Quotes about Pseudoscience

Deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.

If we teach only the findings and products of science — no matter how useful and even inspiring they may be — without communicating its critical method, how can the average person possibly distinguish science from pseudoscience?

Many pseudoscientific and New Age belief systems emerge out of dissatisfaction with conventional values and perspectives—and are therefore themselves a kind of skepticism.

Pseudoscience is easier to contrive than science, because distracting confrontations with reality—where we cannot control the outcome of the comparison—are more readily avoided. The standards of argument, what passes for evidence, are much more relaxed. In part for these same reasons, it is much easier to present pseudoscience to the general public than science. But this isn't enough to explain its popularity.