Quotessence
Home / Topics / Pseudoscience Quotes

Pseudoscience Quotes

Browse 135 quotes about Pseudoscience.

Related topics

Ifs

Pseudoscience Quotes

“Treating Abuse Today (Tat), 3(4), pp. 26-33 Freyd: You were also looking for some operational criteria for false memory syndrome: what a clinician could look for or test for, and so on. I spoke with several of our scientific advisory board members and I have some information for you that isn't really in writing at this point but I think it's a direction you want us to go in. So if I can read some of these notes . . . TAT: Please do. Freyd: One would look for false memory syndrome: 1. If a patient reports having been sexually abused by a parent, relative or someone in very early childhood, but then claims that she or he had complete amnesia about it for a decade or more; 2. If the patient attributes his or her current reason for being in therapy to delayed-memories. And this is where one would want to look for evidence suggesting that the abuse did not occur as demonstrated by a list of things, including firm, confident denials by the alleged perpetrators; 3. If there is denial by the entire family; 4. In the absence of evidence of familial disturbances or psychiatric illnesses. For example, if there's no evidence that the perpetrator had alcohol dependency or bipolar disorder or tendencies to pedophilia; 5. If some of the accusations are preposterous or impossible or they contain impossible or implausible elements such as a person being made pregnant prior to menarche, being forced to engage in sex with animals, or participating in the ritual killing of animals, and; 6. In the absence of evidence of distress surrounding the putative abuse. That is, despite alleged abuse going from age two to 27 or from three to 16, the child displayed normal social and academic functioning and that there was no evidence of any kind of psychopathology. Are these the kind of things you were asking for? TAT: Yeah, it's a little bit more specific. I take issue with several, but at least it gives us more of a sense of what you all mean when you say "false memory syndrome." Freyd: Right. Well, you know I think that things are moving in that direction since that seems to be what people are requesting. Nobody's denying that people are abused and there's no one denying that someone who was abused a decade ago or two decades ago probably would not have talked about it to anybody. I think I mentioned to you that somebody who works in this office had that very experience of having been abused when she was a young teenager-not extremely abused, but made very uncomfortable by an uncle who was older-and she dealt with it for about three days at the time and then it got pushed to the back of her mind and she completely forgot about it until she was in therapy. TAT: There you go. That's how dissociation works! Freyd: That's how it worked. And after this came up and she had discussed and dealt with it in therapy, she could again put it to one side and go on with her life. Certainly confronting her uncle and doing all these other things was not a part of what she had to do. Interestingly, though, at the same time, she has a daughter who went into therapy and came up with memories of having been abused by her parents. This daughter ran away and is cutoff from the family-hasn't spoken to anyone for three years. And there has never been any meeting between the therapist and the whole family to try to find out what was involved. TAT: If we take the first example -- that of her own abuse -- and follow the criteria you gave, we would have a very strong disbelief in the truth of what she told.”

InterviewPseudoscienceSociety DenialDissociative AmnesiaFalse MemoriesPedophiliaScamFalse MemoryFalse Memory Syndrome FoundationFalse Memory SyndromeRepressed MemoryFmsfAbuse DeniersDenial Of AbusePseudo ScienceDenial Of Child AbuseSatanic PanicPseudoscientificPamela FreydDenial Of IncestAnti SciencePerpetartors
Author:David L. Calof
Create image

“Treating Abuse Today 3(4) pp. 26-33 The national discussion regarding the veridical truth of memories of childhood abuse will have a beneficial effect. Therapists will be reminded that dire consequences can ensue from poor practice, careless technique, and unchecked countertransference and parallel process. Hopefully, it will also stimulate legitimate research into the nature of traumatic memory. Unfortunately, the polemic often has been hysterical, scapegoating, accusatory, speculative, rumor driven, biased and antiempirical. Since many members of the FMSF, Inc. Scientific Advisory Board are frequent professional witnesses for the defense in cases of alleged sexual abuse, we questioned whether the organization was acting more as an advocate for a previously determined position or whether it was truly taking a scientific approach to determining the veridical truth of recollections of child abuse.”

InterviewPseudoscienceSociety DenialFalse MemoriesPedophiliaScamFalse MemoryFalse Memory Syndrome FoundationFalse Memory SyndromeRepressed MemoryFmsfAbuse DeniersDenial Of AbusePseudo ScienceDenial Of Child AbusePseudoscientificPamela FreydDefense WitnessPedophil Protectors
Author:David L. Calof
Create image

“We are not to forget, either, that Africa is inhabited by various tribes or nations of negroes--some more and some less degraded than the average...the white race exhibits some qualities of superiority over any other...The secret of the greater intelligence and aptitude of the Caucasian undoubtedly in great measure is to be attributed to the commingling of blood amongst its various branches; and this was evidently forced in large measure by circumstances under divine control.”

