AS101 Study Guide - Final Guide: Tasseography, Phil Plait, John Wiley & Sons
Document Summary
Lesson 4: from ancient astronomy to more modern ideas. Now that you have a pretty good idea of what science is, it is important to be aware of what science is not. Pseudoscience, or false science, is all around us. Lots of people make predictions based on reading tea leaves, tarot cards, palms, psychic determinations. Such so-called scientific prognostications have never met the "test of time" using the accepted scientific method. (we"ll come to "astrology" shortly) Nonscience (notice how close this word is to "nonsense") is a term used to describe predictions based on intuition, societal traditions (old wives" tales), faith, political conviction, and tradition. However, such non-science techniques also do not meet the "test of time" and when made subject to the scientific method, simply fall apart. Sometimes, scientists just make mistakes a good example of this is the "cold fusion" proposals of some years ago. An interesting book has been published entitled when bad.
