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‘On the Fringe’: Michael Gordin Explores Pseudoscience

ramonmercado

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How do you define pseudoscience? On the Fringe by Michael D. Gordin; reviewed by Tom Siegfried.

‘On the Fringe’ explores the thin line between science and pseudoscience​

In his latest book, historian Michael Gordin shows how hard it is to define pseudoscience​


On the Fringe
Michael D. Gordin
Oxford Univ., $18.95


There is no such thing as pseudoscience, and Michael Gordin has written a book about it.

In On the Fringe, Gordin, a historian at Princeton University, does not deny that there are endeavors afoot in the world that are labeled pseudoscience. Rather he shows that the term has no precise meaning, and that there is no unambiguous, universal test for delineating true science from the false versions on its fringe.

Many well-known examples of pseudoscience, he notes, were once mainstream scientific disciplines. Astrology, for instance, was for centuries respected or practiced by the most prominent scientific thinkers of their time.

Astrology’s time is long past, of course. So Gordin refers to it, and alchemy, and eugenics, as vestigial sciences — once regarded as totally scientific, but cast aside into the pseudoscience realm by the advance of knowledge.

Other pseudosciences arise having never attained respectable scientific status. Some are ideologically driven “hyperpoliticized” sciences; some, like creationism, are “counterestablishment” ventures that feign scientific trappings; others are wishful thinking delusions like extrasensory perception.

Advocates for many such pseudosciences seek legitimacy by imitating the scientific process — holding conferences, publishing journals and claiming to cite evidence (though presented in ways riddled with logical fallacies).

The problem is, “real” science also sometimes suffers from errors of rigor and logic, as recent concerns about reproducing experimental results have demonstrated (SN: 3/27/10, p. 26). So drawing a sharp line between real and pseudo remains a difficult task. ...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/on-the-fringe-book-science-pseudoscience
 
Science is the study of nature. When scientists get things wrong they admit it and learn from it. That's the difference between science and pseudoscience/astrology/religion etc.

Have to mention here a famous occasion when physicists got it wrong.
Well, they knew right away some findings couldn't be right but couldn't account for it immediately.

Escet, our very own Snailet of Physics, was one of the first people to hear about this and wrote the collaboration email informing other institutions.
He said he had to word it very carefully indeed in case he gave any vulnerable elderly physicists a conniption!
:omg:


From the journal Nature -
Neutrinos not faster than light

Neutrinos are tiny, electrically neutral particles produced in nuclear reactions. Last September, an experiment called OPERA turned up evidence that neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light (see 'Particles break light speed limit').

Located beneath the Gran Sasso mountain in central Italy, OPERA detected neutrinos sent from CERN, Europe's premier particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. According to the group's findings, neutrinos made the 731-kilometre journey 60 nanoseconds faster than predicted if they had travelled at light speed.

The announcement made international headlines, but physicists were deeply sceptical. The axiom that nothing travels faster than light was first formulated by Albert Einstein and is a cornerstone of modern physics. OPERA defended its announcement, saying that it could find no flaw in its measurement.
 
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