A pseudo-science is an allegedly scientific step which does not respect the method of it.

This term, of normative connotation , is used with an aim of denouncing certain disciplines by dissociating them from the steps which one recognizes the scientific character .

Semantics

One should not confuse “pseudo-scientist” and “not scientist”.

Indeed, the prefix pseudo , which comes from the Greek pseudês (“lying”), means, in its current direction, “false”. “Pseudo-scientist”, that one can translate by “allegedly scientific”, thus gives a character Péjoratif at the end. The term “pseudo-science” means that a knowledge or a nonscientific step with the claim to be a scientist. “Not scientist”, on his side, means simply that theory, belief or a knowledge do not concern the field of science, and do not have the claim to belong some.

In other words, the word pseudo-science characterizes a specious step, aiming at misleading while making believe that a scientific step is used, that with an aim of adapting itself will have it Science near most credulous. The mediumnity, for example, does not claim to raise of a step or a scientific knowledge, although she claims however with the reality of the phenomena that she pleads. A contrario , the Homéopathie wants to be a science, at the same time by its principles stated like natural laws and by implementation the regular of clinical studies aiming at showing that the homeopathic drugs have effects higher than those of placebo S. Beaucoup of chemists and doctors estimate for this reason that homeopathy is a pseudo-science since none the clinical studies carried out could show the effectiveness of the treatments suggested (the validity of the clinical studies and the Méta-analyzes S relating to the homeopathic remedies being the subject of sharp controversies). Its basic principles are more incompatible with the scientific knowledge (cf the Polémique on the principle of dilution in homeopathy).

History

It is at the XIXe century - under the influence of the Positivisme of Auguste Count, of the Scientisme and the Matérialisme - which was excluded from the field of the Science all that is not verifiable by the experimental method.

The expression " pseudo science" is old. In 1864 already, James Reddie wonders in these terms about the future of the still young anthropology: “While we attempted to arranges our facts - whether those already ascertain gold those expected hereafter to Be discovered - in accordance with nap false hypothesis, we should only succeed in constructing year elaborate pseudo - science , that might cut, indeed, the outward appearance off truth, goal would cuts nothing in stability”

In France, this term is inaugurated by the title of the review of the AFIS (French Association for the scientific information) Science and pseudo-sciences in 1985. There exist derivatives of which the term of “pseudo-medicine”, employed by Jean Brissonet in 2004 in the mixed work (free electronic version and version paper) pseudo-medicines: an oath of hypocrites .

Criticisms of the concept of pseudo-science

Paul Feyerabend, philosopher of sciences, and who admitted having a vision " anarchiste" science, written in the introduction of chapter 18 of Against the method , that “the most aggressive Science and most dogmatic of the religious institutions. ”

Contrary, the astronomer and popularizer Carl Sagan make a description of the science which contains an implicit criticism of pseudo-sciences: science, “its only truth crowned is that there is no crowned truth. All the assertions must be examined with a critical spirit. The arguments of authority are without value. All that does not correspond to the facts must be rejected or revised. Science is not perfect. It is often misused. It is only one tool, but it is the best tool than we have. ”

In the search of criteria

External criteria

Here certain characteristics called upon by the authors who try to qualify an assertion or a theory of pseudo-scientist. Only one external criterion, purely sociological, followed few internal criteria.

The sociological criterion is:

• the discipline is not taught in the academic world .

If the discipline is not taught at the university and does not have publications at reading panel, then it is about a pseudo-science. This criterion could in theory being used by those which consider that it is not possible to find objective criteria on the speech of the discipline. However, it is a criterion seldom used today, in any case not by the authors who are leaning on the phenomenon and tried to release some from the definitions, like Robert Park, Martin Gardner, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan or Alan Sokal.

It is a criterion which can be used as justification by the defenders of certain pseudo-sciences, which will point out that the Astrologie, of time that she was taught at the university, with the Middle Ages, would not have been regarded as a pseudo-science. But this criterion is not used practically any more today, of as much less than of many emergent disciplines were unquestionably scientists (the génomique one and the protéomique one, very recently) before being taught at the university.

Internal criteria

• the empirical absence of checking of the assumptions suggested .

To be named science, it is necessary that a discipline proposes means of checking the assumptions empirically that it advances. Many scientists reproach for example the Psychanalyse for advancing assumptions which are not verifiable empirically, which would more bring the psychoanalysis closer to the philosophical Anthropologie that of true a Science. It is that an essential goal of science is to provide a description of the world while making use of definite concepts with precision, which intervene in Théorie S which one can check the validity or non-validity by experiments.

