If you’ve been following along in the Scientific Literacy course helpfully provided for free by the University of Alberta, this week is all about pseudoscience. So let’s look at what that means and why it’s important to arm yourself with scientific literacy to be able to tell who is the actual bad actor in a given situation when that word gets thrown around.
I personally hate the word pseudoscience because it gets used so much that I find that it’s become meaningless. It’s often used in a dismissive way with little follow-up, and I prefer it when people take the time to explain why something isn’t well done science, and then explain how to do it the correct way rather than just hurl science-speak insults around that add to the general public’s confusion. I prefer the term science-ploitation because I think that makes it clearer, but they are, in fact, slightly different things.
Pseudoscience is science that has been done in such a way as to be misleading. It’s not always intentional, but it is often done to prove the researcher’s hopes or beliefs about something rather than done in a way as to show the data in an unbiased way without attachment to the outcome. Science-ploitation is the use of real science to sell products. A great example is the use of DNA testing science and technology to sell DNA testing kits to the public that offer no real benefit. They can be fun and interesting, but honestly, what are you as an average person going to do with that information (and yes, there are arguments to be made here for their use and the benefits they may have for the general population, but we can’t technically make those claims until we have done the research to show that they are actually beneficial. That’s the grey zone where a lot of predatory practitioners operate that I keep referring to: claiming that a product DOES benefit you versus offering a product that may be beneficial but the jury’s still out, but if you want the information and want to pay for it because you can then here is a thing we made - are actually two very different things, ethically.) The two things often, and unfortunately, tend to go hand in hand.
We’ve seen some great examples during the pandemic with Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin research. There were some very poorly done studies initially that were heavily biased - meaning, the way that the research was conducted, it was impossible to tell if the favourable outcomes were real or not. That was the pseudoscience part. The investigators designed and conducted the research in such a way as to show a favourable outcome when there actually might not be one because they wanted there to be a favourable outcome. Then the science-ploitation started - the hyping of these drugs as miracle cures based on some really flimsy evidence that later turned out to have been wrong. Someone made a lot of money, and the public got duped. Not only that, the hubbub around them made it so that people turned away from real and actual treatments that could have saved their lives. That’s why it’s a problem. The general public can be misled and kept away from the treatments that actually work in favour of something that might not because of the hype around it. The bad actors throw around these poorly done studies so it looks like there’s credible science behind these products or treatments, but the general public doesn’t always know how to interpret the studies correctly and they get caught up in fighting for the underdog, because what if?
We have got to get better at when we use some of these terms flippantly instead of taking the time to explain and debunk the bad science because it just confuses everyone, creating the very environment for these bad actors to operate in rather then eliminating it. I find it difficult, when reading various opinions online from disciplines that I’m not an expert in, to know who is actually committing science treason when everyone is throwing the accusation of pseudoscience around without explaining why. I love taking the time to investigate to find out which side is actually in the wrong. But if even I find it too tedious sometimes, I can only imagine how the general population feels.
Science is a process by which we form questions, design and collect evidence to test those questions, analyze and interpret the evidence, validate each others’ findings and try to figure out just what the heck is actually going on. Think of science as us saying that we recognize that our brains can interpret and perceive stuff differently - what we collectively refer to as our biases - so we’ve tried to come up with a way to take that bias out of the process. This is important because we can’t always see our own biases. So we try to figure out what is actually true versus what we just think might be happening. Sometimes things that seem common sense - like if we add more traffic lanes then we will ease traffic - are actually not true when we evaluate the evidence objectively - adding more traffic lanes actually tends to lead to an increase in traffic.
Pseudoscience is where we actually co-opt the scientific process to lean into our biases. It is a researcher’s ego gone amok. They cherry pick data, do incorrect analyses that show their data in a positive light, and basically try to fake the science to prove that they are correct.
Think of it like all of the ‘science’ that the cigarette companies pumped out that showed that smoking wasn’t harmful to peoples’ health. It’s false science. It’s science done with an end goal in mind - to prove that what you believe is true instead of remaining open and unattached to the overall outcome.
It can be a fine line to walk sometimes, as a researcher. You are clearly interested in the topic, and you can have your opinions, but the scientific method helps us to evaluate the data in a way that (hopefully) stops us from allowing our own wants and beliefs to cloud our research. This involves other people validating our results. If a study can’t be repeated, then it’s probably been faked. This is why good science takes time, and why the landscape can shift a bunch. We make recommendations based on the general consensus of data, not on a handful of studies. It’s not to be mean or exclude anyone who may have valid results, but until the confirmations happen, we don’t know if we can trust the new studies. It’s a very important part of the scientific process.
This is why you’ll often get the ‘we don’t know yet’ response from me when you ask me about the latest thing. I’ll give you the overview of what we currently know, good and bad, so that you can make a choice for yourself about what you want to do. I want to believe that wellness treatments can have an actual benefit to people. But I don’t want to believe that enough to fake the science to hold up my beliefs. I want to know which treatments are actually beneficial and which aren’t and in what ways. From what the research says, many wellness professions basically just utilize the placebo effect, decrease the stress response, and provide an increase in certain aspects of the sense of well-being and quality of life for people. I don’t think that that benefit should be overlooked. But I also don’t think that we should say that these therapies have a larger effect then that if the research shows that they don’t. We can celebrate what they DO do, instead of trying to overcompensate for what they're lacking by faking it or lying about it. We need well done research to figure out what these therapies actually do without our egos getting involved and biasing our results.
Now, to be fair, early research is often terrible and confusing. Time is everyone’s friend here. Real benefits stay benefits over multiple types of research and trials. Science can be infuriatingly slow, especially when you need help or answers now, but it is still the best way we have for figuring out what’s actually going on.
If you believe in what you’re researching, you do the science right. Well done science is the only way that you are ever going to actually get anywhere.
And sometimes we’re wrong, and that’s okay too. Negative results are still such important results. Knowing what something isn’t is just as helpful as showing what something is. The goal of science is to define and discover, not to prove yourself right.
The other thing that I find that can happen is that an entire field can be labelled as pseudoscience when it’s actually either early research or poorly done research because the people involved aren’t researchers. To me, pseudoscience is done to intentionally mislead people. That’s not always the case with early research or poorly done research that had the best of intentions. I often say this, but I’m old enough to remember when epigenetics and the microbiome were labelled as pseudoscience when in fact they were just emerging fields. The thing that changes whether or not a field of study is considered pseudoscience or just poorly done emerging field research is time and well done research. To do that, we need to invest in ensuring that those involved have the proper funding, knowledge and understanding of how to conduct proper research to be able to make that transition.
This is where I tend to get a bit protective of wellness research - many of these fields may have some benefit, but we won’t know that until they have good research done that either shows that they do or they don’t. Allowing poor research to continue in these fields without actual scientists and researchers stepping up to help them out with their research designs just allows the fraudulent actors in these fields to continue. If you want to stop the people using pseudoscience and science-ploitation, you have to be willing to do the research that shows there isn’t a benefit, but, because it’s bad science to have a tie to the outcome, you have to do it in such a way so that you’re okay being wrong if it shows that there is a benefit. Since a lot of folks on both sides of the wellness world line are very tied to proving an outcome, the proper research tends to not get done, and that’s leaving a lot of folks vulnerable to the scam artists who take advantage of that confusion.
My next post will focus on ways you can tell who is peddling misinformation and pseudoscience, what is early or poor research, how to navigate the time between ‘this might help, but we don’t know yet’, and whose opinions to actually trust when it comes to your health and wellness.
Thanks for reading! Til next time, folks!