Pseudoscience

“ There may be knowledge of reality whose utility we do not know, but it would be overbold for any one to say that any knowledge of reality is useless.
Since our ancestors devoted so much attention to phantasms and left us piles of big books about them, one great department of science must be criticism, by which we discern between the true and the false. There is one historical case of this requirement which always rises before my mind whenever I think of the need of criticism—that is witch-persecution. ”

“ More intuitive individuals, in contrast, should respond based on a sort of first impression, which will be inflated due to the vagueness of the pseudo-profound bullshit. Analytic thinking is thus the primary focus of our investigation, as it is most directly related to the proposed ability to detect blatant bullshit. ”

“ If he is in touch with angelic beings, let him give us a philosophy, which is higher than mortal mind can evolve. This false show of science, this camouflage of ignorance, this babble about ectoplasm and other mythical products of the psychic imagination was mere obscurantism, the bastard offspring of superstition and darkness. Wherever the matter was probed one came upon corruption and mental putrescence. Every medium was a deliberate impostor. (“You are a liar!” in a woman’s voice from the neighbourhood of the Lindens.) ”

“ It is needless to extend further the present excursus on the origin and history of modern pseudo-science. Under such high patronage as it has enjoyed, it has grown and flourished until, nowadays, it is becoming somewhat rampant. ”

“ I had at that time the usual contempt which the young educated man feels towards the whole subject which has been covered by the clumsy name of Spiritualism. I had read of mediums being convicted of fraud, I had heard of phenomena which were opposed to every known scientific law, and I had deplored the simplicity and credulity which could deceive good, earnest people into believing that such bogus happenings were signs of intelligence outside our own existence. ”

“ The great lesson to be learnt from our review of this subject is, distrust of all a priori judgments as to facts; for the whole history of the progress of human knowledge, and especially of that department of knowledge now known as psychical research, renders it certain that whenever the scientific men or popular teachers of any age have denied, on a priori grounds of impossibility or opposition to the 'laws of nature,' the facts observed and recorded by numerous investigators of average honesty and intelligence, these deniers have always been wrong. ”

“ Vain pretender, do not boast that you brought a genius for epigram to the service of science. Science is lenient to all who offer experiment as the test of conjecture. You are of the stuff of which inquisitors are made. You cry that truth is profaned when your dogmas are questioned. In your shallow presumption you have meted the dominions of nature, and where your eye halts its vision, you say, ‘There nature must close;’ in the bigotry which adds crime to presumption, you would stone the discoverer who, in annexing new realms to her chart, unsettles your arbitrary landmarks. ”

“ The startling possibility with respect to pseudo-profound bullshit is that people will first accept the bullshit as true (or meaningful) and, depending on downstream cognitive mechanisms such as conflict detection (discussed below) , either retain a default sense of meaningfulness or invoke deliberative reasoning to assess the truth (or meaningfulness) of the proposition. In terms of individual differences, then, it is possible that some individuals approach pseudo-profound bullshit with a stronger initial expectation for meaningfulness. ”

“ The transition from magic to science was made possible by, and itself illustrates the supplanting of, loose and false reasoning by close and logical thought; the pseudo-sciences represent weak and erroneous inference even more than they embody defective observation or mere ignorance. An over-dependence upon analogy characterizes some portions of them all, and finds its fullest development in astrology, as also in the various forms of alchemy and magic with which it is historically connected. ”

“ We gave people syntactically coherent sentences that consisted of random vague buzzwords and, across four studies, these statements were judged to be at least somewhat profound. This tendency was also evident when we presented participants with similar real-world examples of pseudo-profound bullshit. Most importantly, we have provided evidence that individuals vary in conceptually interpretable ways in their propensity to ascribe profundity to bullshit statements; a tendency we refer to as “bullshit receptivity”. ”

“ This tendency, to insist that the laws of science shall be precisely and in detail applicable to individual experiences possessing a personal interest for us, has wrought much havoc; it has contributed to superstition, fostered pseudo-science, and encouraged charlatanism. To antagonize this tendency it is necessary to insist upon the statistical nature of the inquiry. We should certainly be familiar in this statistic-filled age with the law-abiding character of individual happenings when considered in large groups. ”

“ For lack of these there was misconception and oversight, and in their stead prepossession by notions of a wholly irrelevant character. Such notions were fostered by what we retrospectively recognize as pseudo-science; such was the fictitious animal magnetism, an entity never demonstrated, but supported only by a superficial analogical plausibility. They were fostered also by the activity of the marvel-loving impulse, which is unresponsive to the uniformities of nature, and favors mystic fable, while overlooking sensible fact. "Wer unmögliches geglaubt, könnt unmögliches verrichten." ”

“ Our bullshit receptivity scale was associated with a relatively wide range of important psychological factors. This is a valuable first step toward gaining a better understanding of the psychology of bullshit. The development of interventions and strategies that help individuals guard against bullshit is an important additional goal that requires considerable attention from cognitive and social psychologists. That people vary in their receptivity toward bullshit is perhaps less surprising than the fact that psychological scientists have heretofore neglected this issue. ”

“ It is, in short, an inference from the observed phenomena, which is almost inevitably made by persons without special knowledge of the subject. [1] The pseudo-personality will in many cases give proof of knowledge outside the range of the primary consciousness; it may show traces of keener sensibilities, and even of new faculties. Again, in some cases, it will act in opposition to its host. It will repudiate their common identity; and will take pains to thwart the schemes made by the other self. ”

