trentmkelly/rationalwiki huggingface dataset:
National Health Federation

{{altmed}}
The '''National Health Federation''' is an advocacy group in the [[United States]] founded in 1955. They are based in Monrovia, [[California]] and have in recent years gone international with the focus and scope of their activism, in part over opposition to attempts to harmonize [[vitamin]] and [[herbal supplement]] regulations around the world, which they see as a threat to "[[health freedom]]". Their leadership is a "who's who" of [[alternative medicine]] practitioners and advocates, many of whom have had legal brushes with the [[Food and Drug Administration]] and state regulatory agencies.

In general the NHF lobbies for removal of restrictions on any and all alternative health treatments, including those deemed outright [[quackery]].  They do this in the name of promoting consumer freedom of choice and open competition in the market. They have also taken up the causes of [[vaccine hysteria]], opposition to [[water fluoridation]] (a priority for them from 1974-1980 when [[John Yiamouyiannis]] was with the NHF), and promotion of [[Laetrile]] as a [[cancer]] treatment (a priority for them circa 1978-1982).  According to their website, they spearheaded the legal recognition of [[chiropractic]] in the 1960s and [[acupuncture]] in the 1980s.

Their website sells a number of books by authors like [[Kevin Trudeau]] promoting alternative health remedies. Past leadership includes Maureen Kennedy Salaman (also of [[Liberty Lobby]]), Dr. Robert Atkins (of [[low-carb diet]] fame), and Dr. Jonathan Wright (who also founded a tongue-in-cheek group called the American Quack Association).

==References==
*[http://www.quackwatch.com/04ConsumerEducation/Nonrecorg/nhf.html Quackwatch article]
*[http://www.thenhf.com/ their official website]
{{stub|alternative medicine}}

[[Category:Alternative medicine]]
[[Category:Alternative medicine promoters]]
[[Category:California]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience promoting organizations]]

Categories: Alternative medicine, Alternative medicine promoters, California, Pseudoscience promoting organizations
National Labor Federation

{{cult}}{{Communism}}
The '''National Labor Federation''' (NATLFED) is an American [[Communism|Communist]] group (accused of, but which ardently denies, being a [[cult]]<ref>http://www.religionnewsblog.com/00001878</ref>) started in 1972 and led by Gino Perente (who is now deceased). Contrary to what its name may suggest, NATLFED is ''not'' a [[labor union]]. NATLFED continues to exist but it is unknown to what degree or how their leadership structure has changed considering their leader is no longer around and they don't appear to have a website.

==Operations==
NATLFED operated by setting up [[front group]]s with names like the "Eastern Farm Workers Association" posing as legitimate charities helping the poor in the area, who would set up in rented storefronts, often in towns otherwise unknown for any leftist activity (e.g. Medford, [[Oregon]] and Bellport, [[New York]]), and begin collecting donations to supposedly provide clothing, food, heating oil, free legal aid, and so on to poor people such as [[Undocumented immigration|immigrant]] farmworkers in the area. NATLFED also set up other front groups such as the "Womens Press Collective" and published several cheaply-printed newspapers and magazines pretending to be affiliated with, or to "commemorate", established leftist groups not associated with NATLFED like the Black Panthers, and distributed these to attract sympathizers with other leftist groups into NATLFED.

These fronts attracted idealistic volunteers, who were then recruited into the National Labor Federation. Recruits were fed a line that armed leftist revolution was imminent in the United States. Those buying it and expressing enthusiasm were told they could get in on the ground floor by joining a secret cadre called the Communist Party (Provisional), and whisked off to NATLFED headquarters in New York where they were forced to cut off contact with their families, live communally with other NATLFED cadre, listen to taped speeches by Gino Perente, and work 16-18 hours a day raising money for NATLFED for no pay.

