From biologist Katie L. Burke at American Scientist:
The word pseudoscience is also used to claim a certain value system: scientism, or valuing and trusting science exclusively. Relatively few people ascribe to scientism, even if they like science. Many if not most people, at least in the United States, value science and see it as an important decision-making tool. But most people—even many scientists—are religious or simply not doggedly empirical, and believe in truths other than those derived from science. In such views, science is a tool with limits, and outside those limits lie beliefs, ideas, and knowledge gathered through art, philosophy, intuition, metaphysics, or culture. When science-affiliated factions use a term that inherently implies that people are ignorant or fakers for having such beliefs, an antagonistic communications environment usually emerges. Perhaps the assault the Christian Right has waged on many aspects of science education and funding in the United States represents just such a backlash.
There are great alternatives to the term pseudoscience—ones that are much more explicit and constructive. More.
Breath of fresh air. The term typically replaces conversations with factions. Many things believed to be science have proven valueless, and many things one might have expected to be valueless have proven to be good science.
At one time, anyone would have said that the idea that plants communicate is ridiculous, pseudoscience. But they do. Meanwhile, whatever became of the ether?
See also: Condescension news: Why the public does not “trust” “science”: How convenient that the world is divided neatly between “charlatans” and “scientists,” unlike the usual messy situation most people encounter most of the time.
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Although neo-Darwinists habitually call the theory of Intelligent Design pseudo-science, ironically, the shoe is squarely on the other foot. The fact of the matter is that Darwinian evolution is a untestable, and therefore unfalsifiable, pseudo-science whereas, on the other hand, Intelligent Design is very much a testable, and therefore, falsifiable, science.
The primary reason why Darwinian evolution is more properly thought of as a pseudo-science instead of a real science is because Darwinian evolution has no rigid mathematical basis, like other overarching physical theories of science do. A rigid mathematical basis to test against in order to potentially falsify it (in fact, in so far as math can be applied to Darwinian claims, mathematics constantly shows us that Darwinian evolution is astronomically unlikely),,
The primary reason why no scientist has been able ‘quantify its dictums’ is because there are no known laws of nature for Darwinists to appeal to to base their math on. In other words, there is no known ‘law of evolution’, such as there is a ‘law of gravity’, within the physical universe:
And whereas Darwinian evolution has no known law of nature to base its math on so as to establish itself as a proper, testable, science, Intelligent Design does not suffer from such a disconnect from physical reality. In other words, Intelligent Design can base its math directly on the ‘laws of conservation of information’ in order to establish itself as a proper, testable, science.
And since Intelligent Design is mathematically based on the ‘law of conservation of information’, that makes Intelligent Design testable and potentially falsifiable, and thus makes Intelligent Design a rigorous, testable, science instead of a untestable pseudo-science like Darwinian evolution is.
Verse:
Not a breath but a gap. She still rejects revealation and attacks the Christian right as attacking science funding. Not only do they not they don’t matter much even if they wanted to defund science.
Its not about science but about certain conclusions dealing with origin matters claimed to be based on science and opposition to them is anti-science.
The evolutionists/God deniers just can’t make a persuasive case to someone who has a persuasive case to the contrary.
i always find evolutionists don’t understand what evidence is in biology.
Some iD/YEC folks sin too.
“Meanwhile, whatever became of the ether?”
It is still around, but not the static one of the 1800s. Here is an excerpt from “Beyond Einstein: non-local physics” by Brian Fraser (2015)
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The static Aether was not detectable
There is yet another consequence to this non-directional, non-vectorial, scalar, isotropic, motion the Earth is engaged in. Remember the Michelson-Morley experiment? It attempted to detect the absolute motion of the Earth through the Aether, which was supposed to be some sort of invisible substance which filled the Universe as a medium for light waves and which was thought to be stationary. But as the Earth moved around the Sun, no “Aether wind” could be detected by this clever experiment. Physicists then concluded that the Aether did not exist, nor did absolute motion, and that all motion must therefore be “purely relative”.
This experiment depended on vector addition of velocities, but the fundamental (or “absolute”) motion of the Earth is scalar (in all directions, like an expansion). The design of the experiment was simply not capable of detecting this kind of motion. There may still be an “ether” (a specific structure of space and time), but it must be a dynamic, non-directional one, quite unlike the static Aether of the 1800s.
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The free, 22 page paper can be downloaded from: http://scripturalphysics.org/4…..stein.html The .html file gives a link to the .pdf file but the former has additional information, and many more links and insights.
And while you are reading it, pretend you are an editor for a major science journal. What do you think should be done with a paper like this one (assuming it was submitted in a format suitable for a journal)? Do you think your readers would be interested? Do you think it is pseudoscience? Would the NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (NASA BPP) criteria be of any use in forming your opinion?