I challenge you:cite ONE paper that discerns Science from Pseudoscience wth CERTAINTY

[devhdb]

Again, the fact that the demarcation line is not sharp, ie that there are some cases where we cannot say if it is science or pseudo science does not imply that there are not some things that are definitely pseudo science and it does not imply that there are not some things that are definitely science.

Understood. (Hopefully )

Now tell us: how do you do it?

Also, I don't see the point in assigning percentages to things unless you can also describe the function by which you would calculate these percentages. Zoology professors handing out movie cameras to chimpanzees sounds like pseudo science to me, as does quite a lot of evolutionary psychology, but I couldn't describe a function to assign percentages to these.

In other words, you tell them apart by mere "intuition", just not following any logical or rational way to do it.

That's, among other things, what I wanted to read when I began this thread.

Hence skepticism should be HUMBLE, for it has to admit that it hasn't got a rational or logical way to tell science from pseudoscience with 100% certainty.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Seems like it's time for science to 'fess up. There's no formal logic behind the assessment of medical trials, it's all just judged by mere "intuition". All that collecting of data is just flim-flam, because the effects of any medicine are ultimately just made up and doctors prescribe it by mere intuition.

Science has finally been rumbled. And it would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those pesky homeopaths.

 

[Apathia]

Understood. (Hopefully )

Now tell us: how do you do it?



In other words, you tell them apart by mere "intuition", just not following any logical or rational way to do it.

That's, among other things, what I wanted to read when I began this thread.

Hence skepticism should be HUMBLE, for it has to admit that it hasn't got a rational or logical way to tell science from pseudoscience with 100% certainty.

Skeptics should be humble. I agree!
Science should be humble. I agree!

But neither should be wimps and wooses when it comes to what has been advanced by empirical investigation, and what hasn't.

We can't assign a 100% absolute correctness to what the WHO advises about Covid-19, but we can sure damned well dismiss the blatherings of a certain president.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Ahhhh just another "Egg heads need to be taken down a peg, they aren't smart as they think they are" Woo Apologist?

I wanted something I hadn't seen a dozen times this year alone.

 

[Myriad]

Now tell us: how do you do it?

Start with this: https://www.lajollabridge.com/French/skepticism/filchers.htm.

 

[Darat]

Sure.

KNOWING != MAKING.

Also, you could google episteme & techne.

Better like that?

Even in English you are making no sense to me.

 

[Darat]

Again, as I mentioned to Robin above:

In other words, you are right, maybe there is NO CERTAINTY and we shouldn't say that a certain homeopath is 100% pseudoscientific but 80% pseudoscientific, right?

Hmm... I guess that's not the case, for when you call someone a pseudoscientific there's no middle way with words here: he is either

a) a pseudoscientifist
b) a scientifist

right?

I'm glad you agree with me that there's no absolute demarcation.

A homeopath would not be known as a scientist, in the usual nomenclature they would be know as a practitioner.

 

[bruto]

Hi bruto, welcome to the debate.

When you define something as pseudoscientific, is it all or nothing or you address it with a "80% pseudoscientific".

If that would be the case:

5. What degree of certainty (in percentage) would you demand from a judge to justify his sentence to you for condemning you to indemnify with $100.000 and 5 years of prison for you having slandered the honor of a certain homeopath calling her 'pseudoscientific' without justifying which Demarcation Criterion did you use to discern between Science and Pseudoscience with certainty? 70%?, 95% of certainty? What value (precisely) would leave you satisfied so that your prison sentence would be rationally justified?

Do you claim to be able to tell them apart or not?
Are there any "in betweens" or "middle ways" in this last question or is it a 0% vs. 100%?

Also, could you please answer ANY of the 5 questions above?

Thanks!

WRT the example #5 given above I'd just say the judge is a fool. Throwing some bits of real science into the pot does not impart sense to nonsense, and for an allegation of pseudoscience to be slanderous the homeopath would have to prove that his practice is scientific with sufficient certainty to make the allegation a matter of malicious falsehood rather than opinion. I would suggest that if you can't prove the memory of water you can't claim homeopathy is scientific, and that would be the case even if it worked.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Hi Captain_Swoop, welcome,

Do you claim to be able to tell science from pseudoscience with rigour?
If so, how?

Could you please do something practical and answer ANY of the 5 questions above for us? Nobody seems to have dared yet.

Thanks!

It's a waste of time and effort.

 

[devhdb]

I would suggest that if you can't prove the memory of water you can't claim homeopathy is scientific, and that would be the case even if it worked.

Fair enough.

Though maybe homeopathy is still a protoscience.

What kind of predictions makes the String Theory? And the hypothesis of the Multiverse? Can they be falsified?

Or maybe are they just protosciences yet?

With a small difference: homeopathy CAN be falsified. How about String Theory and the Multiverse? Can they be considered scientific?

Hmm... maybe we have a problem with your argumentation there...

 

[devhdb]

It's a waste of time and effort.

No, it is not, for if you do answer any of those 5 questions above sucessfully you might have contributed to the advancement of Philosophy of Science more than any other philosopher in the past century.

So don't you think it might be worth it?

