Science is hard, complicated, sometimes slow, but is a sure way to achieve greatness, _{I MEAN DID YOU SAW THE LAUNCH OF THE SPACE X ASTRONAUTS LAST WEEK?!?!?! IT WAS CRAZY!!!!} but like the light side and dark side of the force, science has an old enemy _no!! one that we must learn to recognize and fight _{no please, don't let it be that} ONE THAT THREATENS THE VERY FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE!!! _{mom, I'm scared T.T} IT IS PSEUDO-SCIENCE!!! _{EEEEK dies x.x}

Source: GIPHY

NOT DEAD, JUST KIDDING

Ok, not all pseudo-sciences are that bad, most of them are just harmless _{perhaps annoying} hobbies, but what are these Pseudo-Psciences _{the P is silent? what?} WIKIPEDIA IS YOUR TURN!!!

Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be both scientific and factual but are 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.

Wikipedia

Woah, I see we ran out of chill today Wikipal, _{sit down, go relax a bit, geez, that was hard even for me} but some truths can be found these words, _{I mean, Wikipedia is usually right, is just boring AF} these practices tend to be, yeah... bullshit... at least scientifically speaking, because they found themselves in odds with the scientific method _{really cool guide to doing shit right} and when confronted with actual evidence they crumble down like my feelings watching the crowning of Aragorn in The Return of the King

Source: GIPHY

And that's ok, it's ok to cry watching The Lord of the Rings and it's ok to have an inoffensive hobby like, let's say, assigning yourself personality traits _{don't do it on other unless they like it, please} based on the day of your birth or change the arrangement of your living room based on some old Chinese tradition, I too have that kind of hobbies, I love to watch Professional League of Legends tournament, but, yeah, I don't try to predict events or make personal choices based on the K/D/A of some Asian nerd who knows how to click really fast _{OWN YOUR DECISIONS KAREN!!!}

Source: GIPHY

And this is where things get wrong, there are a lot of people out there that don't do this for fun or as a conversation starter, they do it to scam people and take their hard-earned money, and they're everywhere, just turn on the T.V. and you will be bombarded with, mediums that claim to talk to the dead, _{assholes, making a deal out of people's grief} fortune tellers that guarantee to know how to better live your life _{assholes, making a deal with people's insecurities} and even Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop selling lifestyle choices and
quantum healing that allegedly can even cure cancer, _{Ms. Stark, you're a huge piece of shit!}

Why everywhere?

Well, let's have this clear, these people are conmen _{con man? conman? consmens? hey, google what's plural for con man?... Oh I was right it was conmen, all right, moving on!} and know really well how to exploit a critical subject, the generally poor understanding of how sciences work, with this they not only can fool most people just talking crap but they can sound like legitimate _{or so they say} scientist to the point of quoting true scientific research and trying to validate their claims with that _{I'm looking at you anti-vaxxers, you know those researches are, to say the least, incompetent}

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One of the main arguments anti-vaxxers flaunt is that vaccines are poisoning everyone with dangerous chemicals like mercury and I have to sigh so hard that can be heard in the whole block, _{it's a really violent sigh} first of all everything is made out of chemicals, most people understand chemicals like some weird science substance but no, chemicals are everywhere,_{you're made of chemicals} even the very air we breath contains Oxygen, Nitrogen, Argon, Carbon, etc, and yes Mercury can be dangerous, but when it is used in vaccines it is combined with other substances that neutralize those dangerous properties, is like combining your angry and hungry toxic girlfriend with a pizza, the pizza will immediately get rid of the toxic properties and you'll get back the lovely piece of heaven you fall in love with _{oh but of course, believing Karen from Moms Against Vaccines in Facebook is more legit}

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People that use pseudo-science love to use this kind of tricks to achieve their goal _{mostly the money in your wallet} because they know the basic science you learn at high school is not enough to explain everything correctly and at the same time is full of loopholes, _{in the end, you cannot learn a thing you think you know} and this is where pseudo-science stops being just a hobby to pass time with the guys to become a real threat, no only for the scientific community but to society as a whole, information is a powerful tool, but misinformation can affect the reality of every person if we allow it _{you make your decisions based on information too Karen, even if it's butched and stupid}

Science vs Pseudo-science

Yeah baby, Science comes _{as usual}to the rescue like the Riders of Rohan in The Return of the King _{have a problem with my love for Tolkien? FIGHT ME!} remember Karl Popper? The Falsifiability guy? Well, this guy had a real beef with pseudo-sciences _{no shit, right?} and he wanted to know why research like the one Einstein did felt more grounded than others, he came to the conclusion that a fundamental part of real science was the ability to predict accurately meanwhile pseudo-sciences were just explicative in nature

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He observed that scientists and researchers of the good old sciences often look to predict events based on observations, often those predictions could not be verifiable with current techniques or technology, but when the opportunity showed the predictions where on point, Einstein's case is the perfect example, he predicted the existence of gravitational waves 100 years prior to their discovery using his theory of general relativity which was based on Newton's work on celestial mechanics which predicted how the planets moved around the sun _{I mean come ooooooooooooon how is this not cool, these guys predicted shit in space, clairvoyants can't predict a slap in the face}

Source: GIPHY

In the other hand, we have pseudo-sciences which generally make observations and from those observations make conclusions, that may sound really logical and scientific but when you do this you are open to compromise your findings, fell for biases or just say and do whatever may be more convenient _{for real, scammers are on just for this, they have the sweetest of words} but at the very moment they attempt to make a prediction they fall royally to their asses, most of their predictions are under 50% _{let me tell you that you can get more than 50% of accuracy just by guessing}

Another aspect pseudo-science avoid to... well avoid is the fetishization of the crucial experiment, like most clickbaity Youtubers they love to OWN and BUST and ANNIHILATE their rivals with their truth, _{cringe with me, my brothers!} without really understanding that science doesn't work like that, science is the collective construction of knowledge, Einstein couldn't get his theories right without Newton's work, modern medicine wouldn't be the same without Pasteur or Flemming, the slow but sure advancement of science is something to be protected from pseudo-science and culty behavior, _{this is another beast to be slain in another time, don't worry} behavior that allowed things like almost extinct diseases to come back even stronger, so please trust your scientific communities, ask questions, or even better, learn how to be a scientist and search for the truth with slow but rewarding steps! _{you won't regret it, for real!}

Source: GIPHY

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THANKS FOR READING!

Pseudo-Science, Antivaxers and colective knowledge (for dummies!)

NOT DEAD, JUST KIDDING

Why everywhere?

Science vs Pseudo-science

Other Sources