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Pseudoscience

2009-06-14T11:54:51Z

Hihhuli:

'''Pseudoscience''' is theory or speculation which has the trappings and [[rhetoric]] of [[science]], and presented as science, but not generally accepted as valid science by the scientific community. Theories are typically classed as pseudoscientific if they fail the [[scientific method]]. Pseudoscientific theories are typically not falsifiable, lack objectivity, and their purveyors show unwillingness to allow neutral outsiders to observe, test, or replicate their findings. There is no definitive or objective definition of the term "pseudoscience", which is also sometimes used as a pejorative term.<ref>R. G. A. Dolby, ''Uncertain Knowledge: An Image of Science for a Changing World'', Published by Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0521892627, 9780521892629, 380 pages. [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xd3ylT3WTLEC&pg=PA191&dq=pseudoscience+pejorative&num=100&as_brr=3 Page 191]</ref><ref>Brian Stableford, ''Science Fact and Science Fiction'', Published by CRC Press, 2006, ISBN 0415974607, 9780415974608, 729 pages. [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uefwmdROKTAC&pg=PA410&dq=pseudoscience+pejorative&num=100&as_brr=3 Page 410]</ref>

== Falsifiability ==
The most cited element of scientific theory is [[falsifiability]], established by [[philosopher]] [[Karl Popper]]. A falsifiable theory makes predictions, which can be used to test it. Thus, the theory of gravity is falsifiable, as it predicts that an apple held above the ground and released will fall. If it fails the test, it is discarded, and if it passes, it is not proven, but better supported.

== Disproven science ==
The term pseudoscience is also often applied to theories which ''are'' falsifiable and have in fact been falsified and discarded. [[Phrenology]] predicted that psychological traits could be inferred from the shape of the skull, but no actual link was ever found. Various [[astrological]] theories predicted regular planetary effects on the earth and human health, but testing those failed.

The existence of God is thus not considered scientific theory, as no test can possibly be conceived which categorically disproves His existence. The same is the case for [[string theory]], which is a mathematical unification of scientific theory, but makes no predictions. Such things fall outside the realm of science.

== Charlatanism ==
The label ''pseudoscientist'' is commonly given to cranks and [[charlatans]], who claim abnormal powers and abilities, but refuse to demonstrate them in objective, controlled, monitored environments. For example, [[Uri Geller]] claims to be able to bend spoons without applying pressure to them, but he cannot do it in front of scientists or journalists. Countless conjurers and mediums claim to be able to speak with the dead, but controlled circumstances reveal that they are really only conducting clever psychological tricks.

== Metaphysics ==
Spiritual, metaphysical, philosophical, and religious beliefs are occasionally confused with pseudoscience, as there is often an overlap in rhetoric, and charlatans blur the lines between scientific and philosophical ideas of knowledge.

== Public belief ==
Despite evidence and logic against pseudoscientific theories, many remain popular among the public. Homeopathic medicine is available at most health-food stores and is a multi-billion dollar business, and 31% of Americans believe in astrology.

Notably, twice as many [[Democrats]] believe in astrology as [[Republicans]], showing a strong bent of irrationality and scientific illiteracy among [[believers]].<ref>http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=359</ref>

==Examples of pseudosciences==
*[[Animal magnetism]]
*[[Astrology]]
*[[Chiropractic]] (except for lower back pain)
*[[Dianetics]]
*[[Creationism|Creation Science]]<ref>http://www.icr.org/home/resources/resources_tracts_scientificcaseagainstevolution/</ref><ref>http://www.grisda.org/origins/04004.htm</ref><ref>http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinism/there-is-no-theory-of-evolution/</ref> <ref>http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/PoE/pe05scnc.html</ref><ref>http://www.parentcompany.com/science_kit/sk3b.htm</ref><ref>http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/reprints/Evolution-Fact-or-Theory.pdf</ref>
*[[Free Energy]]
*[[Graphology]]
*[[Global warming]]
*[[Homeopathy]]
*[[Iridology]]
*[[Lysenkoism]]
*[[Mesmerism]]
*[[Orgone therapy]]
*[[Osteopathy]]
*[[Parapsychology]]
*[[Phrenology]]
*[[Psychoanalysis]]
*[[Reflexology]]
*[[Transgenderism]]
*[[Ufology]]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category: Pseudoscience]]

