The Line Between Science and Pseudoscience

https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2016/01/karl-popper-on-science-pseudoscience/

A very interesting article from one of my favourite blogs to read which makes me ask the question; what pseudoscience do you think is 'truth'?

Enjoy!

Karl Popper on The Line Between Science and Pseudoscience
January 28, 2016
It’s not immediately clear, to the layman, what the essential difference is between science and something masquerading as science: pseudoscience. The distinction gets at the core of what comprises human knowledge: How do we actually know something to be true? Is it simply because our powers of observation tell us so? Or is there more to it?

Sir Karl Popper, the scientific philosopher, was interested in the same problem. How do we actually define the scientific process? How do we know which theories can be said to be truly explanatory?

He began addressing it in a lecture, which is printed in the book Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (also available online):

When I received the list of participants in this course and realized that I had been asked to speak to philosophical colleagues I thought, after some hesitation and consultation, that you would probably prefer me to speak about those problems which interest me most, and about those developments with which I am most intimately acquainted. I therefore decided to do what I have never done before: to give you a report on my own work in the philosophy of science, since the autumn of 1919 when I first began to grapple with the problem, ‘When should a theory be ranked as scientific?’ or ‘Is there a criterion for the scientific character or status of a theory?’

Popper saw a problem with the number of theories he considered non-scientific that, on their surface, seemed to have a lot in common with good, hard, rigorous science. But the question of how we decide which theories are compatible with the scientific method, and those which are not, was harder than it seemed.

***

It is most common to say that science is done by collecting observations and grinding out theories from them. Charles Darwin once said, after working long and hard at the problem of the Origin of Species,

My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.

This is a popularly accepted notion. We observe, observe, and observe, and we look for theories to best explain the mass of facts. (Although even this is not really true: Popper points out that we must start with some a priori knowledge to be able to generate new knowledge. Observation is always done with some hypotheses in mind–we can’t understand the world from a totally blank slate. More on that another time.)

The problem, as Popper saw it, is that some bodies of knowledge more properly named pseudosciences would be considered scientific if the “Observe & Deduce” operating definition were left alone. For example, a believing astrologist can ably provide you with “evidence” that their theories are sound. The biographical information of a great many people can be explained this way, they’d say.

The astrologist would tell you, for example, about how “Leos” seek to be the center of attention; ambitious, strong, seeking limelight. As proof, they might follow up with a host of real-life Leos: World-leaders, celebrities, politicians, and so on. In some sense, the theory would hold up. The observations could be explained by the theory, which is how science works, right?

Sir Karl ran into this problem in a concrete way because he lived during a time when psychoanalytic theories were all the rage at just the same time Einstein was laying out a new foundation for the physical sciences with the concept of relativity. What made Popper uncomfortable were comparisons between the two. Why did he feel so uneasy putting Marxist theories and Freudian psychology in the same category of knowledge as Einstein’s Relativity? Did all three not have vast explanatory power in the world? Each theory’s proponents certainly believed so, but Popper was not satisfied.

It was during the summer of 1919 that I began to feel more and more dissatisfied with these three theories–the Marxist theory of history, psychoanalysis, and individual psychology; and I began to feel dubious about their claims to scientific status. My problem perhaps first took the simple form, ‘What is wrong with Marxism, psycho-analysis, and individual psychology? Why are they so different from physical theories, from Newton’s theory, and especially from the theory of relativity?’

I found that those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud, and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent explanatory power. These theories appeared to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, opening your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirming instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory.

Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refused to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still ‘un-analysed’ and crying aloud for treatment.

Here was the salient problem: The proponents of these new sciences saw validations and verifications of their theories everywhere. If you were having trouble as an adult, it could always be explained by something your mother or father had done to you when you were young, some repressed something-or-other that hadn’t been analyzed and solved. They were confirmation bias machines.

