Concept
Pseudoscience
Overview
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be scientific or factual but are inherently incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited. It is not the same as junk science.
The demarcation between science and pseudoscience has scientific, philosophical, and political implications. Philosophers debate the nature of science and the general criteria for drawing the line between scientific theories and pseudoscientific beliefs, but according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "creationism, astrology, homeopathy, Kirlian photography, dowsing, ufology, ancient astronaut theory, Holocaust denialism, Velikovskian catastrophism, and climate change denialism are pseudosciences." There are implications for health care, the use of expert testimony, and weighing environmental policies. Recent empirical research has shown that individuals who indulge in pseudoscientific beliefs generally show lower evidential criteria, meaning they often require significantly less evidence before coming to conclusions. This can be coined as a 'jump-to-conclusions' bias that can increase the spread of pseudoscientific beliefs. Addressing pseudoscience is part of science education and developing scientific literacy.
Pseudoscience can have dangerous effects. For example, pseudoscientific anti-vaccine activism and promotion of homeopathic remedies as alternative disease treatments can result in people forgoing important medical treatments with demonstrable health benefits, leading to ill-health and deaths. Furthermore, people who refuse legitimate medical treatments for contagious diseases may put others at risk. Pseudoscientific theories about racial and ethnic classifications have led to racism and genocide.
The term pseudoscience is often considered pejorative, because it suggests something is being presented as science inaccurately or even deceptively. Therefore, practitioners and advocates of pseudoscience frequently dispute the characterization.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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There are not a law and an exception to that law, the law acting in ninety-nine cases, and the exception in one. There are two laws, each possibly acting in the whole hundred cases, and bringing about a common effect by their conjunct operation. If the force which, being the less conspicuous of the two, is called the _disturbing_ force, prevails sufficiently over the other force in some one case, to constitute that…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
States what Pseudoscience is.
The two kinds of considerations above adduced are a sufficient refutation of the popular error, that speculations on society and government, as resting on merely probable evidence, must be inferior in certainty and scientific accuracy to the conclusions of what are called the exact sciences, and less to be relied on in practice. There are reasons enough why the moral sciences must remain inferior to at least the…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Pseudoscience is.
PROP. I. No positive quality possessed by a false idea is removed by the presence of what is true, in virtue of its being true. Proof.--Falsity consists solely in the privation of knowledge which inadequate ideas involve (II. xxxv.), nor have they any positive quality on account of which they are called false (II. xxxiii.); contrariwise, in so far as they are referred to God, they are true (II. xxxii.). Wherefore…
Benedictus de Spinoza, Ethics
States what Pseudoscience is.
Philosophers who discussed Pseudoscience
- Ferdinand de Saussure
- Mario Bunge
- Francisco J. Ayala
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
- Richard Dawkins
- Imre Lakatos
- Carl Jung
- Michel Foucault
- Victor J. Stenger
- Maarten Boudry
- Camillo Berneri
Related ideas
- Empiricism
- Belief
- Cognition
- History
- Falsifiability
- Ghost
- Philosophy
- History of science
- Ashkenazi Jews
- Intelligent design
- National Science Foundation
- Karl Popper
- Science education
- Metaphysics
- Archaeology
- Scientific theory
- Mario Bunge
- Scientific skepticism
- Holism
- Hypothesis
- Astrology
- Newsweek
- Atlantis
- Oxford English Dictionary
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Communism.