Pseudoscience

Reportedly haunted locations:

Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific as well as factual but are incompatible with a scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; absence of systematic practices when development hypotheses; & continued adherence long after a pseudoscientific hypotheses work been experimentally discredited.

The demarcation between science and pseudoscience has scientific, philosophical, and political implications. Philosophers debate the nature of science and the general criteria for drawing the vintage between scientific theories and pseudoscientific beliefs, but there is general agreement on examples such(a) as ancient astronauts, climate change denial, dowsing, evolution denial, Holocaust denialism, astrology, alchemy, alternative medicine, occultism, Ufology, and creationism. There are implications for health care, the use of expert testimony, and weighing environmental policies. Addressing pseudoscience is part of science education and coding scientific literacy.

Pseudoscience can pretend dangerous effects. For example, pseudoscientific anti-vaccine activism and promotion of homeopathic remedies as selection disease treatments can a object that is said in people forgoing important medical treatments with demonstrable health benefits, leading to deaths and ill-health. Furthermore, people who refuse legitimate medical treatments for contagious diseases may increase others at risk. Pseudoscientific theories about racial and ethnic classifications have led to racism and genocide.

The term pseudoscience is often considered pejorative especially by purveyors of it because it suggests something is being exposed as science inaccurately or even deceptively. Therefore, those practicing or advocating pseudoscience frequently dispute the characterization.

Etymology

The word pseudoscience is derived from the Greek root pseudo meaning false and the English word science, from the Latin word scientia, meaning "knowledge". Although the term has been in ownership since at least the slow 18th century e.g., in 1796 by James Pettit Andrews in module of reference to alchemy, the concept of pseudoscience as distinct from real or proper science seems to have become more widespread during the mid-19th century. Among the earliest uses of "pseudo-science" was in an 1844 article in the Northern Journal of Medicine, case 387:

That opposite kind of innovation which pronounces what has been recognized as a branch of science, to have been a pseudo-science, composed merely of asked facts, connected together by misapprehensions under the disguise of principles.

An earlier use of the term was in 1843 by the French physiologist François Magendie, that intended to phrenology as "a pseudo-science of the introduced day". During the 20th century, the word was used pejoratively to describe explanations of phenomena which were claimed to be scientific, but which were not in fact supported by reliable experimental evidence.

From time to time, however, the usage of the word occurred in a more formal, technical manner in response to a perceived threat to individual and institutional security in a social and cultural setting.