligation. Public discourse increasingly emphasizes maternal autonomy, mental health, and informed choice. While many Taiwanese families continue to value confinement as an important recovery period, adherence to specific rules varies widely based on personal preference, medical advice, and socioeconomic factors. Distinct from ancient Chinese practices, Taiwanese postpartum confinement represents a localized and evolving tradition that is characterized by medical institutionalization, dietary specialization, and a hybrid approach that integrates tradition with modern healthcare norms. + +==== Thailand ==== +New mothers used to be encouraged to lie in a warm bed near the fire for 30 days, a practice known as yu fai. This has been adapted into a form of Thai massage. Kao krachome is a type of herbal medicine in which the steam from the boiled plants is inhaled. Ya dong involves herbal medicine taken internally. Thai immigrants to Sweden report using the steam bath to heal after childbirth, although the correct ingredients are not easy to find. Thai Australians who had had caesarian sections felt that they did not need to – in fact, ought not to – undergo these rituals. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-3.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-3.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b1af11f85 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement-3.md @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +--- +title: "Postpartum confinement" +chunk: 4/4 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_confinement" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:05.181298+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +==== Malaysia ==== +In Malaysia, postpartum confinement is practiced across ethnic Malay, Chinese, and Indian communities, each with distinct traditions. Malay mothers typically observe a 44-day confinement period, during which they undergo traditional practices including bertungku (application of a heated stone to the abdomen) and traditional massage (urut). Special herbal baths are also common throughout the recovery period. A comparative study of confinement practices in Singapore found that Chinese and Indian mothers tended to follow more specific dietary regimens than Malay mothers, and that Chinese mothers were more likely to depend on confinement nannies for support. + +==== Vietnam ==== +Vietnamese postpartum confinement traditions emphasize keeping the mother warm to avoid gio (wind), which is believed to cause headaches, joint pain, and other long-term ailments. New mothers are encouraged to stay warm, avoid cold water and drafts, and consume warming foods and herbal preparations. A 2021 meta-ethnography examining postpartum practices among Southeast and East Asian immigrant mothers found that Vietnamese women, along with Chinese, Korean, and Hmong women, frequently adapted their traditional confinement practices when living abroad, negotiating between cultural expectations and the realities of their new environments. + +=== Europe === + +The term used in English, now old-fashioned or archaic, was once used to name maternity hospitals, for example the General Lying-In Hospital in London. A 1932 Canadian publication refers to lying-in as ranging from two weeks to two months. These weeks ended with the re-introduction of the mother to the community in the Christian ceremony of the churching of women. +Lying-in features in Christian art, notably Birth of Jesus paintings. One of the gifts presented to the new mother in Renaissance Florence was a desco da parto, a special form of painted tray. Equivalent presents in contemporary culture include baby showers and push presents. +Special foods included caudle, a restorative drink. "Taking caudle" was a metonym for postpartum social visits. + +=== Americas === + +==== Latin America ==== +In Latin American countries, it is called la cuarentena ("forty days," a cognate with the English word "quarantine"). It is practised in parts of Latin America and amongst in communities in the United States. It is described as "intergenerational family ritual that facilitated adaptation to parenthood", including some paternal role reversal. + +== Diaspora and immigrant experiences == +Immigrant mothers from East and Southeast Asian cultures often seek to maintain postpartum confinement practices after relocating to Western countries, though they may face challenges in doing so. A 2021 meta-ethnography of eight studies involving Vietnamese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, and Hmong immigrant mothers found that women frequently adapted confinement practices to their new environments, negotiating between traditional expectations and the realities of life abroad. +Challenges documented in the literature include difficulty accessing traditional confinement foods and herbal remedies, lack of extended family support that would traditionally be available in the home country, and cultural misunderstandings with Western healthcare providers unfamiliar with confinement customs. A 2024 qualitative study of Chinese immigrant mothers in Switzerland found that the postpartum period involved constructing new social support networks to replace the extended family structures that would traditionally provide confinement care. +In the United States and other Western countries, the growth of confinement nanny agencies and specialized postpartum care services catering to Asian immigrant communities reflects the demand for traditional postpartum support in a diaspora context. Similarly, sanhujoriwon-style postpartum retreat centers have begun appearing outside South Korea and Taiwan to serve overseas Korean and Chinese communities. + +== See also == + +Postpartum care +Maternal bond and Attachment theory +Culture and menstruation, including places and times of seclusion +Impurity after childbirth +Grandmother hypothesis +Women-only space +Wet nurse +Parental investment in humans +Sex after childbirth + +== References == + +== Further reading == +The First Forty Days: The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother. By Heng Ou, 2016 +Zuo Yuezi: An American Mother's Guide to Chinese Postpartum Recovery. by Guang Ming Whitley +Vo, Timothea; Desai, Manisha (2021). "Immigrant Southeast and East Asian mothers' transnational postpartum cultural practices: A meta-ethnography". Women's Health. 17 (2) 17455065211060640. doi:10.1177/17455065211060640. PMC 8606925. PMID 34812090. +Yang, Xiao; Qiu, Mujie; Yang, Yichun; Yan, Junlin; Tang, Kun (2023). "Maternal postnatal confinement practices and postpartum depression in Chinese populations: A systematic review". PLOS ONE. 18 (10) e0293667. Bibcode:2023PLoSO..1893667Y. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0293667. PMC 10615300. PMID 37903136. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Balance-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Balance-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7c3df8ff0 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Balance-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +title: "Power Balance" +chunk: 1/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Balance" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:06.337286+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Power Balance is the original brand of hologram bracelets claimed by its manufacturers and vendors to use "holographic technology" to "resonate with and respond to the natural energy field of the body" to increase athletic performance. Numerous independent studies of the device have found it to be no more effective than a placebo for enhancing athletic performance. As a result, in 2010, the Australian distributor, Power Balance Australia Pty Ltd, was forced by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) to retract any previous claims. + +== History == +The product was originally promoted at trade shows in the beginning of 2006 using applied kinesiology as its effective sales tool. The bracelets went on sale in 2007 and had several celebrity endorsements. The bracelets became a trend among high school, collegiate, and professional sports teams between 2008 and 2012. This sustained prevalence compelled journalist Darren Rovell to remark that "a growing number of professional sportsmen and their attendants are starting to sound like New Age crystal healers." CNBC Sports named Power Balance Product of the Year in 2010 for its strong sales and celebrity endorsements. +Power Balance headquarters, which was located in Laguna Niguel, California, at the time, denied that they made any medical or scientific claims about their products. However, the company had been the focus of significant criticism, particularly for false advertising. The Power Balance bracelet has been described as "like the tooth fairy" and a "very successful marketing scam". Dylan Evans, a lecturer in behavioral science at Cork University's School of Medicine, stated that the marketing of Power Balance has "managed to get away without deceiving anyone in the sense of an overt lie. There are no claims on the packaging itself. They don't make any reference at all to any health outcomes. They leave that as an inference that most people will draw." +By the end of 2011, the company was reported to be approaching bankruptcy after allegedly having to settle a $57 million lawsuit, in the course of which company executives acknowledged that their past claims to improve strength and balance were not backed by science. