How science and pseudo science differ
How science and pseudo-science differIn the history of mankind, we have strived to understand the world around us, to know and understand how and why things happen. Thus, science was born. Pseudo-science was born, as well. A science tries to explain how and why things happen by creating laws that dictate what Nature does. A pseudo-science is something that claims to be scientific, but really isn't. Some examples of pseudo-science include things like astrology, numerology, and other so-called "sciences".
The laws of a science are based upon the hypotheses of scientists. In order for a hypothesis to become theory, it must be tested. The best way to prove it true is to try to prove it false. If it succeeds the test, then it is one step closer to being proven true. The more times it is proven true, the higher the probability of it being completely true. Inductively, after it has been proven true a number of times, it has to be true. However, logically, it can never really be proven completely true, since it would take an infinite number of tests to do so.
A pseudo-science is similar, in that it has laws. However, these laws are mostly restatements of known facts. For example, in astrology, they make claims about what you are like based on what day you were born. The things they say, however, are things that are statistically common for those people. They are also very vague, making the chances of being wrong increasingly low. Also, they can be interpreted in many different ways, allowing for unbelievable flexibility in their predictions. A pseudo-scientific theory can always be proven right,...
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