June 6: Psuedoscience

 


Aliens. Are they real or not? And is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) a science or a pseudoscience?

Today in our STEM in Society class we covered the difference between science and pseudoscience and specifically whether or not SETI research is genuine science or pseudoscience. But to find an answer to this question we must first look at what science and pseudoscience is defined as. 

A science is classified as a systematic theory based on empirical observations and experiences with a law-like predictive and explanatory power developed by scientific methods can be falsifiable. Whereas a pseudoscience is something that seems to be a science and claims to be a science yet is unscientific is one or more fundamental ways. 

Divided into groups members of my group (Anandi Durgam, Aditi Arunprakash, Sanvi Guruprasad, Disha Javagal, and I) had concluded that SETI is in fact a science as it is a theory based on empirical, observational data as we see that us as humans are forms of intelligence therefore if we exist there could be other forms of life and intelligence that exist in the universe as well. And as scientists continue to research whether or not they exist they analyze specific data of sound waves as stated by Keith Copper in space.com. Evaluating the different frequencies, they come at to see if any difference could account of extraterrestrial intelligence. And while one could argue that although this is the scientific method that could just be trying to provide evidence for the claim that there is extraterrestrial intelligence, we see that scientist have acknowledged that some soundwave discrepancies can be from radio frequency interference (RFI) which is why they must be closely evaluating showing that evidence can be proved falsifiable, but as SETI is only in its beginning stages of development and research there is much to come and much more data that needs to be evaluated before considering this science to be a pseudoscience as SETI is not making a claim yet of whether or not there is extraterrestrial life but merely trying to do research for it to come to a conclusion.

Further Study

Yet, despite the conclusion that we can to that it is a science it is not built on a stable foundation in which everyone could conclude that it is a science and there is still area to think that SETI could be a pseudoscience based on the idea that as the universe in continuously expanding and we do not have the technology to explore all of it there is no guarantee that we could determine whether or not extraterrestrial intelligence is real. So, if we were able to develop the technology that could track the expansion of the universe as it continues while continuing with the research done right now to its degree it could be able to boost SETI's stance in the scientific world, truly classifying it as a science without an ailment that could be used to counteract the idea. 

Pseudoscience examples

1. Astrology 

2. Alchemy

3. Ancient Medicine

So, as we see from the examples above these examples have come to the conclusion that something is the result of something else, yet thus is based on qualitative data that is up for interpretation, yet what SETI is doing is take a more quantitative approach in finding the answer to the question of "is there another form of intelligence in the universe besides humans or not?" 


Sources 


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