Why People Believe Weird Things

Scientific knowledge always grows and improves, whereas pseudosciences are static.

Since the dawn of humanity, scientific knowledge has been growing – and growing rapidly. Over the millennia, people have researched, tested and improved scientific ideas, so that our understanding of science is always increasing.

Each new scientific theory is based on the current body of knowledge. If a theory gets replaced by a newer one, we can still retain the useful information from it.

If a scientist can prove a theory wrong, they’ll offer a better one, and they certainly don’t have to abandon the rest of scientific knowledge. This means that science is always correcting itself, as people filter out the good and bad ideas, and replace the bad ones.

This happened when Darwin created his theory of evolution, which replaced the theory of special creation – the belief that the universe was made by God. Darwin’s theory included a great deal of earlier scientific knowledge, such as anatomy and geology.

Unlike science, pseudosciences don’t progress. Pseudoscientific theories are static because they’re based on belief – if you doubt one element it means you have less than total faith, which invalidates the whole thing. These kinds of beliefs can’t be tested or improved.

Creationism is a poignant example of this. Creationists try to put a scientific gloss on their beliefs, but if creationism were a true science, creationists would either have to successfully dismiss Darwin’s theory of evolution with empirical evidence (which they’ve failed to do), or accept it. And of course, they can’t accept it, because if they did they’d have to admit the Bible is wrong. So creationism can’t claim any scientific rigor for itself.

Pseudosciences have little in common with actual science. Nonetheless, many people continue to believe in them. In the following blinks, we’ll examine some common supernatural beliefs, and why they’re wrong.