Pseudoscience redux

• Phenomenological Science? by John Fentress, 3/24/98
  • As long as it's not pseudo-science by Dan Krashin <dkrashin@hotmail.com>, 3/25/98
    • A Re-reading: ScienceS by John Fentress, 4/4/98
      
      

My concern as expressed dealt with the kind of "fake science" that, for example, takes the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as evidence that "we all create our own reality."

Well, no. That's not what it means. (These same people sometimes cite Heisenberg's checkered past to critique science -- what a useful man!)

In the behavioral sciences, the line between real and bogus science is much fuzzier (Freud hopped back and forth across it his whole life!).

However, as I have noticed speaking with some of my in-laws who are businesspeople -- a scientific education enables one to sometimes discern between science and snake oil, but to the layman who gets their knowledge from mass media, it is much harder to make that distinction. The burden on the teacher is correspondingly higher.

Dan Krashin

• True by John Fentress, 4/10/98
  • Also True by James Brody, 4/10/98