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mousey musings
Friday, May 04, 2007
Distinguishing Science and Pseudoscience
This article details some hallmarks of pseudo-science. The one that really sticks out at me is the difference in process -- whereas true results tend to get more and more true the more we look at them, people aren't able to replicate untrue results. Science proceeds to increase our knowledge over time, whereas pseudo-science is trapped in a cycle of trying to "rescue" what it "knew" before the first experiment was conducted. The rest of the signs of pseudo-science are cute, but the truth is that there is no reliable way to look at a single study and know whether it is true. Only observing the process of cumulation or degeneration of knowledge over time can allow us to distinguish useful results from bunkum.
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