However, if they are concepts for which there does not exist (or not yet) of precise definition and that one can neither subject to the experimentation, nor to the observation, these studies leave the scientific framework. That does not want to necessarily say that these studies are without value in Philosophie, in Métaphysique, Théologie, etc In fact, the men and women of science speak about pseudo-science only if these Spéculation S borrows and deforms scientific terms to try to give a scientific substratum, generally near the general public. Otherwise, they preferably speak about nonscientific knowledge (for example, parallel medicines) or about occult sciences .

• Impossibility of refuting the subjected assumptions .

The philosopher Karl Popper, noting that it is possible to find observations to confirm about any theory, proposes a methodology based on the Réfutabilité: to be allowed as scientist, a theory must be refutable. Example: the Eau in which a Anticorps was dissolved preserves the properties of them whereas there is no more possibility Statistique that the antibody in question is still present. It is about a scientific Hypothèse. Indeed, it is enough to put water thus treated in contact with white globules to see whether the latter will react or not. If they do not react, it is that the Hypothèse is false ( to see Mémoire of water ). Example of Assumption often described as pseudo-scientist: the force psi, which with the characteristic not to appear when one tries to study it in laboratory, is responsible for the phenomena of Télékinésie. This Hypothèse is impossible to refute because if no Expérience highlights this force, that does not come in contradiction with the Hypothèse from departure. Therefore, it does not matter the result, the Hypothèse cannot be cancelled.

• methodological Errors and statistical handling of the results.

Example: a pharmaceutical company affirms that its new product is effective in 25% of the cases. On the other hand, it omits to recall that a placebo produces an improvement of the symptoms in the same proportion.

• hasty Conclusions, or false conclusions, compared to the results.

Example: a Voyant obtains a success rate, for its predictions, of 75%. On the other hand, only four predictions were the subject of the study. The results, founded on a not very significant sample, can be the result of the chance. Another example: during the night, people are awaked by a luminous phenomenon traversing the electric wires close to the house. The following day, they note the presence of three circles where snow was absent in their field. They conclude that the circles were caused by the luminous phenomenon seen on wire. In fact, after investigation, the circles in the fields were noted by other witnesses a few days before the luminous phenomenon. The absence of proof attesting of a cause and effect link is often at the origin of illegitimate conclusions. In the medical checks for example, it is not rare to read articles calling upon this type of short cut: by observing that the proportion of women reached of a breast cancer is weaker at those practitioner daily a sport than at the others, one concludes from it wrongly that the regular practice of a sport decreases the risk of development of a breast cancer.

• Use of sophisms to support a conclusion.

( See the article Sophism for more details ). For example, in Ufologie, the fallacious reasoning of the inversion of the burden of proof is often used by the defenders of the extraterrestrial assumption: they ask the skeptics to prove that the phenomenon Ovni is not extraterrestrial origin.

Strategies denounced by the scientists

• the use of a name comprising the Suffix “~ logy ” to give an appearance of serious (for example “Graphology”);

• publication of Patent S : all request of patents is automatically published and the delivery is subjected only to the criteria of innovation, inventiveness and susceptibility of industrial application, without guarantee that the patented system functions;
• the reference to Standard S : for example, an object is certified in conformity with international standard CEI 61000, which means simply that the object does not disturb the electromagnetic instruments (an empty box is for example in conformity with this standard);
• the diversion of academic qualifications , like the term of “doctor” or “Professor”; for this reason, one can note obtaining the doctorate of Sociologie by Germaine Hanselmann, known as “Élizabeth Teissier”, for his work on the epistemology of astrology through ambivalence fascination/rejection in the modern societies ; the declarations of Mrs. Hanselmann created a polemic, this one being shown to have published its thesis in order to argue near the general public on the scientific character of the Astrologie.
• the creation of pseudo-centers or institutes scientific ; no matter who can create a simple association which it can call, for example, European Center of Scientific research and Observation of the Small Green Men , without that not conferring the least credit on the " recherches" carried out.
• use of voluntarily alambiquées expressions and a scientific vocabulary in order to muddle the reader and to mask a meaningless text. Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont draws up a list of authors whom they accuse of this process in their book intellectual Impostures .

