Pathological science and pseudoscience

Pseudoscience refers to all kinds of supernatural and metamaterial mysterious forces and all kinds of scams under the banner of science. Although the banner they are playing is fashionable and has nothing to do with real science, it is essentially some unscientific old rubbish. Pseudoscience exists all over the world, and our country is no exception, but pseudoscience in our country always has its own "local" flavor. In China, the current pseudoscience activities have the following characteristics:

(1) Dress up feudal dross. Under the guise of carrying forward the traditional culture of the motherland or studying oriental mysticism, some feudal dross are dressed up in scientific terms. For example, divination and fortune-telling are renamed as "foreknowledge", and the calculated names, birthdays and palms are called "fate codes", and chanting is called mysterious "semiotics". Some people even say that people will send out superluminal information waves after death, and ghost possession is the information wave of the dead and the vibration of the living. At the same time, Jianghu tricks and scams in the old society have also taken to the streets. Some claim to be Shaolin real people, others pretend to be Qigong, taking outstanding skills as bait, or practicing medicine without a license, or selling fake medicines and water to cheat people and cheat money. There are also some charms, sounds and pictures that are said to have "Qi", which are sold at high prices. In fact, they are no different from the "spells" sold by Zhang Tianshi in feudal society.

(2) Replace scientific verification with performance. Science can be repeated by anyone under given conditions and will never be different from person to person. Pseudoscience, on the other hand, pursues "honesty is the spirit". Pseudoscience (including pseudotechnology based on pseudoscience) can be performed incisively and vividly in front of laymen, but under the strict supervision of experts and scientists and strict experimental conditions, the performance will fail, and some performers will even make excuses. If you meet a magician, his tricks will be exposed. So pseudoscience rejects and resists really strict scientific verification.

(3) Contrary to scientific common sense and laws. In order to justify itself, pseudoscience constantly fabricates all kinds of absurd "theories" and claims to break the traditional scientific theories and develop new sciences. They often accuse the scientific community of clinging to the law of conservation of matter, the law of conservation of energy, the unsurpassable speed of light and other theories, which have become the resistance to the development of new science (actually pseudoscience). They often regard "seeing is believing" (actually a fraudulent performance) as an anti-libel. Scientists deny objective reality with pure reason. We should know that the basic theories of modern science are all true knowledge summed up on the basis of countless scientific practices and repeated verification for thousands of years. Violating these basic theories is actually the result and crystallization of denying countless objective practices in the history of human science. If someone claims to have "created" a "new" theory that denies the law of conservation of mass and energy, we should be careful-pseudoscience is coming!

(4) irrelevant self-boasting. The invention of genesis, new milestones, rewriting the history of science, and so on. What's the "Fifth Great Invention of China" (there is more than one competing for this invention right), and even driving a car with oil-water mixture (this experiment has been proved to be invalid by many experiments) has also been declared as "the most advanced and greatest invention in the 5 billion-year history of the earth, which is even more magical and great than the invention of human ancestors drilling for wood to make fire to synthesize insulin for tens of thousands of years in this century".

(5) Deceive public opinion by any means. Pseudo-scientific forgery technology is good at using forged data or "verification books" to give performances to celebrities, leaders and journalists, and defrauding leaders to make speeches, celebrity inscriptions and take pictures as souvenirs, thus achieving the purpose of creating public opinion in the news media.

(6) At first, it was often a single family. At first, they often went it alone (later developed into group deception) and pretended to be "little people", claiming to be suppressed by scientific authority in order to win the sympathy and support of some big people and the press. In fact, they never let go of their reputation, interests, power and status. We say that the taboo of pathological science about medical treatment will be used by pseudoscience, and the development of pseudoscience will inevitably embark on the road of anti-science.

Strictly speaking, pseudoscience itself is anti-science (it is different from mistakes and "pathological" in science), because their fundamental feature is that they violate the basic laws of science and refuse strict scientific inspection of science. But they also claim that they have surpassed the existing science and are ready to overthrow the old science, establish a new system and constantly deify themselves. For example, an article about China's fifth greatest invention has been arguing in China for ten years. It goes like this: "When human energy is running out and waiting for the end of this century, he used his" replacing oil with water "and" perpetual motion machine "to crush the truest, most helpless and biggest worries of human beings." "When countless outstanding scientists of mankind used countless advanced means and spent countless hours and energy to get rid of the increasingly difficult survival dilemma, he appeared and solved it in a light way-he was not a well-read person, and he was confused about some simple physical and chemical theories. When we speculate on this phenomenon with the most normal and abnormal thinking, we even wonder if it is really God who arranged a person to save mankind when it came to the end of existence, but only arranged' him' around us. " It can be seen that pseudoscience (including pseudotechnology based on pseudoscience) finally turned to supernatural power-God, and most of the representatives of pseudoscience wore the crown of "Superman".

This is a worldwide anti-science trend, calling itself the "New Century Movement". Pseudo-science and anti-science people all over the world are consciously or unconsciously involved in it, disturbing people's hearts with various supernatural "theories" to deny science. Certainly, it is by no means recognizable by the naked eye and feeling. (1) "energy amplifier". The "achievements" and "theories" of "morbid" science are easily used by pseudoscience and pseudotechnology. For example, fleischmann and Burns said in their paper that in their electrolytic cell, input 1W can output 4W. So an "inventor" in a certain country made an "energy amplifier" based on cold nuclear fusion, claiming to input 200W and output 600W, which was sold in the international market.

(2) "Gene fragments of dinosaurs". Perhaps using the news media to make unrealistic propaganda for ourselves under the banner of high technology is the mirror for us to distinguish authenticity. For example, a few years ago, Beijing Evening News advertised that dinosaur gene fragments were found in dinosaur eggs, which attracted dinosaur egg experts and geneticists to scoff. Finally, the foreign gene map was checked, and it was pointed out that it was only the gene fragment of existing algae.

(3) Nano. Another example is the research and development of nano-scale substances, which are used by news hype and illegal profiteers. There are advertisements for nano washing machines, nano refrigerators, nano water and nano oil everywhere, and nano masks were also introduced during SARS. I'm really afraid of chaos. Now the swindler of Nano Oil has been arrested, and the amount involved has exceeded one million yuan. Finally, pseudoscience and pathological science are easily used by drexler, an American futurist who opposes science. He believes that a self-replicating nano-robot will turn everything it touches into its own kind-which of course means the end of the world. As a non-existent monster, the creepy "grey goo" is only the material of science fiction writers at best, but nothing is more unrealistic than "grey goo" for scientists engaged in nano-research. At the end of June this year, 5438+ 10, ETC, a radical environmental organization headquartered in Canada, published a report of more than 80 pages. The report, called The Big Down, describes nanotechnology as a kind of knowledge that may destroy the world, because it will lead to the appearance of "gray slime". And called for a global moratorium on all nanotechnology research. This sensational news is similar to the "gathering water" research that would destroy the world more than 20 years ago.