User talk:Danko Georgiev MD

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[edit] How to diagnose the pseudoscience?

When someone decides to be a scientist and do science, he must from the very beginning understand what science is. Unfortunately in the philosophy of science there have been many (and now known to be false) definitions of what science is. One such example is the suggestion of the induction principle as a characteristic ingredient of the scientific method. Nowadays one can find numerous versions of Karl Popper's proof that nothing like the induction principle is needed for one to do science. Instead one creates bold hypotheses, and then tries to falsify them via experiment. This conclusion arises from the logical asymmetry of singular vs. universal statements. For example, a single negative fact/statement can disprove given universal law/statement, however no finite number of positive facts/statements can prove a universal law/statement. Although this is a first step in the right direction of defining what science is, it does not provide insight of how and what you should do to be scientist, because Popper's thesis is descriptive, not methodological one.

Fortunately in modern physics (and philosophy of science) the answer is known, and it has been suggested by the rapid axiomatic development of mathematics itself. Simply science is "to try to construct consistent axiomatic models (toy models) and then test them experimentally or logically investigate them for unnoticed inconsistencies". How this is possible or why such a radical definition is needed? And isn't it possible once and for all to prove that a given axiomatic system is consistent? The answer to both questions is "No!".

As a consequence of a series of incompleteness theorems proved by Kurt Gödel it comes out that there exists no universal algorithm that provides answer whether a given formal system is consistent or not! Thus after the construction of a formal model it is always possible to be discovered logical inconsistency of the model, yet never it cannot be proven that the model is consistent if it is indeed consistent. So this new logical asymmetry requires that one not only tests a constructed toy model by experiment, it is also necessary to put the toy model on logical tests for consistency, which will end in finite time with falsification of the model if the model is inconsistent, yet will never end in case of consistency of the model.

Therefore the scientist must keep these two rules in mind:

[1] The experimental testing of a toy model never ends in case when the model is correct, yet it may end in finite time only if critical falsification occurs.

[2] The logical testing of model for logical inconsistencies never ends if the model is mathematically consistent, yet it may end in finite time if one mathematically proves an inconsistency within the model.

Thus some scientists/experimentalists might produce pseudoscience, if they ignore the mathematical requirement for consistency. Once this is done, and the experimentalist (putative scientist) goes over the limits of consistency, a perpetual vicious circle is originated. Due to the inconistency of the proposed model the putative scientist can prove/disprove any statement (from inconsistency follows everything). When additionally the experimentalist/pseudoscientist (who is not sensitive for the whole issue of consistency) is not critical for his own work, and he appears within an inconsistent model, it becomes very easy for him to disprove the opponents within his inconsistent model, and inversely “prove” any of his "pet theses". Thus the uncriticality for his own work might lead to fueling of a belief that the others are “provably” wrong, and he is “provably” unappreciated. The future discussion then becomes person oriented, and not science oriented. All irrelevant factors as the social status of the opponent, his personal qualifications, notability in the scientific community, etc. now play a central role in the arguments of the pseudoscientist.

Concluding this discussion with concise answer to the initially posed question might be done in the following fashion: "pseudoscience should be recognized by its proved logical inconsistency, its frequent usage of irrelevant arguments for the main topic, never directly answering to posed questions, and claiming other positions to be wrong without being able to provide answers for the very questions that the alternative theories have failed".

It is worth for a scientist to study in depth what is this thing called mathematical consistency, and if he or she does not feel like studying or reading mathematics, then a good advice is: "Better find yourself another hobby!"

[edit] My Edits

VAMP -- Synaptobrevin -- Exocytosis -- Syntaxin -- SNAP-25 -- Synaptotagmin -- SNARE (protein) -- Vascular smooth muscle -- Quantum brain dynamics -- Davydov soliton -- Polaron -- Sine-Gordon equation -- Stefan Marinov -- Tabish Qureshi