hi I'm dr. Johnson Hoss and welcome to earth parts I started this presentation talking about the difference between science and pseudoscience let's break this down into a few basic things to look for things that science will tend to do and things that pseudoscience will tend to do well first off science displays a willingness to change with new evidence this is sort of the basis of science new evidence comes in to adjust or refine our view of the universe to make it match better what is real what can be tested what can be repeatedly carried out as an experiment science changes to fit new evidence pseudoscience however generally thrives on the idea of fixed ideas most pseudo-sciences are themselves dogmas of some kind some kind of orthodoxy so for example the idea of homeopathy that you can drive medicinal value from diluting dissolved component like salt or iron or whatever that you can dilute it enough that there's none left there's not a single atom left of the original and you just have water but somehow the water retains the magical memory of what was there and that magical memory has special healing powers you see that's a fixed idea that apparently is immune to evidence because all studies that have been directed to this show very clearly there's nothing there homeopathy is literally 100% magical thinking potions there is nothing to it but it's a fixed idea of its own it is its own meme and it is supported by people who want to support it a lot of pseudo Sciences are like this different forms of creationism for example Holocaust denial climate change denial these are their own forms of ideology Apollo landing on the moon deniers whereas science is always willing to accept what is demonstrably what is real and discard what is false science thrives also on ruthless peer review and it's hard to communicate this unless you've been through it yourself but scientific peer review is actually quite ruthless it's like when you write a paper for a high school English class and it comes back all marked up red and you feel terrible but turns out all those marks were real things you did wrong that's sort of like peer review when I submit a manuscript scientific manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed journal I can fully expect that everything I write is going to be pulled apart and examined in every direction to make sure I haven't said something wrong that I haven't misrepresented literature that I'm quoting or that I'm referencing that I've done my work correctly and I've carried out as thoroughly as cleanly as possible peer review doesn't matter if I know these people in small scientific fields you can't help but know the other people in the same field even though you're competing with each other peer review is expected to be rough and that's how it has to work no one no one in science is going to get a reputation based upon nothing but bluster not for long at least they have to back that up with something they have to produce something in pseudoscience it seems to be very different there's no form of peer review because it's more like an ideology pseudoscience tends to be more like dogma and so there's no peer review for dogma dogma is what it is it's what the declared belief system is if you declare that you believe that you can dowse and find water with bent metal sticks in your hands you're not gonna be likely to test yourself and very rigorously this is a belief system it's a thing you think you can do without peer review you can't get it what's wrong and you cannot discard the things that need to be discarded to move on with stuff science takes account of all new discoveries it's willing to change with the evidence and that's how it does it if we discover Einstein Ian's relativistic physics then it forces us to adjust slightly our view of how objects in the universe move and interact with each other we don't have to throw away Newtonian dynamics we just have to modify it at the edges where extreme conditions apply that Einstein Ian relativity actually becomes significant and important this is how science works rarely are things completely thrown out once there's been a mountain of evidence built up around them but we do sometimes have to adjust slightly how we look at them in pseudoscience however typically you only see favorable discoveries touted when a study shows a tiny marginal effect from acupuncture so it's typically the same magnitude as the placebo effect but let's say in one study it's 1% more than the placebo effect and the practitioners of acupuncture will hold that this will shout from the rafters will shout from the rooftops that the study has shown that acupuncture is better than placebo when in fact it's a marginal result and many other studies simultaneously show no result at all but those remain in silent those aren't referenced so much only the ones that sort of kind of support the point of view of the pseudoscience practitioner and so if someone's unwilling to look at all evidence and not just cherry-pick the stuff that that supports their argument if they're willing to look at aryl angles then they're doing science typically in pseudoscience alternative medicine things like that they're not really interested in proving what's real or disproving what's not real it's more about selling snake oil and making profit from it science invites criticism science invites new scientists to join the argument and to criticize and to add your two cents to an argument and this is how it has to work science has to be open to new ideas and for that to happen you have to be able to invite criticism and be comfortable with that pseudoscience typically doesn't it sees criticism is a conspiracy people who believe that we never landed on the moon practice the pseudoscience of moon landing denial and when you show them all the evidence that basically say no you're giving me false evidence because you're part of the conspiracy if you're criticizing our belief system then you're part of the conspiracy against it instead of simply saying am i right or am I wrong let's find out they say no I know I'm right if you say I'm wrong you're against me they personalize it and that's a problem you can't do that if you're drawn in you do science you're gonna have to be prepared to face criticism during peer review for example science depends upon verifiable results there's nothing magical about scientific research if we find something out publish it other people try the same thing if they can reproduce it it becomes more trustworthy verifiable results check my work and pseudoscience often they depend upon completely non repeatable results we heal you because you have blue aura today instead of an orange aura or whatever how do you repeat that how do you how do you measure that non repeatable results are what you depend upon if you're selling snake oil snake oil proponents also fail in that they tend to claim widespread usefulness where a science scientific research medical research tends to be very careful about announcing that we have just accomplished something because it's hard to do that in reality medicines in real medical research are difficult to discover and to test and to demonstrate that they're effective and they're safe and that takes time and when you produce a new drug through the process of this you have to be very specific about what it's supposed to do in pseudoscience it doesn't seem to be a criterion at all a new form of shark cartilage is on the market that cures everything occurs cancer it cures diabetes occurs an upset stomach eat spirulina algae because that'll clear up your blood chemistry and your depression and everything else alternative medicine and pseudo-sciences always depend upon being able to claim that their favorite potion can do anything and everything to try to appeal to anyone and everyone who might be willing to give them money and science it's more about look this is useful for this thing but not anything else or whatever the answer is but it has to be looked at in the cold light of reality science depends on accurate measurements everything has to be measured in pseudoscience it's more about ballpark and not a ballpark trying to get to more specific more like a comfort with fuzzy non-quantifiable ideas auras and crystal energy and chi all these things that somehow escaped measurement so what are the units of Chi Chi something per kilogram body weight how do you do that in science everything must be measured accurately and you must describe what units it's in the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface at sea level average is 9.8 meters per second squared things have numerical value and if you can put numbers around things it helps you understand them better it helps you integrate that knowledge into other forms of knowledge that might impede upon it or be related to it science depends upon being accurate precise careful and painstaking whereas often in pseudoscience it's more about arm waving and trying to create a lot of hype to make there gamm more effective you