Is It a Simple Matter to Distinguish a Scientific Argument from a Pseudo-Scientific Argument?
Is it a simple matter to distinguish a scientific argument from a pseudo-scientific argument?
In our everyday life, we encounter many situations where we are presented with different types of arguments and claims which we may not know to be true or not, and especially the ones that we are bombarded with daily through the media. Through the use of poor claims and arguments, it has been seen as a hard job for philosophers and scientists to separate science from pseudo-science. Since not always is the evidence and resources behind these arguments reliable, trustable, or valid, to what extent can we trust our ways of knowing to distinguish a scientific argument from a pseudo-science one.
We can say that it is near the impossible to have a criteria or laws that will always work in order to distinguish if a claim from science and pseudo science. It is because of this that we should always need to carefully look at all of the evidence behind a claim or hypothesis that claims to be scientific. There are so many different pseudo-sciences now a days which say to be scientific but in reality they are just pure arguments with nothing more that poor claims. Various of the pseudo-sciences today expose claims that are either vague, too exaggerated, too broad, and even unreal. These kinds of ambiguous statements can be seen in a type of pseudoscience called Cryptozoology. Cryptozoology is the continuous search and study of hidden animals whose existence is still in doubt. This study claims that a variety of unknown creatures such as Bigfoot, the Yeti, the giant squid, and many others have lived in earth for many years but that most of them may be extinct.
Apart from the contradictory and imprecise arguments by Cryptozoologists, reasoning and perception can help us define this pseudoscience from a real science by analyzing the evidence that supports the pseudoscience. By using reasoning we look at every detail of the presented evidence and look for broad and unclear statements which we can prove to be unuseful since there is no way to prove them right or wrong. We may also use reason to look for counter-evidence, and in the case of Cryptozoology, there has been claims supporting the pseudoscience that state that various witnesses have seen such creatures, fossils of these creatures have been found, and that footmarks of such animals like Bigfoot have been seen ana analyzed. Not only is there no proof that rigorous studies have been performed to proof the existence of this species, but the fossils found may just be from any dead animal or a dinosaur fossil, and the foot mark may as well just be someone who decided to draw big foots on the ground. Reason can help us proof that Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and not a real science because its claims have not been supported by the scientific method and the conclusions of this pseudoscience show to be contradictory. For example, this type of pseudoscience