Jeff Ricker wrote:
I do agree that what "pseudoscientists" do with potentially falsifying evidence is
probably the surest sign that there is
something unscientific about their practices. It seems to me, however, that those whom
we might consider to be scientists
often do something similar (although much less extreme usually), especially when not
much is known about the phenomenon
under investigation or the issues are very complex.
**To this I'd say that just because some scientists do it
**doesn't make it scientific.
...That is, in defending our claims, we often try to explain why
potentially falsifying evidence is less important than one might think. This seems
like a rational thing to do when there are
many difficult questions that have still not been investigated.
**I was really making a subtley different point about falsifiability
**and pseudoscience. I wasn't claiming specifically that
**pseudoscientists often ignore or try to explain away
**counter-evidence (although they typically do), but rather they **formulate theories
or claims that CANNOT BE FALSIFIED
**AT ALL, by any conceivable data. That is, pseudoscientific
**claims are not testable.
**I think of Stanovich's "little invisible green men in the
**frontal lobes," or Sagan's "invisible incorporeal dragon
**in the garage."
**Mike
*****************************************************
Michael J. Kane
Psychology Department
Georgia State University
University Plaza
Atlanta, GA 30303-3083
phone: 404-651-0704
fax: 404-651-0753
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing
is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good,
as it is not to care how you got your money as
long as you have it."
-- E.W. Teale
