Science literature is very heavily infested with bunk and baloney. But how can you detect the level of bunk and baloney and BS in a particular piece of science literature? I offer here an informal system in which each of particular sins earns the article or paper a single point. When the total of these points reaches a level higher than five or ten, you have a good sign that the article or paper is probably bunk or baloney.
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Phrase "Scientists Know" That Does Not Correspond to Direct Observations
An extremely bad defect in scientific literature is to claim that scientists know something they do not actually know, because no one ever observed it. For example, we often hear these claims:
- The claim that scientists know that most matter is dark matter.
- The claim that scientists know that most of the universe consists of dark energy.
- The claim that scientists know that chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor.
- The claim that scientists know that the mind is a product of the brain.
- The claim that scientist know that memories are stored in the brain.
Scientists do not know any of these things, because they do not correspond to direct observations. For example, no one has ever directly observed dark matter or dark energy, and neither of these concepts has any place in the Standard Model of Physics. And no one has ever discovered school-learned knowledge or episodic memories by microscopically studying brain tissue.
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Term "Building Blocks of Life"
Scientific literature is constantly misusing and abusing the phrase "building blocks of life." The very term is an improper one, because living things are internally dynamic to the highest degree, with a constant replacement of tiny parts (protein molecules and cells) occurring within an organism; so a comparison to a structure with static "building block" parts is inappropriate. If anyone refers to "building blocks of life," there are only two half-honest ways to use the term: (1) when referring to macroscopic life, the "building blocks of life" would be cells; (2) when referring to microscopic one-celled life, the "building blocks of life" would be organelles or their constituents (protein molecules). Since neither proteins nor organelles are simple units like brick building blocks but instead very complex structures requiring thousands of well-arranged atoms, it would never be more than half-honest to refer to such things as "building blocks of life." But routinely science literature will refer to some low-level chemicals such as amino acids or nucleotides as being "building blocks of life" when they are no such things (being at best mere component parts of the component parts of life). A particularly egregious abuse of language occurs when science literature mentions some organic chemicals that are not necessary for life and are neither the building blocks of life nor the building blocks of the building blocks of life, and such literature refers to such chemicals as "building blocks of life." Such misstatements occur often in astrobiology literature and origin of life literature.
Add 1 Point for Any Attempt to Pass Off Hi-Tech Scientist Manual Manipulations As Something Giving Us Hints About the Origin of Life
A very ridiculous phenomenon in scientific literature is when some press release describes some scientist fiddling that uses ridiculously unnatural glass lab equipment and very many purposeful experimenter interventions, and when this is passed off as something that tells us about what happened naturally when there was no such fancy equipment and no such purposeful goal-seeking experimenters.
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Term "Dark Matter"
Scientists speculate that most of the matter in the universe is some invisible form of matter not yet discovered. They call this "dark matter." But that is a misleading term which implies visible matter that is dark. The "dark matter" imagined by cosmologists is invisible. A non-misleading term cosmologists should be using for such a possibility is "invisible matter." Why don't scientists use the honest term here? Because then we might get an idea of how much they are appealing to invisible causal realities, and realize how they are throwing stones from glass houses when they scold people for believing in events such as spirit manifestations caused by invisible realities.
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Term "Dark Energy"
Scientists speculate that most of the energy in the universe is some invisible form of energy not yet discovered. They call this "dark energy." But that is a misleading term which implies visible energy that is dark. The "dark energy" imagined by cosmologists is invisible, and cosmologists should be calling it "invisible energy."
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Term "Earth-like Planet" in Reference to Some Known Planet Outside of Our Solar System
Many Earth-sized planets have been discovered, but no Earth-like planet has been discovered outside of our solar system. We should not be calling a planet "Earth-like" unless life was discovered, and life has not been discovered on any other planet. Scientists and science journalists very often describe a merely Earth-sized planet as an "Earth-like planet." Such language is very misleading.
Add 1 Point for Any Language Describing the Human Mind as Merely "Consciousness"
People who use the term "consciousness" to describe the human mind and its experiences are engaging in what can be called shrink-speaking or shadow speaking. Shadow speaking is when you speak of something in the most diminutive or reductive terms, to try to make that thing sound as if it is a mere shadow of itself. The most diminutive term you could possibly use to describe a human mind and its experiences is to use the term "consciousness," for the same term can be used to refer to an insect, which is conscious of its surroundings. Human minds are gigantically multifaceted realities with a huge set of diverse capabilities, something vastly more than mere "consciousness."
