Drawing the line between science and pseudoscience. How to tell the difference?

In this crazy era of climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, and people who think giants built Ohio’s mounds, appreciating the difference between actual facts and “alternative facts” has never been more important.

Sean Rafferty, an archaeologist at the University of Albany in New York, explains the difference in his book ‘Misanthropology: science, pseudoscience, and the study of humanity.'

For Rafferty, the most important aspect of the scientific process and one of the things that sets it apart from pseudoscience is that it’s self-checking.

The process of self-correction begins with peer-review, which begins when papers presenting new ideas are sent to other scientists for review before they can be published. Even after a paper is published, still other scientists who think an idea is not supported by the evidence can submit a paper challenging it. And additional research inspired by this dialogue may lead to better explanations. This is why the comedianRobin Ince describes a scientific explanation as “the least wrong version of events we have for the time being.”

Rafferty reviews several case studies that show other differences between science and pseudoscience.

A popular pseudoscientific claim is that aliens built many of the ancient, mostly non-European, monuments around the world. There is no compelling evidence for ancient aliens, so these claims are based almost entirely on the fundamentally racist notion that non-Europeans were just not smart enough to build such wonders of the world on their own.

A more down-to-earth, but similar pseudoscientific claim is that Ohio’s amazing earthworks were built not by the ancestors of American Indians, but by some more advanced civilization from outside of America. As an example, Rafferty mentions Ohio’s infamous Newark Holy Stones, which are on display at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in Coshocton. These carved stones engraved with Hebrew writing were foundamong the ancient earthworks at Newark during the months preceding the Civil War.

Pseudoscientists think these artifacts prove that ancient Hebrews had something to do with building the mounds. Many archaeologists dismiss the Holy Stones as hoaxes, but several colleagues and I believe they actually were clever forgeries crafted to show that American Indians and, by extension, enslaved Africans, were children of Adam and Eve and therefore deserving of basic human rights. Whatever the 19th century motive might have been, Rafferty notes that “these hoaxes today serve as tools to belittle claims of Native Americans to their Native soil and lend support to white supremacist narratