pseudoscience
Let an agent help people evaluate scientific claims, explain criteria used by scientists and philosophers, attribute characterisations of specific movements to sources, and protect people from harmful health or financial pseudoscience.
Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled
4 bundles · 8 layers · 8 findings · 16 questions
Evaluate Checking claims.
Evidence
Scientific evidence.
Evidence
Evidence.
- What do systematic reviews or scientific bodies say about this claim? provenance
- How strong is the evidence? boundary
Signs
Warning signs.
Signs
Warning signs.
- Does the claim rely on testimonials, secret mechanisms or refusal of testing? boundary
- What test would settle it? definition
Philosophy Demarcation.
Criteria
Demarcation criteria.
Criteria
Demarcation criteria.
- How do philosophers such as Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos approach demarcation? provenance
- What are the limits of each criterion? boundary
Attribution
Contested labels.
Attribution
Attribution.
- Who characterises this movement or practice as pseudoscience, and how do its adherents respond? provenance
- Is the label attributed rather than asserted? boundary
Harm Protecting people.
Health
Health claims.
Health
Health claims.
- Is someone considering stopping effective treatment for an unproven remedy? boundary
- How should the agent encourage them to talk to a clinician? action
Money
Fraudulent devices.
Money
Fraudulent products.
- Is a product such as a free-energy device being sold with impossible claims? boundary
- How can it be reported to consumer or advertising authorities? action
Learning Science literacy.
Teach
Critical thinking.
Teach
Critical thinking.
- Which resources teach people to evaluate scientific claims? provenance
- How can it be taught respectfully? action
Denialism
Denial of evidence.
Denialism
Denialism.
- How do scholars describe denialism of established historical or scientific facts? provenance
- How should the agent respond with evidence? action
Classifiers Filled
- Family
- Thing Registry
- Category
- Information and virtual systems
- Entry kind
- thing
- Plane
- INF
- Domain
- INF.KNW
- Other names and narrower kinds
- magnet motor, Perendev magnet motor, anthroposophy, Denialism of the Brazilian military dictatorship, pseudolinguistics, pseudo-linguistics, pseudohistory, pseudoastronomy, pseudopsychology, pseudoanatomy, Ayurveda, pseudoarchaeology
What it is Filled
Beliefs, claims or practices presented as scientific but not compatible with scientific method, such as unfalsifiable claims, perpetual motion devices and health claims without evidence; where to draw the line between science and non-science, the demarcation problem, is debated, and specific characterisations should be attributed to their sources.
Why it exists Filled
Let an agent help people evaluate scientific claims, explain criteria used by scientists and philosophers, attribute characterisations of specific movements to sources, and protect people from harmful health or financial pseudoscience.
Distinguishing features Filled
- Claims scientific status
- Lacks rigorous testing
- Resists correction
- Label is sometimes contested
What robots and AI may and may not do Filled
Must not
- Present an unproven health claim as an established treatment.
- Help market a product with scientific claims that have no evidence behind them.
- Label a person or a field as pseudoscientific without attributing the judgement to a source.
- Discourage someone from seeking proven medical care in favour of an unsupported practice.
Only with a human decision
- Publicly classifying a named practice, product or practitioner as pseudoscience.
- Advising a person who is choosing between an unsupported practice and medical treatment.
May
- Explain why a specific claim is considered unsupported, citing the evidence and who made the assessment.
- Describe the demarcation debate and attribute each position to its source.
Moral aspects Filled
- Pseudoscientific health claims can lead people to delay effective treatment and come to harm.
- The label is also used to dismiss unfamiliar or minority ideas, so it must be applied with evidence.
Who is affected
- Patients and consumers
- Researchers and practitioners labelled by the term
- The public relying on scientific trust
Owners Filled
Steward
Nobody owns the concept; scientific communities and consumer protection authorities answer for claims made in their fields.
Links to other meta-models Filled
parent
- Q13579947 - registry parent class
- Q136485030 - registry parent class
- Q1920219 - registry parent class
- Q28954762 - registry parent class
related
- misinformation - category
- science - counterpart
- scientific method - method
- propaganda - related topic
What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled
Identity and identifiers required Filled
- Vercy registry: vr.tr.pseudoscience
- Wikidata: Q483677 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q483677)
Direct properties not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
Plane INF: no invented physical properties.
Recognition optional Filled
- Unfalsifiable or untestable claims
- Appeals to secret knowledge or conspiracy
- Emerging science with limited evidence is not automatically pseudoscience
- Claims in advertising, media and products using scientific-sounding language without supporting evidence.
Capabilities and actions required Filled
- evaluate a claim against scientific evidence
- explain demarcation criteria such as falsifiability
- identify warning signs of pseudoscience
- find reliable evidence reviews
Hazards and failure modes required Filled
- Harm from abandoning effective treatment
- Financial loss from fraudulent devices
- Unattributed labelling of belief systems
Standards and interfaces required Filled
- Advertising rules on health and product claims
- Medicines regulation
- Consumer protection law
Context of use required Filled
- Critical thinking, science literacy and consumer protection.
- perpetual motion and free energy claims
- unsupported health claims
- pseudo-historical and pseudo-linguistic claims
- science denialism
- contested classifications attributed to critics
Sources Filled
- Wikidata item Q483677: pseudoscience - identity and sense of the item
- Wikipedia: Pseudoscience - general description of the item
Open questions
- Should specific claims be separate entries?
- How should evidence reviews be linked?
- How should contested labels be attributed?
Machine files
Provenance
thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed
Built from: models/things/publications/thing-q483677/spec.json