Currently we're learning about one of the six Areas of Knowledge - natural science. We compared natural science with pseudoscience. The definition of pseudoscience is this: A practice that is claimed to be scientific, or is made to appear to be scientific, but does not adhere to an appropriate scientific methodology.
The following are the topics that we listed as pseudoscience in class:
1 Astrology
2 Divination
3 Witchcraft
4 Feng Shui
5 Traditional Chinese Medicine
6 Crystology
Two of the topics above are related to my culture - Feng Shui and traditional Chinese medicine. I wasn't surprised to see Feng Shui in the list, because I don't really believe in it myself. Traditional Chinese Medicine, however, I find it a little disturbing and shocking to see it in the list.
I guess my feelings are due to the fact that I do seek for medical help from the traditional Chinese way. If traditional Chinese medicine is truly pseudoscience, then my beliefs would be false for the past 18 years. To acknowledge that is very, very disturbing.
To be honest, other than witchcraft, my life has been more or less influenced by the topics mentioned above. To a certain extent, I believe in astrology and has even asked my friends' advice about it. My mum goes to a fortune teller at least once a year to find out what we need to be caution of every year. I have a few things that are said to improve my life quality by Feng Shui. I have a crystal in my apartment, also supposed to improve my life quality.
What can I say? Maybe Chinese are superstitious or we just hold many pragmatic truths to make us feel safe. By holding our beliefs in pseudoscience, we feel safe because we made some effort to make our life better.
Knowledge issues: Is it wrong to believe in pragmatic truths? How do we know that pseudoscience isn't true because no one has yet been able to prove them to be true?
Source of image: http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/modules/PSEUDO/wiz2.gif
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