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The Junk Science site is scary, because it's so close to the truth. You really shouldn't take "may" or "possibly" as a statement of fact, and it's true that sta
by devinj 16y ago
The Junk Science site is scary, because it's so close to the truth. You really shouldn't take "may" or "possibly" as a statement of fact, and it's true that statistics can be used to manipulate facts and present false ideas. And yet much of the site is about denying ("debunking") real science, not pseudoscience.
- foldr 16y agoI think this underlines the fact that distinguishing "real" science from psuedoscience is a matter of professional judgment. It's not enough just to be a reasonable person who knows modus ponens and some statistics. To distinguish good physics from bad physics, you need extensive training as a physicist (and likewise for any other science). This is unfortunate, because it means that independent scrutiny of science is extremely difficult. Virtually no-one outside a particular scientific community is competent to evaluate the quality of the work within that community. An argument that seems obviously flawed to an outsider can seem compelling to someone who has the relevant background knowledge. It would be nice if there were some kind of solution to this problem, but I doubt that there is.