Science vs Pseudoscience
How do you distinguish between science and pseudoscience? Karl Popper, a philosopher of science, thought hard about this problem, and arrived at a principle called falsifiability. Scientific theories are inherently falsifiable. That is to say, they are amenable to refutation. No amount of evidence confirming a scientific theory “proves” its validity. On the contrary, a single observation that doesn’t confirm it invalidates the theory. Theories are not accepted because they are true, but because the predictions they make haven’t been falsified thus far.
A scientist makes specific predictions based on their theory, and constantly runs the risk of someone refuting it at any point in time in the future. If that happens during their lifetime, it could (potentially) result in loss of credibility, reputation, and even their career. On the other hand, the more specific and riskier the predictions, and the longer they remains unfalsified, they can bask in the glory of unravelling something truly remarkable!
Pseudoscience on the other hand seeks only confirming evidence. Think of stuff like astrology, some forms of psychoanalyses, or — and this happens a great deal these days — diatribes against modern medicine presented as theories. They almost always sound plausible, and you can find some form of evidence that confirm these claims, regardless of how absurd they might be. The trouble however is, the proponents of these don’t provide anything falsifiable. Any reasonable person with some common sense can provide loads of contrary evidence to refute their claims of course. But in the absence of well defined falsifiability criteria, such evidence can be argued away. So much so that any reasonable person who indulges them gets exhausted and gives up.
In fact, that is the most important ploy used by the champions of pseudoscience: “All this mumbo jumbo about the theory of evolution is fine, but who placed the fossils there in the first place? Have you actually seen a primate turn into a man?” or “Just because you haven’t seen a ghost doesn’t mean they’re not there. Do you see air? How many atoms have you seen?” and so on. Their argumentation is full of non sequiturs and when they can’t make a logical point any longer, they indulge in ad hominem: “But the funding for this research came from a pharma company! How can you trust these results?” They confuse coincidence or even correlation with causation: “A dozen children have died after they were administered a certain vaccine.” And they conveniently leave out the strong evidence about tens of millions of lives saved because of vaccines.
Pseudoscientists hardly make any specific predictions the refutation of which will invalidate their claims. They run no risk of losing face. Instead they conveniently seize every feeble corroboration only to gloat, while at the same time accusing science of being arrogant. On the contrary, science has intellectual humility; it’s full of doubt, places enough caveats when making a claim — even a tiny one. Science is accountable, willing to accept a mistake and change. Pseudoscience is arrogant, is almost always certain, and has zero accountability.