archeologia: Pseudoscience

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be scientific but are inherently incompatible with the 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 developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited. It is not the same as junk science, which is spurious or fraudulent scientific work. The demarcation between science and pseudoscience has scientific, philosophical, and…

Evidence: 65 • authority: 90

Authority brings responsibility: feedback from experts promotes an overweighting of health-related pseudoscientific beliefs. The popularity and spread of health-related pseudoscientific practices is a worldwide problem. Despite being counteracted by competent agents of our societies, their prevalence and spread are still growing. Current research has focused on identifying which characteristics make us more likely to hold beliefs in favor of pseudoscience. However, how we hold these beliefs despite all the available information against them is a question that remains unanswered. We here aimed to assess if the development of health-related pseudoscience beliefs could be driven by a positive…

Evidence: 65 • authority: 90

Authority Brings Responsibility: Feedback from Experts Promotes an Overweighting of Health-Related Pseudoscientific Beliefs. The popularity and spread of health-related pseudoscientific practices is a worldwide problem. Despite being counteracted by competent agents of our societies, their prevalence and spread continue to grow. Current research has focused on identifying which characteristics make us more likely to hold pseudoscientific beliefs. However, how we hold these beliefs despite all the available information against them is a question that remains unanswered. Here, we aimed to assess if the development of health-related pseudoscientific beliefs could be driven by a positive bias i…

Evidence: 53 • authority: 90

Random Sequences, Experienced Coincidences, and Pseudoscientific Beliefs. ABSTRACT Previous studies have found a positive link between endorsement of paranormal beliefs and experiencing more “meaningful” coincidences (e.g., thinking of someone and then meeting them unexpectedly) and a stronger repetition avoidance bias. We tested if these effects also apply to pseudoscientific beliefs. Volunteers completed a pseudoscience endorsement scale, reported the frequency and explanations for experienced coincidences, and performed random sequence generation tasks. Higher pseudoscience endorsement was associated with more frequent meaningful coincidences and attributing them to non‐chance causes. Be…

Evidence: 53 • authority: 90

Causal illusion as a cognitive basis of pseudoscientific beliefs. Causal illusion has been proposed as a cognitive mediator of pseudoscientific beliefs. However, previous studies have only tested the association between this cognitive bias and a closely related but different type of unwarranted beliefs, those related to superstition and paranormal phenomena. Participants (n = 225) responded to a novel questionnaire of pseudoscientific beliefs designed for this study. They also completed a contingency learning task in which a possible cause, infusion intake, and a desired effect, headache remission, were actually non-contingent. Volunteers with higher scores on the questionnaire also present…

Evidence: 53 • authority: 72

A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from the norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, and irrationality. While cognitive biases may initially appear to be negative, some are adaptive. They may lead to more effective actions in a given context. Furthermore, allowing cognitive biases enables faster decisions which can be desirable when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as…