Dear Rajat,

it is a hard question you posed and I’d suggest to have a look at my Question to RG: ‘How do you know that there is something that cannot be known with the use of intellect’.

Moreover, I shall list a series of features that a pseudoscience must have to be recognized as such.                                

A pseudoscience can be characterized by some of the following aspects:

• Vague affirmations, imprecise, with no specific measurements or for which it is claimed that they are not measurable;

• unsubstantiated claims of experimental verification or in contradiction with other experimental results;

• statements are impossible to be proved or disproved;

• tendency to routinely change the nature of its assertions to escape criticism;

• presentation of experimental results without any form of peer review (the so-called "science press conference");

• violation of Occam's razor, the principle by which to explain a given phenomenon is to be preferred among the possible theories, that is the one with the least possible assumptions;

• complaint of an alleged ostracism of "official science", due to narrow-mindedness and economic interests;

• lack of effective control over results as the use of double-blind experimentation;

 • assertions that have not been proven to be false and therefore must be true (or vice versa). It is the so-called case of ‘argumentum ad ignorantiam’;

• assertions overly tied to testimonial evidence or personal experiences. These tests may be useful to contextualize the discovery but should not be used for statistical hypothesis testing;

• statements that have data that seem to prove the result but that do not account for other data that conflict with it. This is an example of the effect of selection or a distortion of evidence or data that originates in the way in which the data are collected.

• call holism as opposed to reductionism; proponents pseudoscientific theories, particularly in the field of alternative medicine often resort to the "mantra of holism" to explain the negative results;

• lack of development and progress in their field. Terence Hines, for example, found that astrology is not practically changed in the last two thousand years. On the contrary, knowledge that science produces it is reliable but not infallible and, therefore, it may be changing over time. A similar argument can be made for homeopathy whose founding principles are virtually unchanged from the end of the eighteenth century;

• inability to self-correct. In scientific research will make mistakes that tend to be eliminated over time, on the contrary, pseudoscience are thought to remain unchanged over time in spite of the inherent contradictions;

• ‘argumentum a populum’ (principle of majority): for example, in medicine

• Alternatively, the subject relies on reasoning: if thousands of people using them, something it has to be there;

• principle of authority (ipse dixit): in pseudoscience there is a tendency to accept, without the possibility of critical thinking of a particular person (the authority) on the basis that this should be considered superior.

 I hope to have been sufficiently exhaustive and have my spiritual support and encouragement for your research.

 Best regards,

 Gianrocco

Dear Rajat,

Pseudo science is an activity in the realm or neighborhood of of science that does not have theoretical foundations, does not obey rules of logic,  lacks scientific principles and does not follow procedures of science with no flavor of empirical test for validity. A scientific activity in the contrary meets these properties to be fulfilled and it is not to squeeze something different out from the realm of science but to keep valid what science and the methods of scientific activities are.  

the lack of falisfiable theories is one important sign of pseudo-science. The lack of the will to produce potentially falsifiable evidences, too. Unvalid methods furthermore.

best wishes,

CCC

Dear D. J. Lakew,

Inasmuch science is a search after the reality/truth of things, the laws governing them etc. if any observations are there that do not fit strictly within the empirico-rational  field that we practically call science should we call them pseudoscience?

For example the (practical science of) homoeopathy, for which a viable theory is lacking so far, but which is verified to be working in hundreds of cases everyday. Of course it may fail in hundreds of cases everyday for other reasons, but its successes cannot be taken away from it by the failures because of the peculiarities of the method. It is in this kind of situations that science has to give in, just as we accept weather predictions in spite of their huge unreliability, as science.

There are many situations which involve mind-matter interactions, where our mainstream science has not yet probed with sufficient theoretical strength or experimental accuracy, which we dub as pseudo-science and I think this situation must immediately be set right.

Dear CCC,

By their very weak nature of the theoretical and experimental foundations what are usually branded as pseudoscience are really falsifiable from a scientific point of view. Most often repeated verifiability would be lacking.

Do you know, Ludwig von Bertalanffy's "general systems theory" is also branded as pseudoscience, which is very appealing and beautiful on the theoretical side?

On the other hand, Homeopathy is a little stronger on the experimental side but has no sound theoretical basis so far.

Since you are a senior professor of psychology, what is psychology in your opinion-- a science or a pseudoscience? Should it not be integrated with other sciences like biology and physics? If yes, are you doing something in that regard?

