Whence pseudoscience? An epidemiological approach

Authors

  • Stefaan Blancke Ghent University (Belgium).
  • Maarten Boudry Ghent University (Belgium).
  • Johan Braeckman Ghent University (Belgium).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.8.10007

Keywords:

pseudoscience, epidemiology of representations, human cognition, epistemic vigilance, science mimicry

Abstract

In this paper, we develop an epidemiological approach to account for the typical features and persistent popularity of pseudoscience. An epidemiology of pseudoscience aims at explaining why some beliefs become widely distributed whereas others do not and hence seeks to identify the factors that exert a causal effect on this distribution. We pinpoint and discuss several factors that promote the dissemination of pseudoscientific beliefs. In particular, we argue that such beliefs manage to spread widely because they are intuitively appealing, manage to hitchhike on the authority of science, and successfully immunize themselves from criticism.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Stefaan Blancke, Ghent University (Belgium).

Philosopher at Ghent University (Belgium). He currently studies the diffusion of (pseudo-)scientific beliefs in the history of science, science education, and the public understanding of science from a cognitive and epidemiological perspective. His other interests include the relation between science and religion, and the philosophy of cultural evolution. He is co-editor of the volume Creationism in Europe (Johns Hopkins UP, 2014) and of the forthcoming volume Perspectives on science and culture (Purdue UP, 2018).

Maarten Boudry, Ghent University (Belgium).

Postdoc researcher on philosophy of science at Ghent University (Belgium). In 2011, he wrote his dissertation on pseudoscience, Here be dragons: Exploring the hinterland of science . On the same topic, he co-edited  Philosophy of pseudoscience: Reconsidering the demarcation problem (The University of Chicago Press, 2013), with Massimo Pigliucci. His most recent book is Illusies voor gevorderden. Of waarom waarheid altijd beter is  (“Seeking untruth. The quest for beneficial illusions”, Polis, 2015). A new edited volume on the limits of science, entitled  Science unlimited? On the challenges of scientism (The University of Chicago Press), is scheduled to appear in the fall of 2017.

Johan Braeckman, Ghent University (Belgium).

He studied philosophy at Ghent University (Belgium), Human Ecology at the Free University of Brussels (Belgium) and Environmental History at the University of California, Santa Barbara (USA). His doctoral thesis addressed the influence of the theory of evolution on philosophy. He has published books on Darwin and evolutionary biology, cloning, the history of philosophy, bioethics, and critical thinking, and several articles in peer-reviewed journals. At Ghent University, he teaches courses on the history of philosophy, the history of biology, philosophical anthropology, and critical thinking. For five years, he also taught courses on bioethics and the philosophy of science at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands).

References

Ariely, D. (2009). Predictably irrational, revised and expanded edition: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. New York: Harper Collins.

Blancke, S., Boudry, M., & Pigliucci, M. (2017). Why do irrational beliefs mimic science? The cultural evolution of pseudoscience. Theoria, 83(1), 78–97. doi: 10.1111/theo.12109

Blancke, S., & De Smedt, J. (2013). Evolved to be irrational? Evolutionary and cognitive foundations of pseudosciences. In M. Pigliucci & M. Boudry (Eds.), The philosophy of pseudoscience(pp. 361–379). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Blancke, S., Van Breusegem, F., De Jaeger, G., Braeckman, J., & Van Montagu, M. (2015). Fatal attraction: The intuitive appeal of GMO opposition. Trends in Plant Science, 20(7), 414–418. doi: 10.1016/j.tplants.2015.03.011

Boudry, M., Blancke, S., & Pigliucci, M. (2015). What makes weird beliefs thrive? The epidemiology of pseudoscience. Philosophical Psychology, 28(8), 1177–1198. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2014.971946

Boudry, M., & Braeckman, J. (2011). Immunizing strategies and epistemic defense mechanisms. Philosophia, 39(1), 145–161. doi: 10.1007/s11406-010-9254-9

Boudry, M., & Braeckman, J. (2012). How convenient! The epistemic rationale of self-validating belief systems. Philosophical Psychology, 25(3), 341–364. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2011.579420

Boudry, M., & Hofhuis, S. (2017). Parasites of the mind. How cultural representations can subvert human interests. PhilSci Archive. Retrieved from http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/13207

Boyer, P. (2001). Religion explained. The evolutionary origins of religious thought. New York: Basic Books.

Boyer, P., & Barrett, H. C. (2005). Domain specificity and intuitive ontology. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The handbook of evolutionary psychology(pp. 96–118). Hoboken: Wiley.

Gelman, S. A. (2004). Psychological essentialism in children. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(9), 404–409. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2004.07.001

Hansson, S. O. (2009). Cutting the Gordian knot of demarcation. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 23(3), 237–243. doi: 10.1080/02698590903196007

Kelemen, D. (1999). Why are rocks pointy? Children’s preference for teleological explanations of the natural world. Developmental Psychology, 35(6), 1440–1452. doi: 10.1037//0012-1649.35.6.1440 

Lewens, T. (2015). Cultural evolution. Conceptual challenges. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mercier, H., & Sperber, D. (2011). Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34(2), 57–74. doi: 10.1017/s0140525x10000968

Mercier, H., & Sperber, D. (2017). The enigma of reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Morin, O. (2013). How portraits turned their eyes upon us: Visual preferences and demographic change in cultural evolution. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(3), 222–229. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2013.01.004

Spelke, E. S. (1990). Principles of object perception. Cognitive Science, 14(1), 29–56. doi: 10.1207/s15516709cog1401_3

Sperber, D. (1996). Explaining culture. A naturalistic approach. Oxford: Blackwell.

Sperber, D., Clement, F., Heintz, C., Mascaro, O., Mercier, H., Origgi, G., & Wilson, D. (2010). Epistemic vigilance. Mind & Language, 25(4), 359–393.

Downloads

Published

2018-06-05

How to Cite

Blancke, S., Boudry, M., & Braeckman, J. (2018). Whence pseudoscience? An epidemiological approach. Metode Science Studies Journal, (8), 133–139. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.8.10007
Metrics
Views/Downloads
  • Abstract
    3282
  • PDF
    1287

Issue

Making science: A multitude of perspectives (2018)

Section

The scam of pseudoscience

License

All the documents in the OJS platform are open access and property of their respective authors.

Authors publishing in the journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors keep the rights and guarantee Metode Science Studies Journal the right to be the first publication of the document, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of authorship and publication in the journal.
  2. Authors are allowed and encouraged to spread their work through electronic means using personal or institutional websites (institutional open archives, personal websites or professional and academic networks profiles) once the text has been published.

Metrics

Similar Articles

<< < 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.