Appendix I: Pseudo-Science And Anti-Science | The Philosophy Of Science by Steven Gussman [1st Edition]

        “Pseudoscience is easier to contrive than science, because distracting confrontations with reality

        —where we cannot control the outcome of the comparison—are more readily avoided.  The

        standards of argument, what passes for evidence, are much more relaxed.”

        – Carl Sagan^I

PSEUDO-SCIENCE

        Pseudo-science has the appearance of science, especially to the layperson, but none of the substance.  Precisely because the sciences have had so much success at explaining the cosmos, its philosophical competitors, and mere hucksters and salesman, have attempted to insert a patina of scientific language into their claims in the hopes that a patina of its convincing power will rub off.  Pseudo-science comes in three distinct flavors: the continued belief in a hypothesis, post-falsification; the use of “scientific” language to describe claims which were not got to by way of the scientific method, nor vetted by empirical evidence; and fraud, in which the reported empirical evidence does not reflect actual experiments nor measurements.

        An example of the first is in the blank-slatism which characterizes the philosophies of so many social scientists.^II  One needn't pay attention too closely to recognize just how much of a person's behaviors and personality these types believe are due to environmental causes, and how allergic they are to the idea that genetics has anything to do with it (even to the point of disavowing the idea that there are innate psychological sex differences).^III  Yet the science of behavioral genetics is empirically clear that about half of the variability in psychological traits is heritable and the other half is caused by the un-shared environment;^IV and the science of evolutionary psychology is clear that empirically, certain sex differences are persistent and fairly homologous across the animal kingdom.^V

        An example of merely dressing up nonsense to seem scientific is phrenology, a set of hypotheses believed, without empirical evidence, around the year 1800, which claimed that the brain was split up into certain modules spatially (something like this turns out to be true, though they need not be spatially segregated^VI and they are not the modules nor the locations specified in these hypotheses), and that the ridges and groove's of one's skull reveal a lot about one's psychology (including racist claims that encoded in these shapes was evidence for the inferiority of those of African descent compared to those of European descent).^VII

        A prominent example of fraud, which happens to have had a cascade of negative consequences, is the infamous claim by dis-barred medical doctor Andrew Wakefield that vaccination in young children causes autism (a lie that is likely responsible for the deaths of many children).^VIII

ANTI-SCIENCE

        Many philosophies attempting to co-opt science in the form of pseudo-science are in the end in competition with science, meaning it would be more honest to openly come out in a fight against science.  Some in fact do, and this is known as anti-science—the explicit disagreement over the tenets of philosophy of science in favor of alternatives.  Sometimes this will be religions, with proponents seeing science's ability to falsify their holy books' literal claims about the world as a danger to their entire way of life (here, much of the battle is between blind faith and empiricism).^IX  Yet the most prominent (both in terms of elite popularity and in extent of anti-scientific sentiment) is the philosophy of postmodernism, the tenets of which are perfectly, diametrically opposed to science^X (so much so, that they require science to exist before they could possibly come to their opposite-than-science beliefs).  This sect of thought claims to either not believe in objective reality, or otherwise to believe that it is impossible to discover it with any accuracy (in large part due to a belief that human biases cannot be overcome).  It is perhaps emerging as the dominant philosophy in the academy in the last decade, and has even influenced confused scientists and science students.

Footnotes:

0. The Philosophy Of Science table of contents can be found, here (footnotephysicist.blogspot.com/2022/04/table-of-contents-philosophy-of-science.html).

I. See The Demon Haunted World by Sagan (pp. 14).

II. See for example The Blank Slate by Pinker and the “Marxism” chapter from The Sophistructure by Gussman (https://footnotephysicist.blogspot.com/2021/03/chapter-2-marxism-sophistructure-0th.html).

III. See The Blank Slate by Pinker and The Ape That Understood The Universe by Stewart-Williams.

IV. See The Blank Slate by Pinker (pp. 372-380, 392-393, 449-450, 477, 480) which further cites "Three Laws Of Behavior Genetics And What They Mean" by Turkheimer (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2000-16079-005).

V. See The Blank Slate by Pinker (at least pp. 337-371); The Ape That Understood The Universe by Stewart-Williams (at least pp. 62-173); The Selfish Gene by Dawkins (at least pp. 182-215); and The Red Queen by Ridley (at least pp. 173-276).

VI. “So How Does The Mind Work?” by Steven Pinker (Mind & Language) (2005) (https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/so_how_does_the_mind_work.pdf) (at least pp. 16) which further cites How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker (W. W. Norton & Company) (1997 / 1999) (pp. 30-31, 314-315) (though I have not yet finished reading either piece in its entirety).

