Look out for these key words in scientific claims that make it almost certain that what you are reading about don't describe reality, or has been misunderstood by a science journalist:
* Tachyons.
* Traversable wormholes.
* Anything that could make faster than light communication technologies possible (key point: quantum entanglement cannot be used to send faster than light messages).
* String theory.
* Supersymmetry.
* WIMPs (or even claims that WIMPs are well-motivated).
* Models with sterile dark matter of MeV particle mass or more.
* Claims that dark matter distributions in galaxies usually or typically have an NFW distribution.
* Negative mass or mass-energy.
* Claims that antimatter gravitates differently than matter.
* Claims that the Lambda CDM cosmology model is fully consistent with astronomy observations.
* Claims that understanding CP violation in the Standard Model could explain the baryon asymmetry of the universe (i.e. why matter is so much more common than antimatter).
* Tired light.
* Claims that scientists have created black holes on Earth.
* Perpetual motion machines.
* Claims that any widely used vaccine does more harm than good.
* Claims that vaccines cause autism.
* Homeopathy.
* Claims that autism doesn't have a large genetic component.
* Chem trails.
* Claims that human activity has not caused significant global warming.
* Young Earth creationism.
* Claims that a global flood really happened.
* Intelligent design.
* Gender ideology.
* Intelligent extraterrestrial life on Earth.
* Claims that people in pre-modern societies were less violent than modern societies.
* Claims that genocide didn't happen prior to the modern era.
* An Anatolian origin for the Indo-European languages.
* A South Asian origin for the Indo-European languages.
* A Neolithic origin for the Indo-European languages.
* Technologically advanced civilizations prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (ca. 20,000 years ago).
* The Solutrean Hypothesis.
* Claims that modern humans evolved outside Africa (although modern humans did experience admixture with other hominin species in small amounts outside of Africa).
* Claims that hominins as a clade evolved outside of Africa.
* Claims that ancient artisans were "impossibly advanced."
There are other claims that, while not impossible or more or less definitively disproven should be viewed with great skepticism:
* Explanations for phenomena that rely on new, beyond the Standard Model particles or forces (except gravity).
* Sterile neutrino theories.
* Claims that discrepancies between inclusive and exclusive measurements of something point to new physics.
* Any claim motivated by the muon g-2 anomaly (which does not exist).
* Claims of any baryon number violating process, or any lepton number violating process (other than sphalerons).
* Claims of Lorentz symmetry violations.
* Claims of charged leptons have any properties that differ from each other, other than mass (sometimes called "lepton universality violations").
* Claims that someone has seen dark matter annihilation signatures.
* Claims of CP violation or time-symmetry violation that don't involve W boson mediated phenomena.
* Claims of CPT symmetry violation.
3 comments:
My thoughts:
* Homeopathy.
Too broad, much is fake or placebo, but not all.
Ancient Chinese medicine -> malaria cured via wormwood distilled cold
* Claims that a global flood really happened.
Nuance, post-ice age melt sea rise 130m
* An Anatolian origin for the Indo-European languages.
The entire Pontic region was a trade network, IE was a trade lingo
* Technologically advanced civilizations prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (ca. 20ka).
Deep sea fishing boats & fish hooks SEAsia 21ka
* Claims that modern humans evolved outside Africa (although modern humans did experience admixture with other hominin species in small amounts outside of Africa).
East-West route Morocco < > Caspian, North-South route Israel < > So. Africa, so not just 1 continent.
* Claims that hominins as a clade evolved outside of Africa.
I'd consider Miocene ape danuvius a primitive hominin, Bavaria 11ma, and that during the 6ma MSC the Black Sea region was a refugium, and possibly continued onto H georgicus at Dmanisi 1.8ma. (speculation)
https://www.facebook.com/share/1FtoVmfYRN/
Interesting story of how malaria cure was rediscovered
* Claims that modern humans evolved outside Africa (although modern humans did experience admixture with other hominin species in small amounts outside of Africa).
The Yunxian skulls (Yunxian 1, 2, 3) from China, dating to about a million years ago, challenge the traditional "Out of Africa" narrative by suggesting that significant steps in human evolution, like the emergence of large-brained hominins closely related to Denisovans and Neanderthals, might have happened in Asia, not just Africa. Reclassified by some as Homo longi (Dragon Man), these fossils suggest an earlier, more complex branching of human lineages across Eurasia, pushing back timelines and highlighting Asia's crucial role, potentially indicating that the common ancestor of modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans might have originated outside Africa, possibly in Western Asia.
Key Points about the Yunxian Fossils & "Out of Africa"
Challenging Africa-Centric View: The fossils suggest large-brained humans diversified in Eurasia much earlier than previously thought, complicating the idea that Homo sapiens evolved solely in Africa and then migrated out.
Homo longi Connection: Yunxian 2, in particular, is now linked to Homo longi, a lineage closely related to Denisovans, suggesting these groups diverged earlier and spread across Asia.
Origin of "Ancestor X": The Yunxian findings support theories that the deeper human ancestor (Ancestor X) of H. sapiens, Denisovans, and Neanderthals might have emerged in Western Asia (like the Middle East) rather than Africa.
Complex Ancestry: This points to a more tangled evolutionary tree, with multiple human populations coexisting and interacting in Eurasia, not just Africa, over a million years ago.
"Muddle in the Middle": Yunxian helps clarify the confusing fossils from 1 million to 300,000 years ago, showing rapid divergence and diversification outside Africa.
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