Explain How Pseudoscience Is Different From Science

The age of the earth has been debated for centuries. Many people believe in evolution that it took billions of years for everything and everyone to form. Others believe that God created the earth in seven days and that the earth is young. Secular scientist and Christian scientist both use different methods for determining how old the earth is. For example, Secular scientist look and use the layers of rocks to help them, while Christian scientist uses the Bible and look at historical data from other cultures to help them. Doesn't looking at archeological data seem more accurate than looking at rocks? If the earth is truly billions of years old, then why is there little sediment on the sea floor? Or how can secular scientist explain finding soft tissue in a fossil if the earth is old? The most logical explanation is that the earth is young. Many people believe something just because people say that it is true, sometimes it is good to investigate for yourself and see if it is good for you.

1A. There are several harmful consequences in believing in a pseudoscientific system. One of the consequences is that you could be depriving yourself or others from something that may be beneficial to your health. For example, you may believe something may be harmful, but it really causes no harm at all, but instead will benefit your overall health. Another consequence is that by believing in a pseudoscientific concept, you may be putting other people in danger. For example, by believing that vaccines may cause harm to your child, you are putting everyone that child interacts with in danger. The overall consequence of believing in a pseudoscientific concept is that people waste their time and effort into believing and supporting something that may not even be true.

The difference between a hypothesis and a scientific theory is that a hypothesis is a proposed description while a scientific theory is a proven description for something. The difference between a prediction and a hypothesis is that a prediction is a guess at what the results are going to be referring to the proposed hypothesis, while a hypothesis is a proposed explanation where the experiment will be based off of. A testable hypothesis would be useful in scientific experiments because it is testable, also a directional hypothesis would be good because it is based off of theories. A non-directional hypothesis would not be a good for investigations because they are based off on theories that have little or no grounds. In the cell theory, all

In “Why We Need to Understand Science”, Carl Sagan argues the possible reasons why Americans confuse “pseudo” science and real science and discusses effects of this phenomenon. According to Merriam-Webster, pseudoscience is defined as “a system of theories, assumptions, and methods erroneously regarded as scientific”. It is erroneous to equate a “pseudo” science like astrology to a real science like astronomy because astrology lacks the empirical data necessary to define it as a science. Sagan says in his article that the result of this confusion can be disastrous because society is dependent on science and technology for everything from global warming to homeland security (12-13).

Falsification is the idea that a hypothesis must be able to be falsified. This does not mean that it will or that there are already doubts about the hypothesis, but that the

Wikipedia defines Scientific theory, as often seeks to synthesize a body of evidence or observations of phenomena. It's generally -- though by no means always -- a grander, testable statement about how nature operates. I see scientific theory as having a great deal of support backing it to support and accepted it as true.

Pseudoscience is a claim or belief that does not conform to the scientific method. Generally, pseudoscience will have a lack of scientific evidence and will seem almost as an exaggeration. The evidence that is there to support it is not heavily supported or seems to be conforming to fit the “hypothesis”. In the article I found, James Cameron dove by himself to the deepest part of

One of the interesting things I have learned from Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science is how significant it is to know the difference between science and pseudoscience. As Goldacre discusses, most people see science as an authority not a method (Goldacre, page 3); so they mistakenly confuse market-based pseudoscientific products with science. Science is about experimental methods and testing specific hypothesis by controlling conditions to see the effects of studied factors. Pseudoscience, in contrast, ignores experimental methods, takes advantage of the science name, and justify its findings by shifting into untestable positions (Goldacre, page 7). The emergence of detox products (Goldacre, page 4), brain gym (Goldacre, page 15), homeopathy (Goldacre, page 30) and other types of alternative therapies are good examples. One key point here is the importance of experimental methods. One way to find out the basic of science, we need to disprove pseudoscientific claims (Goldacre, page 3) and it is done thorough experimental methods.

There are some demarcations to science from pseudo-science and non-science (Hansson, 2008). Science aims to unravel the way the natural world is and explain how it is and why it works in a particular manner (Hobson, 2001 & Bunge, 1982). It answers few of these questions by demonstrating the cause and the effects of various actions by presenting in descriptive and explanatory claims (Parse, 1995). Scientists prove their findings by explaining

After reading Feder’s “Quick Start Guide” and chapter on “Science and Pseudoscience”, my impression of the difference between a “pseudo” archaeological theory and scientific archaeological theory is opinion and fact. First of all, it is important to know that archaeologists study about human cultures in the past by understanding and interpreting the remains and artifacts found in archaeological sites. When artifacts are discovered and proven to be false, it is a hoax. On the other hand, scientific archaeological theory occurs when archaeologists use evidence to support and show that the information they gathered is true.

I feel that popular science is so much more than trivial rubbish. There is a reason why popular science exists, and it certainly does not bring it justice for it to be compared to trivial rubbish. The first reason why popular science is much more than trivial rubbish is due to its role in educating the general audience. Non-scientists especially benefit greatly from popular science.

The scientific revolution had arisen new ideas to the scientific community that would have an impact to many religious communities. The creation of new tools allowed human to test ideas and theories that would confirm or deny previous assumptions. Pseudoscience was a form of science that would introduce many absurd ideas that could be denied with current evidence. However, many scientific theories and assumptions are fallible and could be disproven and thus created pseudoscience. Michael Shermer wrote an article that explains the main problem with pseudoscience as he states, “The boundary problem between science and pseudoscience, in fact, is notoriously fraught with definitional disagreements because the categories are too broad and fuzzy

This 40 minute video introduction was very informational and entertaining. I never really took the time to actually research and learn more in depth how the world thinks. Pseudoscience has been taking over the world and we are not even aware of it. I believe we should be more skeptical about the different things that we do in life and ask questions to certified, knowledgeable individuals before diving in to what we think might be interesting, but most importantly, conduct our own research.

Science and Pseudoscience differ in many ways. Science uses experimentation to accept or reject the hypothesis being tested while pseudoscience only looks for evidence to support the hypothesis often ignoring conflicting evidence. In science reproducible results are required before coming to a conclusion while in pseudoscience will often fail to successfully reproduce similar results. Science also argues with scientific information based of experimentation while pseudoscience lacks scientific evidence when supporting ideas. All and all the two contrast in many ways these being some of the most prominent.

Laudan (1983) claimed that the problem of demarcation can be traced back to ancient Greece and Aristotle. Aristotle asserted that from general laws one can deduce scientific theories that are consequently truthful statements. Pseudoscientific theories according to Aristotle are not deductively formulated and therefore cannot be considered scientific. However this method of demarcation is flawed: pseudosciences such as astrology can be vacuously true and most are reluctant to say astrology is scientific. We can already see from this early stage that the distinctions between science and pseudoscience are murky and the formulation of demarcation can be challenging.