13 January 2009

Science and Pseudoscience

I just came across the page on Science and Pseudoscience by Jason Rosenhouse. In it, he states:

Many professionals respond to pseudoscience by ignoring it. This is a mistake, if for no other reason than the fact that funding decisions are made by politicians, who must be sensitive to their constituents, many of whom take pseudoscientific ideas very seriously indeed. It is not a good thing that a phony psychic passing off simple parlor tricks as communication with the dead has one of the highest rated shows on television. Nor is it good that many learn what they know of modern science from right-wing showmen like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity (who once shamelessly described Darwinism as "liberal science".) Ultimately, the only way to defeat such nonsense is to confront it vigorously.


I couldn't agree more. It is, indeed, a mistake to ignore these pseudo-scientists. Thank you, Jason, for putting it so eloquently.

On the same page, one can find a collection of reviews and essays by Jason. They look well-written and plan to read them in detail.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the kind words about my writing. Now I feel bad for not having updated that page in a while. Good luck with the blog.

    ReplyDelete




T H E B O T T O M L I N E

What measure theory is about

It's about counting, but when things get too large.
Put otherwise, it's about addition of positive numbers, but when these numbers are far too many.

The principle of dynamic programming

max_{x,y} [f(x) + g(x,y)] = max_x [f(x) + max_y g(x,y)]

The bottom line

Nuestras horas son minutos cuando esperamos saber y siglos cuando sabemos lo que se puede aprender.
(Our hours are minutes when we wait to learn and centuries when we know what is to be learnt.) --António Machado

Αγεωμέτρητος μηδείς εισίτω.
(Those who do not know geometry may not enter.) --Plato

Sapere Aude! Habe Muth, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!
(Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!) --Kant