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Summary 2.3 History and Methods of Psychology: Problem 5
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Summary of the literature, videos, tutorials, and exercises for problem 5 of course 2.3 History and Methods of Psychology.
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PROBLEM 5Learning Goals
• What determines whether something is scientific or pseudoscientific?
• What is pseudoscience? Characteristics
• What determines science and pseudoscience and how can you distinguish between them?
• Why is pseudoscience so popular? And less credible?
• What are the Cudos norms (ethical rules) science should follow?
• What are the external influences (government, politicians) on science?
• What are the threats to (freedom of) science?
SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE
The purpose of demarcations
• Reason for theoretical purposes:
- Crucial for the philosophy of science
• Reason from a practical point of view- distinguishing scientific knowledge from imposters:
- Healthcare: pseudoscience can sometimes result in ineffective or dangerous treatments.
Need patients to know what us actual medical science and pseudoscience
- Expert testimony: when information is presented in court, it might be pseudoscientific,
courts must determine what is actual science and what is pseudoscience
- Environmental policies: decision makers in environmental policy must be able to
distinguish between science and pseudoscience. Because when taking preventative
measures against an environmental hazard, they don’t want to take preventative measures
if there is no valid evidence of it and it is based on pseudoscience.
- Science education: Science education should remain scientific, and students should be
protected against information not based on science
- Journalism: It is important that pseudoscience is not portrayed as scientific in the media.
The Science of Pseudoscience
What constitutes as science:
- Has a positive role in our strivings for knowledge
, - Primarily used about natural sciences, however, also constitutes political economy,
sociology.
- These disciplines are increasingly interdependent: e.g chemistry, biology, astrophysics.
Science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and
behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
- had more empirical evidence
- peer reviewed
- Non-science: not in scientific category
- Un-science: goes against laws of science
- Has tendency to change over time à something you believe to be scientific and became
unscientific
o E.g. psychology
The Pseudo of Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience: a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific
method.
• Non, un and pseudoscience
- All non-science is not pseudoscientific
- Unscientific is narrower than non-scientific, and pseudoscientific is narrower than
unscientific.
- Pseudoscience aims to be a science and non-science does not?
• Non-science posing as science
- Pseudoscience is non-science posing as science.
- Criteria for pseudoscience:
1) not scientific,
2) try to create the impression of being scientific.
- However above criteria are too wide
- The second criterion is less important à needs careful treatment not least since many
discussions of pseudoscience have been confused due to insufficient attention to it.
• The doctrinal component
- Above criteria is too wide: e.g fraud in science satisfies criteria but is not called
pseudoscience
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