~ Pseudoscience ~
Let me be abundantly clear in the outset; PSEUDOSCIENCE IS NOT
SCIENCE. Period. Not even a tad. Pseudoscience is not science in the same way that so-called Intelligent Design, another name for Creationism, is neither 'intelligent', nor 'creative', unless the creativity is in the creative manner in which it is meant to deceive by manipulating the truth with falsehoods and improbability. In The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and The Birth of the Modern Fringe, author Michael D. Gordin states that "on the imagined scale that has excellent science at one end and
then slides through good science, mediocre science, poor science, to bad science on the other end, it is NOT the case that pseudoscience lies somewhere on this continuum. It is off the grid altogether."
Who are these groups that claim to be pseudoscientists? They are first and foremost conspiracy theorists, individuals that believe that otherwise scientific factual information is nothing more then the scientists/governments/political advocates illegitimate stake in keeping people down, ill-informed, lied to, cheated, and kept in line. How do the conspiracists prove their charade? By showing in infinite detail how each phase of some picture, or movie, or story, or piece of otherwise true statement, is false and faked. Apparently conspiracists never heard of Occam's razor.
Pseudoscience is in fact the antithesis of science. But before we can systematically refute pseudoscience, we need to firm up our understanding of science - the real and the actual. The excellent website Explorable offers a robust definition of science as follows... Science is defined as the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena... It is knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, especially as obtained and tested through scientific methods concerned with the physical world. The emphasis is placed on operational definitions, rules, laws, and structure. But above all else, science.
Pseudoscience is a word I will rarely use as it has the air of legitimacy to it by simply tacking on the word 'science'. What it really is, is fringe, nonsense, deception, and at best, prestidigitation or slight-of-hand, AKA 'magic'. With the most important distinction in that magic and magicians are meant to entertain, to thrill, and have no stake in anything beyond that. With pseudoscience, there is no 'thrill', it is not meant to entertain, but rather, it is meant to be taken with the utmost sincerity, and seen as fact, whatever concept the community happens to be peddling at the time.
The 9/11 movie/faux documentary Loose Change was and remains at the very heart of the Truther Movement. The documentary movie makes what appears to be - but isn't - the claim that 9/11 was an 'inside job', a crafty plot by the US government to terrorize its own people into a Muslim uproar in order for the US to go into the Middle East, guns blazing. The author/director/narrator uses quite detailed pieces of information and doctored pictures to make this case, and on its appearance, it could be hard to argue. There remains a tremendous following that continue to believe this nonsense. But this is what happens when the combination of a great (albeit false) story line is surrounded by technical detail and know-how. I was deployed to both the Pentagon and NYC and I saw the damage up close and personal. This is no difference than the Holocaust deniers, which severely offends those thousands of survivors worldwide that lived through the unmitigated horror of it.
So why are there 'deniers' and conspiracists? Much of it has to do with an overt distrust of the government on a rather deep, generalized level and the belief that if the government says "A" happened, then it must really be "B". But it goes well beyond that, it is healthy to have a certain amount of skepticism, otherwise one would be naive which is simply the other side of the same coin. Conspiracy buffs however, generally have little background in the very sciences that would otherwise blow the lid off of these conspiratorial theories that most, unfortunately, take as pure fact based on nothing more than hearsay and 'gut', without the need for scientific or philosophic verifiability or falsifiability. And we find that conspiracy theorists have remarkably little understanding or application for critical thinking or abstraction. It comes as no surprise that there are demonstrated neurological and neuropsychological differences between individuals that are critical thinkers and those that are not.
Want to know more? You can follow my blogs, attend a webinar or seminar, or take an e-course.
SCIENCE. Period. Not even a tad. Pseudoscience is not science in the same way that so-called Intelligent Design, another name for Creationism, is neither 'intelligent', nor 'creative', unless the creativity is in the creative manner in which it is meant to deceive by manipulating the truth with falsehoods and improbability. In The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and The Birth of the Modern Fringe, author Michael D. Gordin states that "on the imagined scale that has excellent science at one end and
then slides through good science, mediocre science, poor science, to bad science on the other end, it is NOT the case that pseudoscience lies somewhere on this continuum. It is off the grid altogether."
Who are these groups that claim to be pseudoscientists? They are first and foremost conspiracy theorists, individuals that believe that otherwise scientific factual information is nothing more then the scientists/governments/political advocates illegitimate stake in keeping people down, ill-informed, lied to, cheated, and kept in line. How do the conspiracists prove their charade? By showing in infinite detail how each phase of some picture, or movie, or story, or piece of otherwise true statement, is false and faked. Apparently conspiracists never heard of Occam's razor.
Pseudoscience is in fact the antithesis of science. But before we can systematically refute pseudoscience, we need to firm up our understanding of science - the real and the actual. The excellent website Explorable offers a robust definition of science as follows... Science is defined as the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena... It is knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, especially as obtained and tested through scientific methods concerned with the physical world. The emphasis is placed on operational definitions, rules, laws, and structure. But above all else, science.
Pseudoscience is a word I will rarely use as it has the air of legitimacy to it by simply tacking on the word 'science'. What it really is, is fringe, nonsense, deception, and at best, prestidigitation or slight-of-hand, AKA 'magic'. With the most important distinction in that magic and magicians are meant to entertain, to thrill, and have no stake in anything beyond that. With pseudoscience, there is no 'thrill', it is not meant to entertain, but rather, it is meant to be taken with the utmost sincerity, and seen as fact, whatever concept the community happens to be peddling at the time.
The 9/11 movie/faux documentary Loose Change was and remains at the very heart of the Truther Movement. The documentary movie makes what appears to be - but isn't - the claim that 9/11 was an 'inside job', a crafty plot by the US government to terrorize its own people into a Muslim uproar in order for the US to go into the Middle East, guns blazing. The author/director/narrator uses quite detailed pieces of information and doctored pictures to make this case, and on its appearance, it could be hard to argue. There remains a tremendous following that continue to believe this nonsense. But this is what happens when the combination of a great (albeit false) story line is surrounded by technical detail and know-how. I was deployed to both the Pentagon and NYC and I saw the damage up close and personal. This is no difference than the Holocaust deniers, which severely offends those thousands of survivors worldwide that lived through the unmitigated horror of it.
So why are there 'deniers' and conspiracists? Much of it has to do with an overt distrust of the government on a rather deep, generalized level and the belief that if the government says "A" happened, then it must really be "B". But it goes well beyond that, it is healthy to have a certain amount of skepticism, otherwise one would be naive which is simply the other side of the same coin. Conspiracy buffs however, generally have little background in the very sciences that would otherwise blow the lid off of these conspiratorial theories that most, unfortunately, take as pure fact based on nothing more than hearsay and 'gut', without the need for scientific or philosophic verifiability or falsifiability. And we find that conspiracy theorists have remarkably little understanding or application for critical thinking or abstraction. It comes as no surprise that there are demonstrated neurological and neuropsychological differences between individuals that are critical thinkers and those that are not.
Want to know more? You can follow my blogs, attend a webinar or seminar, or take an e-course.