Regards,

Rajat

This question came to my mind while discussions on another thread led to the surprising observation by some members that : two Publications of experimental results by Radin et al (2012 and 20130 in the peer-reviewed journal Physics essays pertain to pseudoscience since they tend to establish mind-matter interactions in a double slit experiments as a real fact.

I want to know by what yardstick one can determine the pseudo-ness of a science? Are there any clear-cut formulations of such measures of pseudo-ness of a publication?

In my opinion, the clearest example of a pseudoscience is astrology. Not merely because a theory is lacking, but mainly because no serious attempt is ever made to study the system in a scientific framework. Whenever a mistake is observed, a justification is found after the fact. Sharp predictions are absent. The statement that such a theory is not falsifiable makes eminent sense, and this disqualifies it, in my opinion, from being a science.

I would not agree that Radin's article is pseudoscience. It is probably bad science, but that is something altogether different. It could conceivably be disproved, as opposed to an astrological chart. In fact, I  believe it will eventually be disproved.

Is homeopathy pseudoscience? I am not well versed in the subject. However, I do not believe that any large scale, scientifically rigorous, statistical studies of homeopathy have been performed, proving its effectiveness. However, I am open to instruction on the subject. If, however, such were the case, then the method of homeopathy would not be scientific. That in itself is harmless enough, many important activities do not pertain to science. If, however, one then proceeds to state, in spite of the absence of rigorous scientific evidence, that a certain product has been ``scientifically shown'' to be efficient, that surely is pseudoscience (not to say simple fraud).

Charles,

will you please spell out Popper's characterization of pseudoscience? I would be thankful if you could please describe briefly his characterization.

So many people call so many studies by the name pseudoscience without giving sufficient reasons for such branding. This confuses the unsuspecting members of the scientific community, who are unaware of the subtle biases at work against certain areas of investigation.

Thanks for joining.

Leyvraz,

Welcome to this thread. On astrology it is our (the scientific community's) fault that we are not making scientific investigations, and only howling from outside that it is a pseudoscience. same thing goes with Homoeopathy as well.

These may be classified as "inexact sciences" rather than pseudoscience. In my opinion, Pseudoscience is a derogatory term that is used by the scientific community to decry some study without much thought.

The one criterion that we seem to apply against these is "REPEATED VERIFIABILITY".

In some cases they work and in some others they fail. The failures are taken as proofs of their invalidity and the successes are disregarded as quirks of chance.

There is no problem if we stick to repeated verifiability criterion for some thing to be a science. But we seem to neglect failures/side effects of allopathic drugs in clinical trials in as many as from 2% to 10% cases. Yet we call it medical science! After a few years the side effects become so prominent as in the case of antibiotics, paracetamol, nimesulide and many such well known drugs, that we withdraw them and debar their further use.

As long as there is less than 100% success, we should all those fields including medical sciences as "inexact sciences". We must have uniformity of treatment of different areas of human endeavor.

Astrology therefore can be called an "inexact science", since it has yet to achieve a success rate of 100% accuracy of predictions.

Several systems of astrology are there and each system has its own methods of prediction, its own logic. and the most important factor is the exactness of the location and time of birth and the correctness of calculations.

That no viable scientific theory is available right now to explain astrology should not be considered as a negative point against it. If it is not there, we have to develop one. Is it not a challenge for us that in some cases the predictions do come out to be true?

May be future science will discover far more deeper secrets of the universe unbeknown to us and will explain what we dub today as pseudoscience. what is the problem in having an open mind? In any case, No science is a complete book, and there can be further deeper knowledge uncovered as mankind starts integrating psychology and biology with physics and astronomy. As of now we don't even know why we keep breathing in and out from our very birth and why there are cardiac action potentials generated rhythmically in our hearts that keeps our life going. How much do we know really? How much more remains unknown?

So I think we need to rethink on all these and have an openness for investigation, both theoretically and experimentally in all those areas that we have been habitually dubbing as pseudoscience right from our school days.

@Rajat: OK, I find ``repeated verifiability'' just fine. That does not mean that you verify the theory, but that a given experiment can be repeated with similar or at least comparable, results.

That results should be predictable to 100% does not happen in any branch of science, except perhaps in some cases of Celestial Mechanics. So I have no problem agreeing with the necessity of dealing with probabilities: all sciences do, to a smaller or larger extent.

But when the results have a probabilistic component, this does not mean that no accurate statements can be made. In occidental medicine, extensive statistical tests are made, and it can be shown that the results are not due to chance, or more accurately, that the likelihood of their being due to chance is extremely small.

