Science or Pseudoscience?

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Well, what I mean: IANDS has a magazine called the Journal of Near-Death Studies, 25 issues of peer-reviewed bullocks per the definition outlaid in the OP, bullocks that scores of doctors and medical researchers are signing off on these days to validate claims such as that NDE's are real:

http://iands.org/publications/journal-o ... ation.html

They're not the only people nor the only field taking pseudoscience to the next level of academic rigor and mock-legitimacy. You see this with studies of mind effecting matter, random number generators getting bumped around by world events, ESP, and all kinds of other patent nonsense.

If these people are hypothesis testing, coming up with something other than reductive materialism, and even peer-reviewing, you'd to draw a hard line in the sand of some kind regarding what you'd deem cherry-picking, just so both sides of the argument don't have infinite regress. Or, if you're truly comfortable with keeping the definition of pseudoscience as 'does not agree with reductive materialism' I suppose that can be okay for satisfying a particular person's point of view but interpreting the boundaries of what's absolutely allowed under reductive materialism could run into challenges as particle physics starts getting more and more hazy (not implying they'll ever find magic or fairy dust, just that it could start getting too quasi by feel for some people and honest particle physicists might have to fight allegations on things they're researching which they themselves can't yet explain the mechanics of well enough to defend themselves against such charges).

Regardless the 'pseudo' is getting a little too good at what it does these days not to require a crisp definition of where the foul line is in experimental procedure and a foul line that neither side can impugn their dignity further with by manipulating or stretching to their benefit.

People have something called "Near-Death Experiences" - that much is nearly certain.

(I've saved that link for future reference - there's a lot of stuff there.)

What these "Near-Death Experiences" may be can not be validated or falsified without deliberately causing harm to a human test subject. For instance, one hypothesis for the cause of NDEs is anoxia (lack of oxygen to the brain), which releases dopamine and endorphins into the brain, which cause feelings of wellness and euphoria, as well as pleasurable hallucinations.

But the only way to verify this is to deprive medically-trained humans of oxygen just long enough for them to go into a coma, and then bring them back before too much of their brain dies to give an effective report.

Any volunteers?

To make a long story short they're making a claim that between the out of body experience and the Alice In Wonderland experience there's a time where they're seeing (during the flatline EEG) various different people doing different things around the building, the claim is that these people who's brains are in arrest are describing exactly what happened clear across rooms with people who were never in the room and doing so with uncanny accuracy. The Wonderland part they really can't make heads or tales of, or at least they can only make anecdotal heads or tales so far because what some 'being of light' is telling them that aunt Catherine is going through two states away is usually varified by the NDE experiencer long before any doctor interviews them on the record and is able to time-stamp the story.

Here's a graphic illustration of the difference between Scientific Method and Pseudo-Science...



Notice how Science is recursive (and therefor self-correcting) and falls back to a completely new hypothesis when things don't work out.

Pseudo-science (esp. Creationism) is simply a dead-end process.

Suggestion. Make the top box "Invent, revise or replace hypothesis"

ruveyn

There's nothing better you can do to aid/abet quackery than to smugly underestimate it.

Or, as the fundies* say, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist."








*Actually, it was Charles Baudelaire (1821 to 1867); the fundies "appropriated" the saying, and now take full credit for it.

Meh, I like John Cusack's telling of it best of all

Science can only go so far, but it's the best thing we have in order to build proper knowledge of what's around and in us.

The person who devised this diagram must really be a genius. I mean, to personally investigate and find evidence that each and every one of these things is totally fraudulent and proven to be fake, must have taken a lifetime and some remarkable insight. Especially considering how diverse the topics are.

Of course, I think in this forum in particular, I am in line to say, EVIDENCE PLEASE??

I want to see the incredibly long list of references that provides support for their position.
Of course, if they don't have one, and are just mindlessly bashing things they don't know anything about, then to me, they have the same amount of credibility as many of the topics on the diagram.
Ditto to anyone else who considers it to be anything more than an uninformed opinion, or an ignorant 'joke'.

For people who make things like the poster you quoted or the periodic table version of it, strange to say I do think they believe in occult magick - meaning these are things they're afraid of, they're black swans, and what they do with those black swans is they roll them together into these nifty charts that are in practical use metaphysical wards and talismans. They tend to believe that these talismans will help bring them good luck against things that disturb their beliefs and environment, essentially to create a metaphysical safe-zone for them by the power of their own intent over matter. Some might go as far as to frap while looking at these which would then additionally promote them to the status of being charged sigils!

The author's explanation:

The curiously revered world of irrational nonsense has seeped into almost every aspect of modern society and is both complex and multifarious. Therefore rather than attempt a comprehensive taxonomy, I have opted instead for a gross oversimplification and a rather pretty Venn Diagram.