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Term "Astrobiologist"
Until extraterrestrial life is discovered, the term "astrobiologist" must be classified as a misleading term, as it suggests or implies that extraterrestrial life has been discovered. It would be less misleading if people referred to astrobiologists as "extraterrestrial life theorists," which would correctly signify the speculative nature of their studies.
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Term "Body Plan"
The term "scientific consensus" is one of the most abused terms in the world of scientific academia. Some leading dictionaries define a consensus as an agreed opinion among a group of people. The first definition of "consensus" by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is "general agreement: unanimity." But scientists have very often referred to a "scientific consensus" on some particular topic when there was no good evidence that such a consensus existed, and quite a bit of evidence that no consensus actually exists.
Some scientist advancing a new theory will start to say "more and more" scientists are accepting his theory. Once he starts to get a few people adopting his ideas, he may claim that "there is a growing trend" towards accepting his theory. If some small fraction of scientists adopts his theory, he may claim this as a "growing consensus." Then if maybe half of scientists adopt his theory, he may claim this as a "consensus." It is easy to see why such misleading statements occur. The more popular you make a theory sound, the more people will be likely to adopt it.
I may note that claims of either a scientific consensus or anything remotely approaching a scientific consensus tend to be extremely unreliable. The only way to reliably measure how many scientists believe in a theory is to do a secret ballot of scientists, in a well-designed poll offering a fair statement of belief alternatives, and including an answer of "I don't know" or "I'm not sure." Such secret ballots (of large numbers of scientists) never occur or almost never occur.
Add 1 Point for Any Claim That Some Scientist Dogma Is "Not Controversial" Whenever There Are Any Respectable Scientists or Scholars Disagreeing With Such a Dogma
A variation of abuses of the word "scientific consensus" is to refer to some unproven dogma, and claim that is "not controversial." The term "controversial" is defined as "giving rise or likely to give rise to public disagreement." Anything on which there is public disagreement by serious people is a controversial topic. It is incorrect to claim, for example, that Darwinian macroevolution or an origin of life from chemical accidents or brain-stored memories are ideas that are "not controversial."
Add 1 Point for Any Claim of Brain Regions "Lighting Up" or "Activating" During Particular Mental Activities
All regions in the brain are constantly active. When scientists do scans of brains, they typically find differences in activity of less than half of one percent (about 1 part in 200) between one region and another. But science writers often refer to such very slight differences in activity as cases of some particular brain region "lighting up" or some particular brain region "activating." That is misleading, as it suggests a large difference in activity, when the actual difference in activity is only very tiny.
Add 1 Point for Any Psychology Claims or Biology Claims That Are Backed Up Mainly By an Appeal to Quantum Mechanics or Anything Quantum
Quantum mechanics is a theory of physics, and is not a psychology theory or a biology theory. There have been endless examples of people who try to back up dubious psychology claims or biology claims by making unconvincing appeals to quantum mechanics. Such appeals are almost impossible to substantiate or disprove, given the intrinsic obscurity of quantum mechanics. It is sometimes joked that you can prove anything using Freudian psychology, Bayesian mathematics or quantum mechanics.
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Word "Skull," When Used to Describe Bone Fragments
The word "skull" is a word with a very exact definition. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines a skull as "the skeleton of the head of a vertebrate forming a bony or cartilaginous case that encloses and protects the brain and chief sense organs and supports the jaws." Paleontologists and their press workers routinely misuse the word "skull," by using the term to refer to small bone fragments believed to be from a skull. Calling such fragments a skull is often as misleading as using the term "automobile" to refer to a bumper, a seat and a tire collected from a junk yard.
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Word "Genetically Determined" Whenever There Is Mere Evidence Something Is Genetically Influenced
Scientists and science writers very often claim that some outcome is "genetically determined" when there is merely evidence that the outcome is genetically influenced. There is a huge difference between a first thing merely influencing or affecting a second thing (merely having some effect on it), and the first thing determining the second thing (being the main cause of that thing). For example, the weather influences how a car looks, but the weather does not determine how a car looks (a car's look is determined by the manufacturing process used to create it). We do not have any evidence that either human mental traits or the structure of the human body is genetically determined. Because genes merely specify low-level chemicals such as protein molecules, we have the strongest reason for thinking that human mental traits and the physical structure of humans cannot be determined by genes. All that we have is evidence for a much weaker claim: the claim that human mental traits and the physical structure of humans is influenced or affected by genes.