In order to be able to do such tests, however, the predictions must be very specific and quantitative. An experiment that was in fact performed with a class of psychology students illustrates the point: the students gave a sample of their handwriting, and then received a ``personal profile'' allegedly based on the analysis of their handwriting. About 80% of students stated that the profile described them ``rather well''. So far, it would seem that this kind of analysis had undergone a test and come out very well indeed. The small problem was that all students had, in fact, been given the *same* profile. So it is quite possible to write a text, which is accepted by 80% of people as a reasonably accurate description of themselves. This shows the many possible pitfalls you must avoid, and the reason for insisting, apart from the repeatability of the results, also on the exact, quantitative nature of the language in which the results are stated, so as to allow an analysis of their plausibility.

We then say a body of beliefs is not science, if repeated tests which show that the ``successes'' of those beliefs are fully attributable to chance. That is, to my knowledge, the case in Astrology. I also believe that there are no statistically valid tests which show the effectiveness of homeopathy, but there I am willing to be instructed and may well be wrong.

A good example of this was a statistical test of dowsing (the art of finding subterranean water by a pendulum or a rod). A specialist dowser, whose success rate in the field was 80%, was asked to find in which of 10 pipes water was running. The pipe through which the water was running was chosen at random at a large distance from the field. The pipes ran under a uniform plot of grass. The dowser tried 20 times, and succeeded twice. That, clearly, can be attributed to chance. There is no possibility to say that dowsing, in this case, is an ``imperfect science''. Rather, it was shown not to work, when performed under controlled conditions. Similar results often arise for these kind of claims. 

Personally I do not believe that the existence of a theory is in principle fundamental to science. If you obtain results by a given technique, that are quantitative and statistically significant , what you are doing may be significant and should be looked into. However, as a matter of historical fact, those bodies of beliefs which were completely outside the mainstream in modern times, usually have not fared well in terms of being able to prove their claims empirically. 

Finally, I quite disagree that scientists should perform research on astrology or homeopathy. Research in any field should always be left to specialists. Scientists who fail to find effects in Astrology will be discounted by Astrologers as not having the necessary experience in the field, and they might well be right to do so. That statisticians might lend a hand to the analysis of an Astrologist desirous of putting his work on a serious footing is another issue.

Dear Christian Baumgarten,

I believe in there being truth in astrology just as i believe in the truth of classical mechanics and I also believe in their limitations and in that they both can be superceded by higher levels of sophistication in both theoretical understanding and experimental validity. So I am not surprised if they fail in certain cases. The world being fundamentally quantum mechanical classical mechanics actually fails in every situation but its failure goes unnoticed. Similarly, Astrology may fail in some cases but its failures are highlighted and the successes relegated to the status of being due to chance. It is a question of attitude, not of verifiability or falsifiability.

We have closed our doors on so many of the ancient sciences that is the common heritage of mankind including astrology and medicine, psychology and yoga. Recently, in the field of medicine they have started to stage a comeback under the fancy title "ALTERNATIVE MEDICINES" which include TRIBAL MEDICINE also! Is it not surprising from a scientific point of view that these alternative therapies are now accepted as appropriate systems of treatment? Only thirty years back we pooh-poohed any such idea and even denigrated them to the level of superstition.

Yoga and Ayurveda are back with a bang.

So we must keep in mind the limitations of science and its methods of inference and should refrain from calling anything by a bad name like pseudoscience as long as we have not integrated sufficiently well psychology and biology  with physics and astronomy.

who knows what new and subtle non-local correlations our future investigations will throw up in the realm of psycho-biology. We do not understand yet what the mind is , what its nature is, how it got into the brain and why?

To make big claims on the basis of little or no investigation may suit our convenience as scientists but it does not yield anything positive finally. rather it retards our progress in understanding the wholeness of Reality.

Leyvraz,

i must thank you for your very thoughtful response.

"A good example of this was a statistical test of dowsing (the art of finding subterranean water by a pendulum or a rod). A specialist dowser, whose success rate in the field was 80%, was asked to find in which of 10 pipes water was running. The pipe through which the water was running was chosen at random at a large distance from the field. The pipes ran under a uniform plot of grass. The dowser tried 20 times, and succeeded twice. That, clearly, can be attributed to chance. There is no possibility to say that dowsing, in this case, is an ``imperfect science''. Rather, it was shown not to work, when performed under controlled conditions. Similar results often arise for these kind of claims.

