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demarcation between science and pseudoscience
pseudoscience
pseudoscience
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Pseudoscience, containing the Greek prefix of “pseudo,” which means fake, can be simply defined as “fake science.” A more concise definition of pseudoscience is, “a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method” (Oxford Dictionary). The claims made in pseudoscience are not supported by evidence found in scientific experiments, and according to Rory Coker, a professor at the University of Texas, pseudoscience shows a complete disregard to actual scientific results yielded from experiments (para 7). Pseudoscience, instead, makes use of witness testimonials, photographs, and ambiguous works of ancient religion or mythology as evidence for the claims made (para 7.) Unlike science, which provides an objective …show more content…
Unlike pseudoscience, which are baseless claims, the theories in junk science are based on legitimate scientific evidence. However, these theories have yet to be proven, and this inability to prove it may be due to the lack of knowledge or advance technology necessary. The unproven nature of these theories should not undermine the validity of the theories themselves. Junk science is vastly different from pseudoscience, one is based on scientific facts and evidence whereas the other is based on individuals’ beliefs, …show more content…
One attempt at disproving polygenic inheritance may involve the findings made by Gregor Mendel in his pea plants experiment. Critics may argue that since Mendel had discovered the law of independent assortment, stating that one allele is inherited from each parent, and this is the source of trait inheritance from parent to offspring, there cannot be multiple alleles impacting one trait. However, Mendel only studied specific, simple traits of the pea plants, and his results cannot be applied to complex human traits such as skin
There are many companies and individuals that make pseudoscientific claims. A pseudoscientific claim is when a company or individual makes a claim, belief, or practice and presents it as scientific, but which does not adhere to the scientific method. A good example of a pseudoscientific claim is when a company states that taking their product results in rapid weight loss or rapid muscle gain.
The purpose of our experiment was to test whether or not the Wisconsin Fast Plants, or Brassica rapa, followed the Mendelian genetics and its law of inheritance. First, after we crossed the heterozygous F1 generation, we created an F2 generation which we used to analyze. After analyzing our results, we conducted a chi-square test for for both the F1 and F2 generations to test their “goodness of fit”. For the F1 generation we calculated an x2 value of 6.97, which was greater than the value on the chi-square table at a p-value of 0.05 and 1 degree of freedom (6.97 > 3.84). This meant that we had to reject our hypothesis that stated there would be no difference between the observed and expected values. This showed us that the F1
Mendel’s law of segregation states that offspring receive only one of two alleles of a gene from the parent (Brooker et al. 2014). This means that utilizing a monohybrid cross where each parent has both a dominant allele of a gene and a recessive allele, that by producing offspring of these plants, a predictable outcome of trait inheritance should be observed (Brooker et al. 2014). This experiment investigated the inheritance of anthocyanin in Brassica rapa.
Genes are expected to give offspring hereditary similarities to the parent. However, this was not known and Gregory Mendel asked himself what was passed on by parents to their offspring that is the basis for similarity. Mendel would go on through experiments with pea plants to answer short questions. The answers were short as well as to say that the passing of characteristics from parents to the offspring is throug...
1. Video “Here Be Dragons” by Brian Dunning (4/15/14) is a fresh and critical overlook on the huge variety of so called “dragons” which exist in abundance even in our civilized society. This video promotes critical thinking and demonstrates the “red flags” that one has to look out for in order to detect pseudosciences. A pseudoscience is an idea that claims to be real but is not backed by any real science or evidence. For instance, hair analysis, feng shui, psychokinesis, homeopathy, numerology, aura analysis, the list could go on forever. The warning signs for such “sciences” are - appeal to authority, ancient wisdom, confirmation bias, confuse correlation with causation, red herring, proof by verbosity, mystical energy, suppression by authority, all natural and ideological support. The one “red flag” I have always been skeptical about and this video confirmed it for me is “appeal to authority”. It is hard for me to understand how people actually trust advertisements that are simply screaming “we are specialists, look at our white lab coats and and all the certificates and the celebrities that support our product”. It is simply pathetic. As Brian says - “Good science presents good data, it does not aim to impress”. However, the one “red flag” that I have to be careful about myself is confusing correlation with causation. It is the natural human tendency to assume that, if two events or phenomena consistently occur at about the same time, then one is the cause of the other. Our weakness for this tactic is often exploited by scammers and bogus scientists when they want to persuade us that a relationship exists between two variables without providing supporting evidence. In order to secure ourselves from falling for all the nonsense...
In the 19th century Gregor Mendel accomplished pioneered the first laws of genetics after crossing peas. He conducted an experiment with pea plants. He would use a paintbrush to transfer the genetic coding from one pea plant to another, so he could know exactly who the parents were. With the end of this experiment Mendel came up with two laws; Mendel 's law of segregation, and Mendel 's law of independent assortment. Mendel crossed over purple pea flowers with white pea flowers, which gave him purple pea flowers for the first generation also called F1. Since the offspring were all purple flowers Mendel understood that the purple gene was the dominant gene. Mendel decided to cross the F1 generation with themselves. Which resulted in three purple pea flowers and one white pea flower. By using basic Punnett square, and identify the genotype as PP and the phenotype as pp. This gave Mendel the following ratio of 3:1, three purple pea flowers and one
Do you ever feel you have everything under control when you really don’t? That’s Kristina Georgia Snow’s memo about meth, as her journey is followed through the Crank series. Crank is about a innocent, 17 year old girl named Kristina, who is on her way to graduating early when she has to go spend one month in the summer with her estranged father. While visiting her father, she falls in love and tries meth for the first time. The book follows her experience being addicted to the “monster” and the consequences that come with it such as hurting her friends and loved ones. The book ends with the teen becoming pregnant due to a product of rape. Glass, the second book in the series, starts off with Kristina, also known by her "alter ego" Bree, has the baby. She names her baby Hunter Seth. Kristina being clean during her pregnancy, quickly relapses and her life slowly starts to crumble around her. Ellen Hopkins own experience dealing with her daughter’s meth addiction influenced her theme of a life spiraling out of control shown through character, style and imagery in Glass.
