Sunday, November 18, 2012

Psuedoscience


The part of this chapter that I thought was really interesting was that of Psuedoscience. Psuedoscience is described in the text as being a body of explanations or hypotheses that masquerade as the truth. It is often based on emotional appeals, superstition and rhetoric rather than the scientific method and can therefore be considered unscientific. Examples of Psuedoscience are astrology, psychic healings, tarot card readings, mind readings and numerology. The principles of most Psuedosciences are so vague worded that it becomes difficult to test their validity in a scientific setting. For instance, Horoscopes offer ambiguous statements that could apply to just about anyone which makes it hard to determine if it is truly falsifiable. Another example would be faith healing because, when someone is not healed, their healer can simply say that they did not have enough faith. Faith is not tangible and thus there is no way to say whether or not the healer was wrong. 

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