==Controversy==
Controversy over the group erupted in the late 1980s when it was learned that NATLFED had taken over production of ''Invest Yourself'', a formerly mainstream periodical guidebook of volunteer opportunities, and stacked the content with NATLFED front groups. NATLFED hit the news again in 1996 when New York City police raided NATLFED headquarters and found a large cache of automatic rifles. Ex-members of the cult said in response to the media reports that the weapons were used as props to impress new recruits and convince them armed revolution was imminent.

==See also==
*[[Communism]]
*[[Lyndon LaRouche]], with whom NATLFED cooperated in the 1970s<ref>[https://politicalresearch.org/1977/11/19/nclc-and-its-extended-political-community NCLC and Its Extended Political 'Community'] by Harvey Kahn (November 19, 1977) ''Political Research Associates''.</ref>
*[[Moonbat]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Cults]]

Categories: Communism, Cults
National Report

{{sources needed}}{{Internet}}

'''National Report''' is a troll "news" site. Unlike satirical sites such as [[The Onion]] or The Daily Mash, which offer sarcastic commentary on world events, the National Report is a bit more sinister: it deliberately attempts to deceive and spark outrage (and generate [[clickbait]] traffic) with joke-free [[Truthiness|fake news]] stories that report on outrageous or alarming fictional events as if they were true. (Sample headline: [http://nationalreport.net/texas-town-quarantined-family-five-test-positive-ebola-virus/ Texas Town Quarantined After Family Of Five Test Positive For The Ebola Virus].)

National Report specializes in exploiting [[Poe's Law]] by pandering to [[crank]]y (usually [[social conservative]]) [[American]] beliefs: the site has the names and photos of [[Ted Cruz]] and [[Sarah Palin]] prominently across its masthead, despite neither having any connection to the site. Stories are quite often picked up by others and treated either as fact or as examples of [[wingnut]]tery, according to their disposition.

During the [[Fiscal cliff|government shutdown]] in October 2013, [[Fox News]] reporter Anna Kooiman repeated as fact a National Report spoof about [[President Obama]] spending his own money to keep a museum of [[Muslim]] culture open (even though it is privately funded and therefore was unaffected by the shutdown). She apologized on [[Twitter]] the following day after many other sources spotted the mistake and comedians made fun of Fox. 

==See also==
*[[National Review]]
*[[The Onion]]

==External links==
*[http://nationalreport.net National Report]
*[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Report Their greatest hits so far.]

{{stub|internet}}
[[Category:Parodists]]
[[Category:Trolls]]

Categories: Parodists, Trolls
National Security Act

{{hatnote|Were you looking for the [[National Security Agency|American three-letter agency]]?}}
{{law}}
The '''National Security Act''' (국가보안법) is a [[South Korea]]n law enforced since 1948 with the avowed purpose "''to secure the security of the State and the subsistence and freedom of nationals, by regulating any anticipated activities compromising the safety of the State.''" The law is an undemocratic law that remains in the Republic of Korea even after [[Democracy|democratization]] in 1987, albeit now with a clause limiting its scope, which was probably enacted by conservative lawmakers to prevent the Constitutional Court immediately declaring it unconstitutional (which it is).

Although the law officially punishes political acts that harm social security, there are many criticisms abroad that it secretly restricts the [[Freedom of speech|freedom of criticism]] of politicians and political groups.

The [[U.N.]] and [[Amnesty International]] want the law to be abolished or revised to be consistent with international [[human rights]] law, but the South Korean government refuses to do so because of the threat of [[North Korea]].

[[Conservatives]] in South Korea insist on [[freedom of speech]] because of opposition to the 'anti-discrimination law', but ironically they oppose the repeal of the law and are calling for the abolition of the law to be considered [[Red-baiting|communist and far-left.]]{{efn|In fact, [[communist]] parties are illegal in South Korea. It is the influence of the National Security Law.}}

Back in the 2000s, Korea's liberals tried to repeal the law on the grounds of Freedom of Speech, but now they are not actively speaking out [[McCarthyism|because of fear of being called communists]]. The former liberal [[Moon Jae-in]] government also did not attempt to repeal the law.

