Post by Admin on Jul 10, 2022 18:55:50 GMT
4 categories of pseudoscience — and how to talk to people who believe in them
Pseudoscience is science’s shadow.
bigthink.com/thinking/kinds-of-pseudoscience/
Trying to define pseudoscience is difficult. There is no one thing that makes something "pseudo." Historian of science Dr. Michael Gordin suggests that "pseudoscience is science’s shadow." People invested in pseudoscience often think they are doing real science, and approaching them with that understanding can make speaking to them much easier.
Despite increasing levels of technology and scientific literacy, it seems as if pseudoscience is more insane and pervasive than ever. But if these ideas are so clearly mistaken, why is it that so many people get sucked into them? Why do some pseudosciences, like flat Earth theory, even have conventions where people do what they think is science?
In an essay on pseudoscience, historian of science Dr. Michael Gordin argues that we often think about the divide between real science and pseudoscience incorrectly. By looking at pseudosciences in how they relate to real science, we can get a better understanding of what they are and how to deal with them.
What defines science, anyway?
The question of what defines a claim as scientific is known to philosophy as the demarcation problem. While many great minds have attempted to draw a clear line between the scientific and the unscientific, the results of their efforts have been mixed.
The most commonly cited demarcation line is Karl Popper’s idea of falsifiability. According to Popper, for a hypothesis to be scientific, it must be falsifiable. An idea like Einstein’s theory of relativity makes clear predictions that can be tested, such as whether the sun bends light passing near it. This makes it scientific. On the other hand, Popper suggested that some theories, like the Marxist theory of history or Freudian psychoanalysis, were unfalsifiable, and therefore unscientific.
While this line is the most commonly used, it has problems. An idea might be falsifiable, but sometimes it is difficult to tell which idea an experiment falsifies. At the same time, the idea that Bigfoot exists is technically falsifiable, but few would consider searching for Sasquatch to be a worthwhile scientific endeavor.
Another concept, previously quite popular and still referenced in some circles, is that of the paradigm shift, as described by Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn puts the line between science and non-science in terms of paradigms — bundles of ideas that are widely accepted among scientists.
Ideas that align with paradigms can be considered science, while those that do not are considered something else. Revolutions in science occur when problems with the dominant paradigm became too large to ignore, and a new one comes to prominence. He also noted that people in certain pseudosciences, like astrology or medieval medicine, weren’t actually doing research and therefore weren’t practicing science at all.
The idea of paradigms as the demarcation lines can explain some aspects of science, but it doesn’t entirely explain how shifts to new ideas occur. Importantly, while it can identify what pseudoscience is, it tends to the relativistic; what is inside or outside the paradigm can be determined by irrelevant factors.
Dr. Gordin suggests that the problem with these ideas and others like them is their reliance on one demarcation line. As he puts it:
“Any attempt to build a taxonomy of the many doctrines that have been labeled as ‘pseudoscientific’ reveals the impossibility of an internally consistent single definition of fringe science.”
Instead, he suggests that “pseudoscience is science’s shadow. Specifically, it is the shadow of professional science, and just as a shadow cannot exist without the object casting it, so does every object necessarily cast shadows.”
These shadows, and there is more than one, can be treated as overlapping, but with certain tendencies that allow us to categorize them.
Pseudoscience is science’s shadow.
bigthink.com/thinking/kinds-of-pseudoscience/
Trying to define pseudoscience is difficult. There is no one thing that makes something "pseudo." Historian of science Dr. Michael Gordin suggests that "pseudoscience is science’s shadow." People invested in pseudoscience often think they are doing real science, and approaching them with that understanding can make speaking to them much easier.
Despite increasing levels of technology and scientific literacy, it seems as if pseudoscience is more insane and pervasive than ever. But if these ideas are so clearly mistaken, why is it that so many people get sucked into them? Why do some pseudosciences, like flat Earth theory, even have conventions where people do what they think is science?
In an essay on pseudoscience, historian of science Dr. Michael Gordin argues that we often think about the divide between real science and pseudoscience incorrectly. By looking at pseudosciences in how they relate to real science, we can get a better understanding of what they are and how to deal with them.
What defines science, anyway?
The question of what defines a claim as scientific is known to philosophy as the demarcation problem. While many great minds have attempted to draw a clear line between the scientific and the unscientific, the results of their efforts have been mixed.
The most commonly cited demarcation line is Karl Popper’s idea of falsifiability. According to Popper, for a hypothesis to be scientific, it must be falsifiable. An idea like Einstein’s theory of relativity makes clear predictions that can be tested, such as whether the sun bends light passing near it. This makes it scientific. On the other hand, Popper suggested that some theories, like the Marxist theory of history or Freudian psychoanalysis, were unfalsifiable, and therefore unscientific.
While this line is the most commonly used, it has problems. An idea might be falsifiable, but sometimes it is difficult to tell which idea an experiment falsifies. At the same time, the idea that Bigfoot exists is technically falsifiable, but few would consider searching for Sasquatch to be a worthwhile scientific endeavor.
Another concept, previously quite popular and still referenced in some circles, is that of the paradigm shift, as described by Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn puts the line between science and non-science in terms of paradigms — bundles of ideas that are widely accepted among scientists.
Ideas that align with paradigms can be considered science, while those that do not are considered something else. Revolutions in science occur when problems with the dominant paradigm became too large to ignore, and a new one comes to prominence. He also noted that people in certain pseudosciences, like astrology or medieval medicine, weren’t actually doing research and therefore weren’t practicing science at all.
The idea of paradigms as the demarcation lines can explain some aspects of science, but it doesn’t entirely explain how shifts to new ideas occur. Importantly, while it can identify what pseudoscience is, it tends to the relativistic; what is inside or outside the paradigm can be determined by irrelevant factors.
Dr. Gordin suggests that the problem with these ideas and others like them is their reliance on one demarcation line. As he puts it:
“Any attempt to build a taxonomy of the many doctrines that have been labeled as ‘pseudoscientific’ reveals the impossibility of an internally consistent single definition of fringe science.”
Instead, he suggests that “pseudoscience is science’s shadow. Specifically, it is the shadow of professional science, and just as a shadow cannot exist without the object casting it, so does every object necessarily cast shadows.”
These shadows, and there is more than one, can be treated as overlapping, but with certain tendencies that allow us to categorize them.