This means that the art of dowsing needs to be further perfected, deeply studied and made explicable by developing a suitable theory for it.Then the two out of 20 will increase. I am reminded of Feynman's interesting episode with getting to the exact location of the book kept in a shelf in a multistoreyed building without much clue. (Described graphically in :Surely you are joking Mr Feynman!). So the art needs to be taken up for study and needs practitioners who will strive for perfection. Similarly, Feynman also tried sniffing like a detective's dog and succeeded to a large extent.

If we try any of those we may fail 20 out of 20 times but that does not mean that it is wrong and hence should be branded pseudoscience.

So it requires practice in that particular art, finally.

Like this it is with all such occult sciences. Of course, I understand there are many fakers in the astrology industry and they have brought a bad name to it.

Dear Chris,

You are right in regard to:

"A more general theory in physics usually includes the less general theory as a limiting case."

But, when we know fully well the failures, the limitations and the shortcomings of the scientific approach, there should not be any hitch in accepting something like Ayurveda as *POSSIBLY* having some value and validity.

Feynman said:

"If something is not science it does not mean it is bad. It simply means it is not science.For example love is not a science......." (Feynman's Lectures vol-I)."

But how many of us have this kind of Feynmansque openness ?

What is not a science today may become a science tomorrow, provided deep studies are undertaken in an unbiased manner to search for truth, wherever it may be in whatever form, whether acceptable to current science or not.

Dear Rajat,

The concern of science is to search and validate truth through scientific methods and truth is what makes things stand the test of time in space. However not all things that are not science are bad,  there are things that are not scientific and bad to science. For instance the dogmatic old religious views and impositions on societies on the flatness of earth and the distaste or dislike for the heliocentric nature of revolutions of galactic bodies versus the geocentric aspect are non scientific which are not only bad for science but dangerous for science. 

@Rajat: you argue for keeping an open mind. Well and good. But when I give you an example (dowsing) of a practice which has been clearly shown not to work (remember, this dowser's success rate in the field, under uncontrolled conditions, was 80%, he should thus have been right in approximately 16 times, if the uncontrolled data had been relevant). Your answer is that we should perfect dowsing, whereas so far there is no indication that any effect is involved (Note: if the dowser had never been right, say in a 100 tries, that would be statistically significant, and show that something is happening.) But to have just the number of successes predicted by chance really suggests that nothing but chance is involved.

 If you had a theoretical reason to believe in dowsing, you might keep on looking for evidence, but that is not the case.

So why not keep an open mind? Why not accept, at least as a possibility, that there is in fact nothing to dowsing?

@Christian: ``For instance: If you found out that your 2CV (old Citroen car model) engine wouldn't start before you hit a certain position slightly with a hammer, then you have found a method to start your car's engine. But in order to make your practice scientific, you should be able to *explain* (i.e. you should have a theory) why the hit with your hammer is successful. Furthermore your theory must be falsifiable. If your theory is that you have to render homage to the "god of 2CV engines", then again it is not scientific. Even if it was true.''

Fair enough. I did say, though, that you had to have results both quantitative and statistically significant. In that case, sometimes, you have to look for a theory, and you may be helped even by a theory that later turns out to be quite wrong. Think of early research on electricity. So I think your remark quite apt in today's world, where science is very mature and few valid results are likely to stand wholly outside of mainstream science. But it cannot be considered general, and when we do not understand the laws ruling a given system, as may happen, for example, in issues involving consciousness, or economics, or other ill-understood systems, we may have to accept that experimental data is all we have. In that case, significant quantitative effects are worth following up.

@D. A. Lakew

"The concern of science is to search and validate truth through scientific methods and truth is what makes things stand the test of time in space. However not all things that are not science are bad, there are things that are not scientific and bad to science. For instance the dogmatic old religious views and impositions on societies on the flatness of earth and the distaste or dislike for the heliocentric nature of revolutions of galactic bodies versus the geocentric aspect are non scientific which are not only bad for science but dangerous for science."

There is a grain of truth even in flatness of earth, topologically speaking! A sphere is equivalent to "a flat plane plus a point at infinity"! So it depends on perspective.

There is again scientific truth in geocentrism, general relativistically spaeaking!In GTR, any frame is equivalent to any other frame. All motion is relative.  In a non-inertial frame attached to a point on the earth-surface,  indeed everything revolves around the earth and this is perfectly alright. You are talking of old 17th century scientific ideas and beliefs, when you are speaking against old religious beliefs! Science improves by disprove science of an earlier time. The stronger the disproof, the more significant the progress.

