Pseudoscience.

What do you do when you wanted to get info on something, say, how to have thick and luscious hair? The fastest way is of course through Googling it and lo and behold, thousands if not hundreds of website links will appear in less than a second in front of your eyes. You will then proceed to clicking on several links you think are appropriate and reliable, and the reading starts.

This is a normal phenomena especially for the new generations, due to our high exposure to the internet. Everything is on it now. I couldn't even imagine doing my assignments without it; that would mean going to libraries and looking up the journals manually, and then writing down by HAND the citation and references. But do you know that you may fall into the trap of pseudoscience while doing so? Pseudoscience may also appear in lots of self-help books, of which thousands are published every year.

What is pseudoscience?

It can be defined as claims presented so that they appear to be scientific, when in fact they lack supporting evidence and plausibility (Shermer, 1997).

The word pseudo itself means 'fake'.

For example, these people tend to use scientific and complex jargon just to enhance their extraordinary claims - "This product contains nano molecules and biocosmic energy besides containing psychotronic amplification system." Blergh, at one glance, one may be impressed with the product as it contains so many scientific terms that surely will benefit. But when you look closely and think with scientific reasoning, (to critically think does not mean to criticize everything), you can see that it actually contains no truth. Zero. Nada. Maybe a little. But not so much as the product claims it could be.

Haha I am probably boring you all with all these scientific psychology jargon and terms too, but let's face it, we should not believe everything that we read and see. We should have a critical mind, and ask questions about the issue. Just because it contains such impressive words doesn't mean it could be true. It could be, but it doesn't hurt you to think right?

'Pop' psychology. Popular psychology. For instance, self-help books and websites about breakups, nutrition, and lots more. Falling prey to these pseudoscience stuff may sometimes be harmful. So please, be careful and have a critical mind while you read for information and knowledge.

Notakaki: To be critical and to think critically are two different things.