To understand Science, you must first learn what is Pseudoscience

[fritzd]

@fritz

oh i love science too.. you probably have a background on natural science...

just because there is no law governing that field does not mean there is none, isnt it?

science is a path to knowledge... there are few scientist that did study the existence of the soul.. love, consciousness and other things that are actually believe to have no rules nor laws that govern them...

like any other truth science is relative over time.... its true until another disproves...

and there are some scientists that do have background on natural science thread on "the unscientific" on their study...

how thick or thin is the line between scientific and unscientific?

yes, you are right. My background is Applied Physics. I am now specializing in Optics/Photoincs more specifically Quantum Optics in masters (still working on it though. hehehe).

@fritz
just because there is no law governing that field does not mean there is none, isnt it?

true.. hehe

@fritz
science is a path to knowledge... there are few scientist that did study the existence of the soul.. love, consciousness and other things that are actually believe to have no rules nor laws that govern them...

Indeed, I do admire the scientists who really went into trying to explain these aspects. But the thing is, these things are just things science can not explain. Maybe it can in the future or maybe never. Despite the wonders of science, it is only for the physical universe perspective.

@fritz
and there are some scientists that do have background on natural science thread on "the unscientific" on their study...

how thick or thin is the line between scientific and unscientific?

Good question.. hehe! I always try to be very careful with my ideas and opinions. The world is filled with so many ideas. And it can easy to offend people if you are not careful with how you speak your ideas. Regarding scientific and unscientific, I guess we can say that certain domains where scientific method can not be easily applied and replicated is unscientific. Take for example, scientists doing research ghosts. No matter what they do, their readings on EM waves or whatsoever can never be replicated at will. hehe! I may be wrong. hehehe

[ed168III]

to understand science, use ur common sense

[rodsky]

to understand science, use ur common sense

Both true and untrue.

Common sense dictates that if you put your hand over a fire and you feel that it's warm, chances are if you put your finger in the embers you'd burn your hand.

However, on very small and very large scales, our common sense fails us. For instance (example on the very small), if you look at two glasses of water, one is dirty and one is clear, common sense will dictate that the clear one is clean and safe to drink, but what if the clear water is tainted with harmful bacteria? Similarly (example on the very big), if you use common sense to describe how the solar system looks like, by checking how the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, then you'd conclude that the earth is still, and the sun revolves around the earth.

Thus, science require more than just common sense. Again, I'm not saying common sense is bad--it's a good starting point, but unless you go through the stringent procedures of science, you will eventually get wrong answers for things very small and things very large.

-RODION

[fritzd]

Sir Rod,

Exactly, early philosophical attempts of explaining the universe was based on common sense and is what Aristotle used in his understandings of the universe. hehe!

[jebz]

I just wonder serendipity would also really apply to this

[jamesmusslewhite]

Pseudoscience has also been called fringe- or alternative science, junk science, commercial advertising,deceptive science, bad science, or theory. The pursuit of scientific knowledge usually involves elements of intuition and guesswork; experiments do not always test a theory adequately, and experimental results can be incorrectly interpreted or even wrong. In legitimate science, however, these problems tend to be self-correcting, if not by the original researchers themselves, then through the critical scrutiny of the greater scientific community. Critical thinking is an essential element of science. http://www.chem1.com/acad/sci/pseudosci.html

[Malic]

I wonder if Evolution can be considered pseudo science?

[Malic]

I think its the other way around.

To understand Science you must first understand Science before you get to identify what pseudo science is.

An effective way to train your hands in detecting fake bills is to pass real notes over and over again through your hand. Till the hand gets the feel of what is real, its harder for you to detect what is unreal.

my 2 cents there...

[rodsky]

I wonder if Evolution can be considered pseudo science?

I don't know what rock you were hiding in for the past one hundred years, but evolution is fact.

-RODION

[rodsky]

I think its the other way around.

To understand Science you must first understand Science before you get to identify what pseudo science is.

An effective way to train your hands in detecting fake bills is to pass real notes over and over again through your hand. Till the hand gets the feel of what is real, its harder for you to detect what is unreal.

my 2 cents there...

That would be effective for a person who has sensitive fingers. But what about those who don't have sensitive fingers? They would need to be shown what is not genuine money so that they can compare and contrast the differences. Similarly, for a person who is already intelligent by default, the methods of science can be easily learned. But for a person who is "intellectually challenged" sometimes it's better to show the opposite of what you mean, so that they can distinguish the genuine from the authentic. Ergo, this post/thread was meant for those "intellectually challenged" people.

-RODION