Pseudoscience is fake science.

The surest way to spot a fake is to know as much as possible about the real thing. Knowing science does not mean simply knowing scientific facts, it means understanding how science works: the criteria of evidence, the design of meaningful experiments, the weighing of possibilities, the testing of hypotheses, the establishment of theories, and the many aspects of scientific methods that make it possible to draw reliable conclusions about the physical universe. Many pseudo-masters use pseudoscience to convince students that their style of martial arts is valid. Pseudoscience often strikes educated, rational people as too nonsensical and preposterous to be dangerous; they consider it a source of amusement rather than fearing it. Unfortunately, this is not a wise attitude. Pseudoscience may be extremely dangerous, especially to the under-educated.

The following are indicators of the presence of pseudoscience. The presence of even one of the indicators should arouse suspicion, but pseudo-masters who use none of the indicators might still be using pseudoscience.

Indifference to facts. In the 1960s television show Dragnet, Jack Webb's "Sergeant Joe Friday" LAPD detective character used to say "All we want are the facts, ma'am" when question a female witness. Over the years since the show went off the air, the quotation has been misquoted to say, "Just the facts. ma'am." For pseudo-masters, the quote should be "Adjust the facts, ma'am."
Instead of consulting reference works, pseudo-masters simply spout bogus "facts" where needed. These fictions are often central to their argument. Moreover, pseudo-masters rarely revise their ideas. The first edition of a martial art book based on pseudoscience is almost always the last one, even though the book remains in print for centuries. For liars, the technique is to standby you original lie, no matter what. Even books with obvious mistakes, errors, and misprints on every page may be reprinted over and over.

Page 1 of 4: NEXT Back First Last | Share | Errors | Last Modified:

Subtopics: NEXT | None

Topic: Comments: Add View | Sources | Related: None

Homepage