So, geocentrism is not non-scientific, Exclusive geocentrism is. Any point is as good as any other point in the universe to erect a reference frame.

Thus there is no danger for science, rather there is only positive brownie points that we gather for science by cultivating such openness to falsifiability.

the problem arises when we cling to a particular scientific viewpoint, theory or experiment as an ultimate proof of things.

@Leyvraz,

Having an open mind to have a closed mind! Is this what you mean by your last remark?

having an open mind means being open enough not to close down shutters on anything whatsoever, as long as we do not have complete knowledge of things and beings and what have we.

Dear Chris,

"Can you give examples? What failures and shortcomings are you talking about?"

What do you want really? failures of science are galore and they only help it in its onward progress. how many failures do you need? Just take any current theory and experiment and see on how many failures its success stands.

Good point Charles.

I also raised the issue  as another thread---

"What is spontaneous about SSB? "

on which probably we had some exchanges.

The main problem is that the concept of gravitational field introduced by Newton was adopted and applied to the case of other forces.

There is no fundamental reason why all forces should be describable by a field theory.

But, our make up as human beings is such that we always wish to understand phenomena on the basis of previous knowledge and we cannot escape it in any way.

Very rarely do geniuses come and show us some new way of thinking.

Dear Chris,

I fully appreciate your feelings regarding science and the scientific approach. I, being a scientist and a professor of physics also am a supporter of the scientific approach to reality, but I do not subscribe to the view that it is the best available approach. If at all it is the best, the "bestness" lies in its openness to falsification, not in an obdurate orthodoxy and conservatism that tries to blindly and vehemently decry  and thwart anything  that goes slightly against its accepted position. 

Where in science and its method it is written that we should not have an open mind to newer and newer approaches to even the older well-known phenomena? If we are to be so intolerant of adverse opinion, then in what way we as scientists are better than the religious orthodox y of the middle ages?

You speak of democracy and at the same time are championing for the sole monopoly of science as the only approach to truth! Let diversity be there. What is the harm? Democracy is the best that we have and so let all views be there, even the contrary ones.

A classical and a non-classical quantum view, a relativistic and a non-relativistic view are allowed in science itself as one view is subsumed in the other. Similarly if there is a viewpoint that has within its grand bosom the scientific view tucked in some unknown corner, what is the harm in accepting such a broad view, if we can find one.

But unless we keep open the door of science to criticism then how can such a holistic view emerge.

Dear Chris,

Your views are most welcome and I don't have any problems if you don't consider Ayurveda a science. I consider it a science. calling it a science does not necessarily add to its prestige, but branding it pseudoscience would certainly mar its reputation.

My contention is that we should not call anything pseudoscience before we are ourselves finished with all that can possibly be brought within the domain of science, may be in the coming 5000 years or so of scientific development ! Please don't laugh at the time scale. Science progresses in spite of views to the contrary by scientists. It is not  a closed book with all finality at any point of time. So let's wait humbly for future researches to uncover more of nature's secrets.

But, we may discuss what it is that we are to call science and what not.

If Popper's definition is to be taken, then falsifiability is the basic criterion and the so called pseudoscience theories or observations and experiences are all more falsifiable than mainstream science theories and experiments. It is precisely because of their falsifiability that we can brand them as pseudo. Then you see the contradiction here again.

Dear All,

Somewhere I read a nice comment which went somewhat like this:

Science started a five centuries back with ASTRONOMY (Study of celestial objects and their movements: Galileo, Brahe, Kepler, Copernicus and others). It then came to PHYSICS some four hundred years back. (Study of terrestrial objects and their movements: Newton, Hooke, Clausius, Thomson, Coulomb, Faraday, Joule, Carnot and others ) and then landed up in BIOLOGY (Mendel, Darwin and others) about a hundred years back. Then it has started to enter PSYCHOLOGY only some fifty to seventy years back.

So, We have  a long way still to go.

Therefore, I appeal to all concerned to wait patiently till we have a complete science called "PSYCHO--ASTRO--BIO--PHYSICS" before we pounce upon some theory or experiment and label it as PSEUDOSCIENCE.

Regards,

Rajat

 Dear Rajat

Science did not start five hundred years ago. I can tell you from my limited knowledge of its history.

Ancient Egypt Astronomers 5000-3000 BC

Creators of Baudhayana 800BC

Thales 624 – c. 546 BC

Pythagoras 570 – c. 495 BC

Aristotle 384 – 322 BC The father of physics

Euclid 300 BC

Archimedes 287BC 212 BC

As far as I am concerned pseudo-science term is used as a weapon against opponents but it is also a legitimate concept.

