Posted on 03/16/2019 6:52:06 PM PDT by Simon Green
Most people do not have a good understanding of real science, and can therefore be taken in if a claim is presented in ‘science-y’ language. Thus purveyors of medical pseudoscience will freely use terms like energy, vibrations, frequencies, resonance and so on in describing their interventions but none of these terms are being used in the precise way that a physicist would use them.
Many pseudoscientists will also refer to the latest ideas in real science to imply that their claims are derived from the latest cutting-edge theories. One example would be claiming that homeopathy is consistent with quantum mechanics despite the fact that, in reality, homeopathy is not consistent with any accepted scientific theory and, furthermore, there is no convincing evidence that it has any therapeutic value over and above that of a placebo.
This highlights another feature of pseudoscience: its supporters choose to completely ignore all evidence which undermines their claims, often providing spurious reasons for doing so. These reasons often include the following: (a) your so-called science is too crude to measure the effects involved, (b) your test was based upon a flawed understanding of the pseudoscientific theory, and (c) you have to get the conditions just right for the effects to occur and you failed to do so. In fact these reasons are simply in-built loopholes that allow the pseudoscientist to avoid any possibility of claims being falsified.
Some pseudosciences are inherently non-falsifiable. A good example would be so-called Scientific Creationism. To allow the dismissal of all scientific evidence suggesting that the earth is much older than the few thousand years that Young Earth Creationists believe, the claim is made that God created the earth with that evidence of a prior existence already in place (e.g., fossils in rocks, light in transit from distant stars, rings in trees in the Garden of Eden). Such inherent non-falsifiability is a guarantee that one is dealing with a pseudoscience.
Finally, pseudosciences are popular so because they often provide people with beliefs that they would like to be true—anything from miracle cures to the existence of a benevolent God to life after death and much else besides. Confirmation bias, the most ubiquitous and powerful of all cognitive biases, combined with poor critical thinking skills does the rest.
I agree.
And we get Scientism, as opposed to science.
You've just described modern cosmology to a t.
Welcome to that branch of philosophy known as epistemology. Ultimately everyone’s worldview rests on a set of presuppositions which cannot be quantified.
But Zeus knows we can never run out of woo.
There’s always someone peddling it and some
one else too terrified to call it what is is.
And even Joe Lunchbucket.
I would say if it leads to accurate predictions which can be reproduced by others, it’s safe to call it true.
And she made a compelling case, from the standpoint of considering God as an author or playwright, not an engineer.
Given that Sayers was one of the first female graduates of Oxford University, and a successful novelist in her own right (as well as apparently being the one to coin the phrase "It pays to advertise") she approached the issue from her own specialty.
An article with a transparently preconceived purpose and conclusion.
I agree. Some of the most profound wisdom I have heard has been from street people others avoid.
Or my yard guy.
I still remember the scientific claim there were CANALS on Mars
Seeing is believing. I have seen it.
Your comment is one of the most annoyingly common claims on this subject.
Science does nothing but look for true facts.
“Science doesn’t look for the truth” is propaganda meant to keep “science” as a political tool for the world’s top liars.
In fact, that’s probably why these people make such claims. Because they prefer science be a discipline of lies.
Global warming, anyone?
Transgenderism?
When it’s not a lie.
What happens when science doesn’t look for truth:
BBC’s Climate Lies Becoming A Habit
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3735226/posts
Read your Popper. Here’s another one for you.
The best you can say of any scientific, law, theory or hypothesis is not that it is true but that it has yet to be proven false. — Captain Compassion
Partly because those who teach are trained in pseudo education departments.
Thank you for exposing the articles’ author for mischaracterizing most if not all creationists beliefs. The long age folks got their own starlight problem also. Called “ horizon” problem...needed a fix and hyperinflation of the big bang cosmos...(with no experimental verification) was postulated to solve it...there...now it is scientific...cuz i say it is so.
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