How can people without professional knowledge effectively distinguish pseudoscience?

Calligraphy, digital fortune telling and astrology are all examples of pseudoscience. Many times, these pseudosciences rely on some anecdotes, anecdotes, celebrity recommendations to support their own bizarre theories. When you want to determine whether something is pseudoscience, you can analyze it by looking for the following key information.

First, consider its purpose. Science has always been committed to helping people understand the world more deeply, richly and comprehensively. Pseudoscience usually focuses on advancing the ideological agenda.

How to identify pseudoscience?

Secondly, how to face different voices. Science welcomes all challenges and tries to refute different views. On the contrary, pseudoscience tends to be hostile to any challenge and refutation of its dogma.

Then, find relevant research. More and more knowledge and research support science. With the discovery of new things and the progress of new research, the ideas around the same theme may change over time. On the other hand, pseudoscience is usually static. Now that the idea has come out, there may not be any changes, and there may not be any new research.

How to identify pseudoscience?

Finally, you need to know whether it can be falsified. Falsifiability is an important symbol of science. This means that if something is false, researchers can prove it is false. However, many pseudoscience claims can't be tested at all, so researchers can't prove that these claims are wrong.

Phrenology is a good example of pseudoscience attracting people's attention and spreading for a long time. According to phrenology, just touching the skull can reveal a person's personality and all aspects of his personality. This idea was first put forward by Dr. Franz Gal at the end of 18. He believes that the uplift of a person's head corresponds to the physical characteristics of the cerebral cortex.

How to identify pseudoscience?

Gail studied some people's skulls in hospitals, prisons and mental hospitals, developed a system to diagnose different characteristics based on skull bulge, and wrote a series of works on anatomy and physiology of nervous system. His system includes 27 "faculties", which he thinks correspond directly to some parts of the brain. Specifically, he thinks that people with protruding skulls may symbolize greed and be pickpockets in prison, while people with bright eyes have better memories.

And all this is based on his personal long-term case observation. Like other pseudosciences, Gail's research method lacks scientific rigor. Not only that, anything that contradicts his ideas was ignored.

How to identify pseudoscience?

However, there is always something you don't know. Gail's thoughts outlived himself. In the19th and 20th centuries, Gail's theory spread widely and became a very popular form of entertainment. There is even a phrenological instrument that can be placed on a person's head. After wearing it, the built-in spring probe will produce the measured values of different parts of the skull, and calculate the individual characteristics accordingly.

Although phrenology was eventually abandoned as pseudoscience, although it did have an important impact on the development of modern neurology, its original proposition was not recognized by the academic community. The only thing worthy of recognition is that Gail thinks that some abilities are related to certain parts of the brain, which arouses people's interest in brain location, or that some functions are related to specific areas of the brain. This will help researchers to better understand the organization of the brain and the functions of different areas of the brain after further research and observation.

How to identify pseudoscience?

There must be friends who will think of the content that friends circle has been madly forwarded, such as "XXX coup" and "Don't eat XXX and live for ten years". These are not pseudosciences in the true sense, because as long as you are willing to pay attention to Antu. Com, you will find that they have long been rumored.