Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience are theories, beliefs, and claims which are given a semblance to science but do not adhere to the strict standards of science. Pseudosciene will more often than not immunise itself against falsification by applying terms they do not properly define and by refusing to commit themselves to falsifiable predictions.

The term "pseudoscience" has been in use since the 18th century and one of the first recorded uses of the word "pseudo-science" was in 1844 in the Northern Journal of Medicine, I 387: "That opposite kind of innovation which pronounces what has been recognized as a branch of science, to have been a pseudo-science, composed merely of so-called facts, connected together by misapprehensions under the disguise of principles". The current definition is more or less based on the works of Thomas Huxley and Karl Popper. Popper proposed falsifiability as an important criterion in distinguishing science from pseudoscience

Overview

There is a multitude of criteria which distinguish science from pseudoscience. Generally speaking any aberrance from the basis of scientific approach may be an indication of pseudoscience. Distinguishing between bad or deceptive research within science on the one hand and pseudoscience on the other, however, may often be problematic. Pseudoscience is most often characterized by being especially designed to support a certain prefabricated construct of ideas. Furthermore, pseudoscientific results will be in contradiction of empiric scientific theories, while cases of fraud within established science will predominantly attempt to incorporate "results" into existing theories. Scientific jokes and fraud may not be considered as pseudoscience.

The construct of a particular pseudoscience often bases on one person whose authority must not be doubted. The original statements of its initiator will be presented in dogmatic ways, and both theoretic approaches of explanation and possible series of experiments will always be interpreted in accordance with the original dogma.

Pseudoscience often uses "experiments" and takes random data from the statistical noise which support fake desired effects by handy selection and manipulation. Often an "Inverted Occam's Razor" will be applied: Complex or absurd theories are preferred over approaches with an economical application of hypotheses. One of the characteristics of pseudoscience is that it does not recognize any method of detecting mistakes of its studies or conclusions, let alone correct them in the first place.

Many esoterics tend to look for a substitute of or complement to science and thus eventually appear to be fighting science.

Typical Characteristics

• Claims which will not be substantiated by experiment or are not deductible mathmatically: Often, such claims will be in contradiction to experiments, mathmatic theories, and very often also to so-called common sense.
• will quote sources which cannot be reproduced and therefore cannot be validated
• will be based on experiments which cannot be reproduced (or yield different results)
• will be contradictory to Occam's Razor
• will systematically suppress evidence or select evidence and observations particularly convenient.

The seven sins of pseudoscience

Several science theoreticians have compiled lists of the sins distinguishing pseudoscience from real science. This includes lists by Langmuir ([1953] 1989), Gruenberger (1964), Dutch (1982), Bunge (1982), Radner and Radner (1982), Kitcher (1982, 30–54), Hansson (1983), Grove (1985), Thagard (1988), Glymour and Stalker (1990), Derkson (1993, 2001), Vollmer (1993), Ruse (1996, 300–306) and Mahner (2007). These are usually:

1. Belief in authority: It is contended that some person or persons have a superior comprehension and thus their statement is to be accepted.
2. Irreproducible experiments: Reliance is put on experiments which cannot be repeated by others with the same result.
3. Handpicked examples: Handpicked examples are used although they are not representative of the general category the investigation refers to.
4. Unwillingness to test: A theory is not tested although it is possible to test it.
5. Unfounded immunisation: critical arguments will be dismissed, while arguments supporting one's own conceptions will be cultivated systematically.
6. Embedded deception: Testing of a theory is arranged in such ways that a theory may only be confirmed by results, but never falsified.
7. Explanations are removed without replacement. Tenable explanations are eliminated so that the new theory explains less than the previous one. (Hansson 1983)

Quotes

• In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis --saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact--he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof [...]

