I was surfing around Digg.com the other day, looking at what the community there had been linking to as far as science articles go.
Somebody had linked to a great article on Quackwatch about how to distinguish pseudoscience from real science. The article has been around a while, but clearly it was popular at Digg; getting more then a few dozen Diggs (votes for popularity) is tough — I’ve had only a handful of blog entries that have hit it reasonably big at Digg. Yet this article was doing really well. Check out the apropriate number of hits it had when I looked:
Man that guy gets around. First a license plate in New Mexico, and now Digg!
May 10th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Now all that we have to do is spam everyone on our address books with a link to the article.
May 10th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Oh thank God! I was just over at “Fundies say the Darndest Things” and I need something to wash out the ol’ cerebral cortex.
May 10th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I like it, but it leaves out a couple that I’d add.
1. Pseudoscience does not always fit with all of the claims made on that page. I think it’s important to note that because something may not have all the aspects listed above does not let it off the hook, although most of those apply to most psuedoscience.
2. Psuedoscience often offers a “magic bullet” which covers a broad area. An example would be “All human disease is caused by inflammation which is caused by a dirty colon which means you need an herbal enema to cure your toothache and also your cancer”
3. The claim that science has lost knowledge by being too narrow. Often using the words like “Western Medicine” or “Our modern society” to say that it discounts something like “The idea that the body can be effected by energy fields”
But this is definitely one of the best writeups on science and pseudoscience I have seen!
May 10th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
A long time ago (NOT in a galaxy far, far away, though), I had gone to the store to get a few inexpensive things. When the checker ran up the total, it was $6.66. The checker asked if I wanted to get something else.. gum? candy bar? I said No.. I want that receipt.
J/P=?
May 10th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
And of course, there was nothing to worry over concerning your purchase. The number of the Beast is 666, not 6.66.
May 10th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
There is one important characteristic of pseudoscience that has been missed out. Real science has an entry level which introduces the fundamental concepts of the science and which can be confirmed easily. Pseudoscience has no such level. We can introduce the concepts of mass and energy and work and heat to children and they can verify the relationships themselves with levers and pulleys and paper bags with warm air inside and we can say, “This is the sort of thing that physics talks about”.
That, in my opinion, is the real purpose behind practical classes in high school science. We say to the children, “You don’t have to believe me, you don’t have to believe your textbooks, you can find out for yourself.”
With pseudoscience you can never do this.
May 10th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
I know of a guy who wants a local pizza place to change their pricing because one of their pizzas comes out to $16.66, and he doesn’t like the fact that there are three sixes in a row. (Do we have an emoticon that rolls its eyes? I’d insert it here if I could!)
May 10th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Bravo, Keith! That’s a great, succinct way of putting it!
May 10th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
I’d be careful with that Keith, global warming and evolution denial start with complexity and work their way down.
May 10th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Well, geez, I apply these rules to the global warming debate, and I come away skeptical about the DOOM and GLOOM forecasts, and then you folks get all upset. What’s a skeptic to do? I’m just a maverick on the cutting edge, I guess.
>>> When the checker ran up the total, it was $6.66.
I can top that. I bought a book years ago at a sale. It was an oversized paperback, and the final cost was $6.66 after the discount and with sales tax.
The book was “Demon” by John Varley.
As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up.
Being a strident agnostic even then, I was merely bemused.
May 11th, 2007 at 3:53 am
Apparently, the number of the beast is actually 616, not 666:
http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/POxy/beast616.htm
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/11134/beasts-real-mark-devalued-to-616
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/616_%28number%29
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44169
May 11th, 2007 at 5:13 am
Someone at BAUT has a quote from Adam Savage from mythbusters in his tag line
“I reject your reality and substitute my own”
Seems pretty fitting
Pete
May 11th, 2007 at 6:26 am
In his list of suggested reading, Prof. Coker left out the classic book on pseudoscience, namely Martin Gardners’, “Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.”
May 11th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Drbuzz0 said:
>I like it, but it leaves out a couple that I’d add.
>1. Pseudoscience does not always fit with all of the claims made on that page. I think it’s important to note that because something may not have all the aspects listed above does not let it off the hook, although most of those apply to most psuedoscience.
But he does say this:
May 11th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Michael Shermer, said it best in his book, “Why People Believe Weird Things”:
The reason smart people believe weird things is that they have become so adept at rationalizing things that they initially believed for the wrong reason.
(I’m paraphrasing)
May 11th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
(In biblical context; I don’t believe it myself) 666 isn’t the devil’s number, instead it is the number of the “beast” which Revelation describes as a man (not the devil). It actually is a cipher on the name of Nero (a renown persecutor of early Christians). I can’t explain the specifics but I’ve seen that description in more than one source.
May 12th, 2007 at 1:26 am
Aw, there goes my hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia again! Dern you!
May 12th, 2007 at 8:28 am
Since 666 came up a few times, I saw this bumper sticker recently;
667
The Neighbor of the Beast
Laughed so hard, I almost had to pull over.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:14 am
Jim, unless we are talking about apartment numbers, I would have thought the neighbor of #666 would be #664 or #668.
Nice try, but not thought through thoroughly though.
Ivan.