Pseudoscience....

[Mr Mystery]

Here I am, watching 'Ancient Aliens' on my telly box.

Good lord, the sheer amount of speculation presented as fact is quite staggering! Now don't get me wrong, it's very entertaining, but crikey o'lordy, you just cannot take it seriously!

For instance, its gone from asking general questions, such as 'is x a representation of an alien in a space suit' straight to 'do oceans hold hold more proof of alien visitors?'

As a Fortean type, I have a genuine 'willing sceptic' approach to these things. But man this is shonky beyond belief!

Opinion as fact, curious suppositions, such as stating there were no cities 5,000 years ago (Egypt anyone?) and so on, just to support their insistence its all aliens...

[Wolfshade]

URGH.

No one likes that crap.

[Ze_Shoggoth]

URGH.

No one likes that crap.

Is there proof ? There are 2 examples of possibilities ...and I'll list them 1. A tribe in Africa knew the location of the Dog Star something which could not be seen with the naked eye. The myth went that visitors came and told them they were from there.

The second is the bizzare "Aztec / South American pre Colombian lines / pictures we still have no clue how they were created . Some say it was aliens .

I read the Fortean Times and that ancient aliens guy is too odd for them!

Fatagn!

[Wolfshade]

The dog star, Sirius is one of the brightest stars at night with an apparent magnitude < 0. It can be observed in both northern and southern hemisphere...

[DarkLink]

Most of the field of nutrition is pseudoscience. In fact, pseudoscience isn't even quite the right word. It's more politoscience. There's literally no possible reason a rational individual who takes more than an offhanded glance at the nutrition label would ever consider grains of any sort, including whole wheat, to be even remotely health, or even worth of including in our diets, aside from how common it is. But grain makes money, and so we get commercials full of crap about how grains are healthy but meat is bad for you.

Also, 9/11 conspiracy theories are really dumb. This makes me sad for the quality of our public education sysetm: [URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_Change_(film_series)[/URL]

[scadugenga]

Pseudo-science can, however, make the basis for some awesome stories.

No, not Dan I'm-going-to-piss-off-Catholics-everywhere-and-make-a-mint Brown.

Two authors come to mind:

1) James Rollins. His Sigma Force series monkeys about with Pseudo-science and inserts it into a nice taut action-thriller novel, and

2) Jonathan Maberry. His Joe Ledger series kicks amazing arse. Patient Zero deals with a genetic-engineered "zombie" virus and is an addicting read. Plus, Maberry is a 3rd dan in Jiu Jitsu and really understands how to script a combat scene.

[DarkLink]

Well, that's kind of a staple of sci-fi. Even hard science fiction will often bend the rules, so long as the way those rules are bent is consistent and explored to their logical conclusion.

[scadugenga]

Well, that's kind of a staple of sci-fi. Even hard science fiction will often bend the rules, so long as the way those rules are bent is consistent and explored to their logical conclusion.

True--except that both series are set in current times--not sci-fi.

Well worth the read.

[Necron2.0]

Psychology ... lock, stock and barrel - it's a pseudoscience. However, I call behavioral studies distinct from the bulk of psychology because it actually studies things that are quantifiable and repeatable. For the bulk of psychology though, it's all just throwing crap at a wall and hoping something sticks.

In general, though, I find it interesting how prevailing opinions in science can shift radically with no additional input at all, based solely (it seems) on the political climate. Take the question of is there life in the universe outside of earth. Two decades ago that question would have been met with hopeful yet resounding skepticism. Today, it is practically assumed that there is life elsewhere. What evidence is there that caused this paradigm shift? Nothing. There was just as much proof twenty to thirty years ago for extra-terrestrial life as there is today. The only thing that has changed is the prejudice of the scientific community.

[eldargal]

Pseudoscience can be interesting and fodder for stories though I do find the ancient aliens/von Daniken Chariots of the Gods thing incredibly annoying because it downplays the skill an ingenuity of our species. Humans were no less intelligent than they were today, just less educated and with less knowledge of how the universe worked. An intelligent man or woman could still intuit a great and learn through trial and error and even before text oral traditions could transmit vast amounts of informations.

Some of my favourite pseudoscience articles which Ican no longer find was one claiming that archaeological evidence for centaurs had been found in caves on the Greek mainland or the Balkans and misinterpreted as fragmented horse burials and that the evolutionary trail of spiders ended at a single point and this species could be traced no farther back and they speculated it arrived on a comet or asteroid or something. Very amusing.

Psychology absolutely is [URL="http://theconversation.com/is-psychology-a-science-10126"]not a pseudoscience[/URL].