Critical thinking
Article: Scott O. Lilienfeld (2005)
The 10 commandments of helping students distinguish science from pseudoscience in psychology

The ten commandments of helping students distinguish science from pseudoscience in psychology

The first commandment

It is important to communicate to students that the differences between between science and pseudoscience, although not absolute or clear-cut, are neither arbitrary or subjective.

Warning signs that characterize most pseudoscientific disciplines:

• A tendency to invoke ad hoc hypotheses, which can be thought of as ‘escape hatches’ or loopholes, as a means of immunizing claims from falsification.
• An absence of self-correction and an accompanying intellectual stagnation
• An emphasis on confirmation rather than refutation
• A tendency to place the burden of proof on sceptics, not proponents, of claims
• Excessive reliance on anecdotal and testimonial evidence to substantiate claims
• Evasion of the scrutiny afforded by peer review
• Absence of ‘connectivity’, a failure to build on existing scientific knowledge
• Use of impressive-sounding jargon whose primary purpose is to lend claims of facade of scientific respectability
• An absence of boundary conditions. A failure to specify the settings under which claims do not hold.

Non of these warnings signs is by itself sufficient to indicate that a discipline is pseudoscientific.
But, the more of these warning signs a discipline exhibits, the more suspect it should become.

The second commandment

Learning to distinguish scepticism from cynicism.
One danger of teaching students to distinguish science from pseudoscience is that we can inadvertently produce students who are reflexively dismissive of any claim that appears implausible.

Scepticism, which is the proper mental set of the scientist, implies two seemingly contradictory attitudes:

• An openness to claims
• A willingness to subject these claims to incisive scrutiny.

Cynicism implies close-mindedness.

The third commandment

Distinguish methodological scepticism from philosophical scepticism.

• Methodological (scientific) scepticism: an approach that subjects all knowledge claims to scrutiny with the goal of sorting out true from false claims
• Philosophical scepticism: an approach that denies the possibility of knowledge.

There is a continuum of confidence in scientific claims.

The fourth commandment

Distinguish pseudoscientific claims from claims that are merely false.
The key difference between science and pseudoscience lies not in their content but in their approach to evidence.

• Science seeks out contradictory information and eventually incorporates such information into its corpus of knowledge
• Pseudoscience tends to avoid contradictory information and thereby fails to foster the self-correction that is essential to scientific progress.

The fifth commandment

Distinguish science from scientists.

The scientific method is a toolbox of skills that scientists have developed to prevent themselves from confirming their own biases.

The sixth commandment

Explain the cognitive underpinnings of pseudoscientific beliefs.

We are all prone to cognitive illusions.
The heuristics that can produce false beliefs are basically adaptive and help us make sense of a complex and confusing world.
Most pseudoscientific beliefs are cut from the same cloth as accurate beliefs.

By underscoring these points, instructors can minimize the odds that students who embrace pseudoscientific beliefs will feel foolish when confronted with evidence that contradicts their beliefs.

The seventh commandment

Pseudoscientific beliefs serve important motivational functions.

In presenting students with scientific evidence that challenges their paranormal beliefs, we should not be surprises when many of them become defensive.
In turn, defensiveness can engender and unwillingness to consider contrary evidence.

One of the best means of lessening this defensiveness is to gently challenge students’ beliefs with sympathy and compassion, and with the understanding that students who are emotionally committed to paranormal beliefs will find these beliefs difficult to question, let alone relinquish.
Ridiculing the beliefs can produce reactance and reinforce students’ stereotypes of science teachers as close-minded and dismissive.

The eight commandment

Expose students to examples of good science as well as examples of pseudoscience.
We must not merely take away students’ questionable knowledge, but give them legitimate knowledge in return.

The ninth commandment

Be consistent in one’s intellectual standard.

The tenth commandment

Distinguish pseudoscientific claims form purely metaphysical religious claims.
Unlike pseudoscientific claims, metaphysical claims cannot be tested empirically and therefore lie outside the boundaries of science.