Antinuclear

Beware of pseudoscience

It is so important to teach healthy scepticism. Two current examples – the pervasive denialism about global warming , despite the massive evidence that it is happening. The persistence of benign theories about ionising radiation – of “hormesis” and “adaptive radiation” , despite evidence from animal studies and epidemiological studies that this radiation causes cancer.
You do have to “follow the money”. As with the tobacco lobby, and the asbestos industry, the fossil fuel and nuclear industries will fight tooth and nail, and promote quack science, to keep selling their product.

How To Quack-Proof Yourself Against Pseudoscience, LifeHacker, DR AMY TUTEUR, 7  JUNE 14

“……….“Brilliant Heretic” as the Source of Information

The quack often has no training in the relevant discipline, be it obstetrics, immunology or cancer care? No problem. A pervasive theme in quackery is the notion of the brilliant heretic. Believers argue that science is transformed by brilliant heretics whose fabulous theories are initially rejected, but ultimately accepted as the new orthodoxy. The conceit rests on the notion that revolutionary scientific ideas are dreamed up by mavericks, but nothing could be further from the truth. Revolutionary scientific ideas are not dreamed up; they are the inevitable result of massive, collaborative data collection, which can also be confusing to communicate, or even agree upon. Galileo did not dream up the idea of a sun-centered solar system. He collected data with his new telescope, data never before available, and the sun-centered solar system was the only theory consistent with the data he had collected.

Citing Esoteric Scientific Theories

Quacks love to baffle followers with nonsense, hence the invocation of esoteric scientific theories that they don’t understand. Quantum mechanics and chaos theory, for example, are two incredibly difficult scientific disciplines, heavy on advanced maths. If you don’t have a degree in either one, you aren’t probably qualified to pontificate on them. The same thing applies to new, imperfectly understood areas of science like epigenetics or the microbiome. Both are genuine scientific concepts, but we are in the earliest stages of elucidating them, and people from non-academic backgrounds who claim to be experts should be treated with scepticism. There is real danger in insisting that they have current practical implications. We should learn from the terrible mistakes that were made when radiation was first discovered and and radioactive compounds were added to everything from water to make up under the false belief that radiation could prevent everything from ageing to death.

There is a saying in science that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Quack claims are typically extraordinary, but quacks don’t offer evidence; they raise some or all of the six red flags, often in an attempt to trick you into buying what they are selling. When you see one of these red flags, you can be virtually certain that you are in the presence of bad science……….http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2014/06/how-to-quack-proof-yourself-against-pseudoscience/

June 9, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized