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Pseudoscience

Category:Pseudoscience

A system of theories or assertions about the natural world that claim or appear to be scientific but that, in fact, are not. — The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Retrieved October 13, 2008. --Cs32en (talk) 13:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience is a methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific, or that is made to appear to be scientific, but which does not adhere to an appropriate scientific methodology,^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] lacks supporting evidence or plausibility,^[5] or otherwise lacks scientific status.^[6] --Cs32en (talk) 13:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

^ "Pseudoscientific - pretending to be scientific, falsely represented as being scientific", from the Oxford American Dictionary, published by the Oxford English Dictionary.
^ Hansson, Sven Ove (1996). “Defining Pseudoscience”, Philosophia Naturalis, 33: 169–176, cited in "Science and Pseudo-science" (2008) in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Stanford article states: "Many writers on pseudoscience have emphasized that pseudoscience is non-science posing as science. The foremost modern classic on the subject (Gardner 1957) bears the title Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. According to Brian Baigrie (1988, 438), “[w]hat is objectionable about these beliefs is that they masquerade as genuinely scientific ones.” These and many other authors assume that to be pseudoscientific, an activity or a teaching has to satisfy the following two criteria (Hansson 1996): (1) it is not scientific, and (2) its major proponents try to create the impression that it is scientific."
^ For example, Hewitt et al. Conceptual Physical Science Addison Wesley; 3 edition (July 18, 2003) ISBN 0-321-05173-4, Bennett et al. The Cosmic Perspective 3e Addison Wesley; 3 edition (July 25, 2003) ISBN 0-8053-8738-2
^ See also, e.g., Gauch HG Jr. Scientific Method in Practice (2003)
^ The National Science Foundation adopts the definition of (Shermer, 1997): "claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility" (Shermer 1997, p. 33). In contrast, science is "a set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed and inferred phenomena, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation" (Shermer 1997, p. 17). Shermer M. (1997). Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. cited by National Science Foundation (official report) (2006). "Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding". Science and engineering indicators 2006.
^ "A pretended or spurious science; a collection of related beliefs about the world mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method or as having the status that scientific truths now have.", from the Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition 1989.

Comments by Cs32en

While some proponents of alternative views on 9/11-related topics may engage in pseudoscience, and some theories that are being brought forward to support some of these alternative views, may be pseudoscientific, the alternative view itself, whether true or false, is not pseudoscience, because it is not a "system of theories or assertions about the natural world". Instead, it is a hypothesis about a particular given set of singular events. --Cs32en (talk) 13:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

[1] "Pseudoscientific - pretending to be scientific, falsely represented as being scientific", from the Oxford American Dictionary, published by the Oxford English Dictionary.

[2] Hansson, Sven Ove (1996). “Defining Pseudoscience”, Philosophia Naturalis, 33: 169–176, cited in "Science and Pseudo-science" (2008) in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Stanford article states: "Many writers on pseudoscience have emphasized that pseudoscience is non-science posing as science. The foremost modern classic on the subject (Gardner 1957) bears the title Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. According to Brian Baigrie (1988, 438), “[w]hat is objectionable about these beliefs is that they masquerade as genuinely scientific ones.” These and many other authors assume that to be pseudoscientific, an activity or a teaching has to satisfy the following two criteria (Hansson 1996): (1) it is not scientific, and (2) its major proponents try to create the impression that it is scientific."

[autogenerated3-3] For example, Hewitt et al. Conceptual Physical Science Addison Wesley; 3 edition (July 18, 2003) ISBN 0-321-05173-4, Bennett et al. The Cosmic Perspective 3e Addison Wesley; 3 edition (July 25, 2003) ISBN 0-8053-8738-2

[4] See also, e.g., Gauch HG Jr. Scientific Method in Practice (2003)

[5] The National Science Foundation adopts the definition of (Shermer, 1997): "claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility" (Shermer 1997, p. 33). In contrast, science is "a set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed and inferred phenomena, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation" (Shermer 1997, p. 17). Shermer M. (1997). Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. cited by National Science Foundation (official report) (2006). "Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding". Science and engineering indicators 2006.

[6] "A pretended or spurious science; a collection of related beliefs about the world mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method or as having the status that scientific truths now have.", from the Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition 1989.

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