White SupremacyPseudoscienceInstitutional RacismJehovahs WitnessesJwWtbts
Book:Zion's Watch Tower: Complete 1902
Create image

“You're the Executive Director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - a foundation that says it wants to disseminate scientific information to the community regarding this syndrome but you can't, or won't, give me its signs and symptoms. That is confusing to me. I don't understand why there isn't a list." A Conversation With Pamela Freyd, Ph.D. Co-Founder And Executive Director, False Memory Syndrome Foundation, Inc., Part I, Treating Abuse Today, Vol. III, No. 3.”

Sexual AbuseRapePseudoscienceSociety DenialFalse MemoriesPedophiliaScamFalse MemoryFalse Memory Syndrome FoundationFalse Memory SyndromeRepressed MemoryFmsfMoral PanicPseudoscientificFalse Memory Myth
Author:David L. Calof
Create image

“Debbie Nathan blames the early symptoms on pernicious anemia yet explains their supposed remission by Shirley’s being out of contact with Dr. Wilbur for those 9 years. But Dr. Wilbur never diagnosed a dissociative disorder in 1945. Nathan does not seem to recognize the implausibility of Dr. Wilbur creating via suggestion a complex dissociative disorder in five sessions, particularly when the doctor herself did not diagnose it. Nathan attributes Shirley’s postintegration improvement in functioning to being out of contact with Dr. Wilbur rather than to the therapy. But the pernicious anemia continued to be undiagnosed and untreated during that time period, so any symptoms due to it should have continued rather than showing an improvement that coincided with psychotherapy with Dr. Wilbur. Debbie Nathan’s thesis is self-contradictory.”

Dissociative Identity DisorderMultiple Personality DisorderPseudoscienceSybilFalse Memory MythSybil ExposedImplausible
Author:Colin A. Ross
Create image

“I Am A Scientist (Sonnet 1026) You may believe in psychics, I don't need to, I am a scientist. You may believe in astrology, I don't need to, I am a scientist. You may believe in tarot and reiki, I don't need to, I am a scientist. You may believe in energy healing, I don't need to, I am a scientist. You may believe in angels and spirits, I don't need to, I am a scientist. You may believe in life after death, I don't need to, I am a scientist. So long as you don't practice hate, I stand here with my hand stretched out. Will you hold it despite differences, Or do you hate me for voicing reason out loud!”

ScienceScientistParanormalSupernaturalOccultRational ThinkingPseudosciencePsychicSpirit WorldVoice Of Reason
Book:Her Insan Ailem: Everyone is Family, Everywhere is Home
Create image

“Lysenkoism may be useful only because it provides a lesson. Whether we like it or not, the days of the independent scientist and of independent science are about over. The more important science becomes in the lives of individuals and of nations, the more it will need popular support and will have to submit to social control. But the forms and techniques of this support and control have not yet been devised and tested. The problem is a new one. The Soviet rulers have tried a solution, but their solution has resulted in lysenkoism, and thus proved to be a dismal failure.”

Public OpinionPseudosciencePopular Science1952Science Funding
Book:The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe
Create image

“Racism watching is a puzzle solving activity and often involves debunking pseudo-science. The investigator must try to figure out what makes people believe in weird ideas. As Stieg said in an interview, ‘Fifty years later, people still believe in this; the whole Neo-Nazi movement. There is absolutely no sense in this. They do it contrary to everything science tells us. Contrary to human goodness or altruism, contrary to rational thinking. And this is fascinating, why?”

RacismRationalismPseudoscienceNeonazisStieg LarsonSven Ove HanssonThe Millennium Trilogy
Book:The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Philosophy: Everything Is Fire
Create image

“Facts count. Conspiracy theories, usually the refuge of the bitter or disempowered, range from factually challenged to wildly hallucinogenic. Conspiracy theories are not harmless entertainment, or a laudable facet of the freedom of speech. Conspiracy theories do both overt and tacit harm. Dangerous when they deal with public health issues, at a minimum, almost all are insults to the integrity of thousands of hard-working and honest people. In the extreme, conspiracy theories slander entire races, nations, or cultures.”

