Science, non-science and pseudoscience

Question 1

Intelligent design

Answer 1

Creationism but not necessarily the Christian God.
Example: Cola can and banana

Question 2

Science

Answer 2

The real deal. A scientists’ main capital is their credibility
- Authorities hold no special role
- Experiments should be replicable by all
- Theory should apply generally to examples
- The theory should stick its neck out
- Should change in the face of refuting information
- The theory is specific enough that it can be refuted
- New explanations only accepted if they explain more than or at least as much as before

Question 3

Non-science

Answer 3

Not science and does not try to look like it

Question 4

Pseudoscience

Answer 4

• Belief in authority
• Unrepeatable experiments
• Hand-picked examples
• Unwillingness/impossibility to test
• Disregard of refuting information
  ○ They find new solutions
  ○ It happens in the real world as well but if it piles up you need to change
• Built-in subterfuge
  ○ Theory can always explain what is out there - it just gets more complex
• Explanation are abandoned without replacement

Question 5

Scientific statements

Answer 5

• About natural world
• Used to explain how the world works
• Are at least in principle testable

Question 6

Pseudoscientific statements

Answer 6

• Tries to look like science
• The explanation given supports some other agenda
• Are not testable, or do not recognize refuting statements

Question 7

Precognition

Answer 7

Foreknowledge of an event, especially as a form of extrasensory perception.

Question 8

Psi

Answer 8

Anomalous processes of information that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms

Question 9

Morgans canon

Answer 9

In no case is an animal activity to be interpreted in terms of higher psychological processes if it can be fairly interpreted in terms of processes which stand lower in the scale of psychological evolution and development.

Question 10

Creationism

Answer 10

The belief that God made the world. Can be divided into 3 categories:
1. Old earth creationism
2. Young earth creationism
3. Intelligent design

Question 11

Old earth creationism

Answer 11

Hold that various aspects of living things were created by special supernatural intervention, but they accept the scientific evidence for the age of the earth and the universe.

Question 12

Young earth creationism

Answer 12

Hold that various aspects of living things were created by special supernatural intervention, but they do not accept the scientific evidence for the age of the earth and the universe.

Question 13

The likelihood principle

Answer 13

O strongly favors H1 over H2 if and only if P(O|H1)&raquo_space; P(O|H2).
The likelihood of the observation given the hypothesis: P(O|H)

Question 14

The gremlin example

Answer 14

Gremlins bowling in the attic: “Suppose you hear a noise coming from the attic of your house. The likelihood of this hypothesis P(O|H) is very high, since if there are gremlins bowling in the attic, there probably will be noise. But surely you don’t think that the noise makes it very probable that there are gremlins up there bowling”

Question 15

Testability

Answer 15

Theories must stick their neck out
T –> O

Question 16

Falsifiability

Answer 16

The aim that every statement should try to be falsified.
Particular observations cannot verify general theories. Particular observations can falsify general theories

Question 17

Duhem’s thesis

Answer 17

Typically, T does not deductively imply O; rather, it is T&A that deductively implies O (here, T is a theory, O is an observation statement, and A is a set of of auxiliary assumptions)

Question 18

Observations

Answer 18

Something one sees (in the real world)

Question 19

Theories

Answer 19

Something we believe in but cannot exactly observe (it’s not an observation)

Question 20

Auxiliary assumptions

Answer 20

Assumptions that back up the theory or lays the ground for it

Question 21

HARK’ing

Answer 21

Hypothesising after results are known

Question 22

Anachronism

Answer 22

A person, thing, or idea that exists out of its time in history, especially one that happened or existed later than the period being shown, discussed, etc.

Question 23

Randomness

Answer 23

True randomness only has variation; evolution adds the feature of retention
Example: METHINKSITSAWEASEL

Question 24

METHINKITSAWEASEL

Answer 24

Dawkins describes a device similar to a combination lock with 19 disks, each displaying one of 26 letters. The number of possible letter sequences is (1/26)^19, making the chance of randomly generating the phrase “METHINKSITISAWEASEL” extremely small, even after a billion spins.
However, if the process is altered so that correct letters are “frozen” in place once they match the target, and only the remaining disks are spun, the target phrase can be reached much faster, often within a relatively small number of generations. This demonstrates a key aspect of evolution by natural selection: while variation occurs randomly, retention is not random. Advantageous traits are more likely to persist, illustrating how evolution can produce complex, orderly outcomes over time.

Question 25

Paley’s watch

Answer 25

William Paley was a philosopher known for his argument for the existence of God based on the analogy of the watchmaker. He proposed that just as the complexity of a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker, the complexity of living organisms suggests an intelligent designer

Question 26

Deductively validity

Answer 26

If the premises are true the conclusion would absolutely guaranteed be true

Question 27

Fitness

Answer 27

An organisms ability to survive and reproduce

Question 28

Phrenology

Answer 28

The detailed study of the shape and size of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities

Question 29

Analogy argument

Answer 29

a = analog
t = target
P = property
n = measures the degree of overall similarity between a and t
n = 0 = no properties in common
n = 1 = they have all the same properties
Measures how strongly the premises support the conclusion
1. Object a has property P
2. Object a and object t are similar to degree n
3. n
Object t has property P

Question 30

Retention

Answer 30

Selection among the variants that arise