Bad Data

Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
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Dangers Of The Intellectual Counterculture

• Some Theories Dangerous In Themselves
  • Political Extremism
  • Racism
  • Quack Medical Cults
• Connections To Extremism
  • Lend Intellectual Legitimacy
  • Serve As Safety Valve?
• Symptom Of Societal Irrationality
  • Child Abuse - Satanic Cult Hysteria
  • Recovered Memories
• Confusion Over Methodology
  • Acceptance of Faulty Data and Reasoning
  • Scientific Illiteracy
  • Logical Illiteracy

The Purpose of the Mind, As of the Mouth, Is to Open It in Order to Close It onSomething Solid.
-G.K. Chesterton

The Scientific Counterculture And The Nature Of Science

• Pseudoscience
  • Reject Findings of Science
• Anti-science
  • Reject Values of Science
• Ideological Abuse Of Science
  • Reject Limitations of Science
• "Junk Science"
  • Practical pseudoscience used to create doubt about inconvenient scientific facts

What Is Pseudoscience ?

What Pseudoscience Is

• Demonstrably Faulty Observations or Theories
• Usually Supported by Logical Fallacies
• In Open Defiance of Scientific Consensus

What Pseudoscience Is Not

• Errors Made in Good Faith (polywater, Cold Fusion)
• Informed Speculation
• Defined by Personal Disagreement
• Defined by Personality or Style

The Spectrum Of Scientific Probability

The chart below combines a numerical scale proposed by Arthur Strahler and azone description by James Trefil. Possible examples are listed in the centercolumn.

The Frontier is the most interesting area to scientists. It's hard toidentify topics in the 10- or 100-to-one range for or against because theseareas are under active exploration, and ideas at these levels rapidly move in tothe center or out to the fringe. Anything more than 100 to one against isprobably too iffy to interest most scientists.

I put extraterrestrial intelligence at even money because, while there'snothing at all unscientific about the concept, there is absolutely no way ofknowing when we will resolve this issue. I put paleolinguistics, the attempt toreconstruct the earliest human language, at 10:1 against, because languages pickup a lot of random changes as they evolve, and this random noise is thought bymany scientists to limit how far back we can trace words. 100:1 against isprobably being generous to Bigfoot and Nessie. I put UFO's and the paranormal at1000:1 against because, although the evidence put forward to date has been totalrubbish, neither idea is wholly impossible.

Branches of Pseudoscience

Authoritarian: Validate Received Truth

• Creationism
• 666 Theories
• Lysenkoism

Mystical: Validate Subjective Experience

• ESP,
• Psychic
• New Age
• Astrology

The Appeal of Pseudoscience

• Genuine Conviction
• Feelings of Powerlessness
  • Desire for Fame
  • Rebellion
• Practical Benefits
  • Denial of Unpleasant Realities
  • Medical Quackery
  • Perpetual Motion Machines
  • Junk Science
• Adventure, Escapism, Fun
  • Loch Ness Monster
  • Bigfoot
  • Catastrophe Theories
  • Conspiracy Theories
• Social Concerns
  • Racism
  • Creationism
  • Lysenkoism
• Religious and Quasi-religious
  • Judaeo-Christian
    • Creationism
    • Velikovsky
  • Occult
    • Astrology
    • Atlantis
    • UFO Savior Myths
    • Psychic Phenomena
    • New Age

Logical Structure of Pseudoscience

• "Galileo Fallacy"
• "Residue Fallacy"
• Explanation by Default
• Distortion of the Term "Theory"
• Attacks on Inference and Deduction
• Exaggeration of Uncertainty
• Extreme Relativism, Solipsism
• Catch-22 Arguments, Buzzwords
• Conspiratorial Outlook

Is It Fair to Reject All Conspiratorial Theories?