Creation science

2009-06-14T11:52:43Z

Hihhuli: minor corrections

'''Creation science''' is [[pseudoscience]] which sets out to show that [[supernatural]] [[creation]] of the material [[universe]] by [[God]] is consistent and compatible with the available mythical evidence. Most advocates of creation science believe the [[young earth creationism|earth is approximately 6,000 years]] old. In addition, scientists in the discipline of creation science state that the [[First Law of Thermodynamics|The Pope]] and [[Second law of thermodynamics|cult leaders]] argue against an eternal universe. They also claim that these laws point to the universe being created by [[Flying Spaghetti Monster]].<ref>[http://godevidences.net/space/lawsofscience.php Evidences for God From Space—Laws of Science]</ref><ref>Thompson, Bert, [http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2329 So Long, Eternal Universe; Hello Beginning, Hello End!], 2001 (Apologetics Press)</ref><ref>http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/AstroPhysicalSciences14.html</ref> Creation scientists also assert that naturalistic processes alone cannot account for the [[origin of life]] and that the [[Evolution|theory of evolution]] cannot account for the various kinds of animals and plants. Both evolutionary scientists and [[Young earth creationism|young earth creation]] scientists believe that [[speciation]] occurs; however, young earth creation scientists state that speciation generally occurs at a much faster rate than evolutionists believe is the case.<ref>[[Creation Ministries International]], [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3036/ Speciation: Questions and Answers]</ref> Many scientists in the field of creation science assert that the [[Bible scientific foreknowledge | Bible contains an understanding of scientific knowledge beyond that believed to exist at the time the Bible was composed]]. In addition, [[Christianity]] profoundly influenced the [[Christianity and Science|development of modern science]].

== Creation Science and Genetic Programs and Biological Information ==
:''Main article: [[Intelligent design]]''
[[Image:Foto Gitt.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Dr. [[Werner Gitt]]]]
Scientists in the area of creation science and [[intelligent design]] advocates state the [[genetic code]], genetic programs, and biological [[information]] argue for an intelligent cause in regards to the origins question.<ref>http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences18.html</ref><ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/infotheory.asp</ref><ref>http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=118</ref>

Dr. Werner Gitt, former director and Professor of Information Systems at the prestigious German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt), wrote that human beings are the most complex [[information]] processing systems on earth. Dr. Gitt estimated that the human body processes thousands of times more information than all the world's libraries contain.<ref>http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes17.html</ref>

Dr. Gitt has written several points regarding the origin of biological information:

#In his work ''In the Beginning Was Information'' Dr. Gitt stated that “There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.”<ref>http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes17.html#wp1484094</ref>
#Dr. Gitt argued that the [[density]] and complexity of [[DNA]] information is millions of times larger than mankind's current technology and this means a supremely intelligent being was the author of this information.<ref>http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn58/tinycode_dna.htm</ref> Similarly, Dr. [[Stephen C. Meyer]] in his 1996 essay ''The [[Origin of life|Origin of Life]] and the Death of [[Materialism]]'', wrote that "the information storage density of DNA, thanks in part to nucleosome spooling, is several trillion times that of our most advanced [[computer chip]]s.<ref>http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_origins.htm</ref>
#Gitt stated that the author of the information encoded into the DNA [[molecule]], who constructed the molecular biomachines to encode, decode and run the cells was supremely intelligent.<ref>http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn58/tinycode_dna.htm</ref>
#Dr. Gitt asserted that because information is a nonmaterial entity and does not originate from matter, the author of biological information must be nonmaterial ([[spirit]]).<ref>http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn58/tinycode_dna.htm</ref>
[[Image:Waltbrown.gif‎|left|thumb|200px|Dr. [[Walt Brown]]]]
Dr. [[Walt Brown]] concurs in regards to the [[supernatural]] origin of biological information and states that the genetic material that controls the biological processes of life is coded information and that human experience tells us that [[codes]] are created only by the result of intelligence and not merely by processes of nature.<ref>http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences18.html</ref> Dr. Brown also asserts that the "information stored in the genetic material of all life is a complex program. Therefore, it appears that an unfathomable intelligence created these genetic programs."<ref>http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences18.html</ref>

