The 'agenda' of wanting it to be true, and to feel special.

It's easy for humans to believe in cause and effect, which when adding in the 'divine' allows us to suppose that an unseen force can provide the cause for a beneficial effect, i.e., praying for rain.

A soft-core atheist like me has no stories of wonder, no claims to divine/spiritual intervention. The Bell Shaped Curve explains it all; no further details needed.

Plus, it pisses me off that Satan has never heaped riches on me so that I could become a hedonist and wind up in hell. What's wrong with him?

Because they want magic to be real. And because they slept through their science classes.

door after door closes in front of them.

When Dr. A tells you, "I'm sorry, but you have a terminal illness. The best that we can do is minimize your suffering, but we can't prolong your life." Do you go to Dr. B, and Dr. C, and so on, expert after expert, hoping desperately for a different answer.

Then along comes Dr. Fulano (the Spanish speakers will get that one) who claims that with just a pinch of his Very Special Remedy, prepared fresh every day, brewed just like tea, and taken three times a day, promising that your illness will disappear.

Some people will grab at this quackery and pay anything to get it. And they will go ahead and die right on schedule anyway. But for just a little while, they felt that they were taking their destiny back into their own hands, their own control. I get that.

I would like to think that when my time comes, I've got my life in order well enough that my family could transition to life without me fairly smoothly.

Dr. Mengano is my guy!

I think it's because people either don't want to face reality, or are looking for something to blame, other than themselves.

For instance, with anti-vaxers, most of the pseudo science out there has no basis in actual scientific proof, even the research that is still quoted as saying it causes autism has been rescinded because the results were not real.

Or people always want to believe that they just have to find that one product that will make their extra weight magically melt away, when in reality, weight loss is a lot of hard work.

Those are the two best examples that easily come to mind.

Because it sounds like something they have always wanted to believe. When someone tells them there is evidence that what they want to be true really is true they jump on board with all their might. Snake oil salesmen have always known that if you can provide people with something they want that doesn't actually exist they will thank you for making it exist even though deep down they no it is not possible. If you can help them find a way that allows them to overcome their skepticism (and uniting them with others who want to believe the same thing) you've got them hooked. Wanting to believe your pseudoscience is the greatest part of the process. Why do you think people as massively intelligent as Newton tried so hard to turn lead into gold? Because they wanted to believe it was possible. And greed is a pretty strong human motivator.

What's pseudoscience???

Anonymous 2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What's pseudoscience???

something which is said to be scientific (or scientifically based), but which has no basis in science or even the scientific process.

Most 'alternative medicine' is based on pseudoscience, hence the posts above - often people (selling something) use 'scientific' language designed to make you believe the product has been through a scientific testing process -
an example would be 'Raspberry ketones have been shown to latch onto the DNA of fat cells and break them down into harmless elements which are excreted through natural bodily functions'

EssexExMo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anonymous 2 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > What's pseudoscience???
>
> something which is said to be scientific (or
> scientifically based), but which has no basis in
> science or even the scientific process.

Yeah. Like "Intelligent Design." And astrology. And homeopathy. And so many more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience

Maybe because science can only really account for 5% of the Universe, max, until we figure out WTF "Dark Matter" is or if the universe is really expanding when it's also converging on the Great Attractor at 14 million mph, at least half of it.
So the universe could be like an orange, rotating expanding out and contracting in at the same time. And there could be multiple dimensions, all connected at the black holes in the fabric of space time.
Until we figure all that out, superstition's going to have to do.

"We don't know" only means "we don't know." That does not justify you in making shit up.

Also, what in the name of Dawkins makes you think that dark matter and the Great Attractor say bugger-all about convenient coincidences like finding lost car keys?

"The Universe" is not converging on the great attractor. LOL!

Edit: And 14 million mph relative to what exactly? There is no central point of reference in the universe by which we can measure any speeds.

You think superstition will have to do, but you clearly haven't even done your research on what we do know. Maybe start there, then move on to pseudoscience after...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2016 04:51PM by kolobian.

