pseudoscience
Wes McClain
Assignment 1: Knowledge and Methods goals.
10/2/13
Simply put, pseudoscience is fake science, which is often passed as actual science. Sadly, it is often the case to that pseudoscience, is more interesting than factual science to many people. Of course, that depends on ones overall level of interest in science, for the most part. Pseudoscience is often flashier, and seems to be more logical than actual scientific theory. This can be for a number of reasons. However, for the large population of truth seeking scientists, actual science is a sacred and highly interesting passion, that can consume entire lives and cause dedication unsurpassed by few trades. To this day, a war wages on between the two opposing sides and will most likely never cease, due to the nature of scientific theory in general. So what makes a scientific claim a pseudoscientific claim? Pseudoscience is “science” that lacks proof or actual scientific basis (Dictionary.com). But what really makes a “scientific statement” Pseudoscience?
There are a number of warning signs that enable those interested in fact, to label a scientific statement as pseudoscience. In fact there are seven warning signs that are recognized by the scientific community as a good guideline to coming to your own conclusion regarding pseudoscience. These seven are listed in the textbook “Psychology, from inquiry to understanding” by Lillienfield, Lynn, Namy, and Wolf as:
1. Overuse of ad hoc immunizing hypotheses.
2. Exaggerated claims.
3. Absence of connectivity to other research.
4. Lack of review by other scholar’s peer-reviewed replication by independent labs.
5. Lack of self-correction went contrary evidence is published.
6. Meaningless “psychobabble” that uses fancy scientific sounding terms that don’t make sense.
7. Talk of “proof” instead of evidence (Psychology from inquiry to understanding).
These seven guidelines that help label information as pseudoscience, are often tweaked
Assignment 1: Knowledge and Methods goals.
10/2/13
Simply put, pseudoscience is fake science, which is often passed as actual science. Sadly, it is often the case to that pseudoscience, is more interesting than factual science to many people. Of course, that depends on ones overall level of interest in science, for the most part. Pseudoscience is often flashier, and seems to be more logical than actual scientific theory. This can be for a number of reasons. However, for the large population of truth seeking scientists, actual science is a sacred and highly interesting passion, that can consume entire lives and cause dedication unsurpassed by few trades. To this day, a war wages on between the two opposing sides and will most likely never cease, due to the nature of scientific theory in general. So what makes a scientific claim a pseudoscientific claim? Pseudoscience is “science” that lacks proof or actual scientific basis (Dictionary.com). But what really makes a “scientific statement” Pseudoscience?
There are a number of warning signs that enable those interested in fact, to label a scientific statement as pseudoscience. In fact there are seven warning signs that are recognized by the scientific community as a good guideline to coming to your own conclusion regarding pseudoscience. These seven are listed in the textbook “Psychology, from inquiry to understanding” by Lillienfield, Lynn, Namy, and Wolf as:
1. Overuse of ad hoc immunizing hypotheses.
2. Exaggerated claims.
3. Absence of connectivity to other research.
4. Lack of review by other scholar’s peer-reviewed replication by independent labs.
5. Lack of self-correction went contrary evidence is published.
6. Meaningless “psychobabble” that uses fancy scientific sounding terms that don’t make sense.
7. Talk of “proof” instead of evidence (Psychology from inquiry to understanding).
These seven guidelines that help label information as pseudoscience, are often tweaked
Cited: 1. "Pseudo-science." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013. . 2. “Psychology from inquiry to understanding”. Pearson, Copyright 2014, 2011 2009, Pearson education incorporated. 2. "Hypnosis." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013. . 3. "Levitate." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013. .