Add 1 Point for Any Claim That Scientists Follow Some Special Algorithm Called "the Scientific Method"
The myth that scientists follow some algorithm called "the scientific method" is one of the most long-standing myths of scientist culture. Statements of how this "scientific method" works vary widely but a typical description will include steps such as this:
- Formulate a hypothesis
- Design an experiment to test the hypothesis
- Communicate results whether the experiment supports the hypothesis
- If the experiment fails to support the hypothesis, formulate a new hypothesis.
- Creatively interpreting the negative result to make it look like something supporting the hypothesis being tested.
- Slightly changing the hypothesis to slightly respond to whatever result was obtained.
- Questioning the competence or the analysis of the scientists producing a result conflicting with the theory.
- Playing around with the data in some statistical way until the negative result can be claimed as a positive result in favor of the hypothesis (or a neutral result consistent with the hypothesis).
- Dismissing the result conflicting with the hypothesis by special pleading, such as claiming that far-above-chance results in tests of psi or ESP were produced by subjects cheating, or claiming that there was experimenter error or equipment error.
- Simply filing away the results without trying to publish them, and retrying the experiment, perhaps with some modification that will make the experiment much more likely to produce a seemingly positive result.
Add 1 Point for Any Claim That Humans Are "Hard-Wired" to Act in Some Particular Way, or That Humans Act in Some Way Because of "Neural Circuitry"
The term "hard wiring" is an old mechanical term meaning to be determined by a particular arrangement of wires. Before modern electronics and software programming, the behavior of certain mechanical devices such as switchboards were determined by arrangements of wires, particular arrangements being called types of "hard wiring." Although neuroscientists sometimes speak as if investigating arrangements of wire-like components in the brain might shed light on human behavior, no one has ever shown that any human behavior can be explained by some arrangement of such components in the brain. It is therefore very misleading to claim that humans are "hard-wired" to do any particular thing.
The very term "neural circuit" is misleading. A circuit is an unbroken electrical path, typically a roughly circular path that starts and ends in the same place. Neural pathways are not circular or even rather circular, they do not start and end in the same place, and they have a huge number of breaks, the breaks of synaptic gaps. Therefore, sections of brain tissue should not be referred to as "neural circuits." As for the the idea that some behavior or mental state or mental trait can be explained by some arrangement of tissue in the brain, such an idea has no empirical support.
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Word "Regulate" or "Control" or "Sculpt" or "Mold" or "Direct" When Used About Genes or Chemicals
Chemicals inside the body are mindless things, and it is misleading to refer to them using action words that suggest they are intelligent agents. The quote below in a biologist's essay suggests that there is a massive problem of biologists using verbs in an inappropriate way when describing genes:
The defining characteristic of humans is their use of symbols. The term "early human" is very often misleadingly used in science literature, to refer to pre-human species which have never been proven to have used symbols. Such language is used to try to bolster claims that species arising before humans were ancestors of humans. A person who lacks any good evidence that Species X existing before humans evolved into humans may simply take the shortcut of calling this Species X an "early human" species. But if there is no good evidence that Species X used symbols, then it should not be called an "early human" species.
What I call the Great DNA Myth is the myth that inside DNA is some blueprint or recipe that specifies how to make a human body.
There are various ways in which this false idea is stated, all equally false:
- Someone may describe DNA or the genome as a blueprint for an organism.
- Someone may describe DNA or the genome as a recipe for making an organism.
- Someone may describe DNA or the genome as a program for building an organism.
- Someone may claim that DNA or genomes specify the anatomy of an organism.
- Someone may claim that genotypes (the DNA in organisms) specify phenotypes (the observable characteristics of an organism).
- Someone may claim that genotypes (the DNA in organisms) "map" phenotypes (the observable characteristics of an organism) or "map to" phenotypes.
- Someone may claim that DNA contains "all the instructions needed to make an organism."
- Someone may claim that there is a "genetic architecture" for an organism's body or some fraction of that body.
- Using a little equation, someone may claim that a "genotype plus the environment equals the phenotype," a formulation as false as the preceding statements, since we know of nothing in the environment that would cause phenotypes to arise from genotypes that do not specify such phenotypes.