What is science I'm my opinion is the process of learning in order to predict  correctly some aspects of the future.

This may not be taken lightly by some sciences. Volcanoes and earthquakes are studied in a scientific fashion but predictive power is rather poor. Climate science is being questioned albeit inconclusively.

But homeopathy for that matter has been exposed as a fiction by people like James Randi. Theoretically it does not make much sense.

"Similarities" of chemical's effects bound to physical symptoms of the illness to be the cure by a solution of concentration of less than one particle per dose. Are you surprised people are sceptic? One thing is certain. Homeopatic medicine is a profitable business of selling water which has the power to turn science its way.

That is similar to what happened to cholesterol which was not so well understood as to its  link to heart failure. The industry has been created and supported myths. People were banned from eating eggs for more than 50 years at least. Now it is all good....

So the question is whether medical science is science can be answered: it depends who is doing science and who pays for it. One example cannot reflect the totality of scientific effort and dedicated scientists.

I could set up a successful medical practice using ad-hoc process including:

a. meditation

b. mixture of herbs known to be beneficial

c. Asking the person to wear amber jewellery

d advising that if the symptoms persist to see a doctor.

Guaranteed better than 75% success rate based on a study I saw showing that 75% of all reported cases to GPs are curable without any medical intervention.

I do believe that mind has incredible properties of curing medical conditions, recognised as placebo effect at least. But our mind is in the nervous system controlling every vital function so it makes some sense.

Creation Science is a pseudo-science in general, but if someone uses scientific methods trying to prove unprovable and does it with all honesty, he contributes to do science either by discovering something in the process or providing though test to science making opposite claims in an attempt to falsify it, which is good.

So there is no black and white. It all depends......

@Rajat:

``having an open mind means being open enough not to close down shutters on anything whatsoever, as long as we do not have complete knowledge of things and beings and what have we.''

Why then, do you so resolutely close your mind to all the overwhelming evidence against your favourite creeds? An open mind should be open to all the evidence, fall as it may. And large tests showing that a given practice has no better effect than chance is strong evidence if we weigh evidence by the usual scientific standards. This is the case for homeopathy as far as I can see (see the Wikipedia article on the subject)

On the other hand, we may say ``I wish/hope this to  be true and thus do not desire to take this evidence into account.''

By all means. But such people have altogether closed their minds to what is, after all, the best evidence, namely scientific trials.

Leyvraz,

I am not closed to anything at all. I am open to all kinds of things, believaable and unbelievable on the basis of present knowledge.

So don't worry on that count.

For every article against homoeopathy one can cite another forceful one in support of it.

You may see Dr. Praful Vijaykar' s website.on predictive homoeopathy.

Read Hahneman's original and james Tyler Kent's philosophy of homeopathy. for some introduction from the proponents. Opponents don't delve deeper and depend on heresy. I hear from you and another hears from me and so on in a chain.

Let science evolve to its fullest length and depth. Science is not yet closed. At least we must all agree upon this.

Andrew,

I meant science as we know it today not some obsolete stuff that was done by Aristotle. What was the state of science before Galileo? Mechanics truly began with him.

The way you put it we can stretch all the way back till the Vedic era.

That was not what was my point. It was regarding the modern science of Physics starting with mechanics.

what all you write afterwards is mostly correct.

I agree with you.

Dear Rajat,

it is a hard question you posed and I’d suggest to have a look at my Question to RG: ‘How do you know that there is something that cannot be known with the use of intellect’.

Moreover, I shall list a series of features that a pseudoscience must have to be recognized as such.                                

A pseudoscience can be characterized by some of the following aspects:

• Vague affirmations, imprecise, with no specific measurements or for which it is claimed that they are not measurable;

• unsubstantiated claims of experimental verification or in contradiction with other experimental results;

• statements are impossible to be proved or disproved;

• tendency to routinely change the nature of its assertions to escape criticism;

• presentation of experimental results without any form of peer review (the so-called "science press conference");

• violation of Occam's razor, the principle by which to explain a given phenomenon is to be preferred among the possible theories, that is the one with the least possible assumptions;

• complaint of an alleged ostracism of "official science", due to narrow-mindedness and economic interests;

• lack of effective control over results as the use of double-blind experimentation;

 • assertions that have not been proven to be false and therefore must be true (or vice versa). It is the so-called case of ‘argumentum ad ignorantiam’;

• assertions overly tied to testimonial evidence or personal experiences. These tests may be useful to contextualize the discovery but should not be used for statistical hypothesis testing;

• statements that have data that seem to prove the result but that do not account for other data that conflict with it. This is an example of the effect of selection or a distortion of evidence or data that originates in the way in which the data are collected.

