PSEUDOSCIENCE

We list below a few qualities of, or symptoms of, pseudoscience. This is also a catalog of the many things that can cause mistakes and error in science. The history of science itself provides examples of some of these, but we hope that we have learned from the mistakes of our past history. Few pseudosciences exhibit all of these characteristics. 1. 2. Pseudoscientists have deficient or superficial knowledge and understanding of well-established science. Their proposals are therefore based on faulty understanding of very basic and well established principles of physics and engineering. The inventors may not be at all aware of these flaws in their reasoning. They feel that physics is unnecessarily complicated because physicists are 'blind' to simpler explanations. Some complain that physics is "too mathematical" while others dazzle the innocent with mathematical gymnastics, mistakenly thinking that mathematics is physics, not understanding that it is only a modeling tool. They obsessively focus on a narrow problem without grasping the powerful interconnectedness of physical theory. Therefore they may not be aware of the broader implications and consequences of their ideas. They have inordinate confidence in themselves, plus an almost religious faith that their feelings, intuitions and hunches provide a reliable guide to scientific truth. Anyone who fails to see their genius is labeled 'blind'. They love to compare themselves to innovators of the past whose ideas were initially rejected. "They laughed at Galileo, didn't they?" Pseudoscientists are angry that their ideas are ignored by the scientific community. They behave as if scientists should drop whatever else it is they are doing to investigate speculative

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proposals, even though these proposals are not motivated by established scientific knowledge, and may be scientifically implausible.. Pseudoscientists have over-reliance on personal testimony of individuals, and other anecdotal evidence. Pseudoscientists have an obsession with anomalous observations that seem not to fit established science theory. Pseudoscientists often display an attitude of "If it feels right to me, it must be right." Pseudoscientists feel that "Nothing is a coincidence." Pseudoscientists have an obsession with finding "patterns" in data. Scientists must be pattern-seekers too, but it's a mistake to seek significance in patterns of things that have no possible connection or relation, such as patterns of stars in the sky (constellations), tea leaves, or ink blots. Pseudoscientists often commit various abuses and misuses of statistics. Pseudoscientists are motivated by considerations that lie outside the scope of science, or have already been thoroughly discredited. Example, the acupuncturists' acceptance of the reality of specific "energy pathways" in the human body. Another example: the creationists' view that science must be in harmony with their particular interpretation of the King James translation of the Bible.