In my gross over simplification the vast majority of the multitude of evidenced-free beliefs at large in the world can be crudely classified into four basic sets or bollocks. Namely, Religion, Quackery, Pseudoscience and the Paranormal.

However as such nonsensical beliefs continue to evolve they become more and more fanciful and eventually creep across the bollock borders. Although all the items depicted on the diagram are completely bereft of any form of scientific credibility, those that successfully intersect the sets achieve new heights of implausibility and ridiculousness. And there is one belief so completely ludicrous it successfully flirts with all forms of bollocks.

Religious Bollocks ∩ Quackery Bollocks ∩ Pseudoscientific Bollocks ∩ Paranormal Bollocks = Scientology


The author's blog:
http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/

I think there are some interesting ideas on here, along with a lot of barbed humor- the diagram was meant to be a humorous dig at Scientology.

That might have sounded meaner than I meant it - poster as in the demotivational poster itself, not the poster of the demotivational poster.

I don't know much about scientology, but the things I have seen so far have not impressed me.
I have never heard of many of the things on the diagram so have no opinion of them. I simply wanted to say that failing to prove something is true is not the same as proving that it is false.
I find it a bit of a weakness in people's attitudes that they disrespect someone else's views and beliefs just because they disagree with them. The presence of the terms 'irrational', and 'bollocks' on the diagrams is disrespectful, and I say this acknowledging that it is probably true for more than a few of those things, but I would not be arrogant enough to name particular items until I personally examined evidence proving that they were in fact impossible.
What we don't know is bigger than what we do know.

How about when those other people's beliefs do nothing but obstruct advancements in medical knowledge or treatment?

Being anti-science has caused deaths on a large scale when influential people discounted scientific evidence that HIV causes AIDS, and because of this appropriate treatment was not made available and in South Africa - 300,000 people died.*

Science does more for the human race than mere belief ever could. When researching a cure for AIDS, concluding that "God made the HIV to punish gays" contributes absolutely nothing to the quest for a cure; while systematic and logical investigation is the one best way to to find the cure for AIDS, as well as to investigate the natural world and expand our knowledge of it.

*"Mbeki Aids denial caused 300,000 deaths"

*"Anti-science can be a lethal game"

I agree, that God/HIV statement is ignorant and harmful. I do not advocate being 'anti-science'.
I know there are crooks/charlatans/incompetents/etc on both sides of this hypothetical fence. I see arguments made against various alternative therapies, for example, that could just as easily be applied to scientific medicine. If some alternative therapist proves to be raking in cash while their clients are suffering or dying, there is a veritable witch hunt, and of course, if that is the case, then they should be prosecuted. But some medical doctors are given kickbacks from drug companies for prescribing their drugs, and given other incentives, while their patients die from a whole smorgasbord of iatrogenic diseases. Pharmaceutical companies are big, powerful, and rich for a reason. True, there are many miracles they deserve credit for, but they too have a 'dark side'. Is it OK for people to be harmed by greed or human error just because they do it scientifically?
I don't question that many doctors have anything but the best intentions toward their patients, but there are some that should not be there.
When my husband was in India, he was offered a medical degree for $5000, which would come with 3, 5, or 6 months training (I forgot which it was). He was assured this degree would let him practice as a doctor in may countries including Australia. My husband never went to school for more than a year, and only learned to read and write in the army. I'm glad he said no.
Blindly trusting either side is not wise.
As for the the non-medical stuff, some of it seems impossible (some of it probably is), but think about how physics sounds to most people. Tiny strings of energy? Branes? Hidden dimensions? Singularities? "Big Bang"? Dark Energy?
NONE of that is proven and all of it is impossible for most people to even visualize. The vast majority are expected to accept that governments are justified in spending billions on this stuff on the say-so of a very small minority who have the education to understand it.
Thankfully science has produced things like smart phones and the internet, which keeps people happy to let it have its head, for the most part.

I hope you understand that I am not 'on the side against science'. I have always been obsessed with science, and my library of maybe 4 thousand books is about 50% science. My degree is science. My career is about science (geology).
To me, that God/HIV attitude is the same as the attitude of that diagram. It 'unseemly' and ignorant, disrespectful, and unnecessarily casting stones at someone else for thinking differently. The religious mob lose my respect when they do it to scientists, but the scientists also lose my respect when they too sink to that level. They should at least first PROVE that the thing is impossible before they mock it (PROVE there is no God, or whatever).
I think you know a lot about science, but most people just don't have the benefit of that knowledge and they are what they are. It is not productive to argue with them, and mean to judge them.

I saw an absolutely painful interview on you tube between Richard Dawkins and some religious person, and no matter how rationally and carefully Dawkins tried to make his argument, the other fellow took everything he said and first translated it into his own 'language' before responding. He was smug and self righteous, and did not give one intelligent, meaningful response to any of Dawkins' arguments.
I would not want to be seen that way by anyone.