[ Long ] A Philosophy of Science v. Pseudo-Science

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Why would you be more likely to get a virus looking into conspiracies as opposed to anything else?

That actually suggests a conspiracy, if true, because the people trying to keep the conspiracies hidden could be trying to prevent people from looking into them...

That someone would even spread that kind of logic is very telling about the "skeptic movement" sweeping the nation.

I was rather optimistic about the content when I first saw this thread title. However, on reading the contents, it became painfully obvious that it is nothing more than a fraudulent attempt to give nonscience a credibility it doesn't deserve.

If you arbitrarily decide that popularised nonscience sold with lots of media hype is the judge and jury deciding what is science or pseudo-science, then you have decided that "science" is whatever the manufacturers of fads say it is... nothing to do with observation, reason, experiment, and all that hard stuff that only gets in the way of a fantastic dream.

And if you imagine (just because it's convenient to the popular superstition) that mainstream "science" is not a maze of political correctness, adherence to an ideology and all that socially ambitious muck then you've never had a good, cold, hard look at the business.

Here's a practical example of how the politics works:

http://www.sjcrothers.plasmaresources.com/PhD.html

There's much, much more of other people, other times, other places... but that will be of no interest to zealots selling impossible ideology either.

It's a good list, Fnord.

Thank you!

There seems to have been a sharp decline in fake science on this website since the original post was made.

Ooo-er! Does that imply that there was even more nonscience in days gone by?

I don't know about that, this post was made in a particularly bad time when someone who believed humanity had reverse-engineered levitation technology from crashed UFOs and missiles did 9/11 (or some such), but I think your observation of a trend is simply a sampling error. Perhaps it is because the fake science has moved to GAD?

We still see a lot of climate change denialism, anti-evolution sentiment, and such, as well as the usual anti-vax rubbish and fad diets based on little or nothing.

Well, that might be "proof" enough for leader-worshippers (media-hype worshippers) but it has nothing at all to do with science. That you arbitrarily define "fake science" as that which does not conform to the fashionable ideology... has nothing at all to do with science of observation, reason, experimentation etc.

That isn't how I define "fake science". I define "fake science" the way you would appear to. I now fully expect you to inform me that the media is covering up that evolution is a lie or something. Sorry mate, I've read the papers and done the experiments.

Conspiracy theories are examples of pseudo-scientific thinking gone wild. Just because 'everybody' believes in an alleged global conspiracy, that does not make it real; and the plural of 'anecdote' will never be 'data'.

A double-blind experiment is not always possible or ethical. For example, it would be extremely unethical to do a double-blind study on the efficacy of working parachutes in preventing the serious injury or death of persons jumping from a flying plane at high altitude.

In at least one case, it isn't possible: In testing the efficacy of sex reassignment surgery, because patients are going to notice if their genitals have been changed or not--therefore, almost immediately, the patients will NOT be blind to who has received the treatment. In addition, during interview by researchers, if questioned regarding sex life or having been able to, for example, change one's legal documents, information about whether the patient had the surgery or not is bound to become known by the researcher. In another case, a double-blind study to test the efficacy of hormone replacement therapy in transsexual people that goes beyond 6 months or so would also not be possible, as the patient would typically begin developing characteristics of the opposite sex by that time, if they were on treatment, so they would notice it, meaning they, and possibly their interviewers, would NOT be blind.

It's great if you can do a double-blind experiment ethically, as that produces the most robust evidence, but you also have to understand that doing so is not always possible. Knowing that, for example, you need a working parachute when you jump out of a flying plane at high altitude to prevent serious injury or death should not depend on whether a double-blind study has been done on the subject.

There are also cases where we realize early, or know already, that the treatment is efficacious, so much so that continuing to withhold or withholding in the first place treatment from the controls would be unethical:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6176209.stm

It's just like how we know that having a working parachute when jumping from a flying plane at high altitude prevents almost completely serious injury or death from the fall so much that it would be unethical to provide to controls "fake parachutes," for example, because we know the controls would likely be seriously injured or die.

There are several threads in this forum where the "evolution" lie has been exposed as a philosophically, physically, chemically, biologically, mathematically impossible anti-science. If you've "read the papers and done the experiments" you would already know that it's a scientifically impossible nonsense. Not one experiment or observation has ever confirmed any of the conjecture claimed to support the superstition.

So far the superstition is only sold to the scientifically illiterate by a plethora of grandiose, glib gratuitous assertions.

I know I shouldn't but.........

have you ever even done any biology experiments in a lab?

Wasn't there that experiment run by Richard Lenski that showed beneficial mutations that allowed some strains of E. coli bacteria to survive better, the most notable being some E. coli strains becoming able to consume citric acid?

That experiment was so notable it has its own wiki page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment