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Pseudoscience... Why I Hate the Term
(I wasn't sure where else to put this. It probably doesn't belong here, so feel free to flog me if it belongs somewhere else. This is mainly just a rant. Also, if you recognize it [anywhere else], it's because I'm posting it at a few atheist forums. Sorry, it's just something that bugs me.)
I should start out by saying that I am no scientist. I did, when I was young, have an interest in science. Chemistry and Astronomy specifically were interesting to me. Sadly... well... I wish I had better teachers. I mean, yeah, they actually taught real science (I was actually taught Evolution in Biology back in High School [2001 to 2005], and I live in Georgia, USA), but they made science... well... boring (yes, even in Chemistry and Astronomy). I can guarantee that if I had a teacher like Richard Dawkins in Biology or, say, Neil deGrass Tyson in Astronomy, I'd probably try my hand at becoming a scientist as I had wanted to when I was younger.
As it is, I'm a musician who had to rekindle his love for science independently.
Anyways... now onto my point... there are very few words that piss me off, but "pseudoscience" is probably the one I hate the most.
Why? Because pseudoscience isn't science. Why do we justify shit like Creationism by even allowing it to be associated with science at all? We're not making it look worse by slapping "pseudo" in front of the word "science" and then throwing Creationism (or homeopathy, or New-Age Spirituality [or whatever it is], etc) into the pile. We're actually pulling it up onto a pedestal of sorts.
Calling something pseudoscience is still calling it science, even if it's a form of science most of us scoff at.
I vote we remove the term "pseudoscience" all together, or, at the very least, stop throwing things like Creationism into the "pseudoscience" pile.
Why not just call Creationism what is: "religious bullshit"?
(Oh, and when I say "Creationism", I also mean "Intelligent Design"... since they are exactly the same thing.)
Just a rant...
I should start out by saying that I am no scientist. I did, when I was young, have an interest in science. Chemistry and Astronomy specifically were interesting to me. Sadly... well... I wish I had better teachers. I mean, yeah, they actually taught real science (I was actually taught Evolution in Biology back in High School [2001 to 2005], and I live in Georgia, USA), but they made science... well... boring (yes, even in Chemistry and Astronomy). I can guarantee that if I had a teacher like Richard Dawkins in Biology or, say, Neil deGrass Tyson in Astronomy, I'd probably try my hand at becoming a scientist as I had wanted to when I was younger.
As it is, I'm a musician who had to rekindle his love for science independently.
Anyways... now onto my point... there are very few words that piss me off, but "pseudoscience" is probably the one I hate the most.
Why? Because pseudoscience isn't science. Why do we justify shit like Creationism by even allowing it to be associated with science at all? We're not making it look worse by slapping "pseudo" in front of the word "science" and then throwing Creationism (or homeopathy, or New-Age Spirituality [or whatever it is], etc) into the pile. We're actually pulling it up onto a pedestal of sorts.
Calling something pseudoscience is still calling it science, even if it's a form of science most of us scoff at.
I vote we remove the term "pseudoscience" all together, or, at the very least, stop throwing things like Creationism into the "pseudoscience" pile.
Why not just call Creationism what is: "religious bullshit"?
(Oh, and when I say "Creationism", I also mean "Intelligent Design"... since they are exactly the same thing.)
Just a rant...
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nathan Hevenstone on -
Just did. Thanks for the invite.
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Moore on -
pseudoscience isn't science.
Which is why it's called pseudoscience.
Calling something pseudoscience is still calling it science, even if it's a form of science most of us scoff at.
It's not science at all. Belivers may purport it to be science, but it's called pseudoscience precisely because it is not science.
It is a term of denigration, not elevation.
Why not just call Creationism what is: "religious bullshit"?
Calling it one does not preclude calling it the other.
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Permalink Reply by Nathan Hevenstone on
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Yeah. I posted this at League of Reason and got pretty much the same thing.
I was looking at it wrong. This is because I have seen and heard people (mostly Creationists, but also some homeopathy supporters) touting the word "pseudoscience" as if it's a positive label, stressing the "science" part of it.
So yeah... I should be less about hating the word and more about spreading awareness of what it means...
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Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on -
pseu⋅do /ˈsudoʊ/ Pronunciation [soo-doh]
–adjective
1. not actually but having the appearance of; pretended; false or spurious; sham.
2. almost, approaching, or trying to be.
Origin: 1940–45; independent use of pseudo-
pseudo-
a combining form meaning “false,” “pretended,” “unreal,” used in the formation of compound words (pseudoclassic; pseudointellectual): in scientific use, denoting close or deceptive resemblance to the following element (pseudobulb; pseudocarp), and used sometimes in chemical names of isomers (pseudoephedrine).
It's entirely appropriate.
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Permalink Reply by Jared Lardo on -
"Pseudo-" means "false". "False", I'm sure you're aware already, can accurately be rendered when it's used as an adjective to categorically qualify or disqualify something (as in "false gods") as "not". Calling something "pseudoscience" is calling it "not science". It's not pulling it up onto a pedestal save in the eyes of retards who don't know that "pseudo" means "false", a.k.a. "bullshit".
The reason for comparing it to science at all is that those phenomena that are bullshit but which are not full-on poppycock manage to carry on with some process of thinking which is tangent to science at one point and which abandons all scientific pretenses beyond a certain point, line, plane, or whatever in n-dimensional conceptual thinking-space.
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Permalink Reply by Dylan Michael McFarland on -
pseudo means false.
When you call something pseudo-science, you're saying it's false science. ie not true.
Stephen Moore is right (below) - it's an insult, and most certainly not a polite way of saying something is wrong.
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