Is pseudoscience a science or not?

Basic definition-Science is a person who advocates truth and truth. It explores and practices endlessly, and tends to approach the truth in stages, explaining and revealing the characteristics of truth, such as stages, development, history, dialectics, universality, particularity and information. As far as possible, it does not contain contradictory knowledge systems, and most of the achievements are conducive to the lofty cause of benefiting human society.

Science should include five aspects: first, science is knowledge. Second, science is not general scattered knowledge, but a theoretical and systematic knowledge system. Third, science is the cognitive activity of human beings, scientists and scientific communities on the laws of nature, society and human beings themselves. Fourthly, science is still an organizational system in modern society. Fifth, science and technology are productive forces, and science and technology are primary productive forces.

Bernard summarized the main characteristics of modern science into six aspects: first, organizational system; A method; Accumulated knowledge tradition; The main factors to maintain or develop production; One of the forces that constitute our various beliefs and attitudes towards the universe and mankind; There are various interrelationships with society.

The birth of science is as old as human history. We humans have lived on the earth for 7 million years. According to archaeological findings, about 300 thousand years ago, primitive people began to understand and transform nature in the process of making stone tools. Ten or twenty thousand years ago, primitive people invented a new labor tool-bow and arrow. The inventor of the bow and arrow played a very important role in the development of human society and the progress of science and technology. On the one hand, organized bow and arrow hunting improves production efficiency, while the remaining prey is raised, which makes human beings enter the era of animal husbandry from hunting; On the other hand, the friction heat generation technology was invented by using bowstring to drill holes around the drill pipe, which not only greatly improved the quality of human life, but also increased the means of production; Invent pottery-making technology by smelting mud with fire; Melting copper and iron with fire to make metal farm tools has enabled mankind to end the uncertain migration for more than 10,000 years and enter a self-sufficient agricultural society, thus starting the history of human civilization for 5,000 years.

Generally speaking, science is an attitude, viewpoint and method! At the same time, scientific things themselves have paradoxes! In other words, things in different professional disciplines are easily confused and considered contradictory! In fact, it reflects the scientific understanding of different complex aspects of things!

As long as comrades engaged in scientific and technological work are well aware, it is very difficult to establish initial concepts, assumptions and assumptions! Therefore, the original concept of science itself is very difficult for any top scientist in the world! Therefore, it takes courage to give a basic definition of science! It takes courage! We also need to pay attention to the high realm of human destiny!

In fact, before this, because the word science has never been strictly defined, it will cause a series of confusion and unnecessary arguments. For example, was there any science in ancient China? Is TCM a science? What's the difference between science and pseudoscience? What is the difference between science and religion? Wait a minute. And these questions are very, very attractive. Therefore, the times require us to give an appropriate definition as soon as possible to solve these disputes.

In this definition, the attribute "as close as possible to the truth, without self-contradiction" was added by myself, because it is to clarify the meaning of science, that is, to clarify what kind of knowledge system science is (I still don't understand why many books dare not add it clearly). Of course, "contradiction" refers to logical contradiction.

"Knowledge system" is people's initial understanding of science. As a practical knowledge, the most important thing is to be highly organized and structured. At this point, any classic work has this feature to some extent, and the most famous one in ancient times is Geometry. Perhaps the most organized thing in China's classical works is my ignorance. I think the secrets in Orange (a chess book) have the greatest influence on me. However, the scientific knowledge system is not as small as some knowledge systems and the scope of discussion is so narrow, but a very huge knowledge system, and its ambition even attempts to cover everything. It is unique that such a huge system still needs to maintain a strong order and structure. But there is not only one knowledge system, so it is necessary to know what kind of knowledge system science is. The definition is given in the previous part, so skip a paragraph and discuss it again.

People have long recognized that science is a social undertaking that benefits mankind, but its significance is further deepened with the development of the times. And this is also difficult for people who lack education to understand. How can the knowledge expressed in books be a social activity? It cannot be understood by others, nor can it be repeatedly verified by others. This is not knowledge in itself. Why should we emphasize its sociality? This is because science's understanding of knowledge is much stricter than others. No matter for wizards, religious people, civilians or scientists, knowledge refers to correct statements and correct predictions, that is, knowledge is what people think of as "truth". But only scientists examine "truth" very strictly. We should not only see whether its initial statement (usually called axiom) comes from intuition, experiment or good reason, but also carefully examine any details in the process of derivation and see if any conclusions it derives conflict with experiments or life experiences. This series of work can not be completed by people without scientific training, so it needs education, the joint efforts of many scientists, the understanding of the general public and the support from all sides. With the development of science, the higher the complexity of science, the stronger its sociality.

"Close to the truth" emphasizes the characteristics of science. Compared with others, science emphasizes doubt and innovation most, because science is based on the premise of no foresight. At the same time, science attaches great importance to inheritance and reference! It is believed that all knowledge is people's understanding of the objective world. Although science pursues the unity of subjective world and objective world, after all, subjective world and objective existence are not the same thing. No matter how correct knowledge is, it is only close to the description of the world, not the description of the objective world. For example, the ideal gas model can describe oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide at normal temperature and pressure very well, because the linearity of these gas molecules is much smaller than the distance between them. Van der Waals' revision of the ideal gas model only approximately describes the real gas such as water vapor. Scientists knew from the beginning that their theories were similar, so they never expected that the conclusions drawn from their theories were not wrong with the real world. All knowledge is man-made and the product of the subjective world. Even if there are aliens, they may just be more evolved than the people on earth, and they will be wrong. The secret of nature exists in nature itself, and nature expresses itself with its own diverse characteristics, but it will not be clearly expressed in the form of words through the mouth of God. It can be seen that the word "closest to the truth" not only emphasizes the rigor of science, but also emphasizes the significance of science to understanding the world.

