Voodoo science

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Voodoo science, is a pejorative neologism referring to research that falls short of adhering to the scientific method. The term was popularized in the book Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud, by professor and scientific skeptic Robert L. Park. Other authors have used the term, but it remains most closely associated with Park.

The term also appears in an earlier article title by W. Booth, "Voodoo Science" (Science 1988 Apr 15; 240(4850):274-7), and even earlier in a 1984 US Government report "Oversight Hearing on the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention" [1].

Park uses the term voodoo science as a catch-all concept covering four categories sometimes difficult to distinguish from each other:

pathological science, wherein genuine scientists deceive themselves
junk science, speculative theorizing which bamboozles rather than enlightens
pseudoscience proper, dependent on supernatural explanations
fraudulent science, exploiting bad science for the purposes of fraud

Park, a physics professor, science administrator/lobbyist/journalist and outspoken scientific skeptic, outlines his seven warning signs that a claim may be pseudoscientific and analyzes beliefs in popular culture and the media with a skeptical eye. Those seven warning signs are:

Discoverers make their claims directly to the popular media, rather than to fellow scientists.
Discoverers claim that a conspiracy has tried to suppress the discovery.
The claimed effect appears so weak that observers can hardly distinguish it from noise.
Anecdotal evidence is used to back up the claim.
True believers cite ancient traditions in support of the new claim.
The discoverer or discoverers work in isolation from the mainstream scientific community.
The discovery, if true, would require a change in the understanding of the fundamental laws of nature.