User:TheThomas/Woo woo

Woo-woo is a common catch-all phrase referring to any belief that the Scientific Consensus and skeptical communities would consider bunk, hokum, humbug, balderdash, bullshit, nonsense, foolishness, factually incorrect, pseudoscience, pseudoskepticism , irrational , mystical , spiritual , quackery , nutty , crazy , ...

Woo-woo can also be used as derogatory term for a person who is afflicted with true believer syndrome, and has invested themselves in such a belief. So woo-woo can refer to a person that is spiritual, religious, new-age, nutty, crazy, wacky, a true-believer, irrational, full of shit, foolish, a nutbag, a quack (a medical nutbag), an alternative-medicine proponent or practitioner, a history revisionist, an HIV denier, a creationist, a a conspiracy theorist, ...

Considering all of these categories it becomes clear that a lot of people are woo woo and believe in nonsense. It is commonly accepted among skeptics that "everyone has a golden cow." Meaning that everyone has one false belief they hold onto. According to the NCCAM 38% of United States residents use some alternative medicines. Meaning, just including them, 38% of all U.S. citizens take ineffective medicines and are woo woo, if only in that one part of their life.

""Woo" is shorthand for "woo woo" and is not just limited to alternative medicine but rather represents an entire philosophy of credulity of the sort favored by New Age types." -Orac

The consensus of scientists carries much sway with the skeptical community. This is both because of the high number of scientists among the community and because of the strong requirements that both science and skepticism place on new discoveries and beliefs respectively.

Common topics that have been tested with the tools of skepticism and science then found to be woo-woo include, but are not limited to:

Conspiracy Theories

Supernatural events, entities, powers,...

Alternative Medicine modalities

New-age belief in crystals, energy, powers, ...

Alien encounters, visitations, abductions, crash-landings, ... but, both the scientific and skeptical community readily accept that life, and even intelligent life, may well exist. Both communities are only waiting on high quality evidence.

Cryptozoology and the creatures that are most often associated with that field. Including, but not limited to, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, ...

Predictions of Nostradamus, psychics, or of any other preternatural source are considered to be worthless. The Belief that the Mayans Calendar predicts the doom of the world is also dismissed as unsupported claims, and thus woo-woo.

Revisionist History such as holocaust denial and 9/11 conspiracies are considered woo-woo because, though they exhibit obvious skepticism, their skepticism is only strong towards facts that negate their preconceived notions. Ignoring evidence that counters your beliefs is bad science and bad skepticism.

The Line Between Woo and non-Woo
"Sometimes the line between woo and non-woo isn't so obvious." -Orac

Until recently the topic of global warming/climate change has been a heated debate among skeptics. The issue had very little good evidence to access easily, and no strong consensus among scientists. That being the case, groups of skeptics started forming one each side of the ideological line. Some arguing that it is a real and worrisome phenomenon, others that it is a trumped up non-issue--and everything in-between. The air was finally cleared by the strong statement of the IPCC that they believed there was a 66-90% chance humans are driving the climate change we are seeing. When this happened most skeptics settled firmly on the side of the 620 person international panel of authors and editors from 40 countries, and the more than 620 experts and governments that reviewed and approved the report before it was reviewed line-by-line by representatives from 113 governments. The ones who didn't...well they became woo woo, global warming deniers.