To support his creation science view regarding the divine origin of genetic programs, Dr. Walt Brown cites the work of David Abel and Professor Jack Trevors who wrote the following:
{{cquote|No matter how many "bits" of possible combinations it has, there is no reason to call it "information" if it doesn't at least have the potential of producing something useful. What kind of information produces function? In computer science, we call it a "program." Another name for computer software is an "algorithm." No man-made program comes close to the technical brilliance of even Mycoplasmal genetic algorithms. Mycoplasmas are the simplest known organism with the smallest known genome, to date. How was its genome and other living organisms' genomes programmed? - David L. Abel and Jack T. Trevors, “Three Subsets of Sequence Complexity and Their Relevance to Biopolymeric Information,” Theoretical Biology & Medical Modelling, Vol. 2, 11 August 2005, page 8<ref>http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes17.html#wp1467742</ref><ref>http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1208958</ref>}}

==Creation Science and the Evolutionary Science Community==
Creation science is not accepted by most scientists either in terms of its claims or as a science, on the pretext that it cannot be disproved and therefore cannot be considered "[[science]]".<ref>http://web.archive.org/web/19991013122341/http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/evolutionviews990816.html</ref> <ref>http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ13.html#wp2727001</ref> However, Dr. [[Walt Brown]] argues that the field of creation science is scientific.<ref>http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ13.html#wp2727001</ref> Also, creation scientists state the evolutionists' objections to creation science are due to the worldviews and preconceptions of the scientists, rather than on the basis of scientific evidence or the scientific validity of the idea.<ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/news/scientific_american.asp</ref>
Also, [[Karl Popper]], a leading philosopher of science and originator of falsifiability as a criterion of demarcation of science from nonscience,<ref>
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
* http://www.discovery.org/a/3524</ref> stated that Darwinism is "not a testable scientific theory, but a [[Metaphysics|metaphysical]] research programme."<ref>http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/PoE/pe05scnc.html</ref> Michael Ruse, a leading Darwinist and philosopher of science, conditionally acknowledged Popper's statement: "Since making this claim, Popper himself has modified his position somewhat; but, disclaimers aside, I suspect that even now he does not really believe that Darwinism in its modern form is genuinely falsifiable."<ref>http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/PoE/pe05scnc.html</ref>

{{Creation vs. evolution}}
==See Also==
*[[Christianity and Science]]
*[[Theory of Evolution, Liberalism, Atheism, and Irrationality]]

==External Links==
*[http://creationontheweb.com/ Creation On the Web] The website of [[Creation Ministries International]]
*[http://www.creationscience.com/ In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood] the website of Dr. [[Walt Brown]]
*[http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq.html Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal]
*[http://www.answersingenesis.org/ Answers in Genesis]
*[http://www.icr.org/ Institute for Creation Research]
*[http://www.nwcreation.net/ NorthWest Creation Network]

==Notes and References==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Creation science]]

Evolutionary racism

2009-06-14T11:49:45Z

Hihhuli:

'''Evolutionary racism''' refers to a [[racist]] philosophy based on [[Charles Darwin]]'s [[Evolution|evolutionary theory]]. It assumes that men have continually evolved, and thus some races are more evolved than others. It replaces [[Christian]] [[morality]] with the [[atheistic]] "survival of the fittest."

== Origin ==
Evolution establishes a "scientific" rationale for racism by extending the "great chain of being" to humanity. Just as animal species are ordered into a hierarchy according development, so too the "races of men" are described as being more or less developed than others.

