PSEUDOSCIENCE
We list below a few qualities of, or symptoms of, pseudoscience.
This is also a catalog of the many things that can cause mistakes and
error in science. The history of science itself provides examples of
some of these, but we hope that we have learned from the mistakes
of our past history. Few pseudosciences exhibit all of these
characteristics.
1. Pseudoscientists have deficient or superficial knowledge and
understanding of well-established science.
2. Their proposals are therefore based on faulty understanding of
very basic and well established principles of physics and
engineering.
3. The inventors may not be at all aware of these flaws in their
reasoning.
4. They feel that physics is unnecessarily complicated because
physicists are 'blind' to simpler explanations.
5. Some complain that physics is "too mathematical" while others
dazzle the innocent with mathematical gymnastics, mistakenly
thinking that mathematics is physics, not understanding that it
is only a modeling tool.
6. They obsessively focus on a narrow problem without grasping
the powerful interconnectedness of physical theory. Therefore
they may not be aware of the broader implications and
consequences of their ideas.
7. They have inordinate confidence in themselves, plus an almost
religious faith that their feelings, intuitions and hunches
provide a reliable guide to scientific truth.
8. Anyone who fails to see their genius is labeled 'blind'. They
love to compare themselves to innovators of the past whose
ideas were initially rejected. "They laughed at Galileo, didn't
they?"
9. Pseudoscientists are angry that their ideas are ignored by the
scientific community. They behave as if scientists should drop
whatever else it is they are doing to investigate speculative
proposals, even though these proposals are not motivated by
established scientific knowledge, and may be scientifically
implausible..
10. Pseudoscientists have over-reliance on personal testimony of
individuals, and other anecdotal evidence.
11. Pseudoscientists have an obsession with anomalous
observations that seem not to fit established science theory.
12. Pseudoscientists often display an attitude of "If it feels right to
me, it must be right."
13. Pseudoscientists feel that "Nothing is a coincidence."
14. Pseudoscientists have an obsession with finding "patterns" in
data. Scientists must be pattern-seekers too, but it's a mistake
to seek significance in patterns of things that have no possible
connection or relation, such as patterns of stars in the sky
(constellations), tea leaves, or ink blots.
15. Pseudoscientists often commit various abuses and misuses of
statistics.
16. Pseudoscientists are motivated by considerations that lie
outside the scope of science, or have already been thoroughly
discredited. Example, the acupuncturists' acceptance of the
reality of specific "energy pathways" in the human body.
Another example: the creationists' view that science must be in
harmony with their particular interpretation of the King James
translation of the Bible.
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