Versions of this article in other languages

• Français: Pseudo-science
• Deutsch: Pseudowissenschaft

Literatur

German:

• Alan Sokal, Jean Bricmont (1999): Eleganter Unsinn. Wie die Denker der Postmoderne die Wissenschaften missbrauchen, Muenchen
• Alexander K. Dewdney (1998): Alles fauler Zauber? IQ-Tests, Psychoanalyse und andere umstrittene Theorien, Basel
• Andreas Hergovich (2001): Der Glaube an Psi - Die Psychologie paranormaler Überzeugungen. Bern
• Ben Goldacre: Die Wissenschaftslüge: Wie uns Pseudo-Wissenschaftler das Leben schwer machen. Fischer Frankfurt 2010, ISBN 978-3596185108
• Bernd Harder: Geister, Gothics, Gabelbieger. 66 Antworten auf Fragwürdiges aus Esoterik und Okkultismus. Aschaffenburg: Alibri 2005
• Carl Sagan: Der Drache in meiner Garage. Oder: Die Kunst der Wissenschaft, Unsinn zu entlarven. München: Droemer Knaur 1997
• Christoph Bördlein (2002): Das sockenfressende Monster in der Waschmaschine - Eine Einfuehrung in das skeptische Denken, Aschaffenburg
• Colin Goldner (2000): Die Psycho-Szene
• Douglas R. Hofstadter: Wissenschaft und Aberglaube: ein Kampf zwischen David und Goliath. Spektrum der Wissenschaft April 1982, 8-13
• Gerald L. Eberlein (Hrsg.): Schulwissenschaft – Parawissenschaft – Pseudowissenschaft. Stuttgart: Hirzel 1991
• Gerhard Vollmer: Wozu Pseudowissenschaften gut sind. Argumente aus Wissenschaftstheorie und Wissenschaftspraxis. Universitas 47 (Feb. 1992) 155-168
• Gerhardt Vollmer (1993): Wissenschaftstheorie im Einsatz - Beitraege zu einer selbstkritischen Wissenschaftsphilosophie, Stuttgart
• Gero von Randow (Hrsg.): Der Fremdling im Glas und weitere Anlaesse zur Skepsis, entdeckt im Skeptical Inquirer, Rowohlt, Reinbek, 1996
• Gero von Randow: Mein paranormales Fahrrad – und andere Anlässe zur Skepsis, entdeckt im Skeptical Inquirer. Rowohlt (rororo), Reinbek, 1993
• Hans-Peter Beck-Bornholdt, Hans-Hermann Dubben (1997): Der Hund, der Eier legt - Erkennen von Fehlinformationen durch Querdenken, Reinbek
• Hansjoerg Hemminger, Bernd Harder (2000): Was ist Aberglaube? Bedeutung, Erscheinungsformen, Beratungshilfen, Gütersloh
• Ingo Kugenbuch: Warum sich der Löffel biegt und die Madonna weint - Übersinnliche Phänomene und ihre irdischen Erklärungen. Humboldt Verlag August 2008
• Irmgard Oepen, Amardeo Sarma (Hrsg.) (1995): Parawissenschaften unter der Lupe, Muenster
• Irmgard Oepen, Krista Federspiel, Amardeo Sarma (Hrsg.) (1999): Lexikon der Parawissenschaften - Astrologie, Esoterik, Okkultismus, Paramedizin, Parapsychologie kritisch betrachtet, Muenster
• James Randi (2001): Lexikon der Übersinnlichen Phänomene - Die Wahrheit über die paranormale Welt, Muenchen
• Joachim Herrmann: Das falsche Weltbild. Astronomie und Aberglaube. Stuttgart: Franckh 1962; dtv 958, 1973
• M. Ecker: Kritisch argumentieren. Aschaffenburg: Alibri 2006
• Marcello Truzzi: Überlegungen zur Kontroverse um Wissenschaft und Pseudowissenschaft. In: H.P. Duerr (Hrsg.): Der Wissenschaftler und das Irrationale. Frankfurt: Syndikat 1985, Band IV, 48-63
• Markus Poessel (2000): Phantastische Wissenschaften - über Erich von Daeniken und Johannes von Buttlar, Reinbek
• Michael Shermer, Benno Maidhof-Christig, Lee Traynor (1998): Endzeittaumel - Propheten, Prognosen, Propaganda, Aschaffenburg
• Otto Prokop, Wolf Wimmer (1987): Der moderne Okkultismus, Stuttgart
• Stuart A. Vyse (1999): Die Psychologie des Aberglaubens - Schwarze Kater und Maskottchen, Basel
• Time-Life: Irrwege der Wissenschaft. Amsterdam 1993
• Wolfgang Hell, Klaus Fiedler, Gerd Gigerenzer (Hrsg.) (1993): Kognitive Taeuschungen - Fehl-Leistungen und Mechanismen des Urteilens, Denkens und Erinnerns, Heidelberg
• Wolfgang Hund (2000): Falsche Geister - echte Schwindler? Esoterik und Okkultismus kritisch hinterfragt, Wuerzburg
• Harald Wiesendanger: Zwischen Wissenschaft und Aberglaube. Grenzbereiche psychologischer Forschung. Frankfurt: Fischer-TB 42326, 1989

