On The Fringe
RALUCA BUJOR
Raluca Bujor is currently a NEC fellow and a high school teacher of Philosophy and Logic. In 2022, she earned a PhD in Philosophy from Sorbonne University in Paris.
Pseudoscience: on the borders between reverie, imitation and epistemic noise
Introduction
Recently, artist Floriama Cândea told me about a pyramid built near Pitești, during the Ceausescu regime. All sorts of research would have been carried out here, on the edge of what is recognized as science. In the same conversation, I also learned about a project by artists Andreea Medar and Mălina Ionescu, which revolves around shell fossils found in the commune of Melinești (Dolj). Talking to locals about the unusual shells found in the hills and sometimes even in their own backyard, the artists uncovered all sorts of legends. One that sticks in my mind is that the shells were eaten and then thrown around by a giant who supposedly lived on one of the hills near the village. The two artistic investigations led to On the Fringe, a project dedicated to the “grey areas” between science and pseudoscience, facts and myths. Floriama worked on an installation inspired by the construction realized almost 40 years ago near Pitești, and I searched for answers about the essence of pseudoscience and the reasons found by various specialists behind its popularity, especially in the form of occultism. As far as fossilized shells were concerned, the web of stories surrounding them led to related questions. If in the urban environment pseudo-scientific theories are more likely to emerge, in the countryside, unless pragmatism wins out, mythology is the first choice. Inside On the fringe, looking at the boundaries between science, art and mythology, I tried to address the question of science and pseudoscience and the success of the latter. The trail led me to stops in evolutionary psychology, the history of concepts, epistemology and ancient anthropology.
The pyramid near Pitesti and fossils of shells once washed by the Paratethys sea
In the 1980s, the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Council for Science and Technology at that time were allocating funds for the construction of a pyramid inside the Prundu (Pitesti) Wastewater Treatment Plant, a miniature replica of the pyramid of Keops in Egypt. After the fall of the dictatorship, the work of the National Laboratory for Fundamental Research that operated in the pyramid remained shrouded in mystery. Information often depends on the testimonies of former employees and not so much on archival documents. The Laboratory was supposedly used for research into the so-called “pyramid effect”: an unusual causality that would operate in the center of gravity of the pyramids and have beneficial effects on seed germination, water purification, food preservation, razor blade sharpening, etc.
The stories about the microphysical superpowers of pyramid constructions begin in the 1930s, when, after a visit to Egypt, the French radiesthesiologist Antoine Bovis, after a visit to Egypt, put forward a hypothesis that is now considered pseudoscientific: pyramids, due to their geometry, would release certain ‘shape waves’ that stop the usual processes of decay and preserve organic matter. Word gets around, and in 1959, Drbal’s pyramid is patented in the Czech Republic, a small scale model replicating the pyramid of Keops that promises to sharpen razor blades placed in the position of the “king’s chamber”. These models come on the market at a reasonable price and sell quite well. Drbal is followed by builders offering their services to erect pyramid houses or Frenchmen making models of pyramids that would improve the quality of wine. Pyramidologists shake hands, organize so-called experiments to demonstrate the beneficial effects of construction, but validation from the scientific community does not appear. In any case, the Cold War does not seem to have affected research in the field. On the contrary, pyramidology was quietly sharpening razor blades in both East and West. And things continued after the fall of the Curtain. Today, on the outskirts of Moscow, you can visit one of the 17 fiberglass pyramids funded by Alexander Golod, a former military supplier, entrepreneur and Ukrainian alternative healer. Golod believes that the “pyramid effect” is beneficial for human beings, the environment, the ozone layer, etc. The building is just over 45 meters high - far from being a mere model, and receives many visitors with all kinds of problems (infertility, hangovers, aches and pains, etc.). Journalists from the LA Times went to the pyramid near Moscow in 2008 to do a story, and what they found was a mixture of New Age business and legends of miracles that have happened after visiting the structure.
