Pseudoscience – Quotes

[T]he true natural sciences

[T]he true natural sciences lock together in theory and evidence to form the ineradicable technical base of modern civilization. The pseudosciences satisfy personal psychological needs… but lack the ideas or the means to contribute to the technical base. E. O. Wilson

Pseudoscience describes theories that

Pseudoscience describes theories that sound like science but are actually just made up, like aromatherapy or biorhythms or love. Craig Ferguson

If we teach only

If we teach only the findings and products of science – no matter how useful and even inspiring they may be – without communicating its critical method, how can the average person possibly distinguish science from pseudoscience? Carl Sagan

The method of science,

The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science. Carl Sagan

At the extremes it

At the extremes it is difficult to distinguish pseudoscience from rigid, doctrinaire religion. Carl Sagan

I believe that even

I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as “nigh -walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.” … Read more

One of the reasons

One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its very heart. Some may consider this an overbroad characterization, but to me every time we exercise self-criticism, every time we test our ideas against the outside world, we are doing science. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when … Read more