A little while back I started taking a dunk into the New Age movement. Or as some would put it: Pseudoscience.
The only real significant observation from it I would say is very useful is the term “Pseudoskepticism.” I think it is very fair and legitamete. The concept that one denies scientiffic evidence on the grounds that the evidence isn’t thorough enough, though there are few guides on what specifically is thorough enough evidence.
I don’t want to write a whole lot right now- just wondering what other’s idea is of the solid line between evidence and speculation. I have read articles on how to make sure the article is using sound judgment but I still haven’t seen a lot with very limiting clauses on what is and is not sufficient evidence.
Wouldn’t this be where theory would be the pseudofilling with a lot of assumption to back it up? Some things revolved along in this area until the right tools were developed to back up the facts.
Evidence either supports or undermines a speculation. They’re different things. But I guess you were referring to the distinction between speculation and science, where there’s a grey area. It’s a “spectrum” shading from outright speculation to robust evidential science, then beyond into practical technology. The speculation hopefully traverses this spectrum over a period of a few years as it develops into a hypothesis and thence a theory.
There’s some patent pseudoscience out there. There are people who absolutely believe in it, despite the lack of evidence, so much so that they dismiss the evidence that says it’s wrong. But don’t think that this type of behaviour is limited to New Age flunkies. We see it in religion, politics, and elsewhere. Including theoretical physics. For example, there’s no evidence to support string theory, but there are people who absolutely believe in it, despite the lack of evidence, so much so that they dismiss the evidence that says it’s wrong. Like pair production and annihilation, electron diffraction, magnetic dipole moment, and the Einstein-de Haas effect. See Reality check at the LHC for a recent article. Note the line which says “Before theoretical physicists get a reputation for being disconnected from the realm of measurement”. The thing to remember is that when people believe in something, they think that theirs is the truth, and the other stuff is pseudoscience that can safely be dismissed. That’s how people are.
Pseudo-science is, for the most part, what the higher sciences are referred to so as to keep the uninitiated from harnessing the knowledge.
Look at every ancient civilization and their fanatical pursuit of astrology. It’s the locus for literally every ancient society, worldwide. Nowadays astrology is, in the public, taught as having no scientific value. If you nodded along, content that area of experience is off limits because some authority figure told you so then you probably don’t deserve/cannot handle the information anyways.
A cursory look at some of the more successful people alive today shows, almost unequivocally, anyone above the billionaire mark is fully robed in the occult. If you want to remain a simpleton, scurrying around on an internet philosophy board well into your middle age, then by all means, ignore pseudo-science. The rest of us will be pursuing relevancy; illumination.
As for the New Age as a community… most of that is bullshit.