WHAT IS PSEUDOSCIENCE?

Many people propose ideas or share beliefs that might seem to be scientific, or at least science-like, but which are ultimately not consistent with our best understanding of Nature. These are examples of pseudoscience. Like many things, the exact demarcation between Science and pseudoscience isn't always clear, but in a broad generalization pseudoscience is "a collection of beliefs, statements, proposals, or practices which are presented as scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility."

It should be noted that bridging the gap between sound science and pseudoscience is fringe science (which we talk about in the 3rd Semester): ideas which are on the borderlands of current scientific thinking but which haven't been demonstrated to be incorrect relative to more mainstream theories. Some ideas that start as fringe science (e.g., continental drift; germ theory) eventually are found to be much more strongly supported than the mainstream as more evidence is accumulated, and become the standard models; other fringe ideas (e.g., homeopathy; N-rays) are eventually found to be inaccurate and recognized as pseudoscientific.

An important aspect of pseudoscience is that no one who holds those believes regards them as being pseudoscientific!! Instead, they do hold them to be true science.

There are related ideas and modes of thoughts to pseudoscience. They are not identical, but they are not mutually exclusive. These include:

Paranormal beliefs need not be pseudoscientific (e.g., belief in traditional ideas of witchcraft or ghosts), although sometimes an allegedly scientific explanation (e.g., "psi" as a pseudoscientific explanation for telepathy and telekinesis; some non-spiritual attempts to explain ghosts.) Similarly, many conspiracy theories don't require our knowledge of Nature to be any different than standard science, but many pseudoscientific believes include the concept that professional science is part of a conspiracy to keep "the Truth" (whether it is that aliens are visiting us all the time, or that the Earth is flat, or that 5G is giving us COVID-19) hidden. And there are plenty of pseudoscientific beliefs that are not "beyond science" nor require a conspiracy: for instance, most of cryptozoology (the idea that animals like Bigfoot, the Yeti, and Nessie are real creatures.)

CHARACTERISTICS OF PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC THEORIES

Kida has a useful list of characteristics of pseudoscientific thinking:

There are varying degrees and causes of pseudoscientific claims. Sometimes there are honest mistakes; other times, they are less honest. For example, people can often see images in random patterns (pareidolia) or make connections that aren't supported by clear causation or logic (apophenia): these are simply manifestations of the fact that the human mind is sometimes confused. Also, we can be honest victims of other people's dishonesty.

A harmless case of mistaken observation from the University of Maryland campus: reports on 31 July 2008 stated the following:

Subsequent footage from video footage from near the Arena Drive Garage revealed that the cat in question turned out to be a savannah cat, a hybrid of domestic cat and the African serval. So it wasn't a wild animal, but someone's thousands-of-dollars pet! (So far as I know, the cat was never captured.)

In this case, an extraordinary claim was quickly overturned by additional evidence, and that evidence was quickly conveyed to the public. The problem is that this is not always so, and because of this pseudoscientific claims can thrive.

SOME EXAMPLES OF PSEUDOSCIENCE CLAIMS

Examples in The Demon-Haunted World: Make sure you familiarize yourself with the details of Crop Circles (Chapter 4) and alien abduction revealed by hypnotherapy (Chapter 9), among others

Modern Day Plesiosaurs?: For example, the claims that a rotting plesiosaur carcass was found by a Japanese fishing vessel in 1977 continue to be made, even though it was established in 1978 that it was just the remains of a dead basking shark! The media widely reported the "dead plesiosaur" hypothesis, but did not follow up on the results of the investigations that showed a much less exciting answer.

The Face on Mars: Even when a claim is strongly falsified, there are some "true believers" who refuse to give them up. A classic case is the "Face on Mars". As the Viking Orbiters gave us some of our first good photographs of the surface of Mars, they caught an unusual image in theregion of Cydonia Mensae:


Notice how through a trick of lighting & shadow (and some well-placed coincidental pixel dropouts) one of the mountains looks like a human face, with vaguely Egyptian headgear:


This image drove the UFOlogists, Ancient Astronaut fans, and others into a frenzy: Proof of Human-Like Martians! Even when much better pictures were taken of the mountain by more advanced probes launched in the 1990s and 2000s, such as:


that clearly show it isn't a face, the supporters of the Face-claim do not back down.

Flying Saucers and the "Men in Black": Pseudoscience can be promoted for financial reasons. Pulp science fiction magazine publisher Ray Palmer (of Amazing Stories) ran a series of letters by Richard Shaver in the 1940s. Shaver claimed that during WWII he had wandered into the Hollow Earth, which was populated by four-foot tall bald grey deranged robots called "deros", who flew around in disk-shaped ships, captured people, probed them, and released them with mind-controlling implants. Shaver's letters caused Amazing Stories' sales to soar, and others began to write in about their own similar experiences!

In Spring 1948 Palmer (under the pseudonym "Robert N. Webster") started publishing Fate magazine, dedicated to the "Shaver Mystery" and similar paranormal tales. The feature article of issue one was the story of Kenneth Arnold and the "flying saucers" (see Sagan Chapter 4).

The popularity of Fate led to many similar magazines: some professionally produced, others privately made "fanzines". At least some of the latter were actually created as hoaxes. Gray Barker, head of Saucerian Publications and known UFO photo hoaxer, invented the "Men In Black" in his 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. More recent hoaxers that created entirely new pseudoscience legends include crop circles and Charles Berlitz's Philadelphia Experiment and revivals and retroconditioning of the Atlantis story and of the Roswell Incident.