So that you don't waste too much time and effort, you can go on and try to answer them in a one liner if you please.

 

[devhdb]

A homeopath would not be known as a scientist, in the usual nomenclature they would be know as a practitioner.

I beg to differ.

A homeopath that is investigating the possible effects of his experiments and who tries to test his hypothesis is by all means a candidate for being called a scientist properly.

 

[devhdb]

Even in English you are making no sense to me.

You say:

I’ll just reply on my non existent iPad.

I say:

Do you mean that science is that AND ONLY THAT *KNOWLEDGE* which produces *TECHNOLOGY*, such as an iPad? Please correct me if I'm wrong... is that your final posture?

Fine.

In that case, please, let me know:

- are Mathematics science?
- what kind of technology has produced String Theory?
- what kind of technology has produced the hypothesis of the Multiverse?

Are String Theory and/or the hypothesis of the Multiverse science of pseudoscience?

[as I already replied to Robin before: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13055667#post13055667 ]

Also, I would appreciate if at least ONE person here tries to answer at least ONE question out of the 5 asked on my first post.

In order to advance into this interesting debate, would you try to answer at least one of those, Darat?

Thanks.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Though maybe homeopathy is still a protoscience.

Reminds me of the guy last week insinuating that science just hadn't got around to properly looking at astrology yet.

Homeopathy has had 200 years of playing at being science. It's not as if it's untestable. It doesn't work other than as a placebo and there's no plausible reason to imagine it should.

 

[devhdb]

Ahhhh just another "Egg heads need to be taken down a peg, they aren't smart as they think they are" Woo Apologist?

I wanted something I hadn't seen a dozen times this year alone.

Hi JoeMorgue, welcome.

I'm sure you can contribute with something intellectually challenging, such as answering at least ONE of those 5 questions, right?

I assume you are smart enough to do it in a one liner each, such as I did.

i.e.:

My answers:


1. I DON'T KNOW.
2. I DON'T KNOW.
3. I DON'T KNOW.
4. NO.
5. I DON'T KNOW.

Thanks!

 

[devhdb]

Reminds me of the guy last week insinuating that science just hadn't got around to properly looking at astrology yet.

Homeopathy has had 200 years of playing at being science. It's not as if it's untestable. It doesn't work other than as a placebo and there's no plausible reason to imagine it should.

Fair enough. How about String Theory and the hypothesis of the Multiverse?

Are they science or protoscience?
What precise predictions do they make?
What scientific evidence exists of their predictions?

Thanks.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I beg to differ.

A homeopath that is investigating the possible effects of his experiments and who tries to test his hypothesis is by all means a candidate for being called a scientist properly.

Well, duh. A homeopath who conducts scientific experiments is also a scientist. In other news, a homeopath who sells fish is also a fishmonger.

All we're lacking really is the results of those scientific experiments showing that homeopathy has any effect beyond placebo.

 

[devhdb]

All we're lacking really is the results of those scientific experiments showing that homeopathy has any effect beyond placebo.

I'm glad that you bring this topic. Please, let me explain myself better:

Are you aware of the replication crisis in Medicine?

Out of 49 medical studies from 1990–2003 with more than 1000 citations, 45 claimed that the studied therapy was effective. Out of these studies, 16% were contradicted by subsequent studies, 16% had found stronger effects than did subsequent studies, 44% were replicated, and 24% remained largely unchallenged.[58] The US Food and Drug Administration in 1977–1990 found flaws in 10–20% of medical studies.[59] In a paper published in 2012, Glenn Begley, a biotech consultant working at Amgen, and Lee Ellis, at the University of Texas, argued that only 11% of the pre-clinical cancer studies could be replicated.

A 2016 article by John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine and of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Professor of Statistics at Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences, elaborated on "Why Most Clinical Research Is Not Useful".[62] In the article Ioannidis laid out some of the problems and called for reform, characterizing certain points for medical research to be useful again; one example he made was the need for medicine to be "patient centered" (e.g. in the form of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute) instead of the current practice to mainly take care of "the needs of physicians, investigators, or sponsors". Ioannidis is known for his research focus on science itself since the 2005 paper "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False".


Would you say that it's fair to conclude that medicine is a failed science just because some studies cannot be replicated? Or maybe they are just doing science, and, as such, are subjected to trial and error, in the very same way that the homeopath is?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Fair enough. How about String Theory and the hypothesis of the Multiverse?

Are they science or protoscience?
What precise predictions do they make?
What scientific evidence exists of their predictions?

Thanks.

I don't know enough about string theory to usefully address your questions, though I am aware that critics have said it fails to make testable predictions. I might suggest you begin with its Wikipedia page.

Thanks.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I'm glad that you bring this topic. Please, let me explain myself better:

Are you aware of the replication crisis in Medicine?

…

Would you say that it's fair to conclude that medicine is a failed science just because some studies cannot be replicated? Or maybe they are just doing science, and, as such, are subjected to trial and error, in the very same way that the homeopath is?

I've followed the work of Ben Goldacre and am familiar with the problem. This is not news.

However I would caution against relying on examples of drug test results which cannot be replicated as a reason to bat away the consilience of evidence which shows homeopathy achieving nothing.