Study+guide+6

Q4 Mind energy and Dr Veritable's ability to resist injury from hot ash, boiling oil, broken galss and sledgehammer blows. Is mind energy science or pseudoscience?

Yeneo: First of all I apologise for the late reply as I've had on campus hours and was at uni all night.

In answering the question which must first distinguish between pseudoscience and science.

Science: Has certain criteria when producing a theory or conducting research.

1. The hypothesis or theory being tested must be //falsifiable i//.e be able to be proven wrong. 2. Research must be conducted //objectively//. Theories must be supported by experimental evidence. So if results are obtained that do not meet with the original hypothesis or theory then this evidence should not be rejected, rather the experiment should be refined to include these findings. 3. Any experimental result should be able to be //replicated// in subsequent trials. By repeating the experiment it verifies the results. 4. All experimental details and evidence should be made //accessible// to other researchers i.e peer reviewed.

Pseudoscience: is something which claims to be scientific but has no merit as it does not meat the above criteria and its methodology is not repeated to have a consistent set of results. Also details of these "findings" are not accessible to the public so the procedure can be read meaning that the basis of the experiments are not peer reviewed. It claims to be scientific and uses scientific terms but in essence it is not scientific.

With all that being said the "mind science" Dr Wallace does go through his method which is breaking bricks, walking barefoot etc. and resulting in the Doctor being unhurt. The problem arises with the video cassette which can be sent to the general public to harness this "power". This can be deemed to be a version of the experimental details being available so it could make people believe that it is a form of science. The problem again is that no one really knows what the experimental procedure is, what the hypothesis is or the theory. There is no paper explaining the details of the experiment and the conclusions it draws from it thus is should really be considered as a pseudoscience and not a real science as no "real" scientists has reviewed the data. So although there is evidence to suggest that the doc has a special mind energy as people see him doing it on an a commercial but we don't even know the mental state of this person. He may be someone who is not hurt easily, as some people react to pain differently to other, maybe he has a disorder whereby he feels no physical pain or simply enjoys S&M. But the fact is that this mind energy seems to be a little whacky and is not based on any real scientific procedure.

ML Pseudoscience is interesting. We tend to focus on it being confused with science, but there are times when things that have seemed 'whacky' turn out to be correct. I'm not suggesting that is true here. On monday (20th April) there was a lecture that I believe was very entertaining on this topic. Might be worth listening to (go to Clayton zone to download). FiLCHeRS has a few more tests than those listed here - anyone want to add them?

Q5. Is astrology a science or pseudoscience. Gives reasons. What about yoga?