==See also==
*[[USA PATRIOT Act]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

[[Category:South Korean politics]]
[[Category:South Korean law]]
[[Category:Authoritarianism]]

Categories: South Korean politics, South Korean law, Authoritarianism
National UFO Reporting Center

{{sources needed}}
{{ufology}}
The '''National UFO Reporting Center''' (NUFORC) is a website that catalogues as many [[Unidentified Flying Object|UFO]] sightings as possible. The organisation was founded in 1974 and initially offered a telephone hotline for reporting UFOs, later adding a fax line and web server.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20020812103605/http://www.nuforc.org/General.html The National UFO Reporting Center] ''NUFORC''.</ref> They have over 70,000{{fact}} written statements describing the events, many recent, and some that date from the early 1900's. It catalogues roughly 500-1,000 UFO new sightings a month{{fact}}. Its current director, Peter Davenport, appears weekly on [[Coast to Coast AM]], and monthly on the [[Jeff Rense]] radio show. Peter Davenport also commonly makes an appearance on the Spaced Out Radio show (hosted by the "Paranormal Attorney" Michael W. Hall). Because of recent sightings of the planet Venus, and the Space X "Starlink" satellites, the National UFO Reporting center has a backlog of reports.<ref>[http://www.nuforc.org/ NUFORC Main Page] ''NUFORC MAIN PAGE'' .</ref>

NUFORC is a different organization from [[MUFON]] (Mutual UFO Network), and carries a separate database of sightings.

==External links==
*{{wpa|National UFO Reporting Center}}

{{stub|ufology}}
[[Category:Ufology]]
[[Category:Websites]]

Categories: Ufology, Websites
National security

{{politics}}
{{cquote|National security is the chief cause of national insecurity.|||Hagbard Celine, [[Discordianism|''Illuminatus!'']]}}
'''National security''' is what you call an issue when you want to be seen as heroic for refusing to compromise on it. In the past, national security was usually limited to fighting to protect your borders; these days, everything can all be considered national security issues.<ref>See energy security, border security, and even food security.  Some have even called for language security!</ref>

In fact, a whole school of international relations has sprung up to try to convince people that we shouldn't label things national security issues.<ref>Seriously.  It's the "Copenhagen" or "securitization" school.</ref>

With that said, there is usually something to the idea that each nation has a need for some kind of security.  What it is that needs to be secured for that nation is usually considered a given by each individual, but actually hotly debated.

==In the United States==
In the [[United States]], national security policy has been an inchoate mess for quite a while.  After the [[Cold War]] ended, and the big bad was gone, some in the US wanted to preserve US supremacy, while others were constantly looking for the next fight to pick. After [[9/11]], most of the country agreed that [[terrorism]] was the biggest threat to national security, despite how little damage terrorists were actually able to do to the US [[state]]. The current policy, however, reflects that concern, and so includes killing terrorists and promoting democracy.{{efn|The policy says the US is doing that, anyway.  We can all judge that on our own.}}

While the United States still has no official definition of national security more than twelve years after the [[Afghanistan War|invasion of Afghanistan]], a generally reliable definition (on the part of the people who think it's an overriding concern) derivable from the circumstances in which the mantra is invoked is that national security is the degree to which the United States can convince itself that it can unilaterally engineer a specific outcome on a specific issue anywhere in the world. Any event that allows a non-US decision maker to access an outcome that it wants but the United States does not want, is considered to harm this national security.