• call holism as opposed to reductionism; proponents pseudoscientific theories, particularly in the field of alternative medicine often resort to the "mantra of holism" to explain the negative results;

• lack of development and progress in their field. Terence Hines, for example, found that astrology is not practically changed in the last two thousand years. On the contrary, knowledge that science produces it is reliable but not infallible and, therefore, it may be changing over time. A similar argument can be made for homeopathy whose founding principles are virtually unchanged from the end of the eighteenth century;

• inability to self-correct. In scientific research will make mistakes that tend to be eliminated over time, on the contrary, pseudoscience are thought to remain unchanged over time in spite of the inherent contradictions;

• ‘argumentum a populum’ (principle of majority): for example, in medicine

• Alternatively, the subject relies on reasoning: if thousands of people using them, something it has to be there;

• principle of authority (ipse dixit): in pseudoscience there is a tendency to accept, without the possibility of critical thinking of a particular person (the authority) on the basis that this should be considered superior.

 I hope to have been sufficiently exhaustive and have my spiritual support and encouragement for your research.

 Best regards,

 Gianrocco

Thank you very much Gianrocco for this wonderfully exhaustive answer and I think you have listed everything in great depth and width.

Let's see point-wise:

*Vague affirmations, imprecise, with no specific measurements or for which it is claimed that they are not measurable;

Regarding vague affirmations and imprecise measurements, we in physics have all of them in Probabilistic Quantum theory though this was not the case with deterministic classical theories. We have lots of quantities in classical as well as quantum theory, which  are not directly measurable. They are dynamical variables but not physical observables (hermitian operators). Even Measurements of physical observables in QM have of necessity to be imprecise.

*unsubstantiated claims of experimental verification or in contradiction with other experimental results;

These are surely cases of fraud and we are not going to discuss such cases. However earlier experiments can be contradicted or at least improvised upon by subsequent experiments. Look at the classical tests of General Relativity or how the speed of light has been measured progressively more and more accurately over the past hundred years or so.

*statements are impossible to be proved or disproved;

Probably you mean proving by "existing scientific theories or experimental methods" which however are subject to future change and modification as per the demands of further observational results. As science proceeds on its march we may discover new methods of testing such claims. If they are impossible then I give up. But you probably MEAN "DIFFICULT AT PRESENT" because of the extreme smallness of the magnitude of the effects proposed.

*tendency to routinely change the nature of its assertions to escape criticism;

This tendency is condemnable and such claims or claimants should not be entertained at all.

*presentation of experimental results without any form of peer review (the so-called "science press conference");

this is a good point I must add however that the so-called peers should of course be free from any kind of bias.

*violation of Occam's razor, the principle by which to explain a given phenomenon is to be preferred among the possible theories, that is the one with the least possible assumptions;

On his count we should agree but Occam's razor is not by itself an ultimate basis for rejection of a theory. What is important is the explanation of observations in their entirety, including the statistically insignificant ones also. otherwise the theory satisfying OR has the onus of explaining factors responsible for the appearance of those statistically insignificant data, since they may be pointing in a new direction for science to improve itself.

*complaint of an alleged ostracism of "official science", due to narrow-mindedness and economic interests;

Take a look at the history of the acceptance of Ahoronov-Bohm effect as discussed by Feynman in his lectures. Also look at how scientists just like religionists of yore pounce upon someone who proposes something contrary to their faith, the limited science of their times. history of science stands as a testimony of such intolerance of contrary views and even Einstein himself was both an offender and a victim of such practice of ostracism by the official science community. B.D. Josephson is a victim and even for some years Wigner was a victim.

*lack of effective control over results as the use of double-blind experimentation;

This is very important. And here what if our control interferes with the outcome as happens in quantum measurements, for example? In some cases New science may come up only by relaxing the so called controls. We should not stifle science by our controls.

*assertions that have not been proven to be false and therefore must be true (or vice versa). It is the so-called case of ‘argumentum ad ignorantiam’;

Those which have not been proven false may (and not must) be true. For example, Fermat's last theorem and some unproved conclusions of Ramanujan and there can be many more examples. So, we should at least wait for sufficient time and till that time they may be kept as proposals awaiting confirmation and not argumentum ad ignorantiam’.