VII. See the “The Sociology Of Scientists” chapter which further cites Cosmos: Possible Worlds by Druyan (pp. 152-154).

VIII. See “Vaccines And Autism” (Wikipedia) (accessed 1/3/2023) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccines_and_autism) (though I have not read this entire article) which further cites “Vaccines Are Not Associated With Autism: An Evidence-Based Meta-Analysis Of Case-Control And Cohort Studies” by Luke E. Taylor et al. (Vaccine) (2014) (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367?via%3Dihub), "Adverse Events Following Immunization: Perception And Evidence" by Jan Bonhoeffer and Ulrich Heininger (Current Opinion In Infectious Diseases) (2007) (http://lib.ajaums.ac.ir/booklist/955899.pdf) (pp. 4-13_PDF or 237-246_Physical), “Lancet Retracts 'Utterly False' MMR Paper” by Sarah Boseley (The Guardian) (2010) (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/02/lancet-retracts-mmr-paper), “Autism And Vaccines” (CDC) (accessed 1/3/2023) (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html), and Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad by Peter J. Hotez (Johns Hopkins University Press) (2018) (though I haven't read these sources); and “Andrew Wakefield” (Wikipedia) (accessed 1/3/2023) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield) (though I have not read this entire article) which further cites "A Population-Based Study Of Measles, Mumps, And Rubella Vaccination And Autism" by Kreesten Meldgaard Madsen et al. (NEJM) (2007) (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134), "Relation Of Childhood Gastrointestinal Disorders To Autism: Nested Case-Control Study Using Data From The UK General Practice Research Database" by Corri Black et al. (BMJ) (2002) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC119436/), "Revealed: MMR Research Scandal" by Brian Deer (The Times) (2004) (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/revealed-mmr-research-scandal-7ncfntn8mjq), "Wakefield Tried To Capitalize On Autism-Vaccine Link, Report Says" by Rob Stein (The Washington Post) (2011) (https://web.archive.org/web/20120630205839/http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2011/01/wakefield_tried_to_capitalize.html), "Controversial MMR And Autism Study Retracted" by Maggie McKee (New Scientist) (2004) (https://web.archive.org/web/20070813055100/http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4743), "MMR Doctor 'To Face GMC Charges'" (BBC) (2006) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5070670.stm), "MP Raises New Allegations Against Andrew Wakefield" by Annabel Ferriman (BMJ) (2004) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC381348/), "General Medical Council, Fitness To Practise Panel Hearing, 28 January 2010, Andrew Wakefield, John Walker-Smith & Simon Murch" (General Medical Council) (2010) (https://web.archive.org/web/20101213133507/http://briandeer.com/solved/gmc-charge-sheet.pdf), "MMR-Row Doctor Failed In His Duties" (Yorkshire Evening Post) (2010) (https://web.archive.org/web/20100130075415/http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/BREAKING-MMR-expert-failed-in.6024127.jp), "MMR Scare Doctor 'Acted Unethically', Panel Finds" by Nick Triggle (BBC) (2010) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8483865.stm), "Andrew Wakefield Found 'Irresponsible' By GMC Over MMR Vaccine Scare" by Sarah Boseley (The Guardian) (2010) (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/jan/28/andrew-wakefield-mmr-vaccine), "Retraction—Ileal-Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Non-Specific Colitis, And Pervasive Developmental Disorder In Children" by The Editors of The Lancet (The Lancet) (2010) (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)60175-4/fulltext), "Lancet Retracts 'Utterly False' MMR Paper" by Boseley (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/02/lancet-retracts-mmr-paper), "General Medical Council, Fitness To Practise Panel Hearing, 24 May 2010, Andrew Wakefield, Determination Of Serious Professional Misconduct" (General Medical Council) (2010) (https://web.archive.org/web/20110809092833/http://www.gmc-uk.org/Wakefield_SPM_and_SANCTION.pdf_32595267.pdf), and "MMR Row Doctor Andrew Wakefield Struck Off Register" by James Meikle and Sarah Boseley (The Guardian) (2010) (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/may/24/mmr-doctor-andrew-wakefield-struck-off) (though I have not read these sources). Wakefield's retracted paper can still be found, see "Lancet MMR Autism Fraud" (Wikipedia) (accessed 1/3/2023) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud) (though I have not read this full article) which further cites "Ileal-Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Non-Specific Colitis, And Pervasive Developmental Disorder In Children" by Andrew J. Wakefield et al. (RETRACTED from The Lancet) (1998) (https://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-paper.htm) (though I have not read the paper).

IX. I have also seen the religious go the pseudo-science route. A Hindu Pujari I met once told me (among other spurious things) that re-incarnation was scientifically proven, for example (it of course, has not been, and in fact all of modern science casts serious doubt on the prospect). See The God Delusion by Dawkins.

X. See again “Postmodernism” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism) which further cites “Postmodernism” (https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/postmodernism/), “Postmodernism” by Duignan (https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy), Adult Education And The Postmodern Challenge by Bryant, Johnston, and Usher (pp. 203), “Postmodernism” (https://web.archive.org/web/20180615004714/https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=postmodernism), Intimations of Postmodernity by Bauman (pp. 26), The Lyotard Reader by Lyotard, edited by Benjamin, “Postmodernism” (https://web.archive.org/web/20130117030012/http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/postmodernism), "The Symbolic Function Of Transmodernity" by Mura (http://www.language-and-psychoanalysis.com/article/view/1604), The Politics Of Postmodernism by Hutcheon, Organization Theory by Hatch and Cunliffe, Explaining Postmodernism by Hicks, Postmodernism For Historians by Brown, "Abraham Lincoln As Authentic Reproduction" by Bruner (https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1994.96.2.02a00070 / https://web.archive.org/web/20200227133603/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d1cd/4b9f32b1bf020eb847c93dcc91cf8bd2194e.pdf), Against Postmodernism by Callinicos, “Introduction” from Recasting Conservatism by Devigne, and Intellectual Impostures by Sokal and Bricmont; and The Demon Haunted World by Sagan (pp. 246, 269) which further cites How To Think About Weird Things by Schick and Vaughn.