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Culture]]
[[Category:Government]]

Categories: Culture, Government
Natural

{{fork}}
*[[Appeal to nature]] — a [[logical fallacy]]
*[[Philosophical naturalism]] — the doctrine that the natural world is all there is, in opposition to supernaturalism
*[[Methodological naturalism]] — the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the [[scientific method]]
*[[NaturalNews]] — a [[crank]] [[alternative medicine]] website
*[[Natural selection]] — a primary mechanism behind [[evolution]]
*[[Natural philosophy]] — a phrase that was used to describe the work of early [[scientists]], such as [[Isaac Newton]]
*[[Natural childbirth]] — childbirth that is not medically assisted
*[[Natural gas]]
*[[Natural horsemanship]]
*[[Natural law]] — the concept that incontrovertible [[law]]s of nature exist and should inform any of the laws written by [[government]]s and societies
*[[Natural Law Party]] — a political party created by the [[Transcendental Meditation]] movement
*[[Naturalistic fallacy]] — inferring how the world ought to be from the way it is or was in the past
*[[Nature woo]] — the irrational belief in the goodness of all things deemed "natural", with the implicit or explicit fallacy of "appeal to nature"
*[[Supernatural]]
Natural Creation or Natural Selection?: A Complete New Theory of Evolution

{{crenav}}{{title-italics}}
'''''Natural Creation or Natural Selection?: A Complete New Theory of Evolution''''' is a [[theistic evolution]] book written by John Davidson and published by Element Books in 1992.

==Overview==

Davidson spent time with an Indian mystic where he studied the Hindu Sanskrit writings and developed a theory of [[spiritual evolution]]. He writes that from his studies in [[mysticism]] the physical universe is a projection of a supreme consciousness. In the book he claims that neo-Darwinian [[evolution]] does not offer a satisfactory concept of the origin and development of [[species]], nor fits the evidence from the [[fossil record]]. He writes that [[Darwinism]] is a [[materialist]]ic theory which misses the essence of life, a universal consciousness ([[life force]]) which he describes as a "formative mind" and equates with the Eastern religious concepts of [[God]]. According to Davidson evolution is not random and the formative mind is the driving force for evolution and all [[life]] in the universe.<ref>[http://www.johndavidson.org/NaturalSelectionReviews.html Natural Creation or Natural Selection? by John Davidson]</ref>

What Davidson actually advocates is a form of [[panentheistic]] evolution, where all matter exists in God (universal consciousness). He writes that life on earth is driven by complex cycles called [[yuga]]s which are described in the [[Hindu]] Sanskrit writings such as the Puranas. Davidson also supports [[non-Darwinian evolution]] such as the theories of [[Rupert Sheldrake]] and claims that [[telepathy]] and [[subtle energy]] fields are influencing biological evolution. Similar to other [[new age]] writers Davidson also writes that [[consciousness]] influences DNA.

==Punctuated equilibrium==

The book quotes [[Stephen J. Gould]] and [[Niles Eldredge]] many times, and claims that the "formative mind" is the cause of [[punctuated equilibrium]] and geologically rapid events of evolutionary change. Davidson writes that there is no gradualism in the fossil record and that mass extinctions have occured due to karma and the formative mind.

==Creationism==

The book uses many [[creationist]] arguments such as claiming no [[missing link]]s have been found and that [[mutation]]s are all harmful. Davidson accepts a form of [[common descent]] of species which he claims is driven by the "formative mind" a supreme consciousness. However he claims similarly to [[Hindu creationist]]s that man has not evolved at all. According to Davidson humans have been on earth for billions of years. Similarly to [[Michael Cremo]] he lists ancient human artifacts which he claims are billions of years old and have been suppressed by the "[[evolutionist]]s". In Chapter 10 "Man the fossil" Davison rejects descent for humans and writes that nothing in the fossil record links man with apes.

==References==
{{reflist}}
{{crebox}}

[[Category:Religious books]]
[[Category:Theistic evolution]]

Categories: Religious books, Theistic evolution
Natural philosophy

{{philosophy}}
{{Sources needed}}
'''Natural philosophy''' is a term nobody uses any more. Its use roughly coincides with The [[Enlightenment]], the period between the mid-17<sup>th</sup> and early-18<sup>th</sup> centuries, when the foundations of what is now known as [[science]] were laid by people such as [[Isaac Newton]], [[René Descartes]], [[Robert Hooke]] and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek.

