Voodoo Science -- the Seven Warning Signs of bogus science

[alfreda89]

The author of this article is Robert L. Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland at College Park and the director of public information for the American Physical Society. He is the author of Voodoo Science: The Road From Foolishness to Fraud (Oxford University Press, 2002).

"I began this list of warning signs to help federal judges detect scientific nonsense. But as I finished the list, I realized that in our increasingly technological society, spotting voodoo science is a skill that every citizen should develop."

http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm

Thanks to starcat_jewel for discovering this article!

Comments

[random-stabs.livejournal.com]

I would like to point out, however, that scientists are not immune to human frailties... Every scientist views new publications and new theories from their own beliefs of how the universe works.

Once a scientist (or a group of them) have vested interests in the current paradigm, they tend to ignore data that would overturn their way of thinking. This is part of human nature. Additionally, government funding *is* a zero-sum game, and if your career is at stake then paradigm shifts are a no-no...

If you try to publish a ground-breaking theory that overturns other people's work, guess who's going to be on your review committee? You guessed it, the people who have a vested interest in suppressing your results!

Eventually, good theories get replaced by better theories. An earth-centered cosmology was good enough until the telescope came along. Then the theory of epicycles was good enough until Kepler/Newton and blew it all away. Then Einstein came along and explained things that Newton couldn't (mercury's orbit). Each of these advances managed to explain things at the extreme margins of existing theory.

BTW, Ponds & Fleishmann's cold fusion experiments aren't quite as dead as this guy would like us to think. There have been experiments at other reputable institutions that have found anomalous radiation and other odd things. Nothing as spectacular as the original P&F work, but enough strangeness to keep people poking at it on the down-low...

Park's recommendations are good ones for Judges, though. Legal precedence should be developed from the most conservative (risk-free) scientific interpretations available. We just have to be careful to not confuse the latest theories with Truth (of the capitol-T variety). That would be confusing the map with the actual terrain.

All good points --

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

-- but I think this as useful to judges outweighs the need for remembering that constant in the universe -- that we all can be swayed if it's our pet theory.

Remember that link to an article on the politics of Lyme disease I posted. The doctor who actually confirmed the existence of and named Lyme disease fights bitterly against those who suggest that people missed in the first month of the disease will be much harder to treat -- and may be missed for months, years, with the resulting damage (and he denies they can be helped by long-term antibiotics.)

Now, it looks like he (this doctor) may be part of the gang who are working for insurance companies, getting research money from drug companies, and part of work on a vaccine for Lyme being tested in Europe. My, my -- can you say self-interest?

I just remember that the doctor of the President called my Lyme specialist (part of the minority who think those stating it's hard to get and easy to cure are wrong) when treating the president of the old USA. Would he call if the prez had an EM rash and could take a month of antibiotics and be over it?

One more thing to worry about -- that Bush is so ill Cheney might have to take over for him....