Chapter 2: Pseudoscience Flashcards
Scientific Skepticism is
approaching claims with an open mind but insisting on persuasive before accepting them
Critical thinking can be also referred to as
scientific thinking
the ability to generate test and evaluate claims,data and theory openmindedly, helps us to solve everyday problems
Critical thinking/Scientific thinking
Occam’s Razor, Replicability, Ruling out the rival hypothesis, Extraordinary claims and Correlation isn’t causation are all
Basic principles of scientific skepticism
the idea that when there are two individual explanations for theory we should generally believe the more simpler explanation is
Occam’s Razor
the ability to replicate other research (can the results be duplicated) on other studies is
Replicability
when we ask our selves: maybe there’s another hypothesis? have important alternative explanations been excluded? we are…
Ruling out Rival Hypothesis
making a claim like “homeopathic medicine cures everything” is an example of
Extraordinary claims without evidence
Can we be sure that X causes Y is an example of
Correlation isn’t Causation
Dangers of Pseudoscience include:
- Opportunity Cost
- Direct Harm
- An inability to think scientifically as citizens
a claim that appears scientific even though it lacks evidence ex astrology is
Pseudoscience
Warning Signs of Pseudoscience include?
Lack of Falsifiability, Lack of Progress/Self Correction, Emphasis on Confirmation, Evasion of/or questionable Peer Review, Reliant on Anecdotal Evidence, Absence of Connectivity, Scientific Sounding Language, and Exaggerated Claims
Lack of Falsifiability is something that
cannot be tested
Lack of Progress/Self-Correction is something that
has been around for so long causing info to be outdated and difficult to confirm ex.astrology
A psychic is an example of
emphasis on confirmation
believing claims only because its on a website, or because many people say it is being
Reliant on Anecdotal Evidence
a claim that is not connected to anything else in the world be know
Absence of Connectivity
believing a claim only bc it sounds sciency but is really just made up scientific words for something to sound more true, this represents the category of
Scientific Sounding Language
Why can opportunity cost be a harm to pseudoscience?
we may waste our time depending on our beliefs and instead using scientifically unsupported treatment to get better ex.Law of attraction
Logical Fallacies in Psychological Thinking include:
Emotional Reasoning, Bandwagon, Either-or, and the Bias Blind Spot
Bandwagon is assuming
something is right just because may people believe it
Emotional Reasoning is when we
use emotion to evaluate whether a claim is valid
Either-or is framing
a question in a way it can only be answered one way
The Bias Blind Spot is being overly
confident about how the future will look
Pseudoscience lacks protection against
confirmation bias and belief perseverance
Pseudo scientific claims such as astrology give us
comfort, because they seem to offer control
People may be drawn to pseudoscience for many reasons including:
motivational factors, a need for wonder, pareidolid and apophenia
the tendency to perceive meaningless images in meaningless visual stimuli
Pareidolid
the tendency to perceive meaningful connections among unrelated phenomenon
Apophenia
Experimental Research Methods determine
cause and effect relationships
Correlational Research Methods look for
the relationship between X and Y
a correlation between 1 and -1 is a
perfect correlation
a correlation that moves in opposite directions is a
negative correlation
a correlation that move in the same direction is a
positive correlation
the strength of the correlation is how close it is to
1 and -1
a Pro and a Con of Correlational Research Methods is that
Pro: more flexible
Con:cant explain causation
The 3 types of Descriptive Research Methods are:
Naturalistic Observation, Case Study, and Survey Research
Naturalistic Observation is? Whats a Pro and Con?
naturally observing
pro; related to the real world
con;observer may be biased, no control over variables
Case Study is? Whats a Pro and Con?
an in depth analysis of a person group or event
pro; allows investigation or rare phenomenon, may provide existence proofs
cons;cannot determine cause and effect, researcher bias
pro; efficient for collecting large amounts of data
cons; unrepresentative sample may lead to faulty generalizations, rely on self reports, cannot prove causality
are pros and cons of..
survey research