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on November 22, 2011, due to a multitude of lawsuits. As of September 2022, the brand has been transferred to a new company, Power Balance Technologies, which still sells Power Balance bands and other items + +== Efficacy == + +In December 2009, an informal, double-blind test was conducted by Richard Saunders of the Australian Skeptics on the Australian television program Today Tonight. The results of the test showed strong evidence that any effect that the holograms may have had was too small to be measured compared to placebo. +On October 28, 2010, Olympic champion gymnast Dominique Dawes, working for Yahoo Weekend News and Independent Investigations Group (IIG), tested Power Balance bracelets for their claim that they improve balance, flexibility and strength. According to IIG investigator Dave Richards, "There was one 'legitimate' Power Balance bracelet, and 3 'sham' bracelets that had the hologram removed from them. The experiment was double-blinded, all bracelets were wrapped with tape so no one present knew which bracelet was real and which were fakes. Neither the participants nor the people recording the scores knew which bracelet was 'real' until after all participants had completed their runs and their scores were recorded." The results indicated that there was no benefit for those who had a real holographic bracelet compared to those who had a placebo. +In 2011, researchers from RMIT's School of Health Sciences reported the results of an independent, randomized, and controlled double-blind trial. They found no difference in balance between people using a holographic wristband and those wearing a placebo. +A study at the University of Wisconsin tested the effects of Power Balance bracelets on a group of NCAA athletes. One set of the athletes received the Power Balance bracelet, while the other received a placebo bracelet. The athletes were subjected to tests of flexibility, balance, and strength, after which they switched bracelets and performed the tests again. The study found that the Power Balance bracelet had no effect, compared to the placebo, on the performance of the athletes. A group of students skeptical of the claims conducted a test which showed "no significant difference between the real wristband and the fake". Additionally, a 2012 Skeptical Inquirer study showed that, in a double-blind test of performance on an obstacle course, sixteen volunteers showed a difference in performance no greater than chance. +A 2012 study by Verdan et al. examined the effects of the Power Balance band on static balance, hamstring flexibility, and arm strength in adults. The study involved 10 male and 14 female subjects. A counterbalance, double-blind, placebo, controlled-within-subject design was used. Each of the subjects participated in 3 treatment sessions, consisting of Power Balance, placebo band, and no band. This study found that there were no statistically significant differences in strength, flexibility, or balance with regard to the treatments used. + +== Criticisms == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Balance-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Balance-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..f35a5824c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Balance-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +--- +title: "Power Balance" +chunk: 2/2 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Balance" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:06.337286+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Experts are of the opinion that the Power Balance bracelet is nothing more than a placebo. Victor Thompson, a sports psychologist based in London, said: "I'm not aware of any research that supports the technology behind these bands." Greg Whyte, professor of applied sport and exercise science at Liverpool John Moores University, said that "for generations there have been devices that claim to mediate the body's flow of energy. In most instances, the 'proof' is based on anecdotal evidence." +The Center for Inquiry noted Power Balance's use of pseudoscientific applied kinesiology tests, which it described as "problematic and full of flaws." The illustrative videos on the company's website were considered vague and unclear, and the Center noted that "most people's flexibility seems to improve from their first stretch to their second stretch regardless of whether they are wearing the bracelet." +In 2010, Harriet A. Hall wrote in the Skeptical Inquirer that she would believe anyone who claimed that a Power Balance product made them feel better, or that their performance was improved, but would not be convinced that "the improvement has anything to do with bioresonating frequencies in the holograms—or even with the cards themselves. It's like the tooth fairy. Tell me money appears under your pillow, and I will believe you. But that won't convince me that the tooth fairy did it." +Australian consumer advocate group Choice recognized Power Balance in their 2010 "Shonky Awards". The Shonky Awards are intended to "name and shame the shonkiest rip-offs and scams." The Sydney Morning Herald concluded the Power Balance bracelets "did little else than empty purchasers' wallets." +In November 2012, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban criticized an endorsement deal between the National Basketball Association and Power Balance. When a similar product was pitched on the ABC reality series Shark Tank, which features Cuban as one of the "sharks", he dismissed the product, stating "No, I'm allergic to scams. Seriously, this is not new. It's been disproven. What you saw is the placebo effect. There's athletes that wear it. It's a joke. It's a scam. It's not real." + +== Legal issues == +In November 2010, the Australian distributors of "Power Balance" were ordered by the Therapeutic Goods Administration Complaints Resolution Panel to drop "false and misleading" claims that the wearers would experience "up to a 500% increase in strength, power and flexibility" and ordered the claims removed from the company's website and a retraction posted within two weeks. The Junta de Andalucia fined the Marbella-based subsidiary a sum of €15,000 for false advertising. The consumer organization Facua made an appeal to the Health Department for an increased fine, as they considered the amount to be low enough to allow the company to stay in business. +In December 2010, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) took action against Power Balance Australia Pty Ltd, stating that "claims made by Power Balance were not supported by any credible scientific evidence and therefore Power Balance has admitted that it has engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of s. 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974." The ACCC obtained from Power Balance Australia Pty Ltd an undertaking to take a number of actions in relation to correcting their misleading advertising, including: + +publishing, at its own expense, corrective advertisements +ceasing to claim that the products: +will improve the user's balance, strength and flexibility; or +are "designed to work with the body's natural energy field"; +nor, in conjunction with the Products, make claims that "Power Balance is Performance Technology" or use the phrase "Performance Technology" +ceasing to manufacture or import products containing the words "Performance Technology" +blacking out the words "Performance Technology" on its packaging +replacing its promotional and marketing material +offering full refunds, plus postage +Power Balance Australia's chief executive, Tom O'Dowd, admitted that "we'd made claims in the start that said that our product improved strength, balance, and flexibility and we didn't have the scientific, peer-reviewed, double blind testing or the level of proof that we needed to substantiate those claims". ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel stated, "It's a crock frankly. And we're very disappointed that so many people have paid hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to buy these Power Bands." +Power Balance Australia was required by the ACCC to run a series of advertisements in Australian media containing the following text and to unconditionally refund those they mislead: + +In our advertising we stated that Power Balance wristbands improved your strength, balance and flexibility. We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974. If you feel you have been misled by our promotions, we wish to unreservedly apologise and offer a full refund. +In December 2010, Italy's Antitrust Authority fined Power Balance €300,000 (and another company €50,000) for not having scientific proof of the claims made. +In September 2010, the Dutch Advertising Code Commission (RCC) made the following decision in the case where FIR-TEX Ltd., the plaintiff, had put Surf Unlimited Trading BV, distributor of power-balance in the Netherlands, on trial with the following complaint: + +Advertiser claims on its website that the use of the Power Balance Bracelet improves balance, strength and agility. These allegations are not backed with any single (scientific) evidence. The plaintiff believes that this method of advertising is in conflict with the Dutch Advertising Code (NRC) as the link between wearing the bracelet and the health of the wearer has not been determined in any way. +The verdict of the commission was as follows: + +The Commission considers the advertisement in opposition of the provisions of Article 7 NRC. It recommends advertiser not to advertise in such a way anymore. +In January 2011, a suit was filed in the United States against the company for fraud, false