What was the missing element? Popper had figured it out before long: The non-scientific theories could not be falsified. They were not testable in a legitimate way. There was no possible objection that could be raised which would show the theory to be wrong.

In a true science, the following statement can be easily made: “If x happens, it would show demonstrably that theory y is not true.” We can then design an experiment, a physical one or sometimes a simple thought experiment, to figure out if x actually does happen. It’s the opposite of looking for verification; you must try to show the theory is incorrect, and if you fail to do so, thereby strengthen it.

Pseudosciences cannot and do not do this–they are not strong enough to hold up. As an example, Popper discussed Freud’s theories of the mind in relation to Alfred Adler’s so-called “individual psychology,” which was popular at the time:

I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behaviour: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and in Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behaviour which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact–that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed–which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favour of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.

Popper contrasted these theories against Relativity, which made specific, verifiable predictions, giving the conditions under which the predictions could be shown false. It turned out that Einstein’s predictions came to be true when tested, thus verifying the theory through attempts to falsify it. But the essential nature of the theory gave grounds under which it could have been wrong. To this day, physicists seek to figure out where Relativity breaks down in order to come to a more fundamental understanding of physical reality. And while the theory may eventually be proven incomplete or a special case of a more general phenomenon, it has still made accurate, testable predictions that have led to practical breakthroughs.

Thus, in Popper’s words, science requires testability: “If observation shows that the predicted effect is definitely absent, then the theory is simply refuted.” This means a good theory must have an element of risk to it. It must be able to be proven wrong under stated conditions.

From there, Popper laid out his essential conclusions, which are useful to any thinker trying to figure out if a theory they hold dear is something that can be put in the scientific realm:

1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory–if we look for confirmations.

2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory–an event which would have refuted the theory.

3. Every ‘good’ scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.

4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.

5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.

6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of ‘corroborating evidence’.)

7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers–for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a ‘conventionalist twist’ or a ‘conventionalist stratagem’.)

One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.

Finally, Popper was careful to say that it is not possible to prove that Freudianism was not true, at least in part. But we can say that we simply don’t know whether it’s true, because it does not make specific testable predictions. It may have many kernels of truth in it, but we can’t tell. The theory would have to be restated.

This is the essential “line of demarcation,“ as Popper called it, between science and pseudoscience.

Doesn't the very definition of psuedoscience divorce it from "truth"?

In my mind truth is relative from where and who you are and so something pseudoscience can be a 'truth' for someone. The point I was trying to make was that I think we don't examine critically some ideas we have, that usually just seem obvious to us. We also assume when other people disagree with these ideas that they're being difficult or not ready to understand or whatnot as explained in the article,

E.g. what might be pseudoscience but what alot of people swear is true... The law of attraction. Science or pseudoscience? And when you believe in it so much and see it everywhere- does it make it true? Just some questions I'd like to think about...

Vusuki wrote: And when you believe in it so much and see it everywhere- does it make it true?

That's when you document your observations, develop a hypothesis, conduct experiments, observe/record the results, record new discoveries to test, make a conclusion based on your experiments, and so on. But, as we're human, we like to confirm our biases and fail to see things from another perspective, or choose not to, because it differs from our own and would make thinking about it more difficult. That's where the difference between science and pseudoscience begins to emerge. Where one accepts that its conclusion was wrong, the other finds more ways to obfuscate people into believing that its conclusion was correct all along.

What is truth changes. The tectonic plate theory of continental shift was discredited when first proposed. It didn't fit into the early 20th century's definitions regarding the causes of mountain formation and explanations for fossil evidence. Now, tectonic plates are truth. Same world. Different explanations. Different truths.

A lot of scientific discoveries though were made by accident's, so keeping an open mind probably goes both ways, to an extent

There 's Karl Popper's principle: if you have an idea and you can think of an experiment that can refute it, then it's "useful".
(And please, do not ask me for references and correct terms. I recite my Russian acquaintance in this.)

