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Identification of Pseudo-Science
Despite the importance science plays in the lives of 21st century human beings, we find ourselves frequently faced with possible examples of pseudo-science. A simple litmus test of pseudo-science is indicated by examples of the following characteristics. The more the number of characteristics that you encounter, as well as the more egregious the violation, the more likely it is that you have found a pseudo-science.
A pseudo-science is likely if it is:
- Asserting claims or theories without first verifying through experimentation
- Asserting claims that cannot be verified
- Asserting claims without supporting experimental evidence
- Asserting claims that contradict experimentally established results
- Failing to provide an experimental possibility of reproducible results
- Failing to submit results to peer review prior to publicizing them (called “science press conference”)
- Claiming a theory predicts something that it does not
- Claiming a theory predicts something that it has not been shown to predict
- Asserting claims that violate Falsifiability.
Falsifiability is an important concept in the philosophy of science that amounts to the apparently paradoxical idea that a proposition or theory cannot be scientific if it does not admit consideration of the possibility of its being false.
"Falsifiable" does not mean "false". For a proposition to be falsifiable, it must be possible in principle to make an observation that would show the proposition to be false, even if that observation has not been made. For example, the proposition "All crows are black" would be falsified by observing one white crow.
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