Assignment Task: Consider the claims in reference to the characteristics of science versus pseudoscience that were reviewed in the lecture. Here they are for a reminder:
- Science attempts to be objective (ask, is there a conflict of interest?)
- Science is empirical (ask, did they systematically collect data?)
- Science is testable (ask, are they making a claim that CAN be tested empirically?)
- Science is public (ask, do we get to see the results?)
- Science is replicable (ask, have the findings been replicated; did they tell us how they did this?)
- Science is tentative (ask, are they making claims beyond the data?)
Respond to each bullet and then come to a conclusion about if, based on what is presented on the webpage, you would categorize the claims as scientific or pseudoscientific.