Main application of "the line" for me is the Force. It may be many things - faith, experience, practice. It's derivatives can be scientifically measured (you can MRI your brain regions activity during meditation/practice; you can check our philosophy for consistency via logic). But the Force itself, I *trust*, can not be "proven", only shown indirectly.

The Force is borderline for science and, I *trust*, will always be. We can and must use science up to the point where it's not-yet-developed. But after we reach that point, we'd better trust in the Force to guide us.

Also, terminology issue exists. Truth is quite a philosophic concept. Personally, I discriminate words "truth" and "fact" on the basis of Popper's principle.

EDIT: Oh, I see, @Vusuki have brought in Popper from the beginning. That makes me very glad.

Maybe I need to reread the article, but it would seem to me that if you read that article and thought, "what other pseudosciences might be true?" then it seems like you may have missed the point.

I have a bit of a complicated relationship to science. On one hand, I've always loved it and that passion was reinvigorated while studying in university. On the other hand, I've also studied plenty of critiques science as an institution of human design. People like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens exemplify science as an institution and why it can be just as harmful as pseudoscience. The sad part is, they are only the most recent in a long and sad history of science as an institution gone awry.

My biggest problem with pseudoscience is that it can lead to false hope and reckless abandon of conventional methods of handling problems. People whip up a few different flowers in oil, call it a potion to ward off cancer and suddenly people are sprinkling themselves with rose oil thinking it will prevent cancer to the point where they don't even bother to get colonoscopies, mammograms, etc. Pseudoscience is also responsible for half-baked bologna like homeopathy which is not just fraudulent, but dangerous and foolish. The fact that people fall for this stuff isn't necessarily because they're fools or stupid, but because they don't understand the scientific method applied and need desperately to believe there is something that can save them from their own mortality. Add to that the fact that pseudoscience and homeopathy advocates utilize of lot of fear-mongering to convince people that conventional medical science is bunk.

On the contrary, Truth is the only thing that is NOT subjective. (or relative) Either something is true or it is not. Just because the tectonic plate theory Alan speaks about didn't fit current science did not make it NOT true. We just misinterpreted the data based on old conclusions due to less than accurate evidence.

Truth is truth. It is in our subjective interpretation of that truth that flaws arise. That is why it is so important to stick to a very strict code of investigation called the scientific method. That is the only way to lead us to our best interpretation of evidence. Even so this is still not a perfect process since we must start with two basic assumptions that we can never "know" for certain. One that the universe as we see it exists and the second is that we can learn something about it.

Because of those assumptions we can never know perfect Truth. We can only know it to the best of our ability. That is why we should always take a critical stance when investigating any pseudoscience claims and NEVER jump to conclusions or selectively interpret the data so that it comes out the way we either think it should or want it to. We must remain empirical and also remember that if something cant be dis-proven it falls outside the realm of science.

To date I have never seen any credible evidence to make me believe any popular pseudoscience claims have even the slightest bit of validity. Things like homeopathy/water memory or reike etc just dont have the evidence to support them. Forms of divination, while useful when used in the proper context as a means of self physiological evaluation, also have no consistent evidence to support their claims of supernatural influence or control of forces outside the know realms of science. These things are no different than the young earth creationists selectively interpreting data and claiming they can disprove evolution or prove that the earth is not 4.5 billion years old. If they could actually prove these things they would be super famous and probably millionaires. Same goes for anyone claiming psychic ability or that they talk to ghosts.

And know I dont buy for a second there is a global conspiracy perpetrated by the scientific community to cover up the evidence of the paranormal. lol. If they could actually do that we would be living on Mars now... hmm on the other hand, maybe humans are living on Mars and investigating the ancient pyramids left there by ancient aliens.

The only problem with words is to agree on definition. The only problem with agreeing on definition is that you'll have to bring Aristotle, Popper, Bool, Turing and many other guys into game. On logic, a fine book as an intro is Courant's "What is mathematics?". If you really want to be boring, go for it.