A Consumer s Guide to Pseudoscience

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Malcolm Hunt
5 years ago
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1 A Consumer s Guide to Pseudoscience James S. Trefil Intro to Philosophy Professor Doug Olena

2 But it worries me that a public ill equipped to distinguish between razzle-dazzle and sound speculation is swallowing whole many pseudoscientific notions that strike me as silly at best and as a species of intellectual junk food at worst. p. 491

3 Observations 491 The concept of proof to the ordinary public is distant from any proof that would count as scientific. Unorthodox views are not alien to conventional science. 492 All ideas are new at some time and face the test of time and scrutiny.

4 Concentric Circles of Science and Pseudoscience The Fringe The Frontier Hard Science

5 Interpretation 492 At the center is the body of time-tested, universally accepted ideas that are set forth in school and college texts. The first circle out from the center is the frontier, which interacts constantly with the center, feeding it new ideas that the center, after lengthy testing, adopts and assimilates. The fringe is characterized by a scarcity of hard data and by a general fuzziness of ideas that make the average scientist very uncomfortable.

6 Accepting a Theory Theories move from frontier to center after much testing and comparison with accepted theories. This is not always a smooth transition. Fringe theories rarely make it to the center because of their relative untestability or inherent logical flaws.

7 Accepting a Theory Inefficient and clumsy theories don t often make it into the core of scientific dogma. There are usually more elegant theories that can explain the data as well. Fringe theories may make it into the frontier if a reputable scientist vouches for it, or it suggests a way of explaining data that is more than just novel.

8 Velikovsky Worlds in collision became a model of pseudoscientific writing for a whole generation. Before a great deal was known about planetary science, Velikovsky suggested an explanation for the current state of the solar system in terms of events marked in ancient writings. He attempted to harmonize Biblical texts with a theory of massive changes in the solar system.

9 Disproving Velikovsky Because so many attempted to disprove his theories, we have a classic example of what goes wrong with them that gets them labeled as pseudoscience. 494 The counterarguments fall into three categories: questions of fact, questions of logical consistency, and questions of alternative explanations.

10 Disproving Velikovsky 494 With respect to the questions of fact, Velikovsky s theory fails to adequately explain the manna in the desert which was to be some sort of fall out from the, at that time, chaotically orbiting planet Venus. The claim: Carbohydrates fell from the swerving planet and landed in the desert. The counterclaim: There are no carbohydrates on Venus at all, or even the term conflated with carbohydrates, hydrocarbons (which V. does not give an adequate account of.)

11 Disproving Velikovsky 494 With respect to the questions of logical consistency, V. fails to explain how the falling carbohydrates take a break on Saturdays. With respect to alternative explanations, there does not need to be a Venus in near-earth orbit to cause all the major natural disasters recorded in history.

12 Erich von Daniken To disprove his rhetorical claims is to waste an entire life. To disprove the thesis he proposes, it is only necessary to disprove a few of those claims. Trefil manages to disprove von Daniken by suggesting that if the pyramid builders were unable to calculate the plot of the pyramids with any accuracy then how could they build spacecraft.

13 ETIs & UFOs 496 Extraterrestrial intelligences have moved from the fringe to solid science while UFOs remain solidly on the fringes of science.

14 Do the tests yourself 497 Trefil s homemade pyramid had no power to preserve a lump of hamburger.

15 Pseudoscience Checklist 1.) 497 Are the facts really what the author says they are? Further (and more to the point) has someone already been sufficiently irritated by the author s claims to answer this question for you? 2.) 498 Is the author trying to overload your circuits? 3.) Given the author s facts, is there a simpler explanation of them?

16 Pseudoscience Checklist 4.) 499 Does the whole thing boil down to being unable to prove a negative? 5.) 499 Are established scientists putting time in on the phenomena? 6.) Can you test the theory yourself?

PHY229: Extrasolar Planets and Astrobiology Rationale

PHY229: Extrasolar Planets and Astrobiology Rationale The goals of this course are for you to learn: How to assimilate and organise and large body of different information, ideas, and theories in different