Chapter 2: Pseudoscience Flashcards
(40 cards)
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has been around for so long causing info to be outdated and difficult to confirm ex.astrology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