How Pseudoscientists Get Away With It

Attempts to inculcate what are called “scientific habits of mind” are of little practical help. These habits of mind are not so easy to adopt. They invariably require some amount of statistics and probability, much of which is counterintuitive. One of the great values of science is to help us counter our normal biases and expectations by showing the actual measurements may not bear them out. Then there’s the math. No matter how much you try to hide it, much of the language of science is math (Galileo said that). And half the audience is gone with each equation (Stephen Hawking said that). It’s hard to imagine a successful program of making a non-scientifically trained public interested in adopting the rigors of scientific habits of mind. Indeed, I suspect there are some people who would be rightfully suspicious of changing their thinking to being habitually scientific. Many scientists are frustrated by the public’s inability to think like a scientist, but in fact it is neither easy nor always desirable to do so. And it is certainly not practical.

There is a more intuitive and simpler way to tell the difference between the real thing and the cheap knock-off. In fact, it is not so much intuitive as counterintuitive, so it takes a little bit of mental work. But the good thing is it works almost all the time. True science is mostly concerned with the unknown and the uncertain. If someone claims to have the ultimate answer or they know something for certain, the only thing for certain is they are trying to fool you. Mystery and uncertainty may not strike you right off as desirable or strong traits, but that is precisely where one finds the creative solutions that science has historically arrived at. Yes, science accumulates factual knowledge, but it is at its best when it generates new and better questions. Uncertainty is not a place of worry, but of opportunity. Progress lives at the border of the unknown. 

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Good science provides clear evidence that may only go so far. Scientists have to speculate, which could go one of two or three ways, or maybe some way they haven’t seen yet. But like your blood pressure medicine, the stuff we know is reliable even if incomplete. Unsettled science is not unsound science. The honesty and humility of someone willing to tell you that they don’t have all the answers, but they have some thoughtful questions to pursue, is easy to distinguish from the charlatans who have ready answers or claim that nothing should be done until we are an impossible 100 percent sure. 

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