Translated material
How to fight pseudoscience
Pseudoscience always accompanied science, and it is unlikely that this situation will ever change. Various varieties of pseudoscience, repeatedly exposed and ridiculed, are invariably revived in a raised form, as is clearly visible in the example of astrology. Raining in the properties of human nature, pseudoscience, apparently, is also fundamentally irresistible as crime or drug addiction. Nevertheless, as in these two cases, a society for self -preservation should constantly fight the phenomenon of pseudoscience in order to hold it in permissible framework. Of course, in a democratic society there cannot be prohibitions on the statement of even delusional ideas. No one can also impede a citizen of a free country in his desire to be deceived by the soothsayers or pseudo -priests (although licensed control over the activities of the latter is still necessary). But no one has the right to take money from citizens and the state to pay for obviously meaningless projects.
It is in these positions that the Russian Academy of Sciences stands, on the initiative of V.L. Ginzburg forming in 1998 at his presidium, a commission for the fight against pseudoscience and falsification of scientific research, the permanent chairman of which is academician E.P. Kruglyakov. The commission sets its task to terminate the uncontrolled financing of pseudoscience by the state and, for this purpose, achieves an indispensable official examination of any large -scale state projects in the field of science and technology.
It is not surprising that citizens who have obvious “merits” in the creation of pseudoscientific theories use any opportunity to delay the activities of the commission. But sometimes serious scientists also write about her uselessness. The latest of these publications is the article by Leonid Medvedev, published on November 8, 2011 in the Trv-Hunus No. 91 under the heading “Scientists are also people” [1]. Nothing human, therefore, is not alien to them, but in the nature of man the property of mistakes is laid down, Errare Humanum Est. So this article is teeming with actual errors, and it begins with the errors of unforgivable ones. We quote her first lines: “Getting acquainted with the vicissitudes of relations between academics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and V.I. Petrik, I’m more and more convinced that the main thing passes from sight. More precisely, it is replaced by a secondary, unprovable, uncertain and, therefore, unreasonable: moral appearance of the inventor, strange examinations, fantastic amounts that he seemed to earn (or is going to earn) on nanofilters, as if the protection of the speaker of the State Duma and the like details. All this has already been and will happen many, many times. Petrik - Kaznacheev - Grabovois - Kashpirovsky - Garyaev - these are phenomena from the category of eternal. In fact, the problem of RAS - Petrik lies in a completely different plane. At least much deeper and wider. Firstly, you should fight for scientificity and rationality, and only then against V.I. Petrika. It is well known that this is far from the same. ”
So, the author in essence claims that the wounds fights not for scientificity, but against Petrik (“the appearance of the moral” of which is not necessary); that he is in vain accused of intention to earn fantastic amounts, and “on nanofilters”; That he was in vain accused of using the patronage of the State Duma speaker and that all accusations against the unfortunate Petrik are based on “strange” examinations. And it turns out in L. Medvedev that the fight against Petrica has nothing to do with the struggle "for scientific and rationality." All these statements are false (we must hope that we are not talking about conscious lies, but about the result of the author’s complete ignorance in the history of Petrikiada).
We will not again state the well -known facts of this story, a brief description of which is given, for example, in the articles of E.P. Kruglyakova in Bulletin No. 7 and E.B. Aleksandrova in Bulletin No. 9 “In Defense of Science”, to which we send the reader (they are available on the RAS website and - in a more convenient form for use - on the site [2]). L. Medvedev condemns the “ingenuous” assessment of Kruglyakov’s act of academicians who scattered in compliments Petrik (they say, they wanted to join financing), and offers to interpret the event “with somewhat different nuances”. By golly, there are no nuances here-all the same “loot”, and in the same perspective! And, by golly, it is a sin to call Petrik a “eccentric”! However, the successful capture of this “eccentric” as a co -author of the chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation is, of course, a very wonderful eccentricity ...
We also note that L. Medvedev, speaking of Petrik, writes about his “nanofilters” in the context of pseudo -nausea, exposing, for example, nanofilters to the “torsion fields” and to the “phantom genome”. Meanwhile, the multifaceted criticism of these filters always lay purely in their consumer properties (efficiency, cost, compliance with the declared parameters, potential danger.). No one accused these filters of pseudoscience (if you leave aside advertising and absurd statements that the filters are filled with graphene). The pseudoscience in the wide palette of the “discoveries” of Petrika, of course, is found, but the theme of “nanofilters” does not apply to her. However, water purification experts relate to Petrik’s “nanofilters” not so tolerant (see, for example, a commentary on the article by L. Medvedev on the website of the TRV-hunger).
Further, L. Medvedev criticizes the Russian Academy of Sciences for tolerance to the errors of his members in case of intolerance to the sins of representatives of science from other corporations. And here he is unfair and inconsistent. For example, he accuses the department of the History of the Russian Academy of Sciences of ignoring A.T. Fomenko: “However, it is curious that the department of the history of the Russian Academy of Sciences did not publicly express the attitude to his historical works, however, maybe I simply did not see him.” So, maybe at first it was necessary to look before surprised? The department of history has repeatedly definitely characterized the constructions of A.T. Fomenko - and these definitions are published! In the same way, contrary to the opinion of L. Medvedev, repeatedly members of our commission wrote about the strange works of V.P. Koznacheeva et al. (See, for example, an article by E.P. Kruglyakov “The History of one Interview” in Bulletin No. 1).
The author is inconsistent with the calls not to pay attention to the errors of scientists who have obvious achievements in their profession. After all, he does not forgive historical nonsense to successful mathematician academician A.T. Fomenko! And finally, the author is innocently reproaching the academician E.P. Kruglyakova, who, firstly, admitted that he did not read the author’s notes, and secondly, did not respond to the book sent by the author. Ten years have passed - is it worth it to write extensively about it, finding your so deep personal resentment?
