Vitamin C Cures the Common Cold
Claim: Vitamin C cures or effectively treats the common cold.
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?
Works physically, independent of belief.
Bio & cult hazard
21.8%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
- 45.9%
- Magic & dogma
- 7.7%
- Rhetorical fog
- 24.2%
- Conspiracy
- 5.3%
- Psychosocial
- 14.3%
Ockham's guillotine
What remains after cutting away the unfalsifiable superstructure.
Scam & grift
12.9%How much it works as a money-extraction funnel.
Fog & Barnum
33.1%Protection from refutation through vagueness and stolen jargon.
Energy, frequency, vibration, quantum alignment, natural harmony, ancient wisdom, holistic balance…
- Barnum effect21.4%
- Motte-and-bailey21.4%
- Stolen jargon5.4%
Guru roulette
18.6%Does the result depend on who performs it?
Repeatability between operators: 81.4%
- Special gift needed8.4%
- Contradicting experts7.6%
- "Skeptics block it"2.6%
Fossil & dogma clock
83.6%Does the field correct its errors, or is it frozen?
- 🚀Active science17.3%
- 🩹Degenerative patching48.7%
- 🎭Marketing chameleon24.4%
- 🦴Fossil in amber9.6%
Tin-foil hat reactor
5.4%How big a global conspiracy the claim needs.
Paranoia level 1/5 · No conspiracy needed