😁 Genuine facts — for @bobcat and other thinkers on SF, male & female

J

JBR

Senior Member
Location
Southern Canada mtn. valley, tad west of Rockies
These ideas and tales were formerly considered "pseudoscience" until scientific inquiry proceeded far enough to prove them factual...

that: the narwhal and the platypus actually exist
ball lightning occurs
micro-organism (bacteria, viruses) can cause disease
existence of meteors
plate techtonics/continental drift
Helicobacter pylori causing peptic ulcers
tobacco smoking is causally related to lung cancer
 

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Ignaz Semmelweis, a 19th century Hungarian surgeon, posited the opinion that handwashing went a long way in the prevention of infection in patients. For that theory, he was practically laughed out of the hospital by the other doctors. Washing hands? How ridiculous. Why, everyone knows that infection is caused by bad humors in the air, don't you know? Why in the world would we need to wash our hands?
 

JBR said:
These ideas and tales were formerly considered "pseudoscience" until scientific inquiry proceeded far enough to prove them factual...

that: the narwhal and the platypus actually exist
ball lightning occurs
micro-organism (bacteria, viruses) can cause disease
existence of meteors
plate techtonics/continental drift
Helicobacter pylori causing peptic ulcers
tobacco smoking is causally related to lung cancer
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Not sure where you're going with this, but it seems that you are inferring that pseudoscience deserves more standing or recognition since some things that may have been viewed in that regard in the past have now been validated in scientific circles. While this can occur, I don't think it should change the understanding of pseudoscience (Beliefs portrayed as science but lack the rigors of testing). That doesn't mean they can't turn out to be true. It just means it shouldn't be classified as science without the trials and testing. It is a misrepresentation to interpret something as science without the process of proving it.

My view is that there are somewhat blurred lines between beliefs, myths, unexplained phenomena, pseudoscience, and science. I think it is wise to keep an open mind about things without summarily dismissing them due to lack of evidence. Does prayer work? Does dousing for water work? What about astrology, fortunetelling, or the belief in a soul, or aliens living among us? Despite anyone's view, they remain an unknown until it can be proven otherwise.

In addition, there is the ongoing problem with interpretation. Because the sun comes up in one place and goes down in another, it would seem like a no-brainer to conclude that the sun revolves around the earth. Some things in pseudoscience could turn out to be true and others may turn out false. As Yoda would say: "Always in motion is the future".
 
Plate tectonics is an interesting one because the scientific debate happened in most of our life times, and wasn't fully accepted until I was in college. I remember first hearing about tectonics in the 5th grade. I think my teacher had just read an article about the theory, which was a relatively new idea, and currently under discussion. As with most new ideas, it wasn't being accepted with open arms. Part of the evidence was based on how the eastern coast of the Americas kind of fits together with he west coast of Europe and Africa like jigsaw puzzle.

I admit as evidence, the somewhat matching coast lines could easily be a matter of coincidence, and I think my teacher posed that part of the debate as "coincidence/or maybe not coincidence." She did not present the theory as nonsense, but as a matter of consideration. In retrospect, I have more respect for that teacher today, even more than I already had for her back then. It's funny how I remember that one lesson from back in my 5th grade. I don't know why.

I don't think plate tectonics ever actually qualified as pseudoscience, however. It was a theory that someone came up with, that was rejected by the majority for several years. It was unacceptable to some on the grounds that the continents seemed stable and unchanging, at least from the perspective of a human life time. But further study, which was scientific by the way, began to confirm the idea, partly because the matching coast lines also matched in geological content. And with the advent of GPS, tectonics is now a slam dunk.

The outcome of the debate was the exact opposite of the belief in the flat Earth, because that's what the Earth looks like to a corn farmer in Kansas. But like tectonics, the flat Earth belief was never considered pseudoscience either. It was just a belief that was proven wrong through the application of science.

Pseudoscience is kind of a general term to the average consumer, and when searching for knowledge through science, a better way to differentiate the two systems would be to think in terms of science vs not science.
 
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bobcat said:
My view is that there are somewhat blurred lines between beliefs, myths, unexplained phenomena, pseudoscience, and science. I think it is wise to keep an open mind about things without summarily dismissing them due to lack of evidence. Does prayer work? Does dousing for water work? What about astrology, fortunetelling, or the belief in a soul, or aliens living among us? Despite anyone's view, they remain an unknown until it can be proven otherwise.

In addition, there is the ongoing problem with interpretation. Because the sun comes up in one place and goes down in another, it would seem like a no-brainer to conclude that the sun revolves around the earth. Some things in pseudoscience could turn out to be true and others may turn out false. As Yoda would say: "Always in motion is the future".
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Yes to the above.
 
JustDave said:
When science evolves and old theories are thrown out. Itss is always science that throws out the old, not politics or some blogger on the internet.
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Revising history is also a tricky task. Bias can sway what they include and exclude from the narrative. I was thinking of Howard Zinn's book " The People's History of the US".
 

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