*assertions overly tied to testimonial evidence or personal experiences. These tests may be useful to contextualize the discovery but should not be used for statistical hypothesis testing;

Objectivity is nothing but "mutually-agreed-upon subjectivity". What is common to all observers passes off as objective. Subjective areas may be pointing out new avenues for scientific exploration. New theories and methods of experiment and new paradigms may be in the offing.

*statements that have data that seem to prove the result but that do not account for other data that conflict with it. This is an example of the effect of selection or a distortion of evidence or data that originates in the way in which the data are collected.

Here, on both sides of the conflicting data generating experimental groups there needs to be more and more experiments to prove which side is wrong finally.

*call holism as opposed to reductionism; proponents pseudoscientific theories, particularly in the field of alternative medicine often resort to the "mantra of holism" to explain the negative results;

When the number of factors are very high, it becomes difficult to control their interplay and their individual effectiveness in a particular situation. Reductionism is certainly not a commendable paradigm to base upon when dealing with living systems for example. You cannot take out an ant into its molecular parts, study it and then try to explain its living behaviour afterwards and verify the proposals by rejoining it into the original living whole that it was. The most essential element of Life itself would be gone.

*lack of development and progress in their field. Terence Hines, for example, found that astrology is not practically changed in the last two thousand years. On the contrary, knowledge that science produces it is reliable but not infallible and, therefore, it may be changing over time. A similar argument can be made for homeopathy whose founding principles are virtually unchanged from the end of the eighteenth century;

Changeability and Fallibility go contrary to reliability in the ultimate sense. Though provisionally they are helpful for progress of science which is limited by many factors. Unfortunately, these two characteristics are propagated to be virtues of science. Change is characteristic only of incomplete knowledge and not of complete knowledge as is the case with science. Similarly, Astrology based on fragile assumptions must be subject to change.

Similarly for homoeopathy. There have been many changes in it since the times of Hahneman. Look at the work of J. T. Kent and others like Praful Vijayakar.

*inability to self-correct. In scientific research will make mistakes that tend to be eliminated over time, on the contrary, pseudoscience are thought to remain unchanged over time in spite of the inherent contradictions;

We have to learn to live with contradictions, as is taught by the complementarity principle of Quantum mechanics. The contradictory issues are facets of the same reality.

*argumentum a populum’ (principle of majority): for example, in medicine

The scientific basis of such systems of treatment as is popularly followed in some aboriginal tribes is gradually being explored and recently some malaria vaccines etc have been developed by the pharmacies on the basis of age-old cures. These go by the fancy names of "alternative systems" or "tribal medicine".

• Alternatively, the subject relies on reasoning: if thousands of people using them, something it has to be there;

Something may possibly be there. See, Crores of people are using and believing in science and there is something here surely!  Similarly with other fields like politics, business entertainment  and business. There is always the possibility of something being there when people in large numbers are after that thing!

Be a little liberal and be democratic enough at the same time to allow for the existence of other systems of belief, practice and whatever else here.

• principle of authority (ipse dixit): in pseudoscience there is a tendency to accept, without the possibility of critical thinking of a particular person (the authority) on the basis that this should be considered superior.

This is applicable to science as well. In science of course, personal authority is replaced by peers or groups or certain experimental facts. But it is the same thing-- some authority you have, in whatever way it is.

But critical thinking is there everywhere and without it any system would collapse and die a natural death.

I must thank you again for engaging me for over an hour.

Very best regards,

Rajat

Thank you for the excellent reply. I believe that it will "engage" me for more than one hour. There is much to learn!.

Have my best regards,

Gianrocco

This is an inspiring discussion. There are many symptoms of pseudo science. Similarly there are diseases that have multiple symptoms. Although a set of symptoms may uniquely identify a disease it is generally not enough to know the cause and the mechanism. I was thinking of the most comprehensive definition of pseudoscience.

For that you need a comprehensive definition of science. Suprisingly common dictionaries do not always make the best effort.

Google returns:

the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

[Oxford dictionaries on line]

This definition does not exclude astrology and creationism.

For me, science is the state of knowledge of true facts about the nature  and a process and methods of building up and refining that knowledge.

Pseudoscience is when the facts are  not consistent with the existing evidence and the process is flawed by refusals to correct errors or by failures of providing the sufficient  evidence. 

This may have many symptoms as described in posts above.