Ed Poor wrote:
My impression of "pseudoscience", admittedly
rather subjective, is
that it doesn't ever bother to cite facts. Its hypotheses simply
*must* be true. "Junk science", by contrast, does cite facts but
does so selectively, deliberately *ignoring* facts which contradict
its hypotheses.
I think Ed is using an entirely personal definition of
"pseudoscience" that doesn't have much in common with the term as it
is generally used. The Wikipedia article on "pseudoscience" does a
good job of explaining it, but if you want some further explanation,
here's how I discussed the term in my book, "Trust Us, We're Experts":
The very prestige that science enjoys, however, has
also given rise to
a variety of scientific pretenders--disciplines such as phrenology or eugenics
that merely claim to be scientific. The renowned philosopher of science
Karl Popper gave a great deal of consideration to this problem and
coined the term "pseudoscience" to help separate the wheat from the
chaff. The difference between science and pseudoscience, he concluded,
is that genuinely scientific theories are "falsifiable"--that is,
they are formulated
in such a way that if they are wrong, they can be proven false
through experiments. By contrast, pseudosciences are formulated so
vaguely that they can never be proven or disproven. "The difference between
a science and a pseudoscience is that scientific statements can be
proved wrong and pseudoscientific statements cannot," says Robert Youngson
in his book Scientific Blunders: A Brief History of How Wrong Scientists
Can Sometimes Be. "By this criterion you will find that a surprising
number of seemingly scientific assertions--perhaps even many in which
you devoutly believe--are complete nonsense. Rather surprisingly this is
not to assert that all pseudoscientific claims are untrue. Some of them may
be true, but you can never know this, so they are not entitled to claim the
cast-iron assurance and reliance that you can have, and place, in scientific
facts."
Judged by this standard, many of the "social sciences"--including
the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, Jung, and others--are actually
pseudosciences
rather than the real thing. This does not mean that Freud and
Jung were charlatans or fools. Both were creative thinkers with fascinating
insights into the human psyche, but a research methodology that derives
its data from the dreams of mentally ill patients is a far cry from the
orderly system of measurements that we associate with hard sciences like
physics and chemistry.
These points, including Popper's criterion of "falsifiability," are
already clear in the Wikipedia article as it currently stands.
"Falsifiability" is an excellent conceptual tool. It avoids character
assassination and sticks strictly to the question of whether a
purported "scientific" claim can be tied to the empiricist
methodology that we expect from science.
"Junk science," by contrast, is quite a different beast. Here are a
couple of examples of the term in actual use:
Unfortunately, and increasingly today, one can find
examples of junk
science that compromise the integrity of the field of science and,
at the same time, create a scare environment where unnecessary
regulations on industry in general, and on the consumer products
industry in particular, are rammed through without respect to rhyme,
reason, effect or cause.
---Michael A. Miles, former CEO of the Philip Morris
tobacco company
Peter Huber of the Manhattan Institute defines "junk science" as "a
hodgepodge of biased data, spurious inference and logical
legerdemain, patched together by researchers whose
enthusiasm for discovery and diagnosis far outstrips their skill" and
accuses its practitioners of "data dredging, wishful thinking,
truculent dogmatism, and, now and again, outright fraud."
Steven Milloy (who calls himself the "Junkman" and runs the "Junk
Science Home Page" at
www.junkscience.com) defines junk science as
"bad science used by lawsuit-happy trial lawyers, the 'food police,'
environmental Chicken Littles, power-drunk regulators, and
unethical-to-dishonest scientists to fuel specious lawsuits, wacky
social and political agendas, and the quest for personal fame and
fortune." He habitually refers to the alleged practitioners of "junk
science" using language such as "psychologically challenged,"
"bogus," "scare mongers," "blowhards," "turkeys,"
"wacko enviros,"
etc.
What is striking about all three of these examples is that (unlike
the "falsifiability" standard used to define "pseudoscience") they
offer no methodological test for distinguishing between "good
science" and "bad science." Instead, the authors rely on name-calling
and ad hominem attacks on the motives, morals, or competence of
people whose conclusions differ from their own. This is fairly
typical of people who use the term "junk science," but it isn't
typical of people who use the term "pseudoscience."
As for Ed's invitation that I do something with the global warming
article -- right now I'm pretty busy with the Disinfopedia and some
other projects, but I'll try and take a look at it when I get some
time.
--
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Editor, PR Watch (
www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
| Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
| Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
| Mad Cow USA
| Trust Us, We're Experts
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