ScienceGlobal WarmingPseudoscienceConspiracy TheoriesConspiracies9 11 Conspiracy TheoriesMoon Landing Conspiracy TheoriesVaccine Autism ConnectionVaccine Conspiracy
Book:Social Issues Primary Sources Collection
Create image

“Fowler's philosophy [of phrenology] is all about the possibility and real hope of change. Calvinistic predestination and hellfire are swept away in an instant; if the brain and its resultant behavior is malleable throughout one's life, then nobody is fated to remain bad: they can mend their ways and their selves... Bad actions became the correctable result of improper development, rather than machinations of some cloven-footed prat with a fiery pitchfork. What Fowler holds out is nothung less than the promise of redemption. Will it surprise you at all when, at long last, Fowler tears aside his scientific raiments, and reveals what he has been all along: a minister leading his flock heavenward? "[Let us] redouble our efforts for... that high and holy destiny hereafter as such by this great principle of ILLIMITABLE PROGRESSION!" Indeed. Look carefully around this empty plaza: what you see is nothing less than the birthplace of American progressivisim.”

American HistoryPseudoscienceCalvinismProgressivismPhrenologyOrson Fowler
Book:The Trouble With Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine
Create image

“Malcolm Gladwell puts the "pop" in pop psychology, and although revered in lay circles, is roundly dismissed by experts - even by the researchers he makes famous.”

PseudoscienceScience And ChangePop PsychologyGladwell
Book:The Science of Successful Organizational Change: How Leaders Set Strategy, Change Behavior, and Create an Agile Culture
Create image

“Si no conocemos los procesos que nos llevan a creer ciertas cosas, no seremos capaces de evitar creer ciertas cosas que en realidad son ficciones sin fundamento. Son cosas que aprisionan la mente como una soporífera y pesada tela de araña, y no le permiten cobrar altura. Son cosas que si usted las cree pueden llevarlo a la muerte prematura, y no querrá usted morir antes de tiempo, ¿verdad?”

ScienceCienciaPseudosciencePseudociencia
Author:Daniel R. Altschuler
Create image

“deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.”

ScienceCultureIgnoranceCriticismDelusionSkepticismSuperstitionCredulityPseudoscienceSkeptics
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“Honest dissent and unorthodox ideas often promote scientific knowledge. Even though more often wrong than right, unorthodox ideas are apt to stimulate some clear thinking among the orthodox. And from time to time, a doubter makes a basic discovery. But the lysenkoism is quite sterile of ideas and of suggestions for new experiments. It urges a retreat to archaic views, long abandoned with sufficient reason. In this, the lysenkoism is comparable only to the anti-evolutionism in the USA. New arguments and new facts mean just as little to the lysenkoists as they do to the anti-evolutionists.”

OrthodoxyScientific MethodPseudoscienceCreationism1952
Book:The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe
Create image

“Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But a kind of Gresham’s Law prevails in popular culture by which bad science drives out good.”

SciencePseudoscienceGresham S Law
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“Why does Alexander the Great never tell us about the exact location of his tomb, Fermat about his Last Theorem, John Wilkes Booth about the Lincoln assassination conspiracy, Hermann Göring about the Reichstag fire? Why don’t Sophocles, Democritus, and Aristarchus dictate their lost books?”

EvidenceSkepticismPseudoscienceSophoclesAlexander The GreatJohn Wilkes BoothDemocritusFermat S Last TheoremAristarchusChannelersHermann GöringReichstag Fire
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“The proof of “sudden” changes (p. 223 to the end) is quite convincing and meritorious. If you had done nothing else but to gather and present in a clear way this mass of evidence, you would have already a considerable merit. Unfortunately, this valuable accomplishment is impaired by the addition of a physical-astronomical theory to which every expert will react with a smile or with anger—according to his temperament; he notices that you know these things only from hearsay—and do not understand them in the real sense, also things that are elementary to him. . . . To the point, I can say in short: catastrophes yes, Venus no.”

Pseudoscience1954Immanuel Velikovsky
Book:The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe
Create image

“Science may appear to have no connection with political freedom…. Scientists are too busy with positive measures, such as productive research and the dissemination of the results of the search for truth, to take time out to refute every crackpot notion that gets into print…. If the democratic process were applied ideally, and if enough people were to accept the claims in the article as truth, then publicly supported schools and universities could be depopulated of competent faculties, whose places could be taken by quacks and political appointees. Granted that the chance of this is very small, nevertheless the imagined situation has a modern precedent. Something very similar did happen (on purely political grounds) in a European country during several years preceding the second world war. It has happened in other countries since the end of that war.”

