Transcript Science vs. Pseudoscience

Science vs. Pseudoscience
Science
• What science does:
• Discovers and documents natural phenomena
• Constructs and evaluates explanations of the phenomena
(theories)
• The scientific approach
• Objective- (not affected by personal bias and must be welldefined and specific)
• Testable- (must be falsifiable ,thus, the ability to
be proven wrong)
• Public- (articles, journals, etc.)
Pseudoscience
• The word “pseudo” means false. Pseudoscience
directly translated means “false science”
• Study or claim that is not backed with any hard data
or facts.
• Also called:
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Fringe science
Junk science
Hoax science
Bad science
Characteristics of Pseudoscience
• Fail to conduct objective tests of a theory
• Suppresses or distorts unfavorable data (looks for
only supportive information)
• Many ideas are not open to scientific evaluation
(cannot be tested)
• Lack of evidence is taken to support that a claim
could be true
• Based on dogma and uncritical belief
• May be hostile in face of disagreement
• Field is resistant to change
Examples of Pseudoscience
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Astrology
Crop circles
2012 Apocalypse
Astral Travel
ESP
Creationism
Alien encounters
Hypnosis
And many, many more!