Fringe theory in the context of "Shakespeare authorship question"

The term historical Jesus refers to the life and teachings of Jesus as interpreted through critical historical methods, in contrast to what are traditionally religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived.

Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and the idea that Jesus was a mythical figure has been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory. Scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with only two events supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus: Jesus was baptized and Jesus was crucified.

The Proto-Indo-European homeland was the prehistoric homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), meaning it was the region where the proto-language was spoken before it split into the dialects from which the earliest Indo-European language later evolved.

The most widely accepted proposal about the location of the Proto-Indo-European homeland was called the steppe hypothesis. It puts the archaic, early, and late PIE homeland in the Pontic–Caspian steppe around 4000 BCE. A notable second possibility, which has gained renewed attention during the 2010s and 2020s due to aDNA research, is the Armenian hypothesis, which situates the homeland for archaic PIE ('Indo-Hittite') south of the Caucasus mountains. A third contender is the Anatolian hypothesis, which puts it in Anatolia c. 8000 BCE. Several other explanations have been proposed, including the outdated but historically prominent North European hypothesis, the Neolithic creolisation hypothesis, the Paleolithic continuity paradigm, the Arctic theory, and the "indigenous Aryans" (or "out of India") hypothesis. These are not widely accepted, and are considered to be fringe theories.

A crop circle, crop formation, or corn circle is a pattern created by flattening a crop, usually a cereal. The term was first coined in the early 1980s. Crop circles have been described as all falling "within the range of the sort of thing done in hoaxes" by Taner Edis, professor of physics at Truman State University.

Although obscure natural causes or alien origins of crop circles are suggested by fringe theorists, there is no scientific evidence for such explanations, and all crop circles are consistent with human causation. In 1991, two hoaxers, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, took credit for having created over 200 crop circles throughout England in widely-reported interviews. The number of reports of crop circles increased substantially after interviews with them. In the United Kingdom, reported circles are not distributed randomly across the landscape, but appear near roads, areas of medium to dense population, and cultural heritage monuments, such as Stonehenge or Avebury. They usually appear overnight. Nearly half of all crop circles found in the UK in 2003 were located within a 15 km (9.3 mi) radius of the Avebury stone circles.

Claims that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works traditionally attributed to him were first explicitly made in the 19th century, though supporters of the theory often argue that coded assertions of alternative authorship exist in texts dating back to Shakespeare's lifetime. Typically, they say that the historical Shakespeare was merely a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who, for reasons such as social rank, state security, or gender, could not safely take public credit. Although these claims have attracted much public interest, all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider them to be fringe theories with no hard evidence, and for the most part disregard them except to rebut or disparage the claims.

The basis for these theories can be traced to the 18th century, when, more than 150 years after his death, Shakespeare's status was elevated to that of the greatest writer of all time. Shakespeare's pre-eminence seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life, arousing suspicion that he was not the author of the works attributed to him. At the same time, the influence of biblical higher criticism led some authors to take the view that Shakespeare's works could be the product of the collaborative efforts of many authors. Public debate and a prolific body of literature date from the mid-19th century, and numerous historical figures, including Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe and the Earl of Derby, have since been nominated as the true author.

Strategies for engineered negligible senescence (SENS) is a range of proposed regenerative medical therapies, either planned or currently in development, for the periodic repair of all age-related damage to human tissue. These therapies have the ultimate aim of maintaining a state of negligible senescence in patients and postponing age-associated disease. SENS was first defined by British biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey. While scientists agreed with de Grey that "research into the basic biology of ageing needs and deserves more support", they also viewed de Grey's proposals "to 'engineer' the body to prevent ageing indefinitely" as a fringe theory. De Grey later highlighted similarities and differences of SENS to subsequent categorization systems of the biology of aging, such as the highly influential Hallmarks of Aging published in 2013.

While some biogerontologists support the SENS program, others contend that the ultimate goals of de Grey's programme are too speculative given the current state of technology. The 31-member Research Advisory Board of de Grey's SENS Research Foundation have signed an endorsement of the plausibility of the SENS approach.