{ "model": { "rank": 2849, "code": "thing-q483677", "model_id": "vr.tr.pseudoscience", "name": "pseudoscience", "purpose": "Let an agent help people evaluate scientific claims, explain criteria used by scientists and philosophers, attribute characterisations of specific movements to sources, and protect people from harmful health or financial pseudoscience.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Information and virtual systems", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "INF", "domain": "INF.KNW", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q483677/", "tier": 2, "score": 96, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "magnet motor", "Perendev magnet motor", "anthroposophy", "Denialism of the Brazilian military dictatorship", "pseudolinguistics", "pseudo-linguistics", "pseudohistory", "pseudoastronomy", "pseudopsychology", "pseudoanatomy", "Ayurveda", "pseudoarchaeology", "Geobiology", "pseudoscientific transphobia", "folk history", "parapsychology", "neuro-linguistic programming", "healing knowledge", "pseudomedicine", "Enneagram of Personality", "radiesthesia", "rumpology", "geopathology", "cloudbuster", "Anthroposophical medicine", "Yumeiho", "Midbrain activation", "pseudo-scholarship", "pseudophysics", "pseudoscientific metrology", "Psychic archaeology", "facilitated communication", "extrasensory perception", "physiognomy", "pseudoscientific language comparison", "Aryanism", "anthroposophic architecture", "protochronism", "Ayurvedic medicine", "Maharishi Ayur-Veda" ], "aliasCount": 58, "merged": 58, "knownIn": 96, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q483677", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q483677", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-11T14:03:06Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 1, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q483677", "registryId": "vr.tr.pseudoscience", "name": "pseudoscience", "version": "0.2.0-wave.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "INF.KNW" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q483677/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.pseudoscience", "name": "pseudoscience", "purpose": "Let an agent help people evaluate scientific claims, explain criteria used by scientists and philosophers, attribute characterisations of specific movements to sources, and protect people from harmful health or financial pseudoscience.", "definition": "Beliefs, claims or practices presented as scientific but not compatible with scientific method, such as unfalsifiable claims, perpetual motion devices and health claims without evidence; where to draw the line between science and non-science, the demarcation problem, is debated, and specific characterisations should be attributed to their sources.", "what_it_is_for": "Critical thinking, science literacy and consumer protection.", "affordances": [ "evaluate a claim against scientific evidence", "explain demarcation criteria such as falsifiability", "identify warning signs of pseudoscience", "find reliable evidence reviews" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Claims scientific status", "Lacks rigorous testing", "Resists correction", "Label is sometimes contested" ], "appearance": "Claims in advertising, media and products using scientific-sounding language without supporting evidence.", "visual_identification": [ "Unfalsifiable or untestable claims", "Appeals to secret knowledge or conspiracy", "Emerging science with limited evidence is not automatically pseudoscience" ], "physical_properties": [], "families_and_kinds": [ "perpetual motion and free energy claims", "unsupported health claims", "pseudo-historical and pseudo-linguistic claims", "science denialism", "contested classifications attributed to critics" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "misinformation", "why": "category" }, { "relation": "is contrasted with", "target": "science", "why": "counterpart" }, { "relation": "is evaluated by", "target": "scientific method", "why": "method" }, { "relation": "is related to", "target": "propaganda", "why": "related topic" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [ "Advertising rules on health and product claims", "Medicines regulation", "Consumer protection law" ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Harm from abandoning effective treatment", "Financial loss from fraudulent devices", "Unattributed labelling of belief systems" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "evaluate", "name": "Evaluate", "description": "Checking claims.", "rationale": "Evidence decides.", "layers": [ { "id": "evidence", "name": "Evidence", "description": "Scientific evidence.", "findings": [ { "id": "evidence-finding", "name": "Evidence", "description": "Evidence.", "questions": [ { "text": "What do systematic reviews or scientific bodies say about this claim?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How strong is the evidence?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "signs", "name": "Signs", "description": "Warning signs.", "findings": [ { "id": "signs-finding", "name": "Signs", "description": "Warning signs.", "questions": [ { "text": "Does the claim rely on testimonials, secret mechanisms or refusal of testing?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "What test would settle it?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "philosophy", "name": "Philosophy", "description": "Demarcation.", "rationale": "Criteria are debated.", "layers": [ { "id": "criteria", "name": "Criteria", "description": "Demarcation criteria.", "findings": [ { "id": "criteria-finding", "name": "Criteria", "description": "Demarcation criteria.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do philosophers such as Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos approach demarcation?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "What are the limits of each criterion?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "attribution", "name": "Attribution", "description": "Contested labels.", "findings": [ { "id": "attribution-finding", "name": "Attribution", "description": "Attribution.", "questions": [ { "text": "Who characterises this movement or practice as pseudoscience, and how do its adherents respond?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is the label attributed rather than asserted?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "harm", "name": "Harm", "description": "Protecting people.", "rationale": "Harm prevention.", "layers": [ { "id": "health", "name": "Health", "description": "Health claims.", "findings": [ { "id": "health-finding", "name": "Health", "description": "Health claims.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is someone considering stopping effective treatment for an unproven remedy?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "How should the agent encourage them to talk to a clinician?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "money", "name": "Money", "description": "Fraudulent devices.", "findings": [ { "id": "money-finding", "name": "Money", "description": "Fraudulent products.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is a product such as a free-energy device being sold with impossible claims?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "How can it be reported to consumer or advertising authorities?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "learning", "name": "Learning", "description": "Science literacy.", "rationale": "Skills protect people.", "layers": [ { "id": "teach", "name": "Teach", "description": "Critical thinking.", "findings": [ { "id": "teach-finding", "name": "Teach", "description": "Critical thinking.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which resources teach people to evaluate scientific claims?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How can it be taught respectfully?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "denialism", "name": "Denialism", "description": "Denial of evidence.", "findings": [ { "id": "denialism-finding", "name": "Denialism", "description": "Denialism.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do scholars describe denialism of established historical or scientific facts?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How should the agent respond with evidence?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should specific claims be separate entries?", "How should evidence reviews be linked?", "How should contested labels be attributed?