Ancient Astronauts: A famous pseudoscience movement of the 20th Century was the Ancient Astronaut hypothesis. It claimed that the legends of ancient people interacting with heroes and gods who taught them skills and knowledge were actually a partial record of encounters with aliens. As archaeologist Kenneth Feder points out, Ancient Astronaut proposer Erich von Daniken suggests that alien knowledge was necessary for building numerous structures throughout history in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, but doesn't suggest that the people of Europe needed alien technology or skills to do their own contemporary buildings.

SOME PATTERNS OF PSEUDOSCIENCE

WHY IT MATTERS

We've seen some cases of pseudoscientific claims that are basically benign ("all in good fun, so what's the harm"). But it isn't always that way...

Pseudoscientists can often be benign, but their lack of critical thinking has in the past allowed unscrupulous people and movements to take advantage of them. For example, Adolph Hitler's rise to power in Germany is at least in part due to pseudoscientific movements of the early 20th Century:

That isn't to say that any particular pseudoscience will necessarily be used to promote an evil ideology, or that evil ideologies need pseudoscience to rise (Mussolini's Fascism did not rely on it the way Hitler's later Nazism did, for instance). But it does show that people with nasty agendas can take advantage of people used to non-critical modes of thought in order to obtain power.

And once oppressive authoritarian regimes like the Third Reich, the USSR, and others are in place, pseudoscience could flourish for a variety of reasons:

Germany in the early 20th Century had a very well-educated public and was on the cutting edge of many lines of scientific and technical research. Nevertheless, in Nazi Germany many types of pseudoscience flourished alongside real science and technology. In the realm of the Earth sciences, bizarre notions of a Hollow Earth or the World-Ice-Theory found official support, and pseudoscientific ideas of race became implemented as some of the most disgusting and horrific public policies our species has ever seen.

After the end of the war, legends quickly developed about the possible survival of Hitler and some of his cronies. Among the more bizarre claims were that he may have fled to a secret base in Antarctica, or in the Hollow Earth, or off to the Moon!

WHO BELIEVES IN PSEUDOSCIENCE, AND WHY?

There is a whole spectrum of reasons that people will hold pseudoscientific beliefs, and quite frankly it is bigoted to think that doing so reflects on the intelligence or educational level of those who believe them. (Indeed, you will find some corners of campus where pseudoscientific ideas might hold sway...).

That said, one main reason is ignorance: that is, not having been exposed to what is actually known, or even more generally not having been given good explanations as to WHY a mainstream idea is held. Much of education is about learning facts, and not about the process by which those facts were discovered. And there is very little in popular culture that portrays how we come to understand ideas.

More generally, though, pseudoscientific ideas can appeal to our sense of wonder or dread. Throughout history and across all cultures people are interested in the fantastic, miraculous, or spooky: it's the reason that popular culture around superpowers and horror and so on is so successful. In non-scientific societies we might accept the existence of magic and monsters as part of ordinary existence; within a (nominally) scientifically-oriented culture pseudoscientific beliefs allow us to still believe in these types to things, under a veneer of superficially-scientific explanation.

Also, many of us like to root for the underdog, or think that we can get one over on the Establishment, or are given "secret" information that the general public doesn't know about. Thinking that you are in the know about that which The Man doesn't want you to know about can make you feel privileged and empowered.

At least some pseudoscience confirms deeply held beliefs which are otherwise contradicted by mainstream science. People who are committed to a literal interpretation of the Bible are unhappy that geology shows that the Earth is 4.56 billion years old, that paleontology shows that the diversity of life has changed through time, and that evolutionary biology shows that all species (including humans) are derived from older ones: thus, they find solace in pseudoscientific beliefs of Young Earth Geology and Creationism. People who just can't accept that psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists consistently find that all groups of people are essentially the same in all significant aspects support pseudoscientific beliefs of racism and racialism.

Related to the above is the idea of identity protective cognition. This is the observation that for many people membership in a particular group outweighs an intellectual commitment to seeking out empirical truths. As a consequence, psychologist Dan Kahan observes that "as a way of avoiding dissonance and estrangement from valued groups, individuals subconsciously resist factual information that threatens their defining values." This pattern makes it difficult to convince people committed to a particular group of the truth of realities which contradict their "tribe."

And, perhaps the silliest part of the whole thing, is people who don't get "the joke." Some pseudoscientific beliefs and organizations begin as a spoof or joke on the part of the creators. The "Birds Are Not Real" movement began as a joke and essentially a "life action role-playing game" online linked to a site to sell merchandise. However, they did their job too well, and some have accepted their ridiculous claims. Similarly, although "Flat Earthism" as a serious idea goes back for millennia, the mid-to-late 20th Century "Flat Earth Movement" was largely (but not exclusively) tongue-in-cheek. Then along comes YouTube and Instagram, and it gains new life as a "serious" pseudoscience.

By the way, just because "lore" tells you a particular event or phenomenon is "unsolved" doesn't mean that is is! Here is an essay about 7 Famous Unsolved Mysteries Science Solved Years Ago. Sadly, far more YouTube channels and broadcast or cable TV "documentaries" are devoted to maintaining the ideas of pseudoscience as being real than of showing that they are not.