English:

• A. Lugg: Bunkum, flim-flam and quackery: pseudoscience as a philosophical problem. Dialectica 41 (1987) 221-230
• Anton Derksen: The seven sins of pseudoscience. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 24 (1993) 17-42
• Ben Goldacre: Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks, Faber & Faber Reprint 2010, ISBN 978-0865479180
• Carl Sagan: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Ballantine Books 1997, ISBN 978-0345409461
• G. Bakker, L. Clark: Explanation. An introduction to the philosophy of science. Mountain View (Ca.): Mayfield 1988
• Imre Lakatos: Science and pseudoscience. Conceptus 8, Nr. 24 (1974) 5-9
• James Randi (1995): Flim-Flam - Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and other Delusions, New York
• James Randi: An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, St. Martin's Griffin 1997, ISBN 978-0312151195
• James Randi: Flim-Flam! Buffalo: Prometheus 1982
• Kenneth L. Feder: Frauds, Myth, and Mysteries - Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, 2001
• M.A. Rothman: A physicist’s guide to skepticism. Applying laws of physics to faster-than-light travel, psychic phenomena, telepathy, time travel, UFO’s, and other pseudoscientific claims. Buffalo: Prometheus 1988
• Mario Bunge: Scientific research. New York: Springer 1967, vol. I, 36-44
• Martin Gardner (1957): Fads &; Fallacies - In the Name of Science, New York
• Michael Scriven: The frontiers of psychology: psychoanalysis and parapsychology. In: R.G. Colodny Frontiers of science and philosophy. Lanham: University Press of America 1983, 79-129
• Michael Shermer, Pat Linse (2002): The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience
• Michael Shermer: (1998): Why people believe in weird things - pseudoscience, superstition, and other confusions of our time, New York
• Patrick Grim (ed.): Philosophy of science and the occult. Albany: State University of New York Press 1982, 1990
• Paul Kurtz (1992): The New Skepticism: Inquiry and Reliable Knowledge
• Paul Kurtz (2001): Skeptical Odysseys: Personal Accounts by the World's Leading Paranormal Investigation
• Philip Plait: Bad Astronomy - Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax", New York 2002
• Terence Hines: Pseudoscience and the paranormal. A critical examination of the evidence. Buffalo: Prometheus
• Theodore Schick Jr., Lewis Vaughn (2004): How to think about weird things - critical thinking for a New Age

Weblinks

• Wikipedia about Pseudoscience
• Website of James Randi
• Website of Ben Goldacre
• SCIgen - An Automatic CS Paper Generator
• Blog of Edzard Ernst
• http://home.tele2.at/aloisreutterer/wissenschaft.htm (German)
• http://www.wort-und-wissen.de/index2.php?artikel=sij/sij72/sij72-3.html (German)
• http://members.fortunecity.com/lange42/pseudo.htm (German)