In natural philosophy, there is an emphasis on [[deduction]] as a means of obtaining knowledge, in contrast to the modern emphasis on [[induction]].

Probably the most famous use of the term is in the title of Newton's seminal work ''Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica'' (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy).

{{stub|science}}
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Science]]

Categories: Philosophy, Science
Naturalism

{{fork}}
*[[Philosophical naturalism]] - Disbelief in the supernatural.
*[[Methodological naturalism]] - Leaving supernatural claims out of science.
*Movements within {{wpl|naturalism (literature)|literature}} and {{wpl|naturalism (theatre)|theatre}} that emphasise natural and realistic situations over surreal or supernatural ones. The rise of this is attributed to the advances in naturalistic science in the 19th Century and manifests quite clearly in opera, where prior to the naturalism movement the plots and stories would revolve around [[gods]], [[myth]]s and [[legend]]s. Following the naturalism movement, the plots would then began to focus on real people in grittier situations, with a greater focus on character.
Nature

{{fork}}
*[[Appeal to nature]]
*[[Nature (journal)]]
*[[Nature woo]]
*[[Philosophical naturalism]]
*[[Methodological naturalism]]
*[[Natural law|Natural Law]]
*Nature (whatever that is, [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|M. Rousseau]]?)
*''Nature Bats Last'' — the blog of [[Guy McPherson]]
*A [[reification]] of nature as a distinct, conscious being
Nature (journal)

[[File:Nature cover, November 4, 1869.jpg|thumb|right|165px|In the beginning…]]
{{sciencenav}}{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Nature'' (journal)}}
'''''Nature''''' is a premier [[United Kingdom|British]]<ref group=note>British-based but owned by Anglo-German publisher SpringerNature</ref> [[peer-review]]ed [[scientific journal]], first published in 1869. Along with ''Science'', the flagship journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (or AAAS for short), it is one of the top two most prestigious journals in the world, and the most cited — having the highest [[impact factor]] of all journals.

==Content==
Unlike most journals, which are highly specialised, ''Nature'' is one of the few that still [[Scientific publication|publishes]] a wide range of science from all valid disciplines. The rate that papers are accepted into ''Nature'' is about 1 out of every 10 submissions — and papers are only submitted if the [[author]]s think that they even have a chance of being published.

==Notable papers==
In 1974, ''Nature'' published the results of experiments performed by physicists Targ and Puthoff, who studied [[Uri Geller]] and were convinced his [[psychic]] powers were real.<ref>[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v251/n5476/abs/251602a0.html Information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding], ''Nature'', volume 251, pp. 602-607</ref> The editors preceded the article with their own disclaimer, something the magazine hardly ever does.

In the 1980s, ''Nature'' published work by Jacques Benveniste that appeared to show that [[homeopathy]] worked. As the paper was well-written and passed [[peer review]] there was no objective reason to reject the paper; thus putting away [[conspiracy theories]] that say [[alternative medicine]] is completely shunned by mainstream scientific groups. The paper was published on the grounds that the [[experiment]]s were being repeated under the supervision of a team from ''Nature'', which included illusionist [[James Randi]] who would be there to spot any sleight of hand — famously taping samples to the ceiling to enhance the [[Randomized controlled trial|randomisation and blinding process]]. Under these conditions, the experiment turned out to be negative and due entirely to the [[bias]] of a single individual in the lab (although not outright fraud). The editor of ''Nature'' at the time, John Maddox, was nevertheless disappointed in not being able to publish completely Earth-shattering results, stating "I'm sorry we didn't find something more interesting."

==See also==
* [[Elsevier]]
* ''[[The BMJ]]''

==External links==
*[http://www.nature.com/ Nature.com]
*[http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1199 PhD Comics &mdash; ''Science'' vs ''Nature'']
==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}
==References==
{{reflist}}

[[category:Science]]
[[Category:Journals]]

Categories: Science, Journals