To understand Science, you must first learn what is Pseudoscience

[Malic]

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

-RODION

Use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims

* Assertion of scientific claims that are vague rather than precise, and that lack specific measurements.

* Failure to make use of operational definitions (i.e. publicly accessible definitions of the variables, terms, or objects of interest so that persons other than the definer can independently measure or test them). (See also: Reproducibility)

* Failure to make reasonable use of the principle of parsimony, i.e. failing to seek an explanation that requires the fewest possible additional assumptions when multiple viable explanations are possible (see: Occam's Razor)

* Use of obscurantist language, and misuse of apparently technical jargon in an effort to give claims the superficial trappings of science.

* Lack of boundary conditions: Most well-supported scientific theories possess well-articulated limitations under which the predicted phenomena do and do not apply.

* Lack of effective controls, such as placebo and double-blind, in experimental design. (see Scientific control)


There is an argument from the Creationist Science were it says that fish to philosopher evolution falls under the categories mentioned above.

[Malic]

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

Fingers are sensitive, its part of the hand, use for touching. Blind people are trained to use their hands for object identification.

People who are not properly trained will just accept anything offered to them. Even if you come to them with fake moneys, when they are not trained to identify the real from what is not real, your effort would still be useless.

Lay people can't identify what is pseudo science if they lack the orientation of what is real science.

So I will still say, educate them first on what is real science so that it would be easy for them to identify what is pseudo science.

[handsoff241]

*kuhit ni malic.. hoy mamalik ta sa sno..

[diehard96]

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!

"early philosophical attempts" were, strictly speaking, not scientific. yes, they might have been based on common sense, which unfortunately muddled things more than they enlightened.

take aristotle's attempt at taxonomy, or biology for that matter. he thought that an animal species belongs to the same kind as those other species in similar habitat. in that case, whales and dolphins would be considered fish. and many people did believe whales and dolphins to be fish for many centuries after that, including those who never heard of aristotle, out of common sense.

[fritzd]

"early philosophical attempts" were, strictly speaking, not scientific. yes, they might have been based on common sense, which unfortunately muddled things more than they enlightened.

take aristotle's attempt at taxonomy, or biology for that matter. he thought that an animal species belongs to the same kind as those other species in similar habitat. in that case, whales and dolphins would be considered fish. and many people did believe whales and dolphins to be fish for many centuries after that, including those who never heard of aristotle, out of common sense.

You are right but we don't live in the past. There are some things that Aristotle got right. But he didn't explain fire very well. He said everything tends to return to its natural state. Fire goes up because it goes back to the Sun while stuffs fall down because it wants to return back to the Earth. I am not saying common sense is wrong but it just has its limitations especially today. There is nothing wrong with common sense. But you are right, everything started with common sense. But it would be stupid if you use your common sense right now to explain the physical universe when most of the science are already laid down for us, would it? When studying science, normal common sense won't really help but instad thorough analysis will. hehehe

An interesting idea:
Common sense for a scientist would be all the physical laws he has understood while common sense for an ordinary person would be based on his personal experience. =) I guess it can also be relative. hehehe

[diehard96]

what people call common sense is neither common nor sensible.

[The_Child]

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!

"early philosophical attempts" were, strictly speaking, not scientific. yes, they might have been based on common sense, which unfortunately muddled things more than they enlightened.

take aristotle's attempt at taxonomy, or biology for that matter. he thought that an animal species belongs to the same kind as those other species in similar habitat. in that case, whales and dolphins would be considered fish. and many people did believe whales and dolphins to be fish for many centuries after that, including those who never heard of aristotle, out of common sense.

what people call common sense is neither common nor sensible.

somewhat true. but the term "common sense" is not understood as that which is obvious, common sense is more like, in aristotelian terms, a mental function that unites all forms of sense-image into a coherent single image. (important in Cognitive Science)

but yeh, alot of things Aristotle got right, and alot he got wrong. (among others he was later on corrected by galileo in regards to falling objects) What is important is that he was responsible for the birth of many if not all of the major scientific disciplines.

Cheers!

[Malic]

*kuhit ni malic.. hoy mamalik ta sa sno..

psst this is not SnO thread so dont bring your pagka " kulit" here.

[unsay_ngalan_nimo]

if the experiment is flawed.. then its pseudo science.. hahahaha

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Science ponders 'zombie attack'

is this pseudo science?

[rodsky]

if the experiment is flawed.. then its pseudo science.. hahahaha

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Science ponders 'zombie attack'

is this pseudo science?

By asking the question "is this pseudo science?", it's clear you haven't understood the definition of Pseudoscience, and you also haven't understood the purpose of the article and the purpose of the experiment.

-RODION