posted
The Straw Conspiracy Thread, and the Humanities thread reminded me that there is a big difference between Psuedo Scienc and Real Science. Whether we are debating Global Climate Change, Evolution, The energy differential required to lift liquids in different size straws, or the use of an MBA, there is one clue.
Real Science tries to take complicated ideas and simplify them to the easiest useable symbols. Elements become Initials, the infinite becomes a sleeping 8, and numbers go from being images of many things, to, well, numbers.
Psuedo Science tries to take ideas and use the most complicated words to describe them. I once took a 10 page chapter in my poli-sci book, and reduced it to three pages of plain talk.
I am not saying that Sociology is equivilant to Phenology or that Business Management is as questionable as Ghost Busting. However, when experts in a field choose the most "scientific" sounding words to express thier ideas, instead of the most simple, you are no longer dealing with true science.
The goal of a scientific expert is to explain their field of study in the simpilest terms possible. The goal of a psuedo Scientist is to explain their field of study sound the most like an expert as possible.
quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: The Straw Conspiracy Thread, and the Humanities thread reminded me that there is a big difference between Psuedo Scienc and Real Science. Whether we are debating Global Climate Change, Evolution, The energy differential required to lift liquids in different size straws, or the use of an MBA, there is one clue.
Real Science tries to take complicated ideas and simplify them to the easiest useable symbols. Elements become Initials, the infinite becomes a sleeping 8, and numbers go from being images of many things, to, well, numbers.
Psuedo Science tries to take ideas and use the most complicated words to describe them. I once took a 10 page chapter in my poli-sci book, and reduced it to three pages of plain talk.
I am not saying that Sociology is equivilant to Phenology or that Business Management is as questionable as Ghost Busting. However, when experts in a field choose the most "scientific" sounding words to express thier ideas, instead of the most simple, you are no longer dealing with true science.
The goal of a scientific expert is to explain their field of study in the simpilest terms possible. The goal of a psuedo Scientist is to explain their field of study sound the most like an expert as possible.
ok Rant done.
Phrenology Fool! (dont forget the R). I hear what you are saying, I need to think about it a bit more before I could post anything intelligent. So take my jab at your grammar you brigand!
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Phrenology Fool! (dont forget the R). I hear what you are saying, I need to think about it a bit more before I could post anything inteligent. So take my jab at your grammar you brigand!
edit: ironically for grammar.
Errr....might want to add another l to intelligent while you're at it Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Phrenology Fool! (dont forget the R). I hear what you are saying, I need to think about it a bit more before I could post anything inteligent. So take my jab at your grammar you brigand!
edit: ironically for grammar.
Errr....might want to add another l to intelligent while you're at it
Ill have you know that has nothing to do with intelligence, merely hand eye coordination!
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:However, when experts in a field choose the most "scientific" sounding words to express thier ideas, instead of the most simple, you are no longer dealing with true science.
I don't think I agree. Scientific jargon is created to describe things that simply can't be described easily. Try to explain what a "reynold's number" is, using simple terms for example. It's much easier to describe with math, but that will turn most people off right off the bat.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Psuedo Science tries to take ideas and use the most complicated words to describe them. I once took a 10 page chapter in my poli-sci book, and reduced it to three pages of plain talk.
Werd. Business textbooks make my concisitinessization sensor hurt.
Hey, Dan, you know I've had a quote from you up on my Facebook for the past... year or two? I keep meaning to tell you, and I feel oddly guilty that I've stolen your (credited) intellectual property.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I thought it was just one word: "pseudoscience." No capitalization necessary. Maybe hyphenated?
I think the two definitions given, for real and pseudo, aren't fitting the whole spectre. Science is empiricism, rationalism, and methodological naturalism -- the actionable knowledge derived from it is something that I don't believe necessarily to have an inherent trend towards simplification. Not as a defining characteristic or acid test, anyway.
Pseudoscience can go either way, either being purposefully simplified or overly complicated in presentation. It's true that some of it operates on the concept of verbiose, intellectual-sounding density; stuff that just sounds 'official' and 'scientific' and can be ployed against people. The more insidious element of all pseudoscience, though, is consistant in one regard alone: it's fallacial. I think that pseudoscience should be defined by fallacy.
NARTH and Discovery Institute make two good examples -- they aren't bogus because they're wordy, they're bogus because they go into a field of scientific study with presupposed conclusions, and attempt to prop up a faith as an empirical reasoning. But they try to dress down and layman their positions with very simple, very transmittable concepts and analogies: irreducable complexity becomes a mousetrap. A teleological argument becomes a watch found in a field.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I would say that pseudoscience is defined instead by a lack of rigor or "scientific integrity". In the hard inductive sciences, the method can be summarized as:
1: Come up with a theory. It should be able to handle all already known facts, and should be falsifiable. 2: Test it against reality, over and over again, repeatedly.
A pseudoscience, on the other hand, is characterized by non-falsifiable theories--they break down at step 1. For example, intelligent design is non-falsifiable; there's no way to prove that God wasn't involved in evolution at some step. Freudian psychology also isn't falsifiable, because dreams can mean whatever you want them to mean under the theory.
A pseudoscience can also be characterized by lack of rigor in testing. This is the type of field like polisci that looks at one example, constructs a theory around it, and then doesn't test it against the real world in any other way.
Both use scientific language to disguise the central emptiness.
I wouldn't call Business Mangagement a pseudoscience, but an applied science. You can categorize types of science as:
1: Inductive pure science (Physics, chemistry, biology)--you're looking to discover laws of nature from experimentation. 2: Deductive pure science (Math, logic, theoretical computer science)--you're looking to develop laws of nature that logically follow from a few axioms. 3: Applied science (Engineering of all sorts)--you're looking to use the laws of nature from 1 and 2 to do practical things. You still use the scientific method, but the question is always, "Does it do what I want it to do, and if not, how do I fix it?"
Within most of the social sciences, there are people doing real science. Unfortunately, there are usually more doing pseudoscience.
Posts: 170 | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
Nicely said, Edgehopper. If I might be permitted to add another symptom of pseudoscience. Often pseudoscience uses testimonials as empirical evidence. Like, “I slept with a quartz crystal near my head and my eczema was a lot better the next morning. That Crystalology really works!”
[ August 10, 2006, 01:32 PM: Message edited by: Samuel Bush ]
Posts: 631 | Registered: Oct 1999
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