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "discipline or field of knowledge", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a pseudoscience, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent help people evaluate scientific claims, explain criteria used by scientists and philosophers, attribute characterisations of specific movements to sources, and protect people from harmful health or financial pseudoscience.", "characteristics": { "substance": "information", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "read and interpreted" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: magnet motor, Perendev magnet motor, anthroposophy, Denialism of the Brazilian military dictatorship, pseudolinguistics, pseudo-linguistics, pseudohistory, pseudoastronomy, pseudopsychology, pseudoanatomy, Ayurveda, pseudoarchaeology.", "58 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 96 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a pseudoscience, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "content that has to be carried by something else", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "read it and act on what it says" ], "howItIsRecognised": [], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "magnet motor", "Perendev magnet motor", "anthroposophy", "Denialism of the Brazilian military dictatorship", "pseudolinguistics", "pseudo-linguistics", "pseudohistory", "pseudoastronomy", "pseudopsychology", "pseudoanatomy", "Ayurveda", "pseudoarchaeology" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 96 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 58 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one pseudoscience from another, and a pseudoscience from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a pseudoscience, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a pseudoscience, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a pseudoscience is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a pseudoscience, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a pseudoscience, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a pseudoscience is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a pseudoscience sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a pseudoscience, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a pseudoscience, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a pseudoscience is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a pseudoscience from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a pseudoscience, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a pseudoscience, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a pseudoscience is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a pseudoscience passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a pseudoscience between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a pseudoscience, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a pseudoscience, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a pseudoscience is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a pseudoscience, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a pseudoscience is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a pseudoscience, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a pseudoscience, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a pseudoscience is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "content-and-access", "name": "Content, encoding and access", "description": "What a pseudoscience says, how it is encoded and who may read it.", "rationale": "An informational thing carries content that can be copied, versioned and withheld, none of which its physical carrier explains.", "layers": [ { "id": "content-and-encoding", "name": "Content and encoding", "description": "The content itself, its format and its language.", "findings": [ { "id": "content-and-format", "name": "Content, format and language", "description": "What a pseudoscience contains and in what form it is held.", "questions": [ { "id": "content-and-format-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the content of a pseudoscience, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "content-and-format-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the content of a pseudoscience, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "content-and-format-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the content of a pseudoscience is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "access-and-rights", "name": "Access, rights and retention", "description": "Who may read, copy or change it, and for how long it is kept.", "findings": [ { "id": "access-rules", "name": "Access rules and retention", "description": "The permissions attached to a pseudoscience and the period it survives.", "questions": [ { "id": "access-rules-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes access to a pseudoscience, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "access-rules-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about access to a pseudoscience, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "access-rules-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once access to a pseudoscience is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "subject-and-method", "name": "Subject matter and method", "description": "What pseudoscience studies and how it establishes anything.", "rationale": "A field is identified by its questions and its methods, and those are what distinguish it from the fields next to it.", "layers": [ { "id": "subject", "name": "Subject matter", "description": "The questions it takes as its own.", "findings": [ { "id": "subject-record", "name": "Questions and objects of study", "description": "What it is about, stated so a neighbouring field can be told apart.", "questions": [ { "id": "subject-record-q01", "text": "What questions and objects does pseudoscience take as its own?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "subject-record-q02", "text": "Which questions does it share with a neighbouring field, and who claims them?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "method", "name": "Method and evidence", "description": "How claims are established and what counts as evidence.", "findings": [ { "id": "method-record", "name": "Methods and standards of evidence", "description": "The methods used and what they are taken to establish.", "questions": [ { "id": "method-record-q01", "text": "By what methods does pseudoscience establish claims, and what counts as sufficient evidence?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "id": "method-record-q02", "text": "What kind of claim can this field not settle, and where should an agent look instead?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "institutions-and-classification", "name": "Institutions and classification", "description": "Where pseudoscience is practised and how catalogues place it.", "rationale": "The institutional footprint is the evidence that a field exists as a field rather than as a topic.", "layers": [ { "id": "institutions", "name": "Institutional markers", "description": "Societies, journals, degrees and departments.", "findings": [ { "id": "institution-record", "name": "Bodies and venues", "description": "Where the field organises itself.", "questions": [ { "id": "institution-record-q01", "text": "Which societies, journals or degrees mark pseudoscience as an established field?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "id": "institution-record-q02", "text": "What would show that it is emerging or dissolving rather than established?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification", "name": "Classification schemes", "description": "Where library and research classifications put it.", "findings": [ { "id": "classification-record", "name": "Codes and their disagreements", "description": "The classification codes that place it, and where they differ.", "questions": [ { "id": "classification-record-q01", "text": "Which classification schemes place pseudoscience, under what codes?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "classification-record-q02", "text": "Where do those schemes disagree about its scope?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a pseudoscience came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a pseudoscience and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a pseudoscience, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a pseudoscience, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a pseudoscience is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a pseudoscience is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a pseudoscience, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a pseudoscience, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a pseudoscience is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 12, "findings": 14, "questions": 38 } } } }