Question

siFind a product, service, or political website that utilizes pseudoscience to make its claims. Provide the link to the specific page that makes the claims. 2. Identify at least 4 criteria (from the list of 10) from the lecture that make it qualify as a pseudoscience. Make sure to name the criteria and provide a specific example from the website (a quote would be good). Make sure to explain how the example exemplifies the criteria. Use numerated or bulleted lists to help organize your layout. Here is the lecture that I have to watch to answer the question 3. Explain how the 6 criteria of scientific reasoning apply to this case. How does the website fail to uphold it? Or how do criteria help you clarify what claims to accept or reject? Identify the criteria as you give your 10 signs of a pseudoscience: 1- Outward appearance of science. 2- absence of skeptical pre review 3- reliance on personal experience 4- evasion of risky tests 5- retreats to the supernatural 6- the mantra of holism 7- tolerance of inconsistencies 8- appeals to authority 9- promising the imposible 10- Stagnation.

the six test scientific reasoning are: 1- falsifiability 2- logic3-honesty5-replicability6- sufficincy

Answer 1

In my review of the websites which make a claim to scientific knowledge and ‘Truth’, I came across the website Mind Reader’ which has gained tremendous popularity over and is extensively shared over social media like Facebook. The website however presents highly questionable topics and information pertaining to the mind, consciousness, past and the universe.

The Facebook fan page below has a habit of presenting a case of a scientific inquiry and reason on the surface. However, a closer glance and interpretation would easily show how the information presented on the website is only an instance of pseudoscience:

Firstly, most of the bulletins on the website are created to build a sense of paranoia and fear about the uncertainty about the future of the environment on Earth. In an unhealthy, incomprehensinle and often hasty combinations, the website claims to create an equalitarian platform for the production and exchange of scientific ideas by disguising the importance of a genuine skepticism in the generation of ideas and instead takes a very strong affirmative position on the facts presented. It thus falters in terms of validity based on the rejection of skepticism during the pre-review phase and assumes that the readers would already agree with the position of the author.

Secondly, the website only has an outward appearance of science while it actually remains too distant from the methodological practice of testing and retesting the reliability of the hypothesis or claims. For instance in the example of the Fluoride study below, the bulletin does not clearly describe the method of procuring the data and it already assumes anyone who follows the method would arrive at the same conclusions

Thirdly, the website covers news and articles which show a greater reliance on the personal opinion and experience of the authors who try to pass it as ‘scientific’ knowledge, rather than arrive at scientifically objective and reliable information which would be more representative of the shared practices and life experiences of many individuals or groups.

Finally, the website builds the prestige of its news and articles by fallicioulsy appelaing to authority- such as highlighting the professional and educational background of the expert, or author as the legitimate and objective source of knowledge.

In order to substantiate how the website presents an instance of pseudoscience based on the above four criteria, I have attached below a copy of one of the bulletins of the website.

Thus, what becomes starkly evident from a review of this informal is how websites or other resources that AR pseudoscientific in their approach may retain and uphold an outer facade of contributing to scientific knowledge. But in actuality, these and other pseudoscience only reproduce a medium of blind belief and uncritical acceptance of even the most banal of truths.