Here be Dragons

{{title-italics}}
[[File:Anfuorin.png|thumb|right|165px|"''Hic Sunt Dracones''" [[Latin]] for "Here Be Dragons" on the 1504 Hunt–Lenox Globe]]
{{skepnav}}
{{film}}
'''''Here be Dragons''''' is a documentary hosted by [[Brian Dunning]] that exposes [[pseudoscience]] and encourages [[critical thinking]]. The title was chosen since it was a phrase used on old maps and globes to denote that [[dragon]]s were in unexplored places. Brian argues that people still believe in claims as ridiculous as dragons.

Because the film is intended for a large audience, it doesn't go into [[religious]] topics like [[creationism]], but the message of promoting [[rationality]] is still there.

==The actual movie==
Brian Dunning has made the full movie available on [[YouTube]]:

{{#ev:youtube|752V173e31o|500}}

==Red flags==
Red flags are qualities of [[pseudoscience]]s that indicate that they are [[bollocks]].

Many of them already have articles on this wiki.

Some red flags not referenced in this video are shady announcements (e.g., [[scientific journal]] vs. press conference); [[Creationism|claims not fitting into reality]]; trying to give new information; [[Intelligent design|attacking existing, validated ideas]]; [[Magic|inability to test the claim]]; [[Weight loss pills|being too good to be true]]; and/or if the spelling and grammar are bad.

===Appeal to authority===
{{main|Argument from authority}}
Appeal to authority is using authority figures to endorse their products, which include [[Appeal to celebrity|celebrities]], institutions, guys in white lab coats, or [[Ultracrepidarianism|people with PhD's but not in the right field]].

===Ancient wisdom===
{{main|Appeal to ancient wisdom}}
Ancient wisdom is using, as products, medicines and other items that people from ancient civilizations used. The problem with this is that the ancients knew much less than we do now, and what they used was probably inferior.

===Confirmation bias===
{{main|Confirmation bias}}
Confirmation bias is when people remember things that confirm what they believe or want to believe, but forget things that contradict or pose a problem for the belief. This is fairly common in [[Fortune telling|fortune]] [[Cold reading|telling]] and very common with [[psychic|psychics]].

===Correlation equals causation===
{{main|Correlation does not equal causation}}
Or more generally, ''[[Post hoc, ergo propter hoc]]''.

===Red herrings===
{{main|Red herring}}
Red herrings are distractions from the real question posed by critics used to [[Handwave|get away from the legitimate problem with the pseudoscience]].

===Proof by verbosity===
{{main|Gish Gallop}}
[[Argument by assertion|Proof by verbosity]] is the use of [[Red herring|red herrings]]; and a lot of it. It is laying claims on everything using [[big words]] that may or may not be true, but obfuscate the listener.

==="Mystical energy"===
See the subtopic on [[Energy#Pseudo-scientific use of the term|Pseudo-scientific use of the term]] [[energy]].

===Suppression by authorities/conspiracy theory===
{{main|Conspiracy theory}}

==="All natural"===
{{main|Appeal to nature}}
"All natural" is the idea that [[Bullshit|foods with the label all natural are healthier]]. This is not true, and the standards for being all natural are so low that the label is virtually meaningless, not to mention that many things found in nature are deadly.

===Ideological Support===

==Why people believe weird things==
#The unexplained is cool
#Simple answers are seductive
#Inquisitive nature of people
#People lack the tools for complicated responses
#Critical thinking isn't much encouraged by society or our educational system
#Pop culture

[[Category:Films]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience]]

Categories: Films, Pseudoscience