Premium Essay

Differences Between Science, Non-Science and Pseudo-Science

In:

Submitted By cl2012
Words 1320
Pages 6
A majority of people are very familiar with the word “science”. There is no doubt that science plays a crucial role in our life. However, it seems that not everyone can distinguish science correctly from non-science and pseudo-science. The following essay will present the differences between science, pseudo-science and non-science first, and then discuss three possible responses to the question that what we should do when there is a clash between scientific explanation and non-scientific explanation. The brief discussion related to the correct non-scientific explanation will present finally.

There are some differences between science, pseudo-science and non-science. The goal of science is to discover what there is in the world and explain why it is and how it is (Hammerton, 2010, p.1). Science is helpful to answer some of these questions by presenting what the cause and impacts of different actions (Hammerton, 2010, p. 3). One of the significant characters of science is the construction of theories. Scientists usually want to explain the results of observation and experiment in terms of general theory rather than simply recording the results (Okasha, 2002, p. 2). Physics, biology, geology and psychology are within the domain of science (Hammerton, 2010, p. 1). However, some questions would be better explained by philosophy rather than science, such as evaluative questions, non-empirical questions, normative questions and questions related to personal experiences (Hammerton, 2010, p. 2).

Pseudo-science refers to a theory that belongs to the domain of science, however, it is not scientifically testable. The philosopher Karl Popper thinks that the main differences between science and pseudo-science are whether the theory is scientifically testable. According to Popper, Marxism and Freudian psychology are in the domain of pseudo-science (Hammerton, 2010, p. 8).

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Sciense History

... Date: Can genuine and marginal science be distinguished basing on Giere six principle of analysis? Giere claims that there is no straightforward way to distinguish between genuine science and marginal science. It is possible to distinguish genuine science from marginal science especially when we use Giere’s method of analysis. This is because of the following arguments that are provided by Giere in his book, “Understanding Scientific reasoning”. Genuine science and marginal science has so many differences. For instance, genuine science usually deals with proven principles and this idea usually helps a person to explain phenomena and facts, this can be evidenced in (Giere, 2005, p. 11). It can only deal with principles which have been already been studied and there is no false hood in the ideas. On the other hand, marginal science is a deception. In other words, it is passing off something which does not withstand logical review as the actual thing. Marginal science normally bases its argument on other books or facts. It does not have original facts to base its arguments on. The differences between the two can be either in epistemological, logical form or the company. It is the social institution that determines what genuine science constitutes also what marginal science constitutes. Genuine Science uses only facts in its analyzing of ideas while pseudo-science depends on manufactured facts (Grim, 1990, p 89). Marginal science does not have the facts that it bases...

Words: 742 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Dna Barcoding Research Paper

...The CO1 codes for an important process in cellular respiration. The CO1 gene is present in almost every eukaryotic gene. (Science Learning Hub). This mitochondrial gene is also highly conserved like 16S rRNA and can be copied from unidentified organisms (Science Learning Hub). Every cell as a multitude of mitochondria, copies 1- 1000 depending on the amount of energy is required for the cell (Science Learning Hub). This means when doing PCR and the tissue sample is limited, the researcher as a great chance of extracting mitochondria and having successful PCR outcome (Science Learning Hub). The con for the CO1 gene is pseudo genes being sequenced because mitochondrial DNA are sometimes transfer to nuclear DNA causing the sequence to include pseudo genes (Science Learning Hub). Also, the CO1 is not preferred for identifying plants because the CO1 gene sequence does not change significantly (Science Learning Hub). Both 16S and CO1 are used to identify phylogenetic relations between...

Words: 486 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Statistical

...“SCIENCE FICTION OR SCIENCE FACT” ARE WHITES INHERENTLY MORE INTELLIGENT THAN BLACKS ? ( Delroy Constantine-Simms University of Essex (UK) & Marciea Monique McMillian University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) ABSTRACT The publication of Hernstein & Murray’s (1994) “The Bell Curve” appears to be the latest expression of pseudo scientific theories with respect to race and intelligence. This paper gives an historical and ideological insight behind the development and application of intelligence tests by citing examples of their impact on legislation, social policy and intervention programmes in relation to Blacks. More importantly, a discussion of cultural bias in test design focuses on the response of Black psychologists who developed Black intelligence tests that portray whites as intellectually inferior in the same manner that Blacks are portrayed as intellectually inferior on tests devised by white psychologist. Furthermore, The hereditary perspective of intelligence is challenged by empirical evidence that centres on children with white ancestry to assess whether white genes influence intelligence while citing several sources that support the environmental explanation of the race gap in test scores. Consequently, this discussion questions the reliability and validity of intelligence tests that are used to reinforce the Black intellectual inferiority myth. The conclusive argument suggests in no uncertain terms that the Bell Curve is nothing more than the repackaging...

