As a result of the covid-19 pandemic, some technical terms have come into common use, many from medicine, which have not always been used with knowledge of the facts. The same has happened with terms from philosophy, especially epistemology. There are three that have been particularly helpful and about which, however, there is still a great incorrectness in their use: denialism, antiscience and pseudoscience.
They are three very related concepts and, in fact, they tend to overlap at times. Hence, the attitudes of some people can be embedded in more than one of them. It is important to use them accurately because, as we are seeing these days, an abusive use of any of them ends up diluting their meaning.
Not everyone is a denier
In academia, the term denialism It takes time to crystallize. It is not so broad as to include all criticism of scientific results, since this would absurdly make a denier of any scientist who questions, with a good argumentative or factual basis, a widely accepted hypothesis. Nor is it so narrow as to refer only to those who reject the historical evidence about the Holocaust (even if that was its origin).
The most widespread denialisms today refer to climate change, the existence of the AIDS virus or covid-19, and the effectiveness of vaccines in general.
Deniers usually defend themselves by saying that they represent the healthy skepticism and critical attitude that should prevail in science. However, this is a diversionary maneuver. Denialism should not be confused with organized skepticism, which, as sociologist Robert K. Merton pointed out decades ago, is a characteristic attribute of science.
Unlike this, it does not intend to question scientific hypotheses that have not been sufficiently contrasted, but rather promotes a dogmatic rejection and little reasoning, often for emotional and ideological reasons, of well-established scientific theses about certain phenomena.
One of the best characterizations of denialism so far is in a short 2009 article by Pascal Diethelm, a health economist, and Martin McKee, a physician who teaches public health.
According to them, negationism would consist of a rejection of the scientific consensus with arguments alien to science itself, or without any argument at all. This creates the impression that there is debate where there really isn’t. It is linked to five traits:
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recourse to conspiracy ideas.
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recourse to bogus experts and contempt for real experts
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convenience selection of data and analysis.
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the formation of impossible expectations about what science can actually provide.
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the use of logical fallacies.
Antiscience for the flat earth or against evolution
Also in antiscience we find the refutation of scientific hypotheses or facts well established by science, but there is in it an attitude with a more general character.
It does not limit itself to denying a specific aspect or a specific explanation of certain natural mechanisms, but rejects an entire theory or even fundamental scientific advances.
Two very clear examples would be flat earthism and the rejection of the theory of evolution by radical creationists. Obviously, to the extent that negationisms almost always involve, at least indirectly, an opposition to theories or facts well established by scientific practice, they assume an anti-scientific attitude, although this is not always the case.
There may be cases of people who deny these facts or theories and do so convinced that good science is what necessarily leads to such denial.
This would be the case, for example, of climate change deniers who cling to that small percentage of climatologists who only deny that climate change is caused by human activity.
In the same way, an anti-vaccine person who rejects RNA vaccines because he believes that they can produce changes in the genome of the vaccinated person would be maintaining an anti-scientific attitude, since that belief clashes with what science tells us.
A person who mistrusts covid-19 vaccines because they consider that possible long-term side effects are not yet known would not necessarily be committed to anti-scientific attitudes, although one might wonder if they might not be carrying their misgivings beyond what is prudent.
One of the pioneers in the study of antiscience has been the historian of science Gerald Holton. Already at the beginning of the 90s of the last century, he warned us of the danger that “that beast that slumbers in the subsoil of our civilization” would wake up. It seems that the beast has awakened, as anti-scientific attitudes are beginning to become more and more noticeable even in countries with a relatively high educational level.
Various studies have shown that denialism and anti-science attitudes are usually linked to the acceptance of conspiracy theories and the so-called “alternative facts”. This is a euphemism to refer to events that have never actually occurred, but are assumed for convenience.
If someone opposes the consensus of science without having genuine scientific arguments or reliable data, they must articulate some kind of conspiracy explanation to justify why that consensus exists.
The easiest recourse is to think that scientists are bought by the big pharmaceutical companies, or by the biotech industries, or by political or military power.
These conspiracy theories have been taken to paroxysm by movements like QAnon, whose belief that a satanic and pedophile elite wants to control us all and prevent Donald Trump from triumphing, and to do so they use any means at their disposal, including vaccines, makes us rethink the definition of the human being as a rational animal.
Pseudoscience: falsehoods disguised as science
Pseudosciences are disciplines or theories that claim to be scientific without actually being so. That inevitably leads them to collide with accepted scientific theories.
Popular examples today would be astrology, homeopathy, parapsychology, and “quantum medicine” (although this goes by other names and has various ramifications).
It should be clarified that, as much as homeopathy is sometimes confused with naturopathic medicine and with herbalism, they are not the same thing. In the latter, the patient receives at least substances that have a chemical effect on his body. The problem here would be the control of the doses.
Homeopathy, on the other hand, is based on the idea that the healing power of a substance is given, among other things, by the extreme dilution with which it is administered. But the dilutions are so extreme that it is impossible for the patient to receive a single molecule of the active ingredient.
To justify this, the defenders of homeopathy resort to a theory completely devoid of scientific basis, not to say simply contrary to science, such as the “memory of water”. According to this theory, the water that has been in contact with the active ingredient keeps a memory of its chemical properties and that “information” is what is kept in the homeopathic preparation and cures the patient.
The curious thing is that, in most cases, what the patient receives is not a jar of water, but a sugar pill.
Contrary to what some seem to believe, trusting Popper too much, pseudosciences are not infalsifiable. That is, their theses can be tested through empirical testing. In fact, many of the claims of the pseudosciences are false, since science has shown them to be false. Pseudosciences can and do claim that they have many “confirmations” (in the sense of fulfilled predictions) to their credit, which may be true, but obviously that does not make them scientific.
Let us illustrate everything we have just said with the example of the pandemic:
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Whoever denies that the pandemic or the virus that causes it exists is a denier.
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Anyone who rejects vaccines in general and, therefore, also these vaccines against covid-19, believing that they are made to harm or control people is someone who maintains anti-scientific attitudes.
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The various remedies that have been proposed against infection as if they were supported by science without actually being so, such as homeopathic remedies, are pseudoscience.
Antonio Diéguez Lucena, Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Malaga University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.