All of these versions are equally false, because DNA only contains low-level chemical information (such as which sequences of amino acids make up polypeptide chains that are the starting points of protein molecules), not high-level structural information, Many biology authorities have confessed this reality, and at the post here you can read statements by more than twenty biology experts stating that DNA is not a blueprint or a program or a recipe for building an organism.
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Phrase "Essential for" Whenever a Reference to Something That Might Exist Without the Item Claimed to Be "Essential For" That Thing
In the world of neuroscience we often have incorrect claims that this or that protein or this or that brain part is "essential for" some cognitive ability. In some cases experiments have shown that the cognitive ability continues to exist even when the supposedly "essential" thing has been removed.
Add 1 Point for Any Use of the Phrases "Breakthrough" or "Sheds New Light" or "Sheds Light" or Similar Phrases, Whenever the Writer Fails to Justify Such Claims (as Almost Always Happens)
Certain laudatory terms are stock phrases of press release writers trying to make unimportant science research sound very important. Almost always the writer using such phrases fails to justify the use of such phrases. It seems that these days scientists are doing pretty much nothing to correct inaccurate press release boasts about their research.
Add 1 Point for Any Claim That Something Has Made Scientists More Hopeful About Achieving Some Grand Task
When writers cannot report that scientists have achieved some task, they often regard to weaker substitute claims, such as the claim that some research has made scientists "more hopeful" or "more optimistic" about achieving some grand goal, or that some research has put scientists "on the brink" or "on the edge" of achieving such a goal. Such claims are usually groundless. For example, for at least fifty years we have had completely groundless claims that this or that experiment has made scientists "more hopeful" about being able to explain the origin of life.
Add 1 Point for Any References to Brains When Research Did Not Involve Brains
Some people have the erroneous idea that neuroscience research tends to be more reliable than psychology research. So they will write prose that uses terms such as "your brain" or "the human brain" or "our brains" when referring to purely psychology results that did not involve studying brains. Such language is misleading. For example, if a test merely shows that people remember movies better when movies have violent deaths, there is no justification for a headline such as "Your Brain Remembers Movies Better If They Are Bloodier."
Add 1 Point for Any Claim in a Scientific Article That There Are Parallel Universes or Any Quantum Mechanics Basis for Believing in Such a Thing
The speculation that there are parallel universes in which there are an infinite number of different copies of you (each slightly different) is Fake Physics not real physics or real science.
Add 1 Point for Any Scientific Article That Starts Out as a Failure Confession and Then Becomes a "But Now There May Be a Solution" Claim
It seems that scientific literature almost never gives us candid statements of ignorance. It would be very good if we were to often see articles with titles such as "We Don't Actually Understand Human Origins" or "We Don't Know How Minds Arise" or "How Human Bodies Arise From a Tiny Zygote Is Still a Mystery." But we almost never see such articles. It is not rare, however, to see a type of article that starts out as a confession that all of the previous theories have failed, but which then turns into a kind of "but now a team of scientists think they have the solution" article. Almost always the new theory announced is not really any solution to the problem, and suffers from the same type of defects in previous attempts to solve the problem.
Add 1 Point for Any Paper That Offers Some Fancy Computer Model or Arcane Computer Programming and Claims That This Is a Model of How the Brain Works
Computer programming is produced by humans who willfully use computer languages to accomplish tasks. Brains are not produced by anything similar to computer programming. The brain has nothing corresponding to the subroutines or data structures or programming objects (such as Java classes) used by computer programs. So anyone who offers a computer program as a model of how the brain works is fooling you. Don't be fooled by the term "neural net," an inappropriate term used for a type of software structure that has no high resemblance to anything in the brain.
Add 1 Point for Any Scientific Paper Based Mainly on Experiments Involving Simulations Done Purely Inside a Computer, Not Involving Physical Experimentation
What can often occur with such papers is that conclusions are made based on purely make-believe data. The fake data is never called fake or make-believe, but usually called "simulated."
Add 1 Point for Any Scientific Article That Starts Out Claiming Some General Insight About Mind or Memory, Revealing Near Its End That It Involved Only Some Mouse Experiment
News articles claiming some new finding or insight about minds or memory are typically written to give you the impression that something was found out about human minds or human memory. Very often you will find out near the end of the article that the supposed insight or claimed finding comes from some experiment that only involved mice. Because neuroscientists these days are notorious for engaging in Questionable Research Practices when doing experiments involving mice, practices such as using way-too-small study group sizes, any new research based on mere experiments with mice is 90% likely to be worthless.
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