List of organizations opposing mainstream science
This is a list of organizations opposing mainstream science by frequently challenging the facts and conclusions recognized by the mainstream scientific community. By claiming to employ the scientific method in order to advance certain fringe ideas and theories, they are often charged with promotion of various forms of pseudoscience.
List of organizations
- Academy of Nations - An organization primarily disputing Einstein theory of relativity.[1]
- Association for Neuro Linguistic Programming - a United Kingdom organization founded to promote neuro-linguistic programming.
- Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association - a United States-based company that promotes biodynamic agriculture systems.
- Creation Research Society - promotes creation science since the 1950s.
- Discovery Institute - founded in 1990, promotes Intelligent Design.
- Edinburgh Phrenological Society - founded in 1820, the society was influential in its time, helping popularize the concept of phrenology in the 19th century.[2] The last recorded meeting took place in 1870.[2]
- Flat Earth Society - an organization which aims to further the idea that the Earth is flat instead of an oblate spheroid. The modern organization was founded by Englishman Samuel Shenton in 1956[3] and was later led by Charles K. Johnson, who based the organization in his home in Lancaster, California. The formal society was inactive after Johnson’s death in 2001 but was resurrected in 2004 by its new president Daniel Shenton.[4]
- George C. Marshall Institute - An organization with a focus on science and public policy issues. They disagree with the sciense behind environmentalism.[5]
- Global Climate Coalition - an organization challenging "the science around global warming".[6]
- The Heartland Institute - A think-tank on a variety of issues, including support of "cimate change skepticism"[7]
- Institute for Creation Research, promoting a religious worldview in contradiction to current knowledge of evolutionary biology.
- National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality - an organization that offers conversion therapy and other treatments that purport to change the sexual orientation of individuals who experience unwanted same-sex attraction. The organization disagrees with the holding of the world's major mental health organizations that homosexuality is not a disorder.[8]
- National Institute for Discovery Science - 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.[9] Deputy Administrator Colm Kelleher was quoted as saying the organization was not designed to study UFO's 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."[10]
- Natural Philosophy Alliance An organization which believes there are fundamental flaws in theories such as relativity, the big bang, and plate tectonics.[11]
- Noah's Ark Zoo Farm - a zoo near Bristol, UK, that incorporates its belief in Creationism in its educational material about animals.
- Parapsychological Association - founded in 1957, the organization's purpose was "to advance parapsychology as a science, to disseminate knowledge of the field, and to integrate the findings with those of other branches of science."
- Study Group of German Scientists for the Preservation of Pure Science - An organization formed by Paul Weyland in 1920, for the purpose of discrediting Einstein's theory of relativity.[12]
Astroturfing
Astroturfing refers to a political group being deceptive about its funding and ownership, and as a subcategory of this list, it also must include opposition to generally accepted scientific consensus and/or promotion of fringe science as a habitual activity.
- Center for Indoor Air Research, tobacco industry front group producing industry-friendly research on indoor air quality, disbanded as part of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in 1998.
- Global Energy Balance Network, funded by Coca-Cola and promoting the idea that obesity is due to lifestyle alone, and not excessive calorie consumption.
Groups promoting quackery
Quackery is the promotion of ineffective or fraudulent medical treatments.
- Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, right-wing group promoting AIDS denialism, refuted links between abortion and breast cancer, and other politically motivated pseudomedical theories.
- Australian Vaccination Network, anti-vaccination group.
- Generation Rescue, promoting the incorrect view that autism is caused by environmental factors.
- International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, promoting the idea of chronic Lyme disease.
- Morgellons Research Foundation, promoting a hypothetical new disease, morgellons, generally accepted as a manifestation of delusional parasitosis.
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, originally the Office of Alternative Medicine and subsequently the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, established due to the work of Senator Tom Harkin with a brief to validate alternative medicine. A 2012 review found that $1.3bn had been disbursed in grants, and not one treatment had been validated as a result.[13]
See also
- List of topics characterized as pseudoscience
- Category:Paranormal investigators
References
- ↑ Milena Wazeck (9 January 2014). Einstein's Opponents: The Public Controversy about the Theory of Relativity in the 1920s. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01744-3.
- 1 2 Kaufman, M. H (1998-10-01). "The Edinburgh phrenological debate of 1823 held in the Royal Medical Society". Journal of Neurolinguistics 11 (4): 377–389. doi:10.1016/S0911-6044(98)00025-6.
- ↑ "Flat Earth Society". howstuffworks.com. Retrieved 2009-06-15.
- ↑ David Adam (February 23, 2010). "The Earth is flat? What planet is he on?". The Guardian.
- ↑ Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 10 August 2010, "Distorting Science While Invoking Science", Science Progress
- ↑ Lee, Jennifer 8. (May 28, 2003). "Exxon backs groups that question global warming". The New York Times. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
- ↑ Gillis, Justin (May 1, 2012). "Clouds’ Effect on Climate Change Is Last Bastion for Dissenters". New York Times. Retrieved May 1, 2012.
...the Heartland Institute, the primary American organization pushing climate change skepticism...
- ↑ "Resolution on Appropriate Affirmative Responses to Sexual Orientation Distress and Change Efforts". Retrieved 2015-10-14.
- ↑ Dorio Mark (2005) "Ufology: A Very Short Introduction", Trafford Publishing, ISBN 1-4120-6473-2
- ↑ Mercer, Brandon M. "The UFO Hunters - Scientists at the National Institute for Discovery Science study anomalous phenomena". UFO Evidence. Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ↑ "Natural Philosophy Alliance". (Archived version as of 13 April 2014)
- ↑ Brandon R. Brown (2015). Planck: Driven by Vision, Broken by War. Oxford University Press. pp. 99–. ISBN 978-0-19-021947-5.
- ↑ Mielczarek, E., Engler, B. 2012. Measuring Mythology: Startling Concepts in NCCAM Grants. Skeptical Inquirer 36(1)(January/February):35-43, 2012.
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