Acupuncture
Claim: Acupuncture treats various physical and mental health conditions by stimulating specific body points with thin needles to regulate the flow of vital energy.
Bullshit Meter
Pure ontological fiction, excluding real psychological effects.
Physics vs. mind loop
Does it work in the physical world, or only through belief and behaviour?
Neither physically real nor a meaningful psychological loop.
Bio & cult hazard
28.3%Risk of abandoning medicine and of getting trapped in a closed group.
Topological fingerprint
The structural profile of the claim on five axes.
- Empirical rigor
- 7.7%
- Magic & dogma
- 66.5%
- Rhetorical fog
- 26.9%
- Conspiracy
- 1.5%
- Psychosocial
- 16.8%
Ockham's guillotine
What remains after cutting away the unfalsifiable superstructure.
Scam & grift
18.5%How much it works as a money-extraction funnel.
Fog & Barnum
56.8%Protection from refutation through vagueness and stolen jargon.
Energy, frequency, vibration, quantum alignment, natural harmony, ancient wisdom, holistic balance…
- Barnum effect7.4%
- Motte-and-bailey28.0%
- Stolen jargon61.6%
Guru roulette
81.9%Does the result depend on who performs it?
Repeatability between operators: 18.1%
- Special gift needed36.2%
- Contradicting experts44.1%
- "Skeptics block it"1.6%
Fossil & dogma clock
94.8%Does the field correct its errors, or is it frozen?
- 🚀Active science4.2%
- 🩹Degenerative patching23.9%
- 🎭Marketing chameleon1.2%
- 🦴Fossil in amber70.7%
Tin-foil hat reactor
1.7%How big a global conspiracy the claim needs.
Paranoia level 1/5 · No conspiracy needed