Propinquitously speaking, I used to be somewhat of an attractor, if I do say so myself... Maybe not a Great Attractor, but I got my share.

LOL Nice :)

As it relates to LDS and the Book of Mormon, bullshit begets bullshit.

It's a substitute for religion. I seem to remember Stark & Bainbridge explaining this in their book "A Theory of Religion".

Found it. It's in the chapter on the role of magic in religion:

"In the modern world there are many magics that are sustained as pseudoscience although devoid of explicit supernatural assumptions. Some forms of astrology have this non-supernatural but pseudo-scientific character, as do many forms of putative psychotherapy (est and Dianetics, for example). These are magical in our cultural context, despite the fact that they do not invoke the supernatural, because they make empirically verifiable claims concerning [outcomes] without regard for verification, often even when their claims have been falsified empirically. (...) unlike religion, magic can consist of beliefs that are assumed true in the presence of disconfirming evidence and thus when there is reason to assume they are false" (p. 105).

A contributing factor is that the scientific literacy rate is generally so low that people can't tell when they have drifted into science-sounding woo land.

Another contributing factor is that religion has been fighting scientific advancement as a competitor for the source of answers for centuries. Every time someone follows their religion's teaching to "have faith" or "just believe," it impacts that person's ability to extrapolate scientific principles to all areas.

With rare exceptions, religion has been on the wrong side of science at every turn yet people somehow don't learn from it.

Lastly, as they say, humans are story-telling, pattern-seeking animals. Pseudoscience fits the need to see patterns, even if they are not correct. Humans want answers. Made up answers, unverified answers, incorrect answers and bizarrely implausible answers seem to be better than no answers for most people. Ready answers and inadequate tools to verify them fuel pseudoscience. It's easy and comfortable.

I guess it's just part of being human.

Dagny noted, "A contributing factor is that the scientific literacy rate is generally so low that people can't tell when they have drifted into science-sounding woo land."

Second that. I've edited clinical protocols for years and understand the value of, say, a randomized placebo-controlled trial, and why scientific claims need to be supported with either new data or references to peer-reviewed articles. It all still proves nothing, of course, other than statistical probability for one outcome being greater than for another--e.g., Treatment A is better than placebo (maybe).

But a lot of folks don't appreciate why that's important. They don't get the idea that statistically analyzed data is the closest we'll ever get to truth.

A few years ago the British medical journal "The Lancet" celebrated its first 150 years of publishing by asking its readers to name the single most important medical advance since the journal's founding. You know what was Number 1? Not anesthesia. Not a sterile operating environment. Not antibiotics. It was biostatistics. Biostatistics, more than anything else, more than anecdotal evidence, more than case studies, and certainly more than faith, can tell us what works or what doesn't in medicine.

Because it makes them happy? If believing in Bigfoot makes you happy, go for it. No downside for me, and it might make you more pleasant to be around.

In any age, most of what science believes will eventually be debunked. Why should our age be any different? I mean, the core stuff is usually solid but fringes are the main focus because they're the most interesting. Pseudoscience is the part past the fringe, where you can't apply the rules of science.

The paranormal is pseudoscience because the rules don't apply, not because it's falsifiable. In fact, having a falsifiable theory is one of the rules. However, things can't be unreal just because we declare them unreal. It just doesn't work. They have to actually be unreal.

In some cases, today's pseudoscience is tomorrow's science. Take Dean Radin's double slit fringing experiments, for example. The experiment is simple. Observation of a double slit should in theory cause some wave function collapse, changing the double slit pattern. This happens even if the slit is in a sealed box and the observation consists of a human picturing the slit in their mind's eye. They get six sigma results when they run the experiment, so it's very repeatable. Your mind isn't supposed to be able to get inside that box, let alone outside your head, according to prevailing theory.

Babyloncansuckit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Because it makes them happy? If believing in
> Bigfoot makes you happy, go for it. No downside
> for me, and it might make you more pleasant to be
> around.

Sure. Unless they try to foist their beliefs about bigfoot (or other nonsense) into public policy, education, or other areas that affect other people. Then there is a downside. A big one.

> In any age, most of what science believes will
> eventually be debunked. Why should our age be any
> different?

Let's be clear: there is no "science believes." Science doesn't operate on belief, it operates on facts and evidence. Individual scientists may have beliefs, but individual scientists aren't the "institution" of science.

And at any rate, "debunking" is a poor choice of words. What's established by facts and evidence isn't ever "debunked." We may get additional knowledge (via facts and evidence) that add to what we know, or change conclusions, but that's not "debunking." Facts that are established stay facts.


> I mean, the core stuff is usually solid
> but fringes are the main focus because they're the
> most interesting. Pseudoscience is the part past
> the fringe, where you can't apply the rules of
> science.

The "main focus" of who? Not science or scientists. And if you're not applying the rules of science, you're not doing science.

> The paranormal is pseudoscience because the rules
> don't apply, not because it's falsifiable. In
> fact, having a falsifiable theory is one of the
> rules. However, things can't be unreal just
> because we declare them unreal. It just doesn't
> work. They have to actually be unreal.

Actually, it's pseudoscience because there's no evidence there's any such thing as "the paranormal." None. Zero, zip, nada.

> In some cases, today's pseudoscience is tomorrow's
> science. Take Dean Radin's double slit fringing
> experiments, for example. The experiment is
> simple. Observation of a double slit should in
> theory cause some wave function collapse, changing
> the double slit pattern. This happens even if the
> slit is in a sealed box and the observation
> consists of a human picturing the slit in their
> mind's eye. They get six sigma results when they
> run the experiment, so it's very repeatable. Your
> mind isn't supposed to be able to get inside that
> box, let alone outside your head, according to
> prevailing theory.

Yeah, see that's a perfect example of there being no evidence. Dean Radin doesn't have evidence to back up his claims. What you say "happens" can't be shown to happen. They don't get "six sigma results," they get results that don't support their claims.

Radin's paranormal claims have been roundly rejected by those in the skeptical and mainstream scientific communities, some of whom have suggested that he has embraced pseudoscience and that he misunderstands the nature of science. The physicist Robert L. Park has written "No proof of psychic phenomena is ever found. In spite of all the tests devised by parapsychologists like Jahn and Radin, and huge amounts of data collected over a period of many years, the results are no more convincing today than when they began their experiments."

Chris French criticized Radin for his selective historical overview of parapsychology and ignoring evidence of fraud. French recounts that the medium Florence Cook was caught in acts of trickery and two of the Fox sisters confessed to fraud, but that Radin did not mention this fact. Radin has claimed the results from psi research are as consistent by the same standards as any other scientific discipline but Ray Hyman has written many parapsychologists disagree with that opinion and openly admit the evidence for psi is "inconsistent, irreproducible, and fails to meet acceptable scientific standards".

"Radin and his colleagues have suggested that small-scale studies have produced a "genuine psychokinetic effect" but critics have asserted that Radin has not shown evidence that the null hypothesis of no such effect can be confidently rejected. Further, psychologists David B. Wilson and William R. Shadish writing in Psychological Bulletin criticized claims made by Radin and his associates that human minds can psychically influence random number generators, saying that parapsychologists "need to go beyond statistics and explain how the mind might influence a computer, then test that prediction". Radin has appealed to quantum mechanics as a mechanism, claiming that it can explain the non-locality and backward causality associated with psi phenomena, though such ideas are harshly criticized by physicists who study quantum mechanics as being pseudoscientific. Radin has written that not all people experience paranormal phenomena (or see ghosts) because they block such signals due to the process of latent inhibition."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Radin

You can "believe" Radin's claims if you want to, but he doesn't have evidence backing them up. If and when he does, then his claims will be worth consideration. They're not now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2016 02:16PM by ificouldhietokolob.