• Erroneous Use of Terms
  • No Secrecy - No Conspiracy
  • Common Effort or Goal is not a Conspiracy
  • Criticism is not Persecution
• Irrelevant to Issues
  • Objectives May Be Morally Acceptable
  • Sometimes Secrecy Is Necessary
  • Immoral Conspiracies Are Immoral Because of Their Goals and Methods, Not Their Secrecy
• Intellectually Dishonest
  • Impossible to Disprove
  • Can Rationalize Away Any Anomaly
  • Appeal to Emotions Instead of Facts
  • Poisons Climate of Debate

A Nation of Jailhouse Lawyers

• Freedom of Speech
• Criminal Cases
• Innocent Until Proven Guilty
• Civil Cases
• Preponderance of the Evidence
• Who Controls the Facts?

The Data Base of Pseudoscience

• Random Events Collected Into Spurious Patterns
  • Parapsychology
• Real Phenomena Misinterpreted As Anomaly
  • Venus As Ufo
  • Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot Sightings
• Revisionist Interpretations of Well-understood Phenomena
  • Von Daniken
  • Creationism
• Psychological Phenomena
  • Biased Observations
  • Hypnogogic and Hypnopompic Dreams
  • Confabulation
• Second-hand Data (Urban Legends)
• Deliberate Fraud
  • Parapsychology
• Genuine New Discoveries
  • Semmelweiss and Antisepsis?
  • Robert Gentry and Radiation Halos?

Two Common Types of Bad Data

• "Gee Whiz" Facts
• Anecdotal Evidence

"Gee Whiz" Facts "

A Million Children Are Reported Missing Every Year"

Right. and 99% are found within 24 hours. About a quarter of the U.S. population is under 18 - over 60 million people. At face value this statistic

"Suicide Is the ---th Leading Cause of Death Among Teen-agers"

To Be Valid, Anecdotal Evidence

Must Be True

Must Be Representative

Example: the Millionaire Who Pays No Income Tax (Source, 1987 IRS Data)

Income Average Tax % of Income

$19-22,000 $ 1739 8.5

$40-50,000 $ 5276 11.8

Over $1,000,000 $703284 29.3

(Average $2,422,000)

Anecdote May Be True, but Is Not Representative

Pseudoscience and American Values

Cook Versus Peary: the Race to the Pole (1982 TV Docudrama)

• Dr. Frederick Cook
  • Ca. 1900 Attempts to Pass off Ethnic Study of Another Worker As His Own
  • 1906 Fakes First Climb of Mount Mckinley
  • 1908 Claims First Visit to North Pole
  • 1920's Imprisoned for Mail Fraud
• Tv Docudrama Made Cook, Not Peary, the Victim
  • In Theory: Peary Represents the Values Americans Are Supposed to Admire: Perseveranceand Self-Sacrifice
  • In Theory: Cook Represents Everything Americans Supposedly Despise: Dishonesty andTheft of Others' Rewards
• So Why Does the Cook Cult Exist?
  • Americans Are Taught to Revere Explorers and Innovators As Heroes (Lindbergh, Lewis andClark)
  • In Reality, Many Americans Resent Those Who Succeed Through Hard Work and Effort
  • We Often Reconcile These Conflicting Emotions by Making Heroes Out ofAnti-intellectuals and Cranks and Pretending They Were Really Persecuted Geniuses
  • Proxmire, Golden Fleece Awards

Testing

• What Does It Take to Prove an Idea Wrong?
• What Does It Take to Prove an Idea Right?
• What Does It Take to Prove You Wrong?
• Can You Find Factual Evidence?
• Can You Find Logical Flaws?
• Keep Your Eyes on the Prize - Don’t Get Distracted by Emotional Arguments orIrrelevancies

Bad Models of Science

Science Is Tentative

Is There Really a Viable Alternative to the Periodic Table Out There?

Science Does Not Discover Truth

What Other Term Applies to Concepts That Have Been Tested Millions of Times Over Centuries?

Progress in Science Is an Illusion

Has Science Ever Abandoned a Paradigm, Adopted a New One, Then Returned to the Old Paradigm?

What Pseudoscience Reveals About Science

• There Is No Such Thing As the Scientific Method
• Science Is Based on Content, Not Structure

What Is Science, Then?

• A Body of Observations and Theories Capable of Verification or Refutation
• And Have Survived Testing
• Methods That Have Proven Useful for Acquiring, Verifying or Refuting Observations and Theories.

Return to Pseudoscience Index
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Created 4 May 2000, Last Update 4 May 2000

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