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Just imagine this picture. I come to the Academy of Sciences and say that I have made a discovery. I found that the square has the shape of an egg. When asked to explain what I mean, I say that the duck is made of brick. When people start asking me to leave, I say that science should not have restrictions on the expression of ideas and that I am a real scientist, but they are fake. At this point, the scientists say “oh, that's it” and force me out of the room.
This “oh everything” is officially called “weighed in the balance and found a false scientist”. After all, if there were no method and, as a consequence, what does not correspond to the method, science would be impossible, it would be impossible to put an end to any discussion, which is the term “pseudoscience”.
Although “freedom of hypothesizing” is still not so much a methodology as an ideology of science, I would rather agree with this thesis. And so the statements of some overly zealous fighters against pseudoscience, who speak about “non-falsifiability”, for example, multi-world interpretation or string theory in physics – such speeches already seem to me really bordering on “inquisition”.
Well, it is quite another matter when we are dealing with a hypothesis that has long been refuted in the scientific community, but someone continues to stubbornly promote it – this includes, for example, homeopathy, the theory of ether or Lamarck's theory of “acquired inheritance”. There is already pseudoscientific evidence here: a person defends not some new, possibly productive hypothesis, but on the contrary, an old one that is completely unsuitable – either out of ignorance, or out of some mercantile considerations.
So, that's right – we should be absolutely free to make hypotheses. But after making a hypothesis, it is necessary to CHECK – and pseudoscience, as a rule, is not concerned with checking, or rather, it already considers its hypotheses to be a priori correct, and simply selects illustrations that confirm the hypothesis, without paying attention to counterexamples. Not the most effective strategy, in my opinion.
PSEUDOSCIENCE is a very crude, unscientific (militant-political) expression: the very crude, unscientific division of science and pseudoscience should be replaced by a much more precise and adequate comparative vocabulary – “something more or less scientifically”.
Any KNOWLEDGE-contains both a correct part and an erroneous (or unknown) part – for this reason, any knowledge is NOT ABSOLUTELY ACCURATE and is systematically improved in the direction of clarifying and deepening this knowledge.
The ideal numerical assessment of any knowledge is given according to the scheme – the CORRECT PART is X%, the incorrect (unknown) part Y=(100-X)%, total:
CORRECT+INCORRECT=100%
EXAMPLE – very often they are limited to the level of reliability of a practical theory of 95%. IF this level is not reached, then they talk about an unproven hypothesis and do not speak roughly of PSEUDOSCIENCE.
EXAMPLE-Rector Lobachevsky was declared crazy by the university, for allegedly pseudoscience in geometry, and all 100% of the employees agreed to pretend that this was the case, Academician Ostrogradsky wrote a mocking review of Lobachevsky's work (then admitted that he himself did not understand anything about his work)…and even Gauss was very much afraid of these militant inquisitors, “witch hunters” and “fighters against pseudoscience” (he hid his finished discovery on geometry forever and lost his discovery for himself and the country)….history is repeating itself in a new round today…
The question is posed incorrectly and tendentiously in relation to science. Because today we can only talk about the correlation between the expediency and objectives of the large-scale development of the Russian civilizational project and the individual search choice of the researcher. Therefore, scientific research does not begin with a free formulation of a hypothesis. Especially any taken literally out of thin air. To throw such an infinite number of hypotheses in the spirit of demagogy, “what if he were carrying bullets”, is harmful, and to prove them all and reject them is wasteful. This is the practice and misfortune of the semi-scientific small-family of novice researchers who investigate the problem within the sandbox, and the game crown of financial adventurers and information warfare activists who jointly ruin the Russian economy. I don't have enough energy and money for everything.
But seriously, you need to start with visualization and deep structuring of the research object. Take a deep and ambitious approach to business. First, the relevance of the research, the practical and then the scientific problem, the practical and scientific task are formulated. The efficiency formula and ordering paradigm, as well as a structural or functional-target model of the composition and structure of a problem domain of any scale, are described. And only then, and not immediately, it is possible to build a rather compact and professionally limited set of hypotheses of subject studies, which determine systemically interrelated analytical expressions of external and internal relationships of factor and effective features. You can build classifications and feature measurements, organize observations, and perform model verification. And then recommend the research results for practical use. The hypotheses themselves in their pure form are not recommendations without continuing professional research work with them.
Only this way, in my opinion, can give a predictable and scientifically confirmed and practically valuable result of scientific research. In the field of development and growth, rigorous scientific solutions are real, calculated and planned projects. And spontaneous emotional rally decisions are most often destructive. Especially when new hypotheses are motivated by fear, lack of experience, and professional confusion. And God forbid, the unscrupulous intent of the “sent Cossacks”.
The official rules of the scientific community should approve the recognition by all participants of innovative projects and discussions of the algorithm of the scientific method, which contains more than a dozen and a half analytical steps for choosing alternatives. And the scandalous style of academic and political lampooning should be excluded from the practice of scientific reviewing, as a sign of low scientific qualification.
