Hello everyone,
Wanted to know what constitutes a “science” compared to a “pseudoscience.” Also have there been pseudosciences in the past that later became an actual science? Any examples. Thanks.
In: 0
One of the big differences seems to be in what happens when an investigator doesn’t get the results they want or expect. In science, you’re supposed to be able to change your idea of how things work when you get an unexpected result. Pseudoscientists generally won’t do that.
An example is the people who claim that vaccines cause health problems. They claim that vaccine X causes problem Y. Then a study shows that Y is no more common in vaccinated versus unvaccinated people, or that there’s some other variable that causes differences in who gets Y. Then they do more studies, and the results of most of them give results that are consistent with Y not being caused by X.
Some antivax types have a narrative that vaccines must be harmful somehow. If they don’t cause problem Y, they must cause some other problem. A scientific approach would be to question that assumption that vaccines are harmful, but pseudoscientists don’t do that. Or maybe they’ll start claiming that there is some kind of conspiracy that is covering up evidence that vaccines are harmful. Their evidence of this? The fact that the experiments didn’t have the results that they believed they would.
The search for psychic phenomena is another example of pseudoscience. Experiment after experiment gives results that are consistent with no psychic phenomena existing, but people think of more and more excuses why that isn’t the answer.
Believing something that can’t be demonstrated by science isn’t pseudoscience. It becomes pseudoscience when you try to use scientific methods to prove your belief, and don’t accept results that imply that your belief isn’t true.
Latest Answers