Thread: Science vs Pseudoscience

First off, this is a very deep philosophical question that has no correct answer. I for one have no clue how to answer it, but here is my take. Here is my idea from my biochemistry background.
To get a scientific concept to become scientific law, it must be reproducible. The purpose of medical journals is to present an experiment and put it out in the open to be tested by others.
Here is an example. Suturing minor "clean" lacerations in the ER using sterile technique versus, using regular gloves and comparing infection rates after the suturing.
Science: The Journal of Emergency Medicine studied this and concluded the infection rate was no better statistically using sterile technique
Pseudoscience: Saying that using sterile technique is better because its sterile. The testing and results speak to this not being true.
Scientists developed the method to make others able to test one's work and then draw conclusions. The reason psychology is not considered true science by many is that each person is too unique to make a reproducible result at least on a consistent basis.
All this is to day my definition of true science is to take a quantifiable idea or concept, test it with some sort of control, and get results that are reproducible. Pseudoscience is taking an unquantifiable idea or concept, getting results and not being able to reproduce it. Otherwise in my mind pseudoscience is doing one experiment, getting one result and doing the exact same experiment again and getting completely different results.
My dumb attempt at an answer.

Originally Posted by northpaw

Congrats on the 3k!

I said systematic because I was trying to keep the definition short, and I didn't want to get into describing the scientific method. (I mean, we could just link to a description of that, right?)

To me, the pursuit of science seems systematic because the process typically follows certain steps: research, thinking, hypotheses, testing, more thinking, etc. Additionally, papers are published in somewhat standard formats, they are subject to somewhat standard processes of review, etc. These aspects may not always be exactly the same, but they're generally very similar, from what I understand.

Regarding falsifiability, if a claim can't possibly be proven wrong, then there's nothing anyone can do to determine whether or not it's accurate. Put a different way, if a claim doesn't lead to predictions that either turn out to be correct or not, then it isn't useful.

If science is defined thoroughly, then I'm comfortable simply calling pseudoscience anything that is "non-science trying to pass itself off as science" (pseudo = false or counterfeit). It might seem circular in some regards, but the construction of the word itself necessarily invokes the definition of science, so...?

Yes, pseudoscience is "non-science," but the question is, what is science? Is saying "Science is something that follows the scientific method" enough? What about "non-experimental" studies, such as those based solely on observation (say... astrophysics or astronomy, which I think most would consider a science)?

I like what you say about falsifiability and predictions; these are two popular ideas for components of science. I was mostly interested in what you would say about it.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

There is no difference, sorry but to many things that have been considered "Hard" science have been dis-proved with more study, and the opposite also of too many things that have been considered stuff of legend and lore have been proved....

I think Science is an ongoing search that really never can end....

You seem to draw a connection between "science" and "truth." I know you have more that you could say, and I'm curious as to what else you think.

Originally Posted by gregs656

Sure they do, but it's impossible to get data in psychology that is not flawed on so many levels it's laughable. You will never have a big enough sample, and it will never be varied enough. It's depressing studing psychology as a science.

Astrology is not just about your personality traits. Astrology flies in the face of much of physics (for example). Astrology is a theory not based on evidence, that means it cannot be emprically tested and you cannot test if the claims are linked to reality.

Science needs to be useful science needs to help us describe and explain phenomena. Almost every definition of science infers it needs to be useful.

By dogmatic, I mean that science should be able to accept that it might have got it wrong, rather that asserting correctness.

not at all, I was just putting it out there that pseudoscience is often used in an attempt to validate some claim or another, and generally that is 'selling' the theory to either make it seem more palatable to a wider audience, or to sell a product. I think 'real' science is (generally) not used to sell products in the same way, if it actually works, there's no reason to tell you how many people found out it works out of the 15 tested, if you see what I mean?

Psychology will never develop into a true science. Not this form of psychology any way.

How is the data "flawed"? Is it possible to collect unflawed data, or could we ever figure out what is and how to collect unflawed data? What would count as unflawed data? If we could, could psychology become science? What changes must be made to "psychology" to make it a science?

I must be ignorant about astrology; can you explain how it flies in much of the face of physics (I do know some physics, so I should be able to follow you there).

One could produce astrological evidence, couldn't one? Astrology must make some claims, right? And if it makes any correct claims at all, it has evidence. Again, I though my personality example was evidence for astrology, but I could easily be mistaken.

I see you saying that definitions of science include that it must be useful, but why is useful included? Why do you include it in your definition?

Thank you for clearing up the dogmatic bit. I like your definition, and agree that science should, by that definition, not be dogmatic. (I'll leave it to you to tell us why, unless someone asks me directly.)

"if it actually works, there's no reason to tell you how many people found out it works out of the 15 tested, if you see what I mean?" - Isn't that how you know it works? It sounds like you're talking about the manipulation of statistics to fabricate "evidence," which goes back to the idea that a scientific claim must have "enough" of "the right kind of evidence" to support it.

Originally Posted by treydampier

First off, this is a very deep philosophical question that has no correct answer. I for one have no clue how to answer it, but here is my take. Here is my idea from my biochemistry background.
To get a scientific concept to become scientific law, it must be reproducible. The purpose of medical journals is to present an experiment and put it out in the open to be tested by others.
Here is an example. Suturing minor "clean" lacerations in the ER using sterile technique versus, using regular gloves and comparing infection rates after the suturing.
Science: The Journal of Emergency Medicine studied this and concluded the infection rate was no better statistically using sterile technique
Pseudoscience: Saying that using sterile technique is better because its sterile. The testing and results speak to this not being true.
Scientists developed the method to make others able to test one's work and then draw conclusions. The reason psychology is not considered true science by many is that each person is too unique to make a reproducible result at least on a consistent basis.
All this is to day my definition of true science is to take a quantifiable idea or concept, test it with some sort of control, and get results that are reproducible. Pseudoscience is taking an unquantifiable idea or concept, getting results and not being able to reproduce it. Otherwise in my mind pseudoscience is doing one experiment, getting one result and doing the exact same experiment again and getting completely different results.
My dumb attempt at an answer.

Lots of good stuff in there. Thanks for bringing your experiences as a biochemist to the table.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

How is the data "flawed"? Is it possible to collect unflawed data, or could we ever figure out what is and how to collect unflawed data? What would count as unflawed data? If we could, could psychology become science? What changes must be made to "psychology" to make it a science?


The data is flawed, partly because of how it was collected, partly because whom it was collected from, partly because of the size of the sample it was collected from. There are too many facets and too many variables for me to begin to comprehend what needs to change. I mean, there are what, three DIFFERENT paradigms within 'psychology' I wouldn't know where to begin for each one to be honest.

I must be ignorant about astrology; can you explain how it flies in much of the face of physics (I do know some physics, so I should be able to follow you there).

Astrologists believe that individual stars and planets can have an affect on us. Collectively they hold us together, individually they just can't have a measurable effect.

One could produce astrological evidence, couldn't one? Astrology must make some claims, right? And if it makes any correct claims at all, it has evidence. Again, I though my personality example was evidence for astrology, but I could easily be mistaken.

Just because they make claims doesn't mean they have any evidence to support them. You would have to establish a cause an effect relationship, your personality may well just be chance.

I see you saying that definitions of science include that it must be useful, but why is useful included? Why do you include it in your definition?

Science must explain something, as far as I'm concerned, there is very little that isn't useful to someone in some way. I think a lot of pseudoscience isn't useful, it just happens to 'fit' the product or idea.

Thank you for clearing up the dogmatic bit. I like your definition, and agree that science should, by that definition, not be dogmatic. (I'll leave it to you to tell us why, unless someone asks me directly.)

"if it actually works, there's no reason to tell you how many people found out it works out of the 15 tested, if you see what I mean?" - Isn't that how you know it works? It sounds like you're talking about the manipulation of statistics to fabricate "evidence," which goes back to the idea that a scientific claim must have "enough" of "the right kind of evidence" to support it.

I do think a scientific claim should have enough of the right kind of evidence. I could probably establish a casual relationship between the colour of your carpet and how many times you blink during an average day, it would be a completely useless and weak relationship and there would be no cause an effect, but there would still be some link. That is not useful, it would be based on poor evidence and it would basically rely on chance.

Sorry about the red, but, it does work!

I'm most interested in the last bit you wrote, because it deals with a few different things.

How much is enough? What is the right kind of evidence?

Going with the useful thing, who decides what is useful? If the number of times I blink per day (or something else, if you prefer) is not useful, does that mean it is impossible to form a scientific theory about it?