The second curious object story does not communicate with the legacy of the Egyptians, but goes much further into the mists of time. Specifically, about 5 million years ago. From this period it seems that the fossils of shells found in Melinești (Dolj county) have traveled to present-day Oltenia, where geological research sparked by the project of artists Andreea Medar and Mălina Ionescu has begun and the first hypotheses are being formulated. The shells apparently come from the time when the Paratethys sea covered much of central and south-eastern Europe. For the locals of Melinești, they were the source of legends. At other times, they were used as building material, and lately, following their discussions with Andreea and Mălina, the door has been opened to appreciating and protecting fossils for their scientific value. Depending on the onlooker, the same object could pendulum between being the engine for legends, raw material for construction, or geological testimony of the utmost importance.
The human imagination has always tickled at the Egyptian pyramids - the technê (technique) behind their construction, their sepultural function and the supposed secrets of the ancient priestly caste naturally make an excellent cocktail for reverie and, sometimes, speculation. Likewise, the unusual appearance of marine organisms in a landlocked hilly area. Both pyramids and shell fossils have become objects of special status because a missing link floats around them. Thinking seeks to catch everything in a causal chain, to explain where it comes from, and in some cases it hits gaps and has to leap over them. Aporia or dead ends are not acceptable to the human mind, so we weave even heterogeneous notions (aliens, giants, mysterious energies, etc.) into the causal chain, if this makes up for the missing link.
Recently, two philosophers concerned with science and the human mind , Stefaan Blancke and Johan De Smedt, proposed a simple explanation for the “stubbornness” of some people to prefer pseudoscientific theories despite all evidence to the contrary. They started from the assumption in evolutionary psychology that human beings have two ways of processing information from the environment - an intuitive and a reflexive way. The first way is fast, heuristic, rather unconscious, problem-solving oriented and frugal in nature, it is almost simplistic. The reflective way has complementary features, requiring more time to unfold its processes and advance conclusions. For the two philosophers, pseudo-sciences would be successful because they speak the language of the first type of thinking from the outset - which our ancestors used to adapt in a timely manner to environmental situations that were either dangerous or full of opportunities. In other words, pyramidology is successful because it offers a quick, heuristic solution to, say, water pollution or food degradation. In the same way, the human mind can also be quick to find the explanation behind ‘strange’ phenomena - say, fossils of shells found in a hilly area. We like the speed and ingenuity of the solution, and no longer look at its probability or the logical demands of a proof.
It sounds plausible, but I couldn’t stop there and I tried to find other explanations for this veritable “guilty pleasure” of the human mind: the fabrication of causal constellations around certain phenomena encountered around us or, sometimes, created together with the theory to explain them.
Pseudoscience: mimesis, bullshit and mythical thinking
The earliest uses of the Latin term pseudoscientia date back to the 17th century, when it was sometimes used in disputes between religion and the emerging experimental sciences. The 19th century saw an increase in the use of modern translations of the term, against the backdrop of identity struggles around science. The scientific endeavor begins to establish its own boundaries and, more importantly, its own standards of methods and practices. The fruit of the scientific revolution reaches maturity, and this process involves a sustained effort to differentiate itself from all those approaches that do not satisfy the norms on which the emerging scientific community agrees. Phrenology, parapsychology and creationism, for example, are rapidly being sidelined. After more than a century, in the second half of the 20th century, associations and publications were set up in many countries (but not in Romania) with the declared aim of combating pseudoscience, debunking false theories and popularizing the results of real science - see Skeptical Inquirer. Starting in the 1960s, astral projection, astrology, the Bermuda Triangle, the pyramid effect and the like began to be attacked head-on by people skilled in recognized scientific methods. The popularization of science becomes a weapon against pseudoscience - the efforts of astrophysicist Carl Sagan provide a notable example.
From a theoretical point of view, the demarcation between out-and-out science and pseudoscience has been and is a hotly debated topic. Indeed, such a distinction is crucial today in many fields: environmental and climate change policies, journalism, law, health, education. Wherever an expert is called upon, the question of his or her viability arises. In 2021, Sven Ove Hansson identified two major contemporary forms of pseudoscience: 1 - that which produces problematic theories (homeopathy, astrology, etc) and 2 - that which denies certain theories or branches of science with legitimacy (denialism of any kind - historical, climate, etc). Although the two pseudoscientific approaches are sometimes combined, the difference between them remains relevant: “theories” that deny well-established scientific positions produce false controversies about the statements issued by the latter, while pseudoscience in the first category rather courts mainstream science and claims to be its peer in terms of methodology and results obtained. This type of seemingly systematic speculation is often said to mimic or pretend to be science, when in fact it is not. The pseudoscientific mimesis goes as far as constructing experiments, interpreting results and publishing them in “serious” journals, and those who maintain this practice are sometimes graduates of genuine scientific faculties.
But why are pseudoscientific theories nothing more than empty imitations of science? Where do we draw the line between this type of discourse and that of scientists considered “serious”? Without intending to present an exhaustive list, I will briefly indicate some of the proposed criteria for recognizing pseudoscience and seeing beyond its mimicry. To begin with, although it is not a sufficient condition, a scientific theory must be testable by observation and experiment (the falsifiability criterion proposed by Karl Popper). At the same time, it is not based on experiments that are unrepeatable or designed in such a way as to confirm the theory nor simply wrongly constructed. Moreover, theories issued from a scientific ethos are open to (self-)criticism and open to reconfiguration, however vehemently, to the extent that their possible predictions are not confirmed. Obviously, pseudoscience has problems in issuing predictions and confirming them, though not always.
One criteria that I consider particularly relevant is that which emphasizes the collective and collaborative nature of genuine scientific research. In contrast, pseudoscientific speculation usually revolves around some kind of cult of personality, of a ’towering’, ‘visionary’ figure, etc. In this respect, pseudoscience retains something of the archaic period of Greece, a relevant territory for the present discussion since it was here that European philosophy and science emerged, precisely by distancing itself from the world of myth. In the early stages of this movement of distancing logos from muthos, the figure of the sage (the knower) was still related to the shaman, the inspired poet and the prophet or seer. Unlike the ‘common folk’, all these figures possessed a certain exceptional faculty, that of deciphering the invisible, of penetrating with the mind’s eye what ordinary eyes could not glimpse. Perhaps the power of attraction of the various “gurus” who promote pseudo-sciences stems precisely from this archaic, particularly profound background, which was related to the type of human being to whom the truth would be accessible - the visionary. The fact is that the fundamental step taken by the philosopher, in the non-visionary sense of the term, is, according to Jean-Pierre Vernant, to establish a school and thus communicate with the general public, to overcome sectarian logic based on secrecy. Classical philosophical thought no longer speaks the language of secrets but that of the citizenry, of citizens who are equal among themselves and capable of debate. It is logos, thinking that seeks truth by means that do not involve the supernatural and that expresses itself in a language that does not involve deciphering symbols or having certain initiatory experiences.
Science, as the offspring of this moment of detachment of rational thought from myth, inherits a fundamental duty to be accessible and communicated to all. However, the human networks created by pseudo-science often form closed bubbles, isolated and isolating, especially in relation to possible criticism. Falsehood binds in a different way than truth, we might say. Or rather, it unbinds.
But there are those who say that pseudoscience is not about falsehoods or lies, but a more subtle and dangerous type of discourse. In this respect, James Ladyman makes a very suggestive analogy between pseudoscientific discourse and the phenomenon called “bullshit”. Both types of speech are essentially more harmful than lies. Unlike untruths - which can be confronted and disproved, talk of this type refrains from making factual statements, even if they are erroneous. It is no longer about the real, but goes somehow into the void, self-reproducing itself in a quasi-rigorous manner. Just think of what we call the “wooden language” of certain politicians or businessmen. Analogously, what pseudo-science produces is, Ladyman says, “epistemic noise”, not statements that have any content related to reality. This is why both empty bullshit and pseudoscientific discourse present this immense danger to knowledge and society: it removes distances the human mind from any contact with reality. We talk for the sake of talking, as it were. The mimesis of which I spoke above rhymes with such epistemic noise, both of which are nothing but forms without substance.
Blurring in today’s society and distrust in science
Beyond the verbiage and epistemic noise, a certain category of pseudoscience is said to aim at the (more or less conspiratorial) denial of certain official positions related to history, climate or health. This possibility is of course underpinned by the lack of regulation of the information market, especially in social media. As a result of the laissez-faire on social platforms (and often on TV, radio and in newspapers), there is, in the words of Virginie Tournay, a blurring, a confusion between scientific and democratic legitimacy. While in the case of the latter, the convergence of the opinions of the largest possible number of individuals is sufficient, a criterion which is unfortunately assimilated by the general public as a strictly quantitative one, in the case of scientific research, legitimacy is acquired through peer review processes, dialog with the scientific community and rational consensus. No matter how many individuals gather or like to support an error, it remains an error.
The lack of trust in the scientific community is also coming against the backdrop of what French political scientists call “cultural insecurity” - insécurité culturelle - the reaction of certain social groups against multiculturalism and diversity, both trends perceived as a loss of their own identity. As a result, everything that represents the establishment is being overturned, including scientific positions supported by those in power or official scientific research per se. The crisis is, after all, about the ideal of representativeness and has often been evoked in recent years to explain the votes won, across the European continent and beyond, by various populist parties with nationalist-conservative agendas. The scientific community and its ideals are far from being intangible, as if from an ivory tower, as we witness the internal problems of democratic society. On the contrary, science is caught in the vortex, as the very idea of “neutrality” is deeply questioned - through cultural relativism and deconstruction, but also, more recently, through conspiracy theories and resentment (perhaps even paradoxical products of the former).
Moreover, today the scientific and academic community is also facing internal problems that undermine its legitimacy and make it seem as unviable as its “enemies”: scientific fraud (inventing data, falsifying test results, the use of so-called paper mills, etc.), politicization, the influence of the private sector: roughly speaking, the failure to respect the codes of ethics that research institutes and universities have. Pseudoscience’s best friends are all these instances where science is shaking from within. They foster skepticism about the scientific community and increase public distrust in the authority of science. In other words, they pave the way for ‘alternative’ theories to flourish.
Disenchantment and pseudo-science
Beyond the need to find a criterion for distinguishing whether a given theory is scientific or not, another question would be the following: in the context of a society that, in principle, puts rationality first, why do pseudoscientific speculations become so attractive to the general public? Why do more and more people believe in the “scientificity” of certain discourses related to UFOs, telekinesis, numerology, spiritualism, scientology, pyramidology, etc.? The issue is not about judging these beliefs, but about attempting to understand these options in the wider context of contemporary culture. In medical cases, the explanations are probably the simplest: classical medicine has no cures for many of the diseases a person may face, and any relief, even one through the placebo effect, is more than welcome and the search for it is perfectly legitimate. But adopting theories of the paranormal or the occult is not necessarily about healing or relief, but about regaining some kind of relationship with the world.
In Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the world was still enchanted. Spirits, good or evil, walked in the forest, spring water purified you, and the full moon could take your mind. Today, the forest is a resource for wood or, at best, a place of refuge and replenishment of the strength lost in the urban environment. We have studies about trees and the communication between their roots, we have apps that help us identify the type of tree from its leaves. If we are frightened or mesmerized by the glow of the moon’s rays along a path, we know that we are dealing with a subjective experience and not with the presence of supernatural forces wanting something from us. In other words, today we know that certain impressions we have of the world around us are purely subjective. Our world is no longer an “enchanted garden”, but is “unweeded”, rationalized, as Max Weber said at the beginning of the 20th century. In the quarrel between Science and Religion, the former would have won. But religion has not completely disappeared from society, not in the true sense of secularization. Christianity, for example, has not evaporated; it has merely lost its dominant position and become one option among others. The religious phenomenon no longer constitutes today the main symbolic system of European communities, but, in this respect, each is left to relate individually to the various symbolic matrices available.
Against this background, in the 19th century, a paradoxical synthesis between the Christian esoteric tradition and modern science appears: occultism. Later, in the 60s, this, and not some “Oriental Revival”, led to the appearance of various New Age religions. The latter, through holism and attempts to reconcile religion and science, constituted, in essence, a form of cultural criticism, a way of responding to the disenchantment of the world, but from within. The New Age response consisted in attacking the two pillars of European society: Christian dualism and scientific reductionism. The abandonment of the two conceptions irremediably leads to the idea that matter is entagled with spirit and that the universe is not a blind mechanism, but is “animated” by a “spiritual energy”. Sounds familiar. If Wouter J. Hanegraaff is right, the pseudosciences based on the occult and the New Age are nothing more than responses to the disenchantment of the modern world, attempts to reconcile the scientific ethos with the older charm of the surrounding nature, an adaptation and compensation mechanism.
Poets have created a metaphorical moon, and scholars an algebraic moon. The real moon is between the two
In 1834, Victor Hugo accepts the invitation of his friend François Arago and visits the Paris Observatory. From here, through a telescope, he looks at the surface of the Moon for the first time. The experience is described in a long poem, entitled “Promontorium Somnii” (Promontoire du songe, Promontory of dreams). The title comes from the old name of a lunar volcanic mountain that played an essential role in the writer’s visit. Although initially Hugo could not make out anything of the lunar relief through the telescope, suddenly the Sun rose brightly over the Promontorium Somnii mountain and gradually illuminated the craters, valleys and mountains of the Moon. That celestial body bathed in the first rays of dawn is, says Hugo at the beginning of his poem, the real Moon. Another is that which religions, astrologers, alchemists, poets and scientists talk about. Speaking of the latter, Hugo adds, in a phrase that has become famous: “Les poètes ont créé une lune métaphorique et les savants une lune algébrique. La lune réelle est entre les deux” - “Poets have created a metaphorical moon and scholars an algebraic moon. The real moon is between the two”. For the French writer, the real thus stands on the edge, somewhere between science and poetry. Religions and what he called “false science” (astrology and alchemy) are left behind. In his optics, truth is pursued only by art and science. In the good tradition of romanticism, Hugo believed that, in the case of art and especially poetry, everything depends on a moment when the inner Promontorium Somnii, the Peak of the Dream in everyone’s spirit, is suddenly illuminated. At that moment, the work of art emerges. The poet is the one who sleeps with the eyes of the soul wide open, he is a dreamer at the foot of this soul mountain, waiting for the “dawn”. The sleep-wake state is also reached by others, although only partially. Scientists, and Hugo takes the example of pre-18th century doctors, were all in a state of somnambulism, groping for cures and diagnoses, though they were prey to fantasy. Nations and autocracies can fall into somnambulism. The dream can capture scholars and institutions, sometimes innocently, sometimes destructively. “This tendency of man to veer into the impossible and the imaginary is the source of that credo quia absurdum [I believe because it is absurd]. In religion it creates idolatry and in poetry, the chimera. Idolatry is ugly. Chimera can be beautiful.” Perhaps this is precisely where pseudoscience with its creators and followers originates: from an indistinct, unbalanced, all-consuming reverie; a mixture of idolatry and chimeras. When it is not exclusively about quacks and their deeds , pseudoscientific speculations are an interesting and important field of research not only for scientists, but also for artists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers.
Bibliography:
Stefaan Blancke, Johan De Smedt, „Evolved to Be Irrational? Evolutionary and Cognitive Foundations of Pseudosciences“ în Philosophy of pseudoscience: reconsidering the demarcation problem, Massimo Pigliucci, Maarten Boudry (eds.), Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2013, pp. 361-380
Owen Chadwick, The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, CUP, 1990
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, „New Age Religion and Secularization“ în Numen, Vol. 47, Fasc. 3, 2000, Brill, pp. 288-312
Victor Hugo, Promontorium Somnii, https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Proses_philosophiques/Promontorium_somnii
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J. Ladyman, „Toward a Demarcation of Science from Pseudoscience“ în Philosophy of pseudoscience …, op. cit., pp. 45-59
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