Pseudoscience

 ( 18th-century Neologisms ) 

Pseudoscience consists of statements, , or practices that claim to be both Science and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to Peer review; absence of systematic practices when developing Hypothesis; 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 there is widespread agreement "that creationism, astrology, homeopathy, Kirlian photography, dowsing, ufology, ancient astronaut theory, , Velikovskian catastrophism, and climate change denialism are pseudosciences." There are implications for health care, the use of Expert witness, 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, particularly by its purveyors, because it suggests something is being presented as science inaccurately or even deceptively. Therefore, practitioners and advocates of pseudoscience frequently dispute the characterization.

An earlier use of the term was in 1843 by the French physiologist François Magendie, that refers to phrenology as " a pseudo-science of the present day".

:Dismissing the separate issue of intentional fraudsuch as the Fox sisters' "rappings" in the 1850sthe pejorative label pseudoscience distinguishes the scientific us, at one extreme, from the pseudo-scientific them, at the other, and asserts that our beliefs, practices, theories, etc., by contrast with that of the others, are scientific. There are four criteria:
     (a) the 'pseudoscientific' group asserts that its beliefs, practices, theories, etc., are scientific;
     (b) the pseudoscientific group claims that its allegedly established facts are justified true beliefs;
     (c) the pseudoscientific group asserts that its established facts have been justified by genuine, rigorous, scientific method; and
     (d) this assertion is false or deceptive: "it is not simply that subsequent evidence overturns established conclusions, but rather that the conclusions were never warranted in the first place"

From time to time, however, the usage of the word occurred in a more formal, technical manner in response to a perceived threat to individual and institutional security in a social and cultural setting.

Another example which shows the distinct need for a claim to be falsifiable was stated in Carl Sagan's publication The Demon-Haunted World when he discusses an invisible dragon that he has in his garage. The point is made that there is no physical test to refute the claim of the presence of this dragon. Whatever test one thinks can be devised, there is a reason why it does not apply to the invisible dragon, so one can never prove that the initial claim is wrong. Sagan concludes; "Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all?". He states that "your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true", once again explaining that even if such a claim were true, it would be outside the realm of science.

• Originality: The tests and research done must present something new to the scientific community.
• Detachment: The scientists' reasons for practicing this science must be simply for the expansion of their knowledge. The scientists should not have personal reasons to expect certain results.
• Universality: No person should be able to more easily obtain the information of a test than another person. Social class, religion, ethnicity, or any other personal factors should not be factors in someone's ability to receive or perform a type of science.
• Skepticism: Scientific facts must not be based on faith. One should always question every case and argument and constantly check for errors or invalid claims.
• Public accessibility: Any scientific knowledge one obtains should be made available to everyone. The results of any research should be published and shared with the scientific community.
  John L. Casti (1990). 9780380711659, Avon Books. . ISBN 9780380711659

Distinguishing between proper science and pseudoscience is sometimes difficult.Kåre Letrud, "The Gordian Knot of Demarcation: Tying Up Some Loose Ends" International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 32 (1):3–11 (2019) One proposal for demarcation between the two is the falsification criterion, attributed most notably to the philosopher Karl Popper.

The vast diversity in pseudosciences further complicates the history of science. Some modern pseudosciences, such as astrology and acupuncture, originated before the scientific era. Others developed as part of an ideology, such as Lysenkoism, or as a response to perceived threats to an ideology. Examples of this ideological process are creation science and intelligent design, which were developed in response to the scientific theory of evolution.

• Assertion of scientific claims that are vague rather than precise, and that lack specific measurements.
• Assertion of a claim with little or no explanatory power.
• Failure to make use of operational definitions (i.e., publicly accessible definitions of the variables, terms, or objects of interest so that persons other than the definer can measure or test them independently) (See also: Reproducibility).
• Failure to make reasonable use of the principle of parsimony, i.e., failing to seek an explanation that requires the fewest possible additional assumptions when multiple viable explanations are possible ( See: Occam's razor).
• Lack of boundary conditions: Most well-supported scientific theories possess well-articulated limitations under which the predicted phenomena do and do not apply.
• Lack of effective controls in experimental design, such as the use of placebos and double-blinding.
• Lack of understanding of basic and established principles of physics and engineering.

• Assertions that do not allow the logical possibility that they can be shown to be false by observation or physical experiment (See also: Falsifiability).
• Assertion of claims that a theory predicts something that it has not been shown to predict. Scientific claims that do not confer any predictive power are considered at best "conjectures", or at worst "pseudoscience" (e.g., ignoratio elenchi). Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy Vol. 3, "Fallacies" 174 ff, esp. section on "Ignoratio elenchi"
• Assertion that claims which have not been proven false must therefore be true, and vice versa ( See: Argument from ignorance). Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy Vol 3, "Fallacies" 174 ff esp. 177–178
• Over-reliance on testimonial, anecdotal evidence, or personal experience: This evidence may be useful for the context of discovery (i.e., hypothesis generation), but should not be used in the context of justification (e.g., statistical hypothesis testing).
• Use of and as if they were fact, or basing evidence on readings of such texts.
• Use of concepts and scenarios from science fiction as if they were fact. This technique appeals to the familiarity that many people already have with science fiction tropes through the popular media.
• Presentation of data that seems to support claims while suppressing or refusing to consider data that conflict with those claims. This is an example of selection bias or cherry picking, a distortion of evidence or data that arises from the way that the data are collected. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect.
• Repeating excessive or untested claims that have been previously published elsewhere, and promoting those claims as if they were facts; an accumulation of such uncritical secondary reports, which do not otherwise contribute their own empirical investigation, is called the Woozle effect.
  Eileen Gambrill (2012). 9780470904381, John Wiley & Sons. . ISBN 9780470904381
• Reversed burden of proof: science places the burden of proof on those making a claim, not on the critic. "Pseudoscientific" arguments may neglect this principle and demand that demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that a claim (e.g., an assertion regarding the efficacy of a novel therapeutic technique) is false. It is essentially impossible to prove a universal negative, so this tactic incorrectly places the burden of proof on the skeptic rather than on the claimant.Lilienfeld SO (2004). Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology Guildford Press
• Appeals to holism as opposed to reductionism to dismiss negative findings: proponents of pseudoscientific claims, especially in organic medicine, alternative medicine, naturopathy and mental health, often resort to the "mantra of holism" .

• Evasion of peer review before publicizing results (termed "science by press conference"): Some proponents of ideas that contradict accepted scientific theories avoid subjecting their ideas to peer review, sometimes on the grounds that peer review is biased towards established paradigms, and sometimes on the grounds that assertions cannot be evaluated adequately using standard scientific methods. By remaining insulated from the peer review process, these proponents forgo the opportunity of corrective feedback from informed colleagues.
• Some agencies, institutions, and publications that fund scientific research require authors to share data so others can evaluate a paper independently. Failure to provide adequate information for other researchers to reproduce the claims contributes to a lack of openness.
• Appealing to the need for secrecy or proprietary knowledge when an independent review of data or methodology is requested.
• Substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all viewpoints is not encouraged.

• Failure to progress towards additional evidence of its claims. Terence Hines has identified astrology as a subject that has changed very little in the past two millennia.
  Terence Hines (1988). 9780879754198, Prometheus Books. . ISBN 9780879754198
• Lack of self-correction: scientific research programmes make mistakes, but they tend to reduce these errors over time. By contrast, ideas may be regarded as pseudoscientific because they have remained unaltered despite contradictory evidence. The work Scientists Confront Velikovsky (1976) Cornell University, also delves into these features in some detail, as does the work of Thomas Kuhn, e.g., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) which also discusses some of the items on the list of characteristics of pseudoscience.
• Statistical significance of supporting experimental results does not improve over time and are usually close to the cutoff for statistical significance. Normally, experimental techniques improve or the experiments are repeated, and this gives ever stronger evidence. If statistical significance does not improve, this typically shows the experiments have just been repeated until a success occurs due to chance variations.

• Tight social groups and authoritarian personality, suppression of dissent and groupthink can enhance the adoption of beliefs that have no rational basis. In attempting to confirm their beliefs, the group tends to identify their critics as enemies.
• Assertion of a conspiracy on the part of the mainstream scientific community, government, or educational facilities to suppress pseudoscientific information. People who make these accusations often compare themselves to Galileo Galilei and his persecution by the Roman Catholic Church; this comparison is commonly known as the Galileo gambit.
• Attacking the motives, character, morality, or competence of critics, rather than their arguments (see ad hominem)

• Creating scientific-sounding terms to persuade non-experts to believe statements that may be false or meaningless: for example, a long-standing hoax refers to water by the rarely used formal name "dihydrogen monoxide" and describes it as the main constituent in most solutions to show how easily the general public can be misled.
• Using established terms in idiosyncratic ways, thereby demonstrating unfamiliarity with mainstream work in the discipline.

Psychology has much to discuss about pseudoscience thinking, as it is the illusory perceptions of causality and effectiveness of numerous individuals that needs to be illuminated. Research suggests that illusionary thinking happens in most people when exposed to certain circumstances such as reading a book, an advertisement or the testimony of others are the basis of pseudoscience beliefs. It is assumed that illusions are not unusual, and given the right conditions, illusions are able to occur systematically even in normal emotional situations. One of the things pseudoscience believers quibble most about is that academic science usually treats them as fools. Minimizing these illusions in the real world is not simple. To this aim, designing evidence-based educational programs can be effective to help people identify and reduce their own illusions.

Laudan maintained that the demarcation between science and non-science was a pseudo-problem, preferring to focus on the more general distinction between reliable and unreliable knowledge.
 (1983). 9789027715333, D. Reidel. ISBN 9789027715333