DemocracyPublic EducationPseudoscienceAnti IntellectualismCrackpots1950
Book:The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe
Create image

“X "La ciencia es más que un cuerpo de conocimiento, es una manera de pensar. Tengo un presagio de la época de mis hijos o mis nietos, cuando Estados Unidos sea una economía de servicios e información; cuando casi todas las principales industrias manufactureras se hayan ido a otros países; cuando los increíbles poderes tecnológicos estén en manos de muy pocos, y nadie que represente el interés público pueda siquiera comprender los problemas; cuando la gente haya perdido la capacidad de establecer sus propias agendas o cuestionar sabiamente a los que tienen autoridad; cuando, abrazados a nuestras bolas de cristal y consultando nerviosamente nuestros horóscopos, con nuestras facultades críticas en declive, incapaces de distinguir entre lo que se siente bien y lo que es verdad, nos deslicemos de vuelta, casi sin darnos cuenta, en la superstición y la oscuridad. La caída en la estupidez de Norteamérica se hace evidente principalmente en la lenta decadencia del contenido de los medios de comunicación, de enorme influencia, las cuñas de sonido de treinta segundos (ahora reducidas a diez o menos), la programación de nivel ínfimo, las crédulas presentaciones de pseudociencia y superstición, pero sobre todo en una especie de celebración de la ignorancia.”

ScienceEducationSkepticismCritical ThinkingSuperstitionRationalismPseudoscienceAnti IntellectualismTechnocracy
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“La ciencia es más que un cuerpo de conocimiento, es una manera de pensar. Tengo un presagio de la época de mis hijos o mis nietos, cuando Estados Unidos sea una economía de servicios e información; cuando casi todas las principales industrias manufactureras se hayan ido a otros países; cuando los increíbles poderes tecnológicos estén en manos de muy pocos, y nadie que represente el interés público pueda si quiera comprender los problemas; cuando la gente haya perdido la capacidad de establecer sus propias agendas o cuestionar sabiamente a los que tienen autoridad; cuando, abrazados a nuestras bolas de cristal y consultando nerviosamente nuestros horóscopos, con nuestras facultades críticas en declive, incapaces de distinguir entre lo que se siente bien y lo que es verdad, nos deslicemos de vuelta, casi sin darnos cuenta, en la superstición y la oscuridad. La caída en la estupidez de Norteamérica se hace evidente principalmente en la lenta decadencia del contenido de los medios de comunicación, de enorme influencia, las cuñas de sonido de treinta segundos (ahora reducidas a diez o menos), la programación de nivel ínfimo, las crédulas presentaciones de pseudociencia y superstición, pero sobre todo en una especie de celebración de la ignorancia.”

ScienceEducationSkepticismCritical ThinkingSuperstitionRationalismPseudoscienceAnti IntellectualismTechnocracy
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“Anatomy of Conspiracy (Sonnet 2094-2095) The biggest conspiracy in the world is to make people think that there is a conspiracy, because when people believe in conspiracy, they get paranoid, and a paranoid population is the ideal consumer for various soothsaying items, from guns, bombs and nuclear weapons, to crystals, chemtrails, chakras, magnets, gemstones, ouija, racial purity, and plots of land in the afterlife. Now, some of these items and ideas may be harmless, others downright villainous, but they are all part and parcel of an insecure primate's pursuit for control - delusional though such control may be. Conspiracy, superstition, conventional or newage, it's all about control, either self-inflicted or institutionalized - you are searching for order where there is none, so your brain cooks up one, just to keep you satisfied - and you start seeing faces in the clouds, or patterns in your star charts. Keep your mind open, just not so open that your brain starts leaking - an empty attic is a primate's olympus.”

ScienceIgnoranceSuperstitionOpen MindedMindfulRational ThinkingFreethinkerConspiracy TheoryPseudoscience
Book:Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience
Create image

“If we teach only the findings and products of science - no matter how useful and even inspiring they may be - without communicating its critical method, how can the average person possibly distinguish science from pseudoscience?”

IfsMayPersonsMatterPainTeachProductsFindingsMethodAverageCommunicateCriticalTherapyInjuryAverage PersonPseudoscience
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“But to measure cause and effect... you must ensure that a simple correlation, however tempting it may be, is not mistaken for a cause. In the 1990s the stork population of Germany increased and the German at-home birth rate rose as well. Shall we credit storks for airlifting the babies?”

WellsMayHomeCausesSimpleEffectsBabyBirthRoseRatePopulationCreditGermanyMistakenCause And EffectTemptingCorrelationPseudoscienceBirth RateStorksHome Birth
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image