The attribute of "not including self-contradiction as much as possible" embodies the pursuit of perfection in science and emphasizes that science also has a process of growth. Ordinary people often make mistakes, so do great men. The most respected figures like Newton, Einstein and Marx also have wrong theories. Russell's works often describe the contradictions of great men. For example, Malthus, who advocated birth control, added three children in four years; Schopenhauer, who advocated inaction, was ecstatic about the late honor; Bacon, known as the originator of experimental science, did not know that Harvey, who treated him, invented the theory of great blood circulation. Even so, it is very difficult to collect all the scientific contents of great men's wisdom without contradiction, and the bigger the system, the more difficult it is to be error-free, especially for new disciplines, which takes time to test. Any science has a mature process. In addition, with the development of the times, the original science may be an approximation in some cases, and there may be contradictions when it is infinitely promoted, and science will never pretend not to see it, but must solve this contradiction and make science develop forward. Relativity caused by Michelson's experiment, quantum mechanics caused by blackbody radiation experiment and mathematical revolution caused by Barber's paradox all developed after eliminating those contradictions.

The purpose of studying science

Science comes from and serves social practice. It is a revolutionary force and has played a driving role in history. In modern times, science and technology are the primary productive forces. The development and function of science are restricted by social conditions. Modern science is developing vigorously along the direction of highly differentiated comprehensive disciplines.

The mathematical structure of science is abstract, but the scientific concept is simple [note 1]. When Einstein was surprised by the mysterious direction of the compass, he was only four years old and had not had time to read Aristotle or understand Kant. Later, people thought Einstein was a genius, but at that time he was only a late-maturing child. He was surprised because he didn't know why it happened. He later became a physicist because he wanted to know why things were like this. Only a really simple idea can match the hazy reason of a four-year-old child, and I firmly believe that a really simple idea can be clearly stated without hundreds of thousands of words.

The evolution of this world is logical, and there are reasons behind all kinds of phenomena in this universe. This is the premise of the existence of science and any wisdom. As for why the universe has logical laws, it does not belong to the category of science. It is a basic empirical fact that we exist in such a universe [Note 2].

Just like all other beings in this world, the existence of science has a cause and effect, and the specific form of scientific existence is closely related to its intended purpose. Looking around the world around us, from vegetation and bamboo stones to birds and animals, from Gobi grassland to glaciers and lakes, from insect dust to the sun, moon and stars, the phenomena in the world are so ever-changing and endless, just like pearls everywhere. If there is no silk thread, how can we connect it? So is science. Everything is infinite and manpower is limited. The only way to understand things is to simplify. It is the most effective simplification to sum up many phenomena into one truth. Seeking this simplification of natural phenomena is the most important way for human beings to try to understand, predict and use natural phenomena, and it is also a scientific, simple and beautiful goal.

It should be noted that "simplification" is a vague word, and pursuing simplicity without asking the connotation will lead people astray. The biggest and most ridiculous simplicity is to attribute everything to God, which is much simpler than the basic principles of Newton's law, Maxwell's equation or relativity declared in the Bible. But that's not science, because the Bible just lists what it "explains", what God created the first day and what he created the next day, and that's all. Apart from adding a god, this so-called "explanation" does not constitute any substantial simplification. More importantly, this "simplicity" lacks a very basic expectation of science, that is, it can predict unknown or future phenomena. Limited to the induction of known phenomena, it is closer to history than science.

So what kind of understanding of natural phenomena can constitute a substantial simplification and have the predictability that science must have? This is logical reasoning. Building the theoretical framework of science on logical reasoning is an important source of its strength and an extremely essential feature that distinguishes science from religion. In scientific theory, from the basic principles to the explanation of phenomena are linked by logical reasoning. Because the validity of logical reasoning is the most basic fact in the universe, I believe that long before human beings realized the concept of "logic", they were already instinctively using elementary logical reasoning. Logical reasoning has great expansibility and objectivity. Starting from the basic assumption of a scientific theory, almost infinite inferences can be drawn by using logical reasoning, and these inferences exist in a very conclusive and independent way. Once a scientific theory is put forward, it exists in academic circles in a completely rigorous and modest way. Anyone has the right to test its basic assumptions and logical inferences. If any such test gives a clear negative result, it means that the theory has been overthrown or its limitations have been discovered. This feature of scientific theory was promoted to the core position by the philosopher Popper. Popper has written many voluminous books, one of which is that the necessary condition for a theory to become a scientific theory is that it has falsifiability. In other words, if a theory is to become a scientific theory, it must be clearly stated under what circumstances it can be overturned. This seems surprising at first glance, because people usually think about scientific theories from the perspective of proof rather than falsification. But if you think about it carefully, it is not difficult to understand, because the inference of a scientific theory is endless, and no amount of experiments can only strengthen its credibility but cannot prove its correctness. On the contrary, because the logical reasoning of scientific theory is clear, it can be overthrown only by conclusive counterexamples.

Human nature has weaknesses, and scientists are human beings, so it is no exception. Negligence, prejudice and even deliberate forgery can lead to fallacies. The reason why science can get remarkable development in the long journey of exploring nature is precisely because of the strict logic of scientific theory and the fair, modest and rational attitude of the scientific community, which is the pride of human wisdom [Note 3].

To sum up, the purpose of science can be roughly described as: what science seeks is the simplest logical description of natural phenomena.