I do like the idea that some sort of cause and effect is necessary - that seems to me to fit with the predictive power requirement we discussed earlier. The real trick is in determining what is the cause and what is the effect - this is what many theories try to do (such as the stars being the cause for our personalities and actions or bodies of mass attracting each other). Each has a cause and effect, yet one is deemed pseudoscience and the other science. How do you know individual stars don't have any effect on you, other than that it seems improbable because you see no causal relation? How do you know there is no causal relation?

I don't want to let the psychology part go, though. What if we had machines that could tell us every factor about a human before we collected data from that human. What if we new every factor about every human and took data from every human. With enough data and data analysis, could we ever create a science?

Are you looking for some absolute truth here? I don't think there is one. Everything is framed within our experiences and what is accepted as valid based on the current technology and models may be inadequate down the road. Science is everchanging.

We can frame science as a result obtained through the scientific method but will our notion of the scientific method be adequate 200 years from now?

Back in the earlier days they would have told you their conclusions were correct and were accepted so then someone came along and said your basing your conclusions on nonsense so we come up with the scientific method which by all we know will prevent the kind of thing from happening like it did in the early days but are we really no different than someone working in the 1600s when its the year 2200 or 2500 and someone says man you guys never took into account this or that.

As far as Pseudoscience I think thats a bad term because it has nothing to do with science. Its like the term oversharp with a razor. The edge is ruined and what they call pseudoscience is really just fraud.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

There is no difference, sorry but to many things that have been considered "Hard" science have been dis-proved with more study, and the opposite also of too many things that have been considered stuff of legend and lore have been proved....

There is a difference, but you just beautifully described the way science (no need for capital S I'd say) works: It describes the ways things work, based on fact and insight. If new information comes to light, it'll be subjected to the scientific approach and if the outcome is that established insights need to be adjusted, they are adjusted.

In my view, it's the beauty of the system. I also feel that the far majority of pseudoscience does not endorse these adjustments.

I think Science is an ongoing search that really never can end....

There might be something to describe "all" knowledge, but that'd be academic, so basically there's not a lie in that.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

I'm most interested in the last bit you wrote, because it deals with a few different things.

How much is enough? What is the right kind of evidence?

I guess that is decided on a case by case basis, I think many things get accepted as science once that community decides there is enough supporting evidence of a high enough standard. As mentioned, that is quite a formal process so I imagine there is data out there some where RE what is required.

Going with the useful thing, who decides what is useful? If the number of times I blink per day (or something else, if you prefer) is not useful, does that mean it is impossible to form a scientific theory about it?

I think a relationship between the colour of your carpet and the number of times you blink would count as a pseudoscience, for me anyway.

I do like the idea that some sort of cause and effect is necessary - that seems to me to fit with the predictive power requirement we discussed earlier. The real trick is in determining what is the cause and what is the effect - this is what many theories try to do (such as the stars being the cause for our personalities and actions or bodies of mass attracting each other). Each has a cause and effect, yet one is deemed pseudoscience and the other science. How do you know individual stars don't have any effect on you, other than that it seems improbable because you see no causal relation? How do you know there is no causal relation?

Because one has never been established. Until it has, and there is a substantial amount of evidence to prove it, it's a pseudoscience, because there is no evidence.

I don't want to let the psychology part go, though. What if we had machines that could tell us every factor about a human before we collected data from that human. What if we new every factor about every human and took data from every human. With enough data and data analysis, could we ever create a science?

No, I don't think so. The trouble is, as soon as you do an experiment or some kind of test on a human, the results are flawed, if you control the environment, the results are flawed. If you don't control the environment, you can't establish a cause and effect relationship and the results are flawed. Psychoogy is sort of the ultimate pseudoscience.

Psychology basically holds it's hands up and says 'there are flaws, but it's the best we can do' and then a load of people repeat the experiement and get similar results and it's 'good enough'. The unfortunate thing is, that psychology was born out of philosophy, and no one teaches that side of it any more.

10 characters . . .

Don't see much difference between the 2. Perceptions, biases, relativity & probably a whole bunch of other things can influence either. I don't know how many "absolutes" or "scientific principles" exist or what processes are considered "scientific" but seems there is enough potential for change that almost makes this question a Zen koan.

science - to know; knowledge; to know in part; partial knowledge

From Latin, Greek, French, Spanish roots.

Think hard? Forget that.

Once I was a tadpole when I began to begin
Then I was a frog with my tail tucked in
Next I was a monkey in a banyan tree
Now I'm a doctor with a PhD


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