“ If a Love of Truth do not, yet Envy and Emulation will set other heads a Work to discover our Ignorance or Fraud, they are upon the same Design, and will not suffer us to go away with the Prize undeservedly. And besides, with how ill an Aspect must he needs appear who does not Reason fairly, and by consequence, how unlike is he to gain on those who hear him? There are but 171 three Causes to which false Arguments can be refer’d, Ignorance, Rashness, or Design, and the being suspected for any one of these hinders us very much in acquiring that Reputation, Authority or Preferment we desire. ”

“ But then the discussion of pseudo-problems is not real philosophy: the thinker who allows himself to be entangled in pseudo-problems has lost his way.
In this, however, the “intellectuals” are not the only ones at fault. “Plain men” are misled by abstractions about facts just as much, only being less thorough, their mistake has less effect: at the expense of a little logical looseness their natural sense of fact saves them from all the absurdities which follow from their false assumptions. ”

“ Whatever tends to vitiate our literary taste, our morals, our religious or political principles, may be fairly at the mercy of criticism. So, whatever tends to introduce false science, false history, indeed, falsehood in any shape, exposes itself to the censor's rod. ”

“ The extreme limit on the one side is the harmless story-teller, the hunter, the tourist, the student, the lieutenant,—all of whom boast a little; on the other side there is the completely insane paralytic who tells about his millions and his monstrous achievements. The characteristic pseudologia phantastica, the lie of advanced hysteria, in which people write anonymous letters and send messages to themselves, to their servants, to high officials and to clergy, in order to cast suspicion on them, are all diseased. ”

“ Carpenter that all new, marvelous facts shall be treated as impossibilities, and the witnesses who, without any other motive than the love of truth, attest them at the expense of their own popularity, shall be treated as impostors (which means, made personally infamous and consigned to the mercies of antiquated laws) , embodies all the impulses of stolid ignorance and malignity which have in past ages warred against science and innovation by prisons and by death penalties. ”

“ Though a miracle, or pseudo violation of Nature's laws, be the most certain method of exciting the admiration of the vulgar, it is contrary to reason that anything of the kind should be true; but it is by no means contrary to the testimony of experience, that impostors might have lived two or three thousand years ago, and propagated falsehood. This conclusion is fully corroborated by all modern experience, in which we find that deception and falsehood form the medium through which knavery rules simple ignorance ”

“ What the neophyte can do to avoid being “artistically” massacred, as the French connoisseur puts it semi-euphemistically, is difficult to say. Books and special treatises may explain the nature of the deceit, point out the dangers awaiting him and show how traps are laid and how they work, but to pretend to become a truly safe buyer on the security of knowledge gathered from books and manuals would be like attempting the ascent of some dangerous peak on the strength of wisdom drawn from works on Alpine climbing. ”

“ Who can blame men trained to habits of exactitude, or even simply well-educated persons, for hastily concluding that when so much palpable fraud lies upon the surface, there could hardly be truth if they should go to the bottom? The huckstering about of pompous names attached to idiotic communications has given the scientific stomach such an indigestion that it cannot assimilate even the great truth which lies on the telegraphic plateaux of this ocean of psychological phenomena. ”

“ Moreover, such things produce a form of hysterical subjectivism which destroys sound judgment, and dissolves the sense of reality which it has taken modern science many generations to build up. Science has all along had to combat such wresting of its more obscure and unexplained facts into alliance with the ends of practical quackery, fraud, and superstition ”

“ This is that the great body of scientists utterly reject the theory of spiritism, and look upon its manifestations as due to fraud, misconception, credulity, or some other of the weaknesses to which human nature is liable. As regards the opinions arrived at by the prominent scientists mentioned, these men are looked upon by their fellows of the great scientific body as mentally warped, or as having allowed themselves to be victimized by impostors. ”

“ So that from his and his Courtiers opinions of either the matter, or manner, of what they pretended to do, will no consequence be drawn, from what they truly could do, because belief and action are two different things as might be manifested by the vain credulity of the vulgar, that those kind of deceivers can do strange things, but in trial and experiment they are found to be Cheaters and Impostors. ”

“ We cannot be put down with pseudo-science, with juggled statistics, with distortion of truth and justice, and other such approved weapons; for we have in our ranks men who are preeminently qualified to annihilate such arguments with strictly scientific and expert methods, and to floor their antagonists coram publico. ”

“ The first of these has been characterized by loose thinking, unscientific methods, arbitrary and complicated systems—- such as palmistry, astrology, physiognomy, phrenology, and others of the same ilk. In these systems, some truth, patiently learned by sincere and able workers, has been befogged and contaminated by hasty conclusions of the incompetent and clever lies of charlatans. Thus the whole subject has fallen into disrepute with intelligent people. ”

“ Consulting the records of our science, we cannot help being disgusted with the multitude of hypotheses obtruded upon us at different times. Nowhere is the imagination displaced to a greater extent; and perhaps so ample an exhibition of human invention might gratify our vanity, if it were not more than compensated by the humiliating view of so much absurdity, contradiction, and falsehood. ”

“ Here we have a crucial test for the legitimate use of a word; if it does not express a number, a space, a motion, a time, or a judgment, or their reciprocals as kind, form, force, causation, or concept of a body or a relation of one body to another, it expresses a pseudo-idea. A word used to express an idea of an unknown thing may become legitimate by the unknown becoming known, but a word used to express an unknowable thing is blank voice. ”