advertising, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment. Power Balance agreed in September 2011 to settle the class action lawsuit. The settlement terms entitled Power Balance purchasers to a full $30 refund plus $5 shipping. A hearing to finalize the agreement was canceled after Power Balance filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. +In November 2011, Power Balance filed for bankruptcy after suffering a net loss of more than $9 million that year. +As of January 2022, despite the lawsuits and bankruptcy filings, Power Balance bracelets were still being sold by Power Balance Technology. While their website states the Power Balance bracelets are based on Eastern philosophies, they say, "We make no claims and let the consumer decide based on their experience" if the bracelets work. + +== See also == +Ionized jewelry +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience +Quackery + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranic_therapy-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranic_therapy-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..072a55f16 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranic_therapy-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Pranic therapy" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranic_therapy" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:07.489104+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Pranic therapy is the umbrella term for pseudoscientific forms of energy healing. It is a range of holistic therapies and alternative medicine that claim to have healing benefits. It is a form of energy healing which has shown in some medical studies to be effective in reducing pain, anxiety and other physical and mental conditions. + + +== History == +Pranic therapies are techniques that include pranic healing is a modern interpretation of numerous ancient healing techniques, including Chinese Qi, Chakras and most notably Prana, from which it gets its name. +Starting as an eastern alternative medicine, it has become more commonly used in the west in recent years, and often used in spas and similar businesses. India where prana is used across various alternative medical techniques, has also seen a rise in pranic therapies. Medical practices in the United States have also used pranic therapies on patients, although successful treatments have not been accurately measured. Its adoption in the west has led to some using the technique as a front for unethical practices, or to make unsubstantiated claims. + + +== Principles == +Pranic therapies focus on 11 major chakras in the body, each of which corresponds with the position of a vital organ or glands. It is a non-touch therapy, which is said to use energy to heal the person. Comparisons have been drawn with Reiki, another form of energy healing. Reiki focuses on energizing while pranic therapies cleanse. + + +== Research == +Studies into the use, application and effectiveness of Pranic therapies are ongoing, with peer reviewed trials drawing a range of conclusions. In 2024, a randomized clinical trial journaled in Pediatric Nursing indicated that the therapy led to pain reduction in children during certain procedures. Pranic therapies may help reduce subjective pain, anxiety, and improve other quality of life measurements. + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ad2f0e687 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Precognition" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:09.812996+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Precognition (from the Latin prae- 'before', and cognitio 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future. +There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a real effect, and it is widely considered to be pseudoscience. Precognition violates the principle of causality, that an effect cannot occur before its cause. +Precognition has been widely believed in throughout history. Despite the lack of scientific evidence, many people believe it to be real; it is still widely reported and remains a topic of research and discussion within the parapsychology community. + +== Precognitive phenomena == +Precognition is sometimes treated as an example of the wider phenomenon of prescience or foreknowledge, to understand by any means what is likely to happen in the future. It is distinct from premonition, which is a vaguer feeling of some impending disaster. Related activities such as predictive prophecy and fortune telling have been practised throughout history. + +Precognitive dreams are the most widely reported occurrences of precognition. Usually, a dream or vision can only be identified as precognitive after the putative event has taken place. When such an event occurs after a dream, it is said to have "broken the dream". + +=== In religion === +In Judaism it is believed that dreams are mostly insignificant while others "have the potential to contain prophetic messages". Others hold that dreams have meaning, and bad dreams require amelioration. According to the Book of Genesis, God granted Joseph precognition through prophetic dreams and the ability to interpret the dreams of others. +Precognition has a role in Buddhism with dreams believed to be 'mind-created phenomena'. Those dreams which 'warn of impending danger or even prepare us for overwhelming good news" are considered the most important. + +== History == +Throughout history it has been believed that certain individuals have precognitive abilities, or that certain practices can induce such experiences, and these visions have sometimes been associated with important historical events. Despite the lack of scientific evidence, many people still believe in precognition. A poll in 2005 showed 73% of Americans believe in at least one type of paranormal experience, with 41% believing in extrasensory perception. + +=== Antiquity === +Since ancient times precognition has been associated with dreams and trance states as well as waking premonitions, giving rise to acts of prophecy and fortune telling. Oracles, originally seen as sources of wisdom, became progressively associated with previsions of the future. +Such claims of seeing the future have never been without their sceptical critics. Aristotle carried out an inquiry into allegedly prophetic dreams in his On Divination in Sleep. He accepted that "it is quite conceivable that some dreams may be tokens and causes [of future events]" but also believed that "most [so-called prophetic] dreams are, however, to be classed as mere coincidences...". Where Democritus had suggested that emanations from future events could be sent back to the dreamer, Aristotle proposed that it was, rather, the dreamer's sense impressions which reached forward to the event. + +=== 17th–19th centuries === +The term "precognition" first appeared in the 17th century but did not come into common use among investigators until much later. +An early investigation into claims of precognition was published by the missionary Fr. P. Boilat in 1883. He claimed to have put an unspoken question to an African witch-doctor whom he mistrusted. Contrary to his expectations, the witch-doctor gave him the correct answer without ever having heard the question. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d684d9fb9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +--- +title: "Precognition" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:09.812996+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Early 20th century === +In the early 20th century J. W. Dunne, a British soldier and aeronautics engineer, experienced several dreams which he regarded as precognitive. He developed techniques to record and analyse them, identifying any correspondences between his future experiences and his recorded dreams. He reported his findings in his 1927 book An Experiment with Time. In it he alleges that 10% of his dreams appeared to include some element of future experience. He also persuaded some friends to try the experiment on themselves, with mixed results. He noted a strong cognitive bias in which subjects, including himself, were reluctant to ascribe their dream correspondences to precognition and determinedly sought alternative explanations. Dunne concluded that precognitive elements in dreams are common and that many people unknowingly have them. He suggested also that dream precognition did not reference future events of all kinds, but specifically the future experiences of the dreamer. He was led to this idea when he found that a dream of a volcanic eruption appeared to foresee not the disaster itself but his subsequent misreading of an inaccurate account in a newspaper. +Edith Lyttelton, who became President of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), regarded his theory as consistent with her own idea of the superconscious. In 1932 he helped the SPR to conduct a more formal experiment, but he and the Society's lead researcher Theodore Besterman failed to agree on the significance of the results. Nevertheless, the Philosopher C. D. Broad remarked that, "The only theory known to me which seems worth consideration is that proposed by Mr. Dunne in his Experiment with Time." An Experiment with Time was widely read and "undoubtedly helped to form something of the imaginative climate of [the interwar] years", influencing many writers of both fact and fiction both then and since. According to Flieger, "Dunne's theory was so current and popular a topic that not to understand it was a mark of singularity." Major writers whose work was significantly influenced by his ideas on precognition in