Today, pseudoscience, especially fed by the state, is not just a refuge for harmless marginals from science. This is a real danger to science, education and thereby for society as a whole. Fighting her is an ungrateful thing, but necessary.
Public discussions of the parties constantly turn into mutual accusations using the same labels. So, representatives of the “normal” science give the notorious “Lysenkovshchina” as a model of aggressive pseudoscience with a political lining. In response, they receive accusations that it was the Academy of Sciences of the USSR that was responsible for the persecution of genetics, since Lysenko was its member, and the current wrestling of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the pseudoscience is called the new “Lysenkovshchina” and “the new campaign of the Inquisition”. Last year, it was the last wording that the head of the Duma used the last wording, he was also the chairman of the Supreme Council of the EDRO party Boris Gryzlov, accusing the Inquisition at the burning of Copernicus at the same time!
The insolubleness of these disputes is by no means associated with the impossibility of drawing a clear line between science and pseudoscience - there are elementary necessary and sufficient signs of a priori falsity of many modern “discoveries” widely propagated in the media. (These signs are especially clearly formulated in the field of exact sciences, in particular in physics.) The insoluble of disputes is caused by the subjective impossibility of recognizing the pseudonaucas of their fiasco, since in cases of bona fide delusion, this would mean a psychological collapse associated with the abandonment of long -term and immense ambitions, and in cases of obvious fraud, even criminal liability could entail.
These circumstances determine the fierceness of the resistance of pseudoscience and its aggressiveness, while the motivation for the dispute of a nasty (in every sense ...) The side is weakened by the natural unwillingness of professional scientists to spend time on barren disputes with fanatical, ignorant and often unscrupulous opponents. As a result, a vicious situation arises in which all the trump cards are in the hands of pseudoscience. The media, which are fallen to dubious sensations, or even simply purchased, are overflowing with pseudoscientific fabrications (see Ernst Muldashev and Savely Kashnitsky in the AiF, record for fabulousness and stupidity. Their articles will disgrace this popular publication - but at the same time they suggest that the advertising of medical tools published in the AIF is such Brechnya, although much more dangerous than articles) and slanderous attacks on “inert official science”, “impedes progress and suffocating the sprouts of the new”. At the same time, this “official” science itself can usually object only in its own publications with void circulations, such as the ballot “in defense of science”.
In addition to this, the adherents of some of the most active areas of pseudoscience are widely used by the ties in the Soviet period in defense structures, state security and intelligence. This turns out to be a tough lobbying in the State Duma of the Projects of the transfer of state financing of science and education in the hands of the carriers of the “new science”, who vowardly promise (for 40 years!) Take a sword-sample, a self-combustion tablecloth, an eternal engine (this or that kind).
However, is it legitimate to question the freedom of search? Is it possible to deprive the researcher of the right to error? How can one distinguish the subject of scientific research from pseudoscience? Such rhetorical issues constantly sound in any public discussion of the topic of pseudoscience. Her adherents and defenders invariably give historical examples of misunderstanding by contemporaries of true remarkable discoveries and incorrect forecasts of the great scientists of the past (usually Hertz, Thomson, Rutherford). At the same time, it is implicitly assumed that the situation in the science of the third millennium does not differ from that three hundred or even a hundred years ago. This is a deep misconception.
The first scientists walked along the virgin lands, when almost any more or less reasonable hypothesis had approximately equal chances to be either confirmed or be refuted. Since then, human nature has not changed, it is also common for people to make mistakes, but in science the situation has changed radically. Humanity has accumulated a grandiose volume of knowledge that resolutely limit the fantasies of researchers in the interpretation of new discoveries. Each new hypothesis should be primarily linked with already known indisputable laws and facts. It is precisely this kind of “principle of conformity” that allows without hesitation to reject pseudoscientific claims, such as again and again, the pro -wings of the production of Daric energy “from the physical vacuum” and the construction of the “off -line movement” (which is, for example, the nickname “gravitsepa”, installed on one of the Russian satellites and, in complete accordance with the laws of nature, which could not change it. The orbit was counted on by the creators of the gravitsa, this is stated in the article by E.P. Kruglyakov in the ballot “In Defense of Science” No. 9, 2011, which will be published in December).
Mistakes are practically inevitably accompanied by any scientific research, but errors of errors are different. There are inevitable errors associated with the incompleteness of accounting of the existing knowledge of the subject, or routine methodological errors. You have to put up with them. But the false hypotheses of pseudoscience are not associated with the lack of existing knowledge about the subject, but with ignoring this knowledge.
Very characteristic of pseudoscience of all time a statement on the discovery of new types of interaction, new particles, and new forces. But any new force should be linked to already known. For example, it is impossible to introduce a new range without looking at the immense observation material in the field of celestial mechanics. At the same time, insurmountable restrictions on the magnitude of the hypothetical new power immediately arise - it should be so weak that nothing to change in the picture of the world within the achieved accuracy of observations.
Note that the requirements of the “principle of conformity” are not limited to the area of the exact sciences. An example of the application of the same approach is the refutation by professional historians and astronomers of extravagant and frankly pseudoscientific constructions by A.T. Fomenko.
The supreme judge is the world scientific community based on a continuously growing set of facts and objective laws of nature - on the accumulated collective scientific knowledge. And this court is quite peremptory. In science (at least in the field of exact sciences), the principle of freedom of conscience is not applicable, allowing everyone to believe in their own way: science lives with knowledge, not faith. Accurate knowledge leaves little space for various views - science is not democratic. Discussions in science are appropriate at the stage of hypotheses. Discussions cease when a theory comes to a hypothesis.
Evgeny Aleksandrov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Yuri Efremov, Dok. physical mat. sciences