- What is a pseudoscience?
- Characteristics of pseudoscience
- Examples of pseudoscience
- Types of pseudoscience
We explain what pseudosciences are and what their characteristics are. Also, types and examples of pseudosciences.
What is a pseudoscience?
All forms of affirmation are called pseudoscience or pseudoscience, belief or practice that appears to be scientific without being so, that is, without following the objective verification steps stipulated in the Scientific method. Therefore, the postulates of a pseudoscience cannot be reliably verified, nor do they have official scientific status, nor are they endorsed or legitimized by any institution of the area.
The science is characterized by the acquisition of knowledge by means of the observation and experimentation reality, empirically. Pseudosciences, on the other hand, are based more on a system of popular beliefs, judgments and half-truths, which are always kept in an uncertain, often infallible, unverifiable and even mystical region.
The boundaries between science and pseudoscience have political and philosophical implications, and are vital in matters of Health, right, environmental policy or science education. However, many pseudoscientific beliefs are ingrained and widely distributed in people of all educational and cultural backgrounds.
Hence, in the fields of knowledge, the term "pseudoscientific" is used with a pejorative charge, to say something that is closer to occultism and popular mythology than to properly logical, rational and scientific knowledge.
Characteristics of pseudoscience
A pseudoscience usually has some of the following characteristics:
- He is an occultist. It takes refuge in the shadows of scientific knowledge, usually as part of a tale of global conspiracy, arcane knowledge, or traditions secret, so their followers feel they have a truth supreme and exclusive.
- It has no official legitimacy. The doctrines pseudoscientific do not appear in official scientific publications, nor do they have endorsement, support and interest of the institutions that hold and promote scientific knowledge. On the contrary, they are frequent in publications of popularization, superstition and occultism.
- Copy the scientific terminology. On the surface, a pseudoscience uses scientific terms and language similar to that of an official discipline, but without the support and specialized knowledge behind science. It is a kind of "disguise" that does not support a specialized review and that many times unintentionally exposes the author's ignorance regarding the specific topic, since they use scientific terms in an imprecise way or contrary to their meaning.
- It is dogmatic. It raises a series of beliefs that must be accepted or rejected, but that do not allow refutation and verification, as they do. exact Sciences.
- It does not pursue general laws. Unlike the sciences, they generally pose particular cases that contradict the general apparatus of the human sciences.
- Does not accept review. He usually attacks his detractors with arguments ad-hominem (the person), such as accusing of blindness, of being part of the "system" or of persecuting the "enlightened".
- It is immutable. They adhere to their body of beliefs without rethinking, reevaluating or developing them further, even in the face of the tests of the speech official scientist.
- It is inconsistent. Their approaches are not integrated with other fields of knowledge (external incoherence), nor do they respond in a coherent way to their own postulates (internal incoherence).
Examples of pseudoscience
Parapsychology studies extrasensory phenomena between living human beings.
Some of the disciplines currently considered as pseudosciences are the following:
- Astrology. The belief that the position of stars at the time of birth of a child has a marked influence on its character, your destiny and your relationships with others.
- Magnetotherapy. A practice that assumes diseases as imbalances in the magnetic field Y electric of the human body, and that aspires to cure them by applying magnets Y metals on the skin.
- Cryptozoology. The study of living beings (animals) unknown to the zoology contemporary, from testimonies and vestiges (footprints, remains, etc.), when not supposed photographs, as happened with the Loch Ness Monster, with the Yeti, etc.
- Feng shui Coming from the east of the world, this discipline explains the energy currents of people through the orientation and arrangement of the elements of their home, to achieve therapeutic harmony.
- Phrenology. Widely practiced in the 19th century, this doctrine sought to determine the facilities, impulses and defects of personality of people based on the shape and characteristics of their skull.
- Parapsychology The study of extrasensory phenomena between Humans living, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, and even contact with the dead or with entities from "other planes."
- Ufology. The doctrine that sustains the presence in the Earth of extraterrestrial life and that tries to prove its manifestations and its contacts with the human species, as well as its responsibility in the construction of great historical landmarks (such as the pyramids of Egypt).
Types of pseudoscience
There is no "official" classification of pseudosciences, but we could roughly classify them according to the logic of their doctrine:
- Conspiracy. Those who aspire to reveal to the public a "truth" that has been denied to them by powerful and secret groups or consortia of global interests.
- Historicists. Those that try to demonstrate their postulates through reinterpretations of true historical events in light of their doctrine.
- Metaphysical. Those that try to give an alternative explanation (usually magical, mystical or para-scientific) to real and proven phenomena, or even more to those that have not yet been deciphered by science.