Conversations on the merits of using the tools of the scientific method will allow us to stop mutual destructive and scientific gaslighting in the beer style of “know our people”. And how a productive balance of rules, intuition and individual game choice and behavior of players will be established on the football field, leaving emotions to the audience.
Learn more about the methodology of science and education on my Vkontakte page.
Alexander
Pseudoscience differs from science in that it does not recognize the METHODOLOGICAL principles of science. That the “hypotheses” put forward must be justified and verifiable. That the proponent must adhere to the scientific methodology when justifying and discussing them. Follow the rules of logic, take into account the facts, do not turn away, “without noticing”, from what does not fit with his “hypothesis”. Take into account what was done in science earlier. Willingness to engage in a meaningful discussion, etc.
Pseudoscience is not “original hypotheses” – it is an unwillingness to adhere to scientific standards of justification and discussion.
You're absolutely right. That is why some areas of thought are called pseudoscience. They have a scientific appearance, but in fact no freedom of thought is implied there, and no arguments of opponents are analyzed.
As an example, I can cite Marxism, which for a long time was considered the only true teaching in our country, and all opponents were called “bourgeois scientists”, and Marxist theologians did not condescend to discuss with them. 🙂
Scientific methodology should WORK. Which it does. She doesn't owe anyone anything else.
Natural sciences – the experience of humanity, presented in a convenient form for transmission and use. And experience cannot be refuted, it can only be supplemented and clarified.
This is most easily illustrated by the example of geography. Information about the presence of an island in the Arctic Ocean will be checked. The statement that the Great Caucasus Range is a myth will not be considered by anyone. There is too much evidence and research.
https://zen.yandex.ru/media/id/5c43498395753900ac66852d/geografiia-esce-raz-o-nauke-i-ljenauke-5c4dacde62411100ae447d34
You know the word methodology, but you don't understand how science differs from other areas of human activity. Science is essentially based on logic, mathematics, and experience. Experience here means scientific. Any hypothesis has the right to exist. But it is precisely a scientific hypothesis that becomes only in accordance with the norms of scientific knowledge. First of all, this is the principle of falsifiability, which is not actually a law, but is accepted as a self-evident rule. The principle is that for any scientific hypothesis there is a formulated scheme of experiment, the failure of which will mean the refutation of the hypothesis. Even if the experiment fails at this level of technology, the very possibility of refutation is important. What is impossible to refute in principle does not apply to science. For example, if the idea is expressed that ducks fly because a gnome sits inside the duck and pedals, which causes movement to be transmitted along chains and hinges to the wings, this can be refuted. The experiment may consist of X-ray transmission of the duck in any possible way, for example, with X-rays. Does the moon consist of young cheese? This can be verified by experiment. But the hypothesis of the absence of God cannot be verified in any way. The existence of God is also impossible to prove. Therefore, God belongs to the realm of faith, not science, and a serious scientist cannot claim that science has already refuted or proved his existence. Russell's Teapot is also heading there. Torsion fields, male and female energy, reading Cyrillic and Glagolitic letters in sun spots, water memory, and so on are sent there.
A well-conducted experiment has a number of parameters, the absence of some of which leads it out of the field of science. For example, the effectiveness of a drug cannot be proven by giving it to one person for a week. Then we need a larger sample, a double-blind study, a test group and a control group (in some cases, several control groups), and a placebo effect test. Since most of the research on homeopathic medicines was either conducted in violation of these agreements or was recorded incorrectly, it was not really scientific research. At the same time, the utility of the invention itself it is not a scientific criterion.
The chosen method of interpretation of the performed measurements is extremely important. Science is a living system, and after 200 years, the interpretation of exactly the same experience may differ.
There are also laws of nature that can't be easily circumvented. For example, in 1775, the Paris Academy of Sciences decided not to consider perpetual motion projects because of the obvious impossibility of creating them. In that era, they were brought in a huge stream. The U.S. Patent Office stopped issuing perpetual motion patents more than a century ago. Most perpetual motion machines are divided into:
perpetual motion machines of the first kind — which violate the first law of thermodynamics
and perpetual motion machines of the second kind— which violate the second law of thermodynamics.
Now we know the principle that you can reject the perpetual motion scheme without even trying to build it.
Moreover, there are ways to get electricity for free when using the properties of external systems: these are, for example, solar panels, windmills and tidal power plants. They don't break anything.
Pseudoscience can be compared to a crooked rhymed text. Since there are certain principles of verse construction, failures in it are easily detected, and this is not at all tasteful. In addition to the rules, there are also signs. Assuming that science does not need to be falsified to prove hypotheses, pseudoscience can be caught by typical tricks. These are academicians of National Academies, methods of yellow journalism, open lies, violation of the course of the experiment at the secondary school level, Special services Hide and Mainstream Science Hides, extremism and ultra-radicalism in the motivation of research, explaining the course of the experiment through prophecies from ancient sacred texts, publications exclusively in anti-scientific journals.
Even though some hypotheses are considered bold and initially rejected by many scientists, this does not mean that you can pass off anything as science.
(photo from real-unreality.ru )
(photo from here: http://peoplelikeus.org/tag/perpetuum-mobile/ )