Define Pseudoscience simply and in your own words. In your explanation, contrast pseudoscience with science. Pseudoscience can be defined as explanations based on beliefs or personal understandings that provide no consistent testing results or observations. The word pseudo actually means ‘fake’ (Quackwatch.com, 2015). Those that practice or believe in pseudoscience have no real proof their beliefs or understandings are fact. Pseudoscience is practiced by most people that can speak with authority. They may sometimes sound like a salesperson. One of the best ways to contrast pseudoscience with science is “pseudo-science seeks confirmation and science seeks falsifications…Sciences are testable and pseudo-sciences are not” (Stemwedel, 2015). …show more content…
Explain why you classify your examples as pseudoscience. Two examples of pseudoscience would be fortune telling and full moon lunacy. Fortune telling is the act of predicting the future or facts around a person’s life. Fortune telling is categorized as pseudoscience because it cannot be proven untrue. Another reason would be only certain people proclaim to tell someone’s fortunes and more often than not the same fortunes are not given to the same person. The other example is full moon lunacy. Full moon lunacy is the belief that the shape, size and location of the moon control certain behaviors in people or animals (Rationalwiki.org, 2015). This is considered pseudoscience because it cannot be proven true or false. There is no consistency in any of the findings. There are other possible reasons for the abnormal behavior in those that seem to be affected by the full moon.
Explain the implications of the examples of pseudoscience you have given. Is it really a problem for people to believe in those phenomena? Why or Why