Science, non-science and pseudoscience Flashcards
Intelligent design
Creationism but not necessarily the Christian God.
Example: Cola can and banana
Science
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
Non-science
Not science and does not try to look like it
Pseudoscience
- 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
Scientific statements
- About natural world
- Used to explain how the world works
- Are at least in principle testable
Pseudoscientific statements
- Tries to look like science
- The explanation given supports some other agenda
- Are not testable, or do not recognize refuting statements
Precognition
Foreknowledge of an event, especially as a form of extrasensory perception.
Psi
Anomalous processes of information that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms
Morgans canon
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.
Creationism
The belief that God made the world. Can be divided into 3 categories:
1. Old earth creationism
2. Young earth creationism
3. Intelligent design
Old earth creationism
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.
Young earth creationism
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.
The likelihood principle
O strongly favors H1 over H2 if and only if P(O|H1)»_space; P(O|H2).
The likelihood of the observation given the hypothesis: P(O|H)
The gremlin example
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”
Testability
Theories must stick their neck out
T –> O
Falsifiability
The aim that every statement should try to be falsified.
Particular observations cannot verify general theories. Particular observations can falsify general theories
Duhem’s thesis
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)
Observations
Something one sees (in the real world)
Theories
Something we believe in but cannot exactly observe (it’s not an observation)
Auxiliary assumptions
Assumptions that back up the theory or lays the ground for it
HARK’ing
Hypothesising after results are known
Anachronism
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.
Randomness
True randomness only has variation; evolution adds the feature of retention
Example: METHINKSITSAWEASEL
METHINKITSAWEASEL
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.
Paley’s watch
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
Deductively validity
If the premises are true the conclusion would absolutely guaranteed be true
Fitness
An organisms ability to survive and reproduce
Phrenology
The detailed study of the shape and size of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities
Analogy argument
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
Retention
Selection among the variants that arise