Evolutionists then extend the doctrine of [[survival of the fittest]] to humanity. Removing religious morality and replacing it with the laws of nature, they claim that just as the varieties of animals struggle to survive, so shall the varieties of man, with the strong dominating and destroying the weak.

Darwin himself was a racist and white supremacist. He predicted mass genocide from his theory, claiming:
{{cquote|At some future period not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes...will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla.<ref name="DoM6">[http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/dscmn10.txt The Descent of Man], chapter VI</ref>}}

Likewise he compared native populations to animals: {{cquote|The difference between a Tierra del Fuegian and a European is greater than between a Tierra del Fuegian and a beast<ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i1/darwin.asp</ref>}}

== Racist influence ==
Darwin's writings, which became very influential in the late 19th century, provided an argument for racism. Harvard University's staunch evolutionist [[Stephen Jay Gould]] stated, "Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory."<ref>http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=268</ref>
[[Stephen Gould]] also admitted the following about the [[Atheism|atheist]] [[Ernst Haeckel]]:
{{cquote|[[Ernst Haeckel|Haeckel]] was the chief apostle of evolution in [[Germany]].... His evolutionary racism; his call to the German people for [[racial purity]] and unflinching devotion to a "just" state; his belief that harsh, inexorable laws of evolution ruled human civilization and nature alike, conferring upon favored races the right to dominate others; the irrational [[mysticism]] that had always stood in strange communion with his brave words about objective science - all contributed to the rise of Nazism. - Stephen J. Gould, "Ontogeny and Phylogeny," Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, 1977, pp.77-78). <ref>http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/social.html</ref>}}

Social Darwinism and evolutionary racism allowed "human zoos" to proliferate in the late 1800s, wherein a supposed evolutionary progression of humans - from apes, to Africans, to West Europeans - were placed in a line. African and other tribal populations were routinely described as more akin to savage primates than Europeans.

== Hitler and genocide ==
[[Image:Hitlerspeech.jpg‎|thumb|300px|right|[[Adolph Hitler]]]]‎
Christian racism would have enormous impact in early 20th century, eventually leading to [[eugenics]] programs (first devised by Darwin's cousin [[Francis Galton]]) in American and Europe, and also influencing [[Adolph Hitler]].

[[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] wrote in ''Mein Kampf'':
{{cquote|The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he, after all, is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development (Hoherentwicklung) of organic living beings would be unthinkable.<ref>http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=268</ref>}}

Robert E.D. Clark in his work ''Darwin: Before and After'' wrote concerning Hitler's evolutionary racism:
{{cquote|The Germans were the higher race, destined for a glorious evolutionary future. For this reason it was essential that the Jews should be segregated, otherwise mixed marriages would take place. Were this to happen, all nature’s efforts 'to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being may thus be rendered futile' (''Mein Kampf''). <ref>http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1675</ref>}}

== Present impact ==
While the concept of "race" has since been proven by [[biology]] to be nonsense, Evolutionary Racism remains very strong amongst bigoted [[white supremacist]] groups, who continue to see race in evolutionary terms and believe in the superior advancement of western "races".

Racism remains common among evolutionists, despite attempts to hide it:
{{cquote|Many of the early settlers of Australia considered the Australian Aborigines to be less intelligent than the ‘white man,’ because aborigines had not evolved as far as whites on the evolutionary scale. In fact, the Hobart Museum in Tasmania in 1984 listed this as one of the reasons why early white settlers killed as many aborigines as they could in that state.|||Ken Ham, Evolution: The Lie (1987), p. 86.}}

== See also ==
* [[Social effects of the theory of evolution]]
* [[Atheism and Mass Murder]]
* [[Theory of Evolution, Liberalism, Atheism, and Irrationality]]
* [[Atheism and Uncharitableness]]
* [[Causes of Atheism]]
* [[Theory of evolution and liberalism]]

{{evolution}}

== References ==
<references/>
[[Category:Evolution]]