"Their pseudoscience is promoted as science by think tanks and sections of the media, with serious consequences."
"Why do a minority of scientists produce pseudoscience? Clearly some pseudoscience is strongly associated with ideological beliefs, and motivated reasoning can overwhelm data, logic and years of training. Perhaps some scientists get complacent, expecting their hunches to always be correct.
But perhaps there’s another reason that’s closer to home. Is part of the problem how we educate prospective scientists?
Hypothesis
Pseudoscience mimics aspects of science while fundamentally denying the scientific method. A useful definition of the scientific method is:
principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.
A key phrase is “testing of hypotheses”. We test hypotheses because they can be wrong.
Hypothesis testing is the first victim of pseudoscience. The conclusions are already known, and the data and analyses are (consciously or unconsciously) chosen to reach the desired conclusion.
Unfortunately, high school and undergraduate science students may have limited exposure to hypothesis testing. A student laboratory exercise may repeat an experiment from decades ago, which has been simplified for teaching, and whose conclusions are well known.
Such an exercise teaches technical skills at the expense of hypothesis testing. Should we expect students to “get” hypothesis testing without real experience? No, and without real experience of hypothesis testing we may undermine years of education."
http://theconversation.com/scientists-can-learn-from-pseudoscience-thats-a-fact-17376
