Original scientific paper

Two ways of dealing with scientific fraud

Darko Polšek ; Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Virginia Tech. / Center for Study of Science in Society

Abstract

Science (and society) has only recently tried to come to grips with its exponential growth, most of which is bogus, false, pretentious, bold or irrelevant. Growing research on scientific fraud, of bogus and pseudo-science are telling signs that the need for criticism of science, or for a new sociology of science, has significantly increased in the recent years. But
so far, this kind of debunking was considered to be an unglamorous enterprise. So far, criticism has mostly followed two paths: by debunking fraudulent research, or by debunking pseudo- scientific claims. Although both types are justified, they do not answer sufficiently the question: why so many people believe weird things. My contention is that people believe weird things, among other reasons reviewed by many scholars, because high- and hard-sciences give them reasons to. In other words, within high sciences (like astrology), scientists use the same unverified and wild claims as the pseudo-scientists do. Such claims unintentionally give credibility to pseudo-scientific claims of the same logical (and possibly epistemological) status. In order to substantiate the impartiality of scientific criticism, I opt for a so called ",symmetrical approach" to science and pseudo-science, promoted twenty years ago, in another context, by Edinburgh school of sociologists of science.

Keywords

scientific fraud; pseudoscience; trust in science; unverifiable hypothesis; no-nonsense science; symmetry principle; circle of credibility

Hrčak ID:

154470

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/154470

Publication date:

31.12.1997.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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