Pseudoscience
An area of study or speculation
that masquerades as science in an attempt to claim a legitimacy that it would
not otherwise be able to achieve is sometimes referred to as pseudoscience,
fringe science, or "alternative science". Another term, junk science,
is often used to describe scientific hypotheses or conclusions which, while
perhaps legitimate in themselves, are believed to be used to support a position
that is seen as not legitimately justified by the totality of evidence. Physicist Richard Feynman coined the term
"cargo cult science" in reference to pursuits that have the formal
trappings of science but lack "a principle of scientific thought that
corresponds to a kind of utter honesty" that allows their results to be
rigorously evaluated.
Ideological bias.
There also can be an element of political or ideological
bias on all sides of such debates. Sometimes, research may be characterized as
"bad science", research that
is well-intentioned but is seen as incorrect, obsolete, incomplete, or
over-simplified expositions of scientific ideas. The term "scientific
misconduct" refers to situations such as where researchers have
intentionally misrepresented their published data or have purposely given
credit for a discovery to the wrong person.
Confirmation
bias is a tendency of people to favor
information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. People display this
bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they
interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged
issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. They
also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing
position.
Wishful thinking.
Christopher Booker described wishful thinking in terms of
“the fantasy cycle” ... a pattern that recurs in personal lives, in
politics, in history – and in storytelling. When we embark on a course of
action which is unconsciously driven by wishful thinking, all may seem to go
well for a time, in what may be called the “dream stage”. But because this
make-believe can never be reconciled with reality, it leads to a “frustration
stage” as things start to go wrong, prompting a more determined effort to keep
the fantasy in being. As reality presses in, it leads to a “nightmare stage” as
everything goes wrong, culminating in an “explosion into reality”, when the
fantasy finally falls apart.