dreams and visions include H. G. Wells, J. B. Priestley and Olaf Stapledon. Vladimir Nabokov was also later influenced by Dunne. +In 1932 Charles Lindbergh's infant son was kidnapped, murdered and buried among trees. Psychologists Henry Murray and D. R. Wheeler used the event to test for dream precognition, by inviting the public to report any dreams of the child. A total of 1,300 dreams were reported. Only five per cent envisioned the child dead and only 4 of the 1,300 envisioned the location of the grave as amongst trees. +The first ongoing and organised research program on precognition was instituted by husband-and-wife team Joseph Banks Rhine and Louisa E. Rhine in the 1930s at Duke University's Parapsychology Laboratory. J. B. Rhine used a method of forced-choice matching in which participants guessed the order of a deck of 25 cards, each five of which bore one of five geometrical symbols. Although his results were positive and gained some academic acceptance, his methods were later shown to be badly flawed and subsequent researchers using more rigorous procedures were unable to reproduce his results. His mathematics was sometimes flawed, the experiments were not double-blinded or even necessarily single-blinded and some of the cards to be guessed were so thin that the symbol could be seen through the backing. +Samuel G. Soal, another leading member of the SPR, was described by Rhine as one of his harshest critics, running many similar experiments with wholly negative results. However, from around 1940 he ran forced-choice ESP experiments in which a subject attempted to identify which of five animal pictures a subject in another room was looking at. Their performance on this task was at chance, but when the scores were matched with the card that came after the target card, three of the thirteen subjects showed a very high hit rate; Rhine now described Soal's work as "a milestone in the field". However analyses of Soal's findings, conducted several years later, concluded that the positive results were more likely the result of deliberate fraud. The controversy continued for many years more. In 1978 the statistician and parapsychology researcher Betty Markwick, while seeking to vindicate Soal, discovered that he had tampered with his data. The untainted experimental results showed no evidence of precognition. + +=== Late 20th century === +As more modern technology became available, more automated techniques of experimentation were developed that did not rely on hand-scoring of equivalence between targets and guesses, and in which the targets could be more reliably and readily tested at random. In 1969 Helmut Schmidt introduced the use of high-speed random event generators (REG) for precognition testing, and experiments were also conducted at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab. Once again, flaws were found in all of Schmidt's experiments, when the psychologist C. E. M. Hansel found that several necessary precautions were not taken. +Science fiction writer Philip K Dick believed that he had precognitive experiences and used the idea in some of his novels, especially as a central plot element in his 1956 science fiction short story "The Minority Report" and in his 1956 novel The World Jones Made. +In 1963 the BBC television programme Monitor broadcast an appeal by the writer J.B. Priestley for experiences which challenged our understanding of Time. He received hundreds of letters in reply and believed that many of them described genuine precognitive dreams. In 2014 the BBC Radio 4 broadcaster Francis Spufford revisited Priestley's work and its relation to the ideas of J.W. Dunne. +In 1965 G. W. Lambert, a former Council member of the SPR, proposed five criteria that needed to be met before an account of a precognitive dream could be regarded as credible: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5954ef410 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ +--- +title: "Precognition" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:09.812996+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The dream should be reported to a credible witness before the event. +The time interval between the dream and the event should be short. +The event should be unexpected at the time of the dream. +The description should be of an event destined literally, and not symbolically, to happen. +The details of dream and event should tally. +David Ryback, a psychologist in Atlanta, used a questionnaire survey approach to investigate precognitive dreaming in college students during the 1980s. His survey of over 433 participants showed that 290 or 66.9 per cent reported some form of paranormal dream. He rejected many of these reports, but claimed that 8.8 per cent of the population was having actual precognitive dreams. + +=== 21st century === +In 2011 the psychologist Daryl Bem, a Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, published findings showing statistical evidence for precognition in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The paper was heavily criticised, and the criticism widened to include the journal itself and the validity of the peer-review process. In 2012, an independent attempt to reproduce Bem's results was published, but it failed to do so. The widespread controversy led to calls for improvements in practice and for more research. + +== Scientific reception == +Claims of precognition are, like any other claims, open to scientific criticism. However, the nature of the criticism must adapt to the nature of the claim. + +=== Pseudoscience === +Claims of precognition are criticised on three main grounds: + +There is no known scientific mechanism which would allow precognition. It breaks temporal causality, in that the precognised event causes an effect in the subject prior to the event itself. +The large body of experimental work has produced no accepted scientific evidence that precognition exists. +The large body of anecdotal evidence can be explained by alternative psychological mechanisms. +Consequently, precognition is widely considered to be pseudoscience. + +=== Violation of causality === +Precognition would violate the principle of antecedence (causality); that is, that an effect does not happen before its cause. Information passing backwards in time (retrocausality) would need to be carried by physical particles doing the same. Experimental evidence from high-energy physics suggests that this cannot happen. There is therefore no direct justification for precognition from a physics-based approach. +Precognition would also contradict "most of the neuroscience and psychology literature, from electrophysiology and neuroimaging to temporal effects found in psychophysical research." + +=== Lack of evidence === +A great deal of evidence for precognition has been put forward, both as witnessed anecdotes and as experimental results, but none has been accepted as rigorous scientific proof of the phenomenon. Even the most prominent pieces of evidence have been repeatedly rejected due to errors in those experiments as well as follow-on studies contradicting the original evidence. This suggests that the evidence was not valid in the first place. + +=== Alternative explanations === +Various known psychological processes have been put forward to explain experiences of apparent precognition. These include: + +Coincidence, where apparent instances of precognition in fact arise from the law of truly large numbers. +Self-fulfilling prophecy and unconscious enactment, where people unconsciously bring about events which they have previously imagined. +Unconscious perception, where people unconsciously infer, from data they have unconsciously learned, that a certain event will probably happen in a certain context. When the event occurs, the former knowledge appears to have been acquired without the aid of recognised channels of information. +Retrofitting, which involves the false interpretation of a past record of a dream or vision, in order to match it to a recent event. Retrofitting provides an explanation for the supposed accuracy of Nostradamus's vague predictions. For example, quatrain I:60 states "A ruler born near Italy...He's less a prince than a butcher." The phrase "near Italy" can be construed as covering a very broad range of geography, while no details are provided by Nostradamus regarding the era when this ruler will live. Because of this vagueness, and the flexibility of retrofitting, this quatrain has been interpreted by some as referring to Napoleon, but by others as referring to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, and by others still as a reference to Hitler. +False memories, such as identifying paramnesia and memory biases, where the memory of a non-existent precognitive event is formed after the real event has occurred. Where subjects in a dream experiment have been asked to write down their dreams in a diary, this can prevent selective memory effects such that the dreams no longer seem accurate about the future. +Déjà vu, where people experience a false feeling that an identical event has occurred previously. Some recent authors have suggested that déjà vu and identifying paramnesia are the same thing. This view is not universally held, with others instead treating them as distinct phenomena. +Psychological explanations have also been proposed for belief in precognition. Psychologists have conducted experiments which are claimed to show that people who feel loss of control in their lives will turn to belief in precognition, because it gives them a sense of regaining control. + +== See also == +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience +Oneiromancy: Divination using dreams. +Remote viewing +Retrocognition: Direct knowledge of past events at which one was not present. +Third eye: Organ of mystical vision. + +== References == + +=== Notes === + +=== Bibliography === +Dunne, J. W. (1927). An Experiment With Time. A. C. Black. +Flieger, Verlyn; A Question of Time: JRR Tolkien's Road to Faërie, Kent State University Press, 1997. +Hines, Terence (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-57392-979-0. +Hyman, Ray (2007). "Evaluating Parapsychological Claims". In Robert J. Sternberg; Henry L. Roediger; Diane F. Halpern (eds.). Critical Thinking in Psychology. Cambridge University Press. pp. 219–223. ISBN 978-0-521-60834-3. +Inglis, Brian. (1986). The Paranormal: An Encyclopedia of Psychic Phenomena. Paladin (Grafton) 1986. (1st Edition Granada 1985) +Priestley, J.B. Man and Time. Aldus 1964, 2nd Edition Bloomsbury 1989. +Wynn, Charles M., and Wiggins, Arthur W. (2001). Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins. Joseph Henry Press. ISBN 978-0-309-07309-7 + +== Further reading == + +Chris French. (2012). "Precognition Studies and the Curse of the Failed Replications". The Guardian. +David Marks. (2000). The Psychology of the Psychic (2nd Edition). Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-798-8 +Ben Steigmann. (1978) "Notes on the Paranormal", from S. Krippner et al. (eds.), Advances in Parapsychological Research, Plenum Press : New York, pp. 59-243. (Internet Archive). \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Engineering_Anomalies_Research_Lab-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Engineering_Anomalies_Research_Lab-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0bad9a48d --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Engineering_Anomalies_Research_Lab-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +title: "Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Engineering_Anomalies_Research_Lab" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:24:11.025440+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) was a research program at Princeton University that studied parapsychology. Established in 1979 by then Dean of Engineering Robert G. Jahn, PEAR conducted formal studies on two primary subject areas, psychokinesis (PK) and remote viewing. Owing to the controversial nature of the subject matter, the program had a strained relationship with Princeton and was considered by the administration and some faculty to be an embarrassment to the university. Critics stated that it lacked scientific rigor, used poor methodology, and misused statistics, and characterized it as pseudoscience. PEAR closed in February 2007, being incorporated into the "International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL). + + +== Parapsychological experiments with random event generators == +PEAR employed electronic random event generators (REGs) to explore the ability of test subjects to use psychokinesis to influence the random output distribution of these devices to conform to their pre-recorded intentions to produce higher numbers, lower numbers, or nominal baselines. Most of these experiments utilized a microelectronic REG, but experiments were also conducted with "a giant, wall-mounted pachinko-like machine with a cascade of bouncing balls". +In 1986 associates of PEAR published data collected over the course of seven years from a group of subjects attempting to influence random number generators across millions of trials. In all cases, the observed effects were very small (between one and about 0.1%), and although the statistical significance of the results at the P<0.05 level is not generally disputed, detractors point to potential ethical violations and flaws in experiment procedures, as well as questioning the importance of large-sample studies that only marginally clear the p<0.05 significance threshold. The baseline for chance behavior used did not vary as statistically appropriate (baseline bind). Two PEAR researchers attributed this baseline bind to the motivation of the operators to achieve a good baseline and indicates that the random number generator used was not random. It has been noted that a single test subject (presumed to be a member of PEAR's staff) participated in 15% of PEAR's trials, and was responsible for half of the total observed effect. +James Alcock in a review mentioned various problems with the PEAR experiments such as poor controls and documentation with the possibility of fraud, data selection and optional stopping not being ruled out. Alcock concluded there was no reason to believe the results were from paranormal origin. +The psychologist C. E. M. Hansel, who evaluated Jahn's early psychokinesis experiments at the PEAR laboratory, wrote that a satisfactory control series had not been employed, that they had not been independently replicated, and that the reports lacked detail. Hansel noted that "very little information is provided about the design of the experiment, the subjects, or the procedure adopted. Details are not given about the subjects, the times they were tested, or the precise conditions under which they were tested." Physicist professor Milton Rothman has noted that Jahn's experiments at PEAR started from an idealistic assumption, ignored the laws of physics and had no basis in reality. +PEAR's results have been criticized for deficient reproducibility. In one instance two German organizations failed to reproduce PEAR's results, while PEAR similarly failed to reproduce their own results. An attempt by York University's Stan Jeffers also failed to replicate PEAR's results. + + +== References == + + +== External links == +List of Princeton PEAR research publications +The PEAR Laboratory - An Overview +Princeton University, copy of PEAR website, 2017 archive \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e5f18772c --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +--- +title: "Pseudoscientific metrology" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:52.731343+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Some approaches in the branch of historic metrology are highly speculative and can be qualified as pseudoscience. + +== Origins == +In 1637, John Greaves, professor of geometry at Gresham College, made his first of several studies in Egypt and Italy, making numerous measurements of buildings and monuments, including the Great Pyramid. These activities fuelled many centuries of interest in metrology of the ancient cultures by the likes of Isaac Newton and the French Academy. + +== Charles Piazzi Smyth == +John Taylor, in his 1859 book The Great Pyramid: Why Was It Built? & Who Built It?, claimed that the Great Pyramid of Giza was planned and the building supervised by the biblical Noah, and that it was "built to make a record of the measure of the Earth". +A paper presented to the Royal Academy on the topic was rejected. +Taylor's theories were, however, the inspiration for the deeply religious archaeologist Charles Piazzi Smyth to go to Egypt to study and measure the pyramid, subsequently publishing his book Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid (1864), claiming that the measurements he obtained from the Great Pyramid indicated a unit of length, the pyramid inch, equivalent to 1.001 British inches, that could have been the standard of measurement by the pyramid's architects. From this he extrapolated a number of other measurements, including the pyramid pint, the sacred cubit, and the pyramid scale of temperature. +Smyth claimed that the inch was a God-given measure handed down through the centuries from the 'Time of Israel', and that the architects of the pyramid could only have been directed by the hand of God. To support this Smyth said that, in measuring the pyramid, he found the number of inches in the perimeter of the base equalled 1000 times the number of days in a year, and found a numeric relationship between the height of the pyramid in inches to the distance from Earth to the Sun, measured in statute miles. +Smyth used this as an argument against the introduction of the metre in Britain, which he considered a product of the minds of atheistic French radicals. + +== The grand scheme == +By the time measurements of Mesopotamia were discovered, by doing various exercises of mathematics on the definitions of the major ancient measurement systems, various people (Jean-Adolphe Decourdemanche in 1909, August Oxé in 1942) came to the conclusion that the relationship between them was well planned. + +Livio C. Stecchini claims in his A History of Measures:The relation among the units of length can be explained by the ratio 15:16:17:18 among the four fundamental feet and cubits. Before I arrived at this discovery, Decourdemanche and Oxé discovered that the cubes of those units are related according to the conventional specific gravities of oil, water, wheat and barley. [1]Stecchini makes claims that imply that the Egyptian measures of length, originating from at least the 3rd millennium BC, were directly derived from the circumference of the earth with an amazing accuracy. According to "Secrets of the Great Pyramid" (p. 346), his claim is that the Egyptian measurement was equal to 40,075,000 meters, which compared to the International Spheroid of 40,076,596 meters gives an error of 0.004%. No consideration seems to be made to the question of, on purely technical and procedural grounds, how the early Egyptians, in defining their cubit, could have achieved a degree of accuracy that to our current knowledge can only be achieved with very sophisticated