The Sophism S to discredit the scientific establishment

The pseudo-scientists presenting their theses contradicting the recognized theories often employ fallacious arguments against the established scientists:

• Recourse to the Argument of authority by using sentences of Richard Feynman or Albert Einstein taken out of their context.
• Evocation of the Dogmatism of the orthodoxe scientists, consolidating the myth according to which the scientists want to never modify their theories.
• to be posed in persecuted, and to compare themselves with Galileo, fought by the Enquiry (science being based on a critical step, the current researchers are attached more to Galileo than with the inquisiteurs), and Einstein, even if it means to reinforce to them false legends in connection with this last. Indeed, its articles founders of the restricted Relativité were more quickly accepted by the scientific community that the urban legend does not say it.
• Or on the contrary, to accumulate the arguments AD hominem against the great figures of science: the pseudo-scientists denying the restricted Relativité for example sap the authority of Einstein by making of him a simple plagiarist (let us recall that if work of Poincaré and Lorentz were wrongfully forgotten by the general public today, the scientists having accommodated the theory of Einstein knew them). Some gather even a vast collection of the errors of the prestigious scientists to dispute established science.
• Negation of a solid support to the current theories, simplistic vision of science: for example, to flat give a subject under pretext which the known models are only assumptions (when a model is established by the scientists, one needs an impeccable work detecting of the precise faults to call it in question). Critical of the theories in general, shown not to subject itself to the experiment. In fact when an apparatus seems to function in violation of the known laws of physics, the scientific step requires to give these laws causes some only after having excluded any risk from error, and also after having sought an not-obvious explanation within the framework of the established theories.

System of regulation of science

Science is not as well an accumulation of knowing as a system of regulation: it is about a system car-corrective measure, considering at the base that very stated is potentially erroneous and must be discussed, and that a knowledge is perishable. A “allowed theory” is never but one consensus which can evolve/move. Gaston Bachelard said: “ the truth is a rectified error ”.

When a person observes “new” facts and proposes a new theory, it initiates a debate (via publications, of conferences, etc) and it tries to bring all the arguments favorable to the new thesis. People defending the old theory, or a concurrent theory, will bring the opposite arguments.

Reading panels

See also: Reading panel

The scientific publications are based on a system of reading panel ( referee ), which is given the responsability to make sure of the rigor with the articles (that they make well reference to former publications, that they rest on given experimental whose realization is described so that they can be reproduced). These editorial boards propose modifications with the articles (their members see passing from many articles on the covered subjects and help thus with coordination between the articles), and filter the articles if those do not answer the criteria of Rigueur.

This system is sometimes criticized. In particular, the members of the committees form to them-even part of Laboratoire S publishing on the subjects, and are thus judges and parts. Thus, certain scientists prefer to publish initially without reading panel (for example on the ArXiv) before subjecting the article at a committee: the signature of the article engaging the author, these scientists estimate that it will support itself of it the consequences in the event of erroneous result.

In the qualified disciplines of pseudo-sciences, the system of validation is structured much less, sometimes at all, from where the need for adopting an at the same time open and critical attitude on behalf of the established scientists.

Paradigm and Model

In the scientific world, a model being used as provisional representation of the world must be tested on the furnace bridge of reality. Accordingly, a scientist checks if its explanation is or not relevant.

The concept of Paradigme (a “representation of the world”) is very much used in the qualified disciplines of “pseudo-sciences”. The charge carried is that makes it possible never not to check the relevance of the explanations, remaining in the field of the Croyance. Accordingly, the basic assumption of the theory being thus never called into question, it has there possible alternative to this one.

Controversies

So certain human activities correspond indeed to the “standard” definition of pseudo-sciences such as it is stated higher, other fields on the other hand are sometimes gathered wrongly under this label. To be described as pseudo-science, a field of knowledge (or in fact of pseudo-knowledge) must thus be made pass for scientist whereas, in the facts, it does not respect certain criteria of the scientific step.

Among pseudo-sciences most usually allowed one thus finds:

• the Créationnisme, as a Doctrines describing the alive Species S like not resulting from the biological evolution but generated by a supernaturelle intervention;
• the Astrology which claim to establish a bond between the position of the celestial objects and the individual Personnalité of the human beings
• the orgonomic ( Orgonomic research ). This discipline rested by the psychoanalyst Wilhem Reich, claims to highlight, to study and collect the universal vital fluid, named orgone , which would confirm the vitalistic doctrines and would make it possible to look after the sexual impotence and cancer;
• the Graphology: This discipline empirically endeavors to establish a classification of the writings and to systematize the indices of them to highlight the personality of an individual. Its defenders claim Psychologie but no scientific experiment established statistical correlation between the style of writing and personality, more especially as old typologies of personalities to which it refers are not allowed any more by university psychology;
• Certaines psychotherapies was also criticized as pseudoscientific but being given the controversies which there exists on the methodology even of the evaluation in clinic psychology this criticism remains prone to debate.

Certain partisans of the Paranormal want that one distinguishes pseudo-sciences from the following investigations:

• the Ufologie which is interested in the phenomenon Ovni
• the Cryptozoologie which seeks to study mysterious animals whose existence can be discussed or very rare (the giant Calmar, but also, the Sasquatch, the Yéti and other Gigantopithèque)
• the cereology which studies the formation of geometrical reasons in the fields
• the Parapsychologie and the Métapsychique which rationally study the strange phenomena related to the human spirit

These approaches paranormales seek to adopt a rigorous step as near as possible to science. But they are not safe from more eccentric approaches, more especially as by their overlap in systems of beliefs and their attraction on collective imagination, they attract a great number of impassioned, scientific or not. Thus the ufology is a field where a scientific current said ufology skeptic coexists with approaches pseudo-scientists.

The Exobiologie is sometimes regarded as a pseudo-science. But it rests on a scientific step, and its characteristic is to admit the possibility that its field of study can not exist: it is for the moment a " science without sujet".

There exists also a difficulty of defining discussed theories which are fed by practices not respecting completely the scientific step. With the eyes of its partisans, it is the case of the theory of cold fusion. These controversies often originate in an experimentation which seemed a priori convincing, but that no one did not manage to reproduce in a convincing way (the Mémoire of water is not included in this category). On the scientific debate elements extra-scientists are often superimposed which do not contribute to clear up question (lure of gain, political reasons, prestige of a person or an institution concerned, theory of the plot, etc).

These debates can sometimes relate to a field of entire research like the Sciences of education. Because the objective experimentation and measurements in this field are difficult and for lack of theoretical tools, sciences of education are severely attacked, in particular because they profit from a university recognition that their detractors judge undue even harmful). Some claim that this type of attack is reserved for new sciences which invest a field still little explored, and which the charge will thus die out with progress, but this argument has little weight when the two centuries of homeopathy or the thousands of years of astrology are considered.

On Karl Popper

The criterion of Réfutabilité of Karl Popper was sometimes used to declare certain research fields like nonscientists (the Darwinisme, the Historicisme, the Marxisme or the Psychanalyse). Actually, Popper itself admitted that it was an inadequate interpretation of its criterion of refutability, at least concerning the Darwinism which it accepted like a valid scientific theory. It was not the case, on the other hand, of the Marxism or the psychoanalysis. Being oneself the Darwinism or historical sciences, they thus act not of pseudo-sciences but of research programs scientific (or Paradigme S) which share the methods and the criterion of rationality of science but which is not as directly refutable as an individual theory. They are supported by a whole of coherent facts and have a strong explanatory capacity.

Vocabulary

The parascientifiques ones often use a diverted vocabulary:

• Fluid
• Energy
• Force
• Crystal
• Pyramid
• Wave
• Ether
• Resonance
• Fields (Fields of form in particular)

Challenges

Several organizations set up challenges together with impressive rewards with which will show the reality of a phenomenon paranormal. The assertions are tested by scientific and possibly of the Prestidigitateur S, after a protocol of test had been approved by the two parts. The organizers generally hear, by such a challenge, to highlight the not-reality of such phenomena. None of these prices was allotted, because nobody succeeded in successfully passing the tests (or the tests preliminary, for the challenges which proposes some).

A French-speaking challenge, the international Challenge zetetic, remained open of 1987 to 2002.

The Million Dollar Challenge of James Randi is, as for him, always of topicality.

parodic Pseudo-sciences

It is also possible, to discredit pseudo-sciences, to use the reasoning by the absurdity. It is what is made in particular with the creation of the Jumbologie which consists in noting the position of all the planes in the sky at the time of the birth of an individual in order to make him a “topic jumbologic”, or with the practice even more mild nutter of the Netologie, which consists in studying the configuration of all the screens Internet available at the time of the design of a child.

One can also indicate the Pataphysique, in particular the communications of Boris Vian, consisting in moving the mode of exposure and demonstration of a science or part of mathematics - reduced to a rhetoric - worms of the objects which escape its relevance.

See too

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