In Gregor Mendel’s first experiment, he used pea plants to observe plant hybridization. Mendel chose pea plants due to four main factors: he knew that he would be able to expect segregation of traits among the offspring of the plants, there
Science on the other hand takes a testable hypothesis and is tested in controlled experiments with something measurable and or recordable. You can repeat the test to get the exact same results, whereas in pseudoscience, tests would never be the same.
Pseudoscience is almost science, and presents its self as scientific but doesn’t have facts or proof that follows the scientific method. There’s very vague proof of some ideas and some are unprovable claims. Pseudoscience is common in many places and over a vast diversity of ideas and that’s why it’s difficult to understand the history of pseudoscience. It still survives although many ideas have unprovable claims.
In today’s world, where every person has an outlet to voice their opinion, the public often falls prey to a practice that is known as pseudoscience. Pseudoscience can be defined as a belief or process which masquerades as science in an attempt to claim a legitimacy which it would not otherwise be able to achieve on its own terms. Another thought that comes alongside of the belief in pseudoscience is naïve realism which is the belief that we see the world exactly as it is (CITE BOOK) If a person believes in a scientific product or belief not proven true by science, then they have become subject to naïve realism. These two work together to endeavor to convince the consumer of their false hypothesis. Many people fall into
To be able to demarcate science from non-science is immensely important, for our society, and its individuals. Science is our main source of knowledge and as such has many applications in our daily lives, and we need to be able to distinguish scientific findings and information from the many ideas and unbacked theories which are presented to large parts of the population, appearing as if they are fact. This may include something as fickle as weight loss plans that use diction not easily understood by the public to make the product appear authorized, certified and scientifically sound, when really the product is not scientifically tested, or trials not done in a credible manner. Another, possibly more serious scenario is in education, particularly science, many supporters of creationism and other pseudo sciences incorporate these teachings in schools, teaching them as if they were approved scientific theories to impressionable children, some who grow up retaining those beliefs, they were wrongfully taught, as fact.
Gregor Mendel, born as Johann Mendel, is considered to be one of the most significant historic scientist of all time. He was an Austrian scientist and monk and is best known as the “Father of Modern Genetics.” He founded the science of genetics and discovered many things that dealt with heredity that still applies to our world today. He is remembered for paving the way for scientists and future generations to come. Unfortunately, Mendel’s work went unnoticed until 16 years after his death and 34 years after he published his research. Though Mendel lay covered in his grave, his work would eventually be uncovered. Although Mendel was not there to see it,
Prior to the 1990’s, the problem of scientific objectivity was a question many philosophers tried to grapple with. Initially, the Logical Positivist’s view of scientific objectivity was most popular. They held to the belief that science was overall objective because of the distinction between the “context of discovery” and “context of justification,” which still allowed for science to contain some subjective elements (Longino 172). Basically, Positivist’s allowed for subjective qualities, such as mental makeup of scientists and values scientist brought in to their scientific work, by stating that the initial formulation or “discovery” of hypothesis/theories included subjective qualities. However, these subjective characteristics were negated by the fact that when investigating theories scientists focused on comparing their hypothesis to observable consequences in an empirical and objective manor (“context of justification). Thus, this allowed the Positivist’s to “acknowledge the play of subjective factors in initial development of hypotheses and theories while guaranteeing that their acceptance [is] determined not by subjective preferences but by observed reality” (Longino 172). However, although this theory was popular for some period of time, a philosopher by the name of Helen Longino approached the problem of scientific objectivity in a different way. She believed that science was a social practice that involved the inevitable input of various subjective factors such as scientist’s values, beliefs, etc… when performing their work. However, she goes on to say that what made science objective was the process in which scientist performed their work. She essentially thought that if the process in which scientist gained knowledge wa...
Gregor Johann Mendel is widely considered as the founder of modern genetics as a result of his now famous pea plant experiments that were carried out between the years of 1856 and 1863. The experiments ultimately established the numerous rules of heredity that are referred to in genetics to this day (Nirenberg, n.d.). Additionally , he is known for coining the genetic terms "recessive" and "dominant" in an effort to refer to certain traits in the experiments, such as green peas being recessive and yellow ones dominant. His work was published in 1866 establishing the actions of "invisible" factors now known simply as genes in providing for visible traits in predictable ways. Mendel seemed to enjoy his accomplishments privately as his work was discovered three decades later by scientists conducting agricultural research. The scientists were: Erich Tschermak, Hugo de Vries, and Carl Correns who all independently verified Mendel's work leading to the "age of genetics" where we gained even more knowledge on genes and even DNA. (Nirenberg, n.d.).