I suppose Scientific American should still be saying that the Wright brothers are full of it and air travel is nonsense. And the AMA should still be saying that smoking is good for you. Both were "established facts".

Dogmatic skepticism is itself a belief system. The "there is no evidence" argument doesn't convince people who have the evidence slapping them in the face. This is especially true of phenomena that only happen if you want them to happen. Science rejects such phenomena out of a kind of professional piety.

That's an order of magnitude better than the Catholic Church apologising to Galileo for persecuting him.

Here's the deal...

If something is not understood, or explained yet, then more research needs to be done.

There are still TONS of stuff that we don't know... for example, how does little machines in your cells know where to go and how to shuttle stuff around? It's like they are alive.

Now.. someone would see that and think "MAGIC!" or something spiritual has to be the reason.

The real answer is that science can explain everything, and more research has to be done and in time, we will figure it out.

Just because we don't know the answer right away, doesn't mean that the answer is automatically magic.

This is why we build supercolliders and do space station research, or have super clean bio-labs all over the countryside.

MAGIC DOES NOT EXIST.

Agreed, magic does not exist, but magical things do.

Further deponent saith not.

For many years the existence of meteors was dismissed as pseudoscience.

"Rocks falling from the sky? Nonsense!" was said by experts.

matt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> For many years the existence of meteors was
> dismissed as pseudoscience.

I think you meant meteorites. Which isn't the same as Nephites. :)

> "Rocks falling from the sky? Nonsense!" was said
> by experts.

And then evidence was obtained that showed "rocks" did fall from the sky. So then it was reasonable to accept that they did.

The rhythm method of birth control was 'invented' long before the scientific underpinnings of conception were understood.

Unfortunately, the most common name for those women who practiced the rhythm method was "Mom".

The same for the pull-out method, or coitus interruptus, and those who weren't good at it were and are still known as "Parents."

RfM seems to be workus interruptus.

Hahahahaha! remember when someone remarked that being at work interrupted the flow of that person's posting? Someone had interrupted that person as that person had been trying to edit a post, so it had turned out not to be as polished as that person would have liked.

But the work of RfM goes forward!

Wikipedia says that in 1794 a German published the idea that meteorites came from outer space. He did endure some mocking... For ten years, when in France, in April of 1803, thousands of meteorites where seen falling from the heavens and hitting the ground.

They landed in a pattern which was finally deciphered as being a message, in German: "The German guy was right!"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid

The scientific "truths" of yesteryear are often superseded with new hypotheses, discoveries and experimentation...

...and the science of 2116 will make US look like undereducated bumpkins.

Science is always a moving target...

..a specific example of 2016 "pseudoscience" may be the seed which leads to 2116's scientific fact.

yah know its fine if you want to make stuff up and if believing in bigfoot makes you happy and more fulfilled, then go for it

the big BIG problem is where pseudoscience starts impacting on people's health and wealth.

homeopathy, astrology, chiropractic, reading the bumps on your head............all are equally stupid and have no basis in any form of science............and none of them are given to you for free

EssexExMo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the big BIG problem is where pseudoscience starts
> impacting on people's health and wealth.
>
> homeopathy, astrology, chiropractic, reading the
> bumps on your head............all are equally
> stupid and have no basis in any form of
> science............and none of them are given to
> you for free

I would add essential oils being used to "treat" health issues is a big one, especially among Mormons who are into that MLM, DoTerra. Then again, Mormons use the biggest form of pseudoscience, penishood blessings with drops of olive oil.

>
> Then again, Mormons use the biggest
> form of pseudoscience, penishood
> blessings with drops of olive oil.
>

That olive oil HAPPENS to have been consecrated!!

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Re: Why do so many people believe in pseudoscience?

Because the public education system, with few exceptions, is pretty much a joke.

I was hoping to see Mormonism in the list of topics on "Religion".

Honestly I think it's because it's easier. Pseudoscience is really easy to find and understand and they make arguments that you need deeper knowledge to debunk. It's just so easy to believe whatever you read and not check footnotes.