equipment and techniques. + +== The megalithic system == +Christopher Knight and Alan Butler further develop the work of Smyth's and Stecchini's "Grand Scheme" in their Civilization One hypothesis, which describes a megalithic system of units. This system is claimed to be the source of all standard units used by civilization, and is so named after the Neolithic builders of megaliths. Knight and Butler contend the reconstructed megalithic yard (1 MY = 0.82966 m) is a fundamental part of a megalithic system. Although the megalithic yard is the work of Alexander Thom, Knight and Butler make a novel contribution by speculating on how the MY may have been created by using a pendulum calibrated by observing Venus. It also explains the uniformity of the MY across large geographical areas. The accuracy claimed for this procedure is disputed by astronomers. +They derive measures of volume and mass from the megalithic yard, which is divided into 40 megalithic inches. Knight and Butler claim that a cube with a side of 4 megalithic inches has a volume equal to one imperial pint and weighs one imperial pound when filled with unpolished grain. They also posit ratio relationships with the imperial acre and square rod. Their book states that "The Sun, the Moon and the Earth all conform to a 'grand design' that is also evident in the Megalithic structures that are scattered across the British Isles and western Europe." \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..35d635038 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +title: "Pseudoscientific metrology" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:52.731343+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== "Megalithic geometry" == +One of the first persons to associate megalith builders with geometry was the Scottish academic, Alexander Thom (1894–1985), who never hypothesised any 366-degree geometry himself. Thom believed that the megalith builders used a standard unit of measurement which he dubbed the megalithic yard. According to him, the length of this unit was 2.72 Imperial feet or 82.96 cm. The existence of this measurement is disputed. +According to Alan Butler this geometry was based on the Earth's polar circumference. The megalithic degree is the 366th part of it, i.e. 40,008 / 366 = 109.31 km; the megalithic arcminute is the 60th part of the megalithic degree, i.e. 109.31 / 60 = 1.82 km; the megalithic arcsecond is the 6th part of the megalithic minute, i.e. 1.82 / 6 = 0.3036 km; if this megalithic arcsecond is in turn divided into 366 equal segments, the length arrived at is 0.8296 m, which is the presumed length of the megalithic Yard, the supposedly ancient unit of measurement independently discovered by professor Alexander Thom in the 1950s. It is precisely this apparent coincidence that prompted Butler to think that the Megalith builders could have been cognizant with an Earth-based 366-degree geometry. +Clive Ruggles has said that both classical and Bayesian statistical reassessments of Thom's data "reached the conclusion that the evidence in favour of the MY was at best marginal, and that even if it does exist the uncertainty in our knowledge of its value is of the order of centimetres, far greater than the 1 mm precision claimed by Thom. In other words, the evidence presented by Thom could be adequately explained by, say, monuments being set out by pacing, with the 'unit' reflecting an average length of pace." David Kendall had previously argued that pacing would have created a greater difference in measurements between sites. +Douglas Heggie casts doubt on Thom's suggestion as well, stating that his careful analysis uncovered "little evidence for a highly accurate unit" and "little justification for the claim that a highly accurate unit was in use". + +== Volumes and masses == +In the book Civilization One, Butler and Knight contend that the basic units of volume and mass of the imperial system, the Imperial pint and the avoirdupois pound, are also derived from their Megalithic Yard. Just like the litre is the tenth part of the metre to the cubic power, the tenth part of the Megalithic Yard to the cubic power produces a volume of (82.96 cm/10)3 = 570.96 mL, a very close approximation of the modern pint of 568.26 mL. +Similarly, they argue that this theoretical Megalithic pint, if filled with barley dry seeds, weighs on average a number close to 453.59 grams, which is the exact value of the avoirdupois pound. +They also argue that division of the Earth mass into 366 equal parts, then again into 60 equal parts, and then again into 6 equal parts, yields a result that is almost exactly 1×1020 lb: 5.9736×1024 kg/(366 × 60 × 6) = 4.5337×1019 kg = 0.9995×1020 lb. +Said differently, a one-Megalithic-arcsecond-thick 'slice' of Earth (at the equator) weighs almost exactly 1×1020 lb, as though, according to the authors, the exact value of the pound had been adjusted so as to be a round subdivision of a one-arcsecond-thick slice of Earth in the Megalithic geometry. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..acb28e490 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +--- +title: "Pseudoscientific metrology" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscientific_metrology" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:52.731343+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +== Critical reception == +Publications in pseudoscientific metrology receive little, if any, attention from mainstream scholarship, by nature of being intended for the popular mass market. +French historian Lucien Febvre, criticised Xavier Guichard's publication Eleusis Alesia: Enquête sur les origines de la civilisation européenne as "time and effort lost based on wordplay". +Alexander Thom's theories have been criticized by Ian O. Angell. W. R. Knorr, examining the evidence as presented by Thom, finds no real evidence of the Pythagorean theorem, the ellipse, or a standard unit of distance in Neolithic times. Karlene Jones-Bley also denies the existence of such a precise unit of measurement during the Neolithic period: "the suggestion put forth by Thom that there was a 'megalithic yard' uniform to 0.1 mm from Brittany to the Orkneys cannot be accepted". However, for R. J. C. Atkinson, the British prehistorian and archaeologist (1920–1994), the Megalithic yard as defined by Thom is a plausible notion: "An interesting theory is his notion of a megalithic yard and rod, supposedly fairly consistent in Britain and Brittany". According to the analytical methods employed by the British statisticians S.R. Broadbent and D.G. Kendall, Thom's 1955 dataset is unlikely to be the result of chance: "a 1% significance meaning that such a best fit would only occur in 1 in 100 random datasets". A review in The Guardian newspaper of Who Built the Moon by Butler and Knight refers to the authors as "an ad man specialising in consumer psychology and an engineer turned astrologer, astronomer and playwright". The review comments on their ideas about megalithic geometry "Here, they suggest, numerical ratios concerning sun, moon and Earth – neatly arrived at by applying the so-called principles of megalithic geometry – are evidence of a message for today's Earthlings. The message is that future humans conquered time travel and went back, way back, to construct the moon to ensure Earth orbits in precisely the right alignment to the Sun to encourage the evolution (yes, they believe in that) of humans – a Mobius strip theory of history. Oh, and they genetically engineered DNA (we know, because that's too complicated for nature alone)." +The first book to ever deal with the possible existence of a 366-degree circle and of a 366-day calendar (rather than speaking of "Megalithic geometry" or "Bronze Age geometry"), The Bronze Age Computer Disc by Alan Butler, has not been commented on either by mainstream scientists or the press. +Most scholars and reviewers label Butler and Knight's work as pseudoscience. Aubrey Burl, a much-published digger of Megalithic sites and a lecturer in archaeology at Hull College of Higher Education, although he coauthored a book with Thom, derided Thom's work, saying that he himself had never "seen a Megalithic Yard". Jason Colavito, in a review in Skeptic Magazine, wrote "Crammed into just over 250 pages are so many unbelievable assertions and unproven speculations that it would take a book-sized rebuttal to do adequate justice to this triumph of numerology over science." He also pointed out "The precision claimed for the length of the Megalithic Yard is surprising given the poor condition of Neolithic monuments today. It is impossible to record their measurements to the ten-thousandth of a millimeter, the standard apparently used to derive this unit of measurement. +Belgian author Robert Bauval, considers Butler and Knight's new discoveries as "major breakthroughs" and as "a stunning discovery [that] could completely change the way we view our remote past", whereas Graham Hancock praised the book, regarding it as "Absolutely fascinating, and very, very convincing." + +== See also == +Pyramid inch +Pseudoarchaeology +Pseudohistory +John Michell (writer) +List of topics characterized as pseudoscience + +== References == + +Butler, Alan; Knight, Christopher (2006). Civilization One: The World is Not as You Thought It Was. London: Watkins. ISBN 1-84293-166-0. +Shalev, Zur 1967 - "Measurer of All Things: John Greaves (1602-1652), the Great Pyramid, and Early Modern Metrology", Journal of the History of Ideas – Volume 63, Number 4, October 2002, pp. 555–575, The Johns Hopkins University Press +Thom, Alexander (1955). "A Statistical Examination of the Megalithic Sites in Britain". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General). 118 part III (3). Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General), Vol. 118, No. 3: 275–295. doi:10.2307/2342494. JSTOR 2342494. + +== External links == +Amazing Pyramid "Facts", a critical look at some claims of Piazzi Smyth \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..fc0a126fa --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +title: "Salvatore Pais" +chunk: 1/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:42.498554+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Salvatore Cezar Pais (born September 7, 1967) is a Romanian-American aerospace engineer and inventor. He currently works for the United States Space Force, having previously been employed at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, the U.S. Navy's Strategic Systems Programs (SSP), and the United States Air Force. +Beginning in 2015, Pais filed a series of patent applications on behalf of the U.S. Navy describing technologies with radical claims, including a room temperature superconductor, a compact fusion reactor, an inertial mass reduction device, and a high-frequency gravitational wave generator. Collectively dubbed the "UFO patents" in the media, these inventions attracted widespread attention for their potential energy and military applications, but also significant skepticism from physicists who questioned their scientific basis. The Navy spent over $500,000 testing Pais's core concept, the "Pais Effect," from 2016 to 2019, but NAWCAD concluded that the effect could not be proven. No working prototype of any of the patented inventions was ever produced, and multiple physicists consulted by journalists described the patents as containing pseudoscientific language. Some commentators have speculated that the patents may constitute disinformation intended to mislead the United States' strategic adversaries about the direction of American defense research. + +== Education and doctoral research == + +Pais was born in Romania in 1967 and emigrated to the United States at approximately age thirteen. He was raised in New York City and attended Brooklyn Technical High School. Pais then attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1990 and a Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering in 1993. His master's thesis was titled "Design of an experiment for observation of thermocapillary convection phenomena in a simulated floating zone under microgravity conditions." +Pais received his Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Case Western Reserve in 1999. His doctoral dissertation, "Bubble Generation in a Continuous Liquid Flow Under Reduced Gravity Conditions," examined bubble generation behavior under both co-flow and cross-flow configurations, requiring multiple parabolic flights to simulate a microgravity environment. His doctoral advisors were Yasuhiro Kamotani and Simon Ostrach, both of whom had conducted Spacelab experiments in microgravity conditions aboard the Space Shuttle mission STS-50 in 1992. Pais's doctoral research was sponsored by NASA. + +== Career == +Pais has presented at American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conferences over the years. + +=== Early career at NAWCAD === +After completing his doctorate, Pais worked as a scientist and aerospace engineer at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), headquartered at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland. According to a 2019 author biography published in IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, his work with the Department of Defense involved "advanced knowledge of theory, analysis, and modern experimental and computational methods in aerodynamics, along with an understanding of air-vehicle and missile design, especially in the domain of hypersonic power plant and vehicle design." + +=== Transfers within the defense establishment === +In June 2019, Pais left NAWCAD and transferred to the U.S. Navy's Strategic Systems Programs (SSP), the organization responsible for the development and sustainment of the Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In January 2021, he transferred to the United States Air Force. As of 2025, Pais works for the United States Space Force and is reportedly based in Bonn, Germany. + +== Patents == + +Beginning in 2015, Pais filed a series of patent applications on behalf of the U.S. Navy that attracted significant media attention. These patents, often referred to collectively as the "UFO patents," describe technologies that would, if feasible, represent dramatic advances beyond the current state of physics and engineering. He reported that he began in 2015 to publish his patents "after rejections from academic publishing". Pais stated in an interview that he accepted no royalties for the Navy patents and said he had filed them out of "pure patriotic duty." He told The Times that a U.S. Navy invention evaluation board approved all five of his patent filings, which he described as unprecedented for such a controversial subject. +No working prototype of any of the patented inventions was ever developed. +Pais's patent applications include: \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais-1.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais-1.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e5d8adab9 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ +--- +title: "Salvatore Pais" +chunk: 2/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:42.498554+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Electromagnetic field generator (filed 2015, granted November 20, 2018): A device to generate high-energy electromagnetic fields, with a principal stated application of deflecting asteroids on collision courses with Earth. The patent is assigned to the United States Secretary of the Navy. +Craft using an inertial mass reduction device (filed 2016, granted December 4, 2018): A patent describing a conical "hybrid aerospace/undersea craft" that could purportedly "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level" by utilizing an inertial mass reduction device. The patent was initially rejected, but was granted after James Sheehy, the Naval Aviation Enterprise's chief technology officer, wrote to the United States Patent and Trademark Office asserting that the invention was operable and warning that the Chinese military were developing similar technology. This patent expired on January 9, 2023, due to non-payment of maintenance fees. +Piezoelectricity-induced room temperature superconductor (filed 2017, published February 21, 2019): A device purportedly capable of achieving superconductivity at room temperature, which would enable "the transmission of electrical power with no losses." The Institution of Engineering and Technology noted that no evidence was presented to demonstrate that the device worked, and that the highest-temperature superconductors achieved at that time operated at approximately −70 °C (−94 °F). The claim was also covered by Phys.org. The superconductor patent application led to appeals by the U.S. Navy and Pais, after being initially rejected by the U.S. Patent Office. +High-frequency gravitational wave generator (filed 2017, granted June 18, 2019): A device that could purportedly be used "for advanced propulsion, asteroid disruption and/or deflection, and communications through solid objects." +Plasma compression fusion device (filed 2018, published September 26, 2019): A compact nuclear fusion reactor described as capable of producing power in the gigawatt to terawatt range. Popular Mechanics described it as a "compact nuclear fusion reactor" whose "designs seemingly stretch the limits of science." The concept was also described in a peer-reviewed paper published in IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science in 2019. The patent application was ultimately abandoned. + +== The "Pais Effect" and Navy testing == +Central to all of Pais's inventions is a theoretical concept he calls the "Pais Effect," which he describes as the generation of extremely high electromagnetic energy fluxes through the controlled motion of electrically charged matter subjected to accelerated vibration and/or accelerated spin. Pais claims that this effect can interact with the quantum vacuum energy state to produce phenomena such as inertial mass reduction and room-temperature superconductivity. +NAWCAD conducted experiments to test the feasibility of the Pais Effect under a Naval Innovative Science and Engineering – Basic & Applied Research (NISE-BAR) program titled "The High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator (HEEMFG)." According to Timothy Boulay, NAWCAD's Communications Director, testing occurred from October 2016 to September 2019 at a total cost of $508,000, with the vast majority of expenditure going to personnel salaries. Pais said those experiments had not yet produced the 1 Coulomb charge he considered necessary for the Pais Effect to work. In a quoted email, Pais described the "Pais Effect" as enabling what he called "Macroscopic Quantum Coherence," using this as part of his explanation for the broader claims in his patent-related work. At the conclusion of the testing period, NAWCAD determined that the "Pais Effect" could not be demonstrated, and stated that no further research was conducted. +However, The War Zone reported in 2019 that according to U.S. Navy records from 2018, the military had called the HEEMFG designed by Pais was "operable", and a "formative invention in its incipient stage(s)." Internal documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests by The Drive revealed that the project had been considered to have "National Security importance" within NAWCAD, and that research notes referenced a "Spacetime Modification Weapon" that could theoretically dwarf the power of a hydrogen bomb. NAWCAD stated the HEEMFG project did not transition to any other government or civilian organization. In the 2025 Times interview, Pais said he still sought funding to validate the concept and argued that doing so would require more personnel, laboratory time, and longer development timelines. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais-2.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais-2.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6ef470d62 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais-2.md @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +--- +title: "Salvatore Pais" +chunk: 3/3 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Pais" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:23:42.498554+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +=== Scientific reception === +The patents have been met with widespread skepticism from the physics community. The Drive reported that every physicist its journalists consulted over a two-year period asserted that the "Pais Effect" had no scientific basis in reality and that the patent language was filled with pseudoscientific jargon. Despite this, Pais maintained confidence in his work. In a November 2019 email to The Drive, he stated that his work "culminates in the enablement of the Pais Effect" and that "as far as the doubting SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) are concerned, my work shall be proven correct one fine day." In comments quoted by Vice, Pais argued that publication of his compact fusion reactor paper in IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science supported the importance and credibility of his underlying concepts. +Forbes contributor Ariel Cohen, writing about the patents in 2021, outlined several possible explanations: that the technologies could be genuine breakthroughs, that they could be disinformation intended to send adversaries like China on a "wild goose chase" (analogous to Reagan's "Star Wars" initiative), or that they could be related to other classified programs. Pais said his paper The Plasma Compression Fusion Device had been cited in at least four Chinese scientific papers published between 2021 and 2024, and presented this as evidence of Chinese interest in his ideas. Philosopher Bernardo Kastrup, writing in The Debrief, argued from an intellectual property perspective that legitimate defense technologies would be protected through industrial secrecy rather than public patents, and concluded that the patents were unlikely to have significant defense value. In the 2025 interview summarized by Interesting Engineering, Pais rejected suggestions that his patents were disinformation, saying they were "not a bluff" and asserting that the underlying physics was correct. +The Defence Connect and TechXplore also covered the fusion reactor patent, noting both its revolutionary potential and the lack of evidence that the device was operable. +Several of Pais's patents, including the electromagnetic field generator and the high-frequency gravitational wave generator, have since expired due to non-payment of maintenance fees, and the plasma compression fusion device patent application was abandoned, suggesting that neither Pais nor the Navy is actively pursuing these technologies through the patent system. According to The Times, "mainstream publications still refuse to publish him". + +== Selected publications == + +=== Peer-reviewed papers === +Pais, Salvatore Cezar (September 1, 1991). "The Induced Thrust Effect; A Propulsion Method". SAE Technical Papers. SAE Technical Paper Series. 1 (912234). doi:10.4271/912234. ISSN 0148-7191. +Pais, Salvatore Cezar (2015). "Conditional possibility of spacecraft propulsion at superluminal speeds". International Journal of Space Science and Engineering. 3 (1): 89–92. Bibcode:2015IJSSE...3...89P. doi:10.1504/IJSPACESE.2015.069339. +Pais, Salvatore Cezar (2015). "The high energy electromagnetic field generator". International Journal of Space Science and Engineering. 3 (4): 312–317. Bibcode:2015IJSSE...3..312P. doi:10.1504/IJSPACESE.2015.075910. +Pais, Salvatore Cezar (September 19, 2017). "High Frequency Gravitational Waves – Induced Propulsion". SAE Technical Papers. SAE Technical Paper Series. 1 (2017-01-2040). doi:10.4271/2017-01-2040. ISSN 0148-7191. +A Hybrid craft using an inertial mass modification device. AIAA Space Forum 2017-5343. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. 2017. doi:10.2514/6.2017-5343. +Room Temperature Superconducting System for use on a Hybrid Aerospace-Undersea Craft. AIAA SciTech Forum 2019-0869. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. 2019. doi:10.2514/6.2019-0869. +Pais, Salvatore Cezar (2019). "The Plasma Compression Fusion Device—Enabling Nuclear Fusion Ignition". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 47 (11): 5119–5124. Bibcode:2019ITPS...47.5119P. doi:10.1109/TPS.2019.2942997. + +=== Patent literature === +US 10135366B2, Salvatore Cezar Pais, "Electromagnetic field generator and method to generate an electromagnetic field", issued November 20, 2018 +US 10144532B2, Salvatore Cezar Pais, "Craft using an inertial mass reduction device", issued December 4, 2018 +US 10322827B2, Salvatore Cezar Pais, "High frequency gravitational wave generator", issued June 18, 2019 +US 20190058105A1, Salvatore Cezar Pais, "Piezoelectricity-induced Room Temperature Superconductor", published February 21, 2019 +US 20190295733A1, Salvatore Cezar Pais, "Plasma Compression Fusion Device", published September 26, 2019 + +== Personal life == +Pais lives in California. He described himself as religious. Pais was noted for having virtually no web presence. The Times reported that Pais stated in his capacity as a private individual that he believes extraterrestrial life exists, may possess technologies similar to his inventions, and are a form of "superintelligence" that "considers the human race 'an experiment'." + +== See also == +LK-99 – Proposed superconducting material +Strategic Defense Initiative – U.S. military defense program (1984–1993) + +== References == + This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States government. + +== External links == +Salvatore Pais patents on Google Patents +NASA Technical Reports Server – Pais doctoral thesis +High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generation Spin Test Experiment; Propulsion & Power Test Methods & Facilities Department. Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland. September 29, 2019. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishen_Lakhiani-0.md b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishen_Lakhiani-0.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..badb1b232 --- /dev/null +++ b/data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishen_Lakhiani-0.md @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +--- +title: "Vishen Lakhiani" +chunk: 1/1 +source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishen_Lakhiani" +category: "reference" +tags: "science, encyclopedia" +date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:22:08.648006+00:00" +instance: "kb-cron" +--- + +Vishen Lakhiani (born 14 January 1976) is a Malaysian entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker of Indian descent. He is the founder and CEO of Mindvalley and author of two books: The Code of the Extraordinary Mind and The Buddha and the Badass. + + +== Career == +Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Lakhiani attended a Malaysian state school. After graduating from high school, he moved to the United States and attended the University of Michigan, where he received a bachelor's degree in computer engineering. During his university years, he was an active member of AIESEC. After graduating in 2001, he moved to Silicon Valley. + + +=== Mindvalley === +Mindvalley is an educational technology company co-founded by Lakhiani and Michael Reining that publishes products focused on personal spiritual development and lifelong learning, such as the meditation app Omvana. Founded in New York City in December 2002, Reining and Lakhiani were forced to relocate Mindvalley to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2004 when the United States declined to renew Lakhiani's work visa. +In late 2020, Mindvalley added a course, hosted by Lakhiani, on the Silva Method for accessing altered states of mind and intuition. + + +=== Dealmates === +Dealmates was a Malaysia-based e-commerce site that Lakhiani founded on 1 November 2010 with Patrick Grove, as part of a joint venture between Catcha Group and Mindvalley. + + +=== Books === +In May 2016, Lakhiani published the self-help book The Code of the Extraordinary Mind through Rodale, Inc. In the book, Lakhiani argues a person's outlook on life is shaped by conditioning and habit, offering ten laws to help readers break free of this mindset. After its release, the book reached No. 10 on the New York Times Bestseller List for Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous. +In 2020 Lakhiani's second book, The Buddha & the Badass, was published by Penguin-RandomHouse. The book peaked at No. 1 on the Wall Street Journal Business Hardcover List and No. 9 on the New York Times How-To list. + + +== External links == +Official web-site + + +== References == \ No newline at end of file