Words: 5892 - Pages: 24

Free Essay

History of Psychology

...think that psychology was the "study of the mind" due to the fact that the prefix psyche is Greek for mind, soul, spirit, and the suffix ology refers to the study of something. Almost a hundred years ago, John Watson decided that psychology should be a science: not just a vague and introspective reflection on our own thoughts and feelings. Watson urged that psychology be defined as the scientific study of behavior. Since about 1920, most university psychologists have accepted Watson's definition. So, think of psychologists as scientists who study behavior. Introspection was the first technique for studying the mind There are some terms related to psychology that are frequently confused with it. Psychiatry is a branch of medicine specializing with mental disorders. Psychiatrists are medical doctors, and have been through medical school, an internship, residency training, and board certification as specialized physicians. The letters M.D. usually appear at the end of the name. The letters at the end of the name of a psychologist may be 1 Ph.D., Ed.D., or Psy.D., and so it may be appropriate to address a psychologist as "Dr." but he or she is not a physician. There is one important difference between what psychologists and psychiatrists can do. Under the current laws of most states and countries, the ability to write prescriptions for psychiatric medication is limited to physicians. So, if you needed a prescription for an anti-depressant like Prozac...

Words: 4382 - Pages: 18

Premium Essay

Food Safety Audit

...Why Should People Hate Science? Science has conquered so many diseases and is promising to cure genetic diseases and even grow us new organs. It has given us mobile phones, tablets and computers that have reduced the global village to a global mall; and yet, there are people who still refuse to accept the power of science as the major agent of change in our society. Some people find it easier to believe that special people can cure serious diseases by simply placing their hands on the diseased, while others cannot accept the fact that human beings evolved from lower animals by a process of Natural Selection over billions of years. Locally, it is a no-brainer that the lack of science teaching at a primary level has had a negative lasting effect on people, and this can be seen in newspaper, radio and TV station editors, opinionists, politicians and talk-show hosts, all of which wield the power of mass media and can influence public opinion and what people think. Unfortunately, many of them are educating the masses in the concept of GIGO - Garbage In Garbage Out. GIGO is an interesting concept that refers to the fact that people are continously bombarded by pseudo-scientific and mistaken ideas, and eventually start believing their veracity and transmit them to others. These people are not necessarily uneducated individuals, but usually pick the information online and reinforce false opinions by choosing websites that agree with their views. For example, they follow...

Words: 1965 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Abortion and Slavery

...A House Divided: Abortion and Slavery in America It is routinely remarked by both intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals that “those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.” It is definitely true that one of the history profession’s greatest tasks is to explain to the current generation how people in the past dealt with their problems, the good and the bad. It is to be hoped that by doing so we might (re)learn some lesson or at least will avoid the same pitfalls our ancestors discovered the hard way. One area in which a number of strong comparisons may be made might surprise us. A number of historical similarities present themselves between the arguments antebellum slaveholders used to support slavery and those used to support the modern abortion rights movement. At its most basic level, African chattel slavery involved one section of the population declaring other portions of that same population non-persons in order to protect the dominant side’s perceived rights and to reap economic gain, public benefit, and convenience. In doing so, the slaveholders claimed as a civil right the ability to perpetrate a moral wrong on someone who was not in a position to complain. This, of course, is nothing more or less than the essence of the “Pro Choice” movement. Arguments in favor of abortion and slavery are nearly identical, revolving around several similar premises: 4.Each person’s “right” to choose to do what he or she would with a life that had been...

Words: 1163 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Towards a Non-Western Perspective on Scientific Knowledge

...TOWARDS A NON-WESTERN PERSPECTIVE ON SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE I The available studies on the phenomenon and institution of science suffer from a curious limitation. It is as if all those who analyse the subject were overawed by the grandeur of modern science, and their studies were in the nature of tributes laid at the feet of this great saviour. All analysis starts from the assumption that modern science is a set of value-free theories that uniquely explain reality. After the scientists in the early 20th century started overhauling their theories in a big way, it was granted that the value-free theories of science that explain reality may do so only partially at a given time, but as science progresses, its theories explain more and more of reality and the process converges towards the ‘ultimate’, ‘unique’ law that explains everything. Committed to this idealist picture of a unique value free science, the philosophy of science is reduced to a set of attempts at finding the epistemological criterion, internal to science, that allows the scientist, unencumbered by any extraneous considerations, to choose the true theory out of a competing set; the sociology of science is reduced to writing down the set of social norms, self-imposed by the scientific community, which ensure that the technical criterion that guarantees the selection of the ‘true’ theory is strictly adhered to and the historiography of science is reduced to writing a catalogue of the achievements of modern science, discovering...

Words: 4795 - Pages: 20

Free Essay

Research Paper on 3g

...IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Vol. 8, Issue 5, No 3, September 2011 ISSN (Online): 1694-0814 www.IJCSI.org 256 Comparative Study of 3G and 4G in Mobile Technology K. Kumaravel Assistant Professor Dept. of Computer Science, Dr. N.G.P. Arts and Science College, Coimbatore, India – 641 048 Abstract—Mobile communication is one of the hottest areas and it is developing extremely fast in present times, thanks to the advances of technology in all the fields of mobile and wireless communications. Nowadays the use of 3G mobile communication systems seem to be the standard, while 4G stands for the next generation of wireless and mobile communications. This comparative study between 3G & 4G tells about the background and the vision for the 4G. We first present a review on the development history, characteristics, status of mobile communication and related 3G - 4G perspectives. An overall 4G framework features, having the basic keys (diversity and adaptability) of the three targets (terminals, networks, and applications). We present it in both external and internal diversity of each target to illustrate the causes and solutions of the adaptability feature. Then, the 4G domain of each feature in the framework is discussed from technical point, showing techniques and possible research issues for sufficient support of adaptability. At the end, a summary on 4G visions and some of the issues this new technology may face. Keywords: OFDM, HSPA, LTE, MIMO, MC-CDMA, WCDMA...

Words: 3795 - Pages: 16

Free Essay

Secularism in India

...SECULARISM IN INDIA : CONCEPT & PRACTICE Dr. Shriram Yerankar Associate Professor & Head, Deptt. of Political Science, Jijamata College, Buldana (M.S.) shriramyerankar@gmail.com Historical Background : The concept of secularism as we take it to mean today had originated in the 13th century Europe. But we can trace the philosophical concept of secularism in the writings of Kautilya, a thinker of ancient India, who lived in the 3rd century B.C. The history of Indian secularism the protest movements in the 5th century B.C. The three main protest movements were by the Charvaks, Buddhism and Jainism. All three of them rejected the authority of the Vedas and any importance of belief in a deity. It can thus be seen that the ancient thought had a profound impact on the development of the theory of secularism over the centuries. Writers differ about the origin of the concept of secularism as to whether it had its roots in the eastern or the western thought. D. E Smith says, “The Secular State is, in origin, a western not an Asian Conception. This is not to deny the obvious fact the certain elements of the ‘secular state – have a long tradition in Asia.’ The term “Secularism” was first used by the British writer George Holyoake in 1851. Although the term was new...

Words: 3137 - Pages: 13

Premium Essay

Me and My People

...In reality, apart from a few strictly defined physical sciences, most scientific disciplines have to bend and adapt these rules, especially sciences involving the unpredictability of natural organisms and humans. In many ways, it is not always important to know the exact scientific method, to the letter, but any scientist should have a good understanding of the underlying principles. In many ways, if you are going to bend and adapt the rules, you need to understand the rules in the first place. Empirical Science is based purely around observation and measurement, and the vast majority of research involves some type of practical experimentation. This can be anything, from measuring the Doppler Shift of a distant galaxy to handing out questionnaires in a shopping center. This may sound obvious, but this distinction stems back to the time of the Ancient Greek Philosophers. Cutting a long story short, Plato believed that all knowledge could be reasoned; Aristotle that knowledge relied upon empirical observation and measurement. This does bring up one interesting anomaly. Strictly speaking, the great physicists, such as Einstein and Stephen Hawking, are not scientists. They generate sweeping and elegant theories and mathematical models to describe the universe and the very nature of time, but measure nothing. In reality, they are mathematicians, occupying their own particular niche, and they should properly be referred to as theoreticians. Still, they are still commonly referred to...

Words: 5706 - Pages: 23

Premium Essay

Reearch

...Common Course in English 2011 Admission onwards HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE MODULE  I & II    Prepared by :  House No. 21   “Pranaam”  Keltron Nagar, Kolazhi,  Thrissur  Ms. GAYATHRI MENON .K  MODULE III  & IV Prepared  by: Ms. SWAPNA M.S.  Department of English  K. K. T. M. Govt. College  Pullut, Thrissur  Dr. Anitha Ramesh K  Associate Professor  Department of English  ZG College, Calicut  © Reserved  2  Scrutinised by :     Layout:   Computer Section, SDE  History and Philosophy of Science  School of Distance Education   Contents MODULE I ANCIENT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 1. Introduction 2. Origins of Scientific Enquiry 3. European Origins of Science 4. Contributions of Early India 5. Science in China 6. The role of Arabs in the History of Science MODULE 2 7. Science in the Middle Ages MODULE 3 MODERN SCIENCE 8. Newton and After 9. The Advancing Frontiers: Modern Medicine to Nanotechnology MODULE 4 PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 10. Basic concepts in the Philosophy of Science 11. Some Issues in the Philosophy of Science Pages 5 10 17 24 31 36 44 53 64 79 88 History and Philosophy of Science   3  School of Distance Education             History and Philosophy of Science   4  School of Distance Education   MODULE 1  ANCIENT HISTORY OF SCIENCE  UNIT – 1 INTRODUCTION Objectives This chapter will help you to: 1. Understand what is science 2. Understand...

Words: 34637 - Pages: 139

Premium Essay

Accounting Jobs

...university graduate obtaining full-time employment by degree of study. It allows for degree choice to be endogenous (self-selection bias) and adjusts for those graduates not in the labour force who are not typically considered in graduate outcome studies (sample-selection bias). The self-selection problem is able to be identified by using a unique data set that combines data from the 2005 and 2006 Australian Graduate Destination Survey with data from the University of Tasmania’s (UTAS) student administration database, which includes students’ pre-tertiary school results. Degree choice is modelled using a Nested Logit, while labour force participation is modelled using a Probit. Using a ‘Heckit’ type methodology, the Inverse Mills Ratios (pseudo-residuals) from the Nested Logit and the modified Inverse Mills Ratios from the Probit are included in the final Probit model for Employment. Both correction terms are statistically significant at 5% in the employment probability equation. Allowing for self selection significantly reduces the probability of employment for accounting, architecture, engineering and economics/finance graduates by 6%, 9%, 10% and 5% respectively, suggesting that better students select these degrees at UTAS. Correcting for sample selection reduces the probability of employment for the average student from 80% to 70%,...

Words: 8542 - Pages: 35

Premium Essay

The Impact of Enterprise Systems on Corporate Performance: a Study of Erp, Scm, and Crm System Implementations

...Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 65–82 www.elsevier.com/locate/jom The impact of enterprise systems on corporate performance: A study of ERP, SCM, and CRM system implementations Kevin B. Hendricks a,1, Vinod R. Singhal b,*, Jeff K. Stratman b,2 b Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ont., Canada N6A-3K7 College of Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, 800 West Peachtree St., NW, Atlanta, GA 30332-0520, United States Available online 23 March 2006 a Abstract This paper documents the effect of investments in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems on a firm’s long-term stock price performance and profitability measures such as return on assets and return on sales. The results are based on a sample of 186 announcements of ERP implementations, 140 SCM implementations, and 80 CRM implementations. Our analysis of the financial benefits of these implementations yields mixed results. In the case of ERP systems, we observe some evidence of improvements in profitability but not in stock returns. The results for improvements in profitability are stronger in the case of early adopters of ERP systems. On average, adopters of SCM system experience positive stock returns as well as improvements in profitability. There is no evidence of improvements in stock returns or profitability for firms that have invested in CRM. Although our results are not uniformly...

Words: 13588 - Pages: 55

Free Essay

Socrates

...indicate that the effects of educational attainment on attitudes toward evolution and creationism are uneven and contingent upon religious identity. Consequently, higher education will only shift public attitudes toward evolution and away from support for teaching creationism in public schools for those who take non-“literalist” interpretive stances on the Bible, or to the extent that it leads to fewer people with literalist religious identities. Keywords: evolution, creationism, religious identity, education, science and religion, public policy. INTRODUCTION Acceptance of evolution and support for creationism has been publicly debated since the initial diffusion of Darwin’s theory about the origin of species, particularly in the United States (Numbers 1998, 2006). From before the infamous Scopes Trial (see Larson 1997) to the present, many Americans have resisted ideas about evolution, leading to a relatively low global ranking on public acceptance of the theory (Miller, Scott, and Okamoto 2006). Although the scientific community and legal decisions in U.S. courts have repeatedly favored the teaching of evolution and the dismissal of creationism in science classrooms over the last half-century (Larson 2003), public opinion on these topics has remained relatively stable (Plutzer and Berkman 2008). This raises the question: Why have institutional...

Words: 7196 - Pages: 29

Premium Essay

Lexicology

...language. Causes of |unity, nor does it necessarily stand|but have different semantic | |linguistics dealing with the |earlist forms of the word. Now |According to the aspect relation of |Semantic Change |for one concept. It is generally |structure. The problem of homonymy | |vocabulary of the language and the |etymology studies both: the form and|a word to the components of the |extra-linguistic — various changes |known that most words possess a |is mainly the problem of | |properties of words as the main |the meaning of borrowed and native |situation where it is used: |in the life of the speech community,|number of meanings. Polysemy – |differentiation between two | |units of language. |words. As for English language many |Referential meaning — determined by |changes in economic and social |coexistence within one word several |different semantic structures of | |Lexicology has an object of its |scientist consider the foreign |the relation of...

Words: 10055 - Pages: 41