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pseudoscience

The closed circle: Why being wrong is so useful

2016-06-15T22:55:21+01:00October 30th, 2015|psychology|

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. Fyodor Dostoevsky A closed circle argument is one where there is no possibility of convincing an opponent that they might be wrong. They are right because they're right. Imagine you wake to find yourself in a psychiatric ward, deemed by all and sundry to be mad. Any attempt to argue that you are not, in point of fact, mad, is evidence that you are 'in denial'. Any evidence you cite in support of your sanity is dismissed as an elaborate attempt to buttress your denial. There is no way out of [...]

Is growth mindset pseudoscience?

2017-01-06T19:41:55+00:00October 24th, 2015|research|

Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. Carl Sagan What's the difference between science and pseudoscience? The basis of all reputable science is prediction and falsification: a claim has to be made which we can then attempt to disprove. If we can't disprove it, the claim holds and we accept the theory as science. If the claim doesn't hold, we've learned something, we move one, we make progress. That's science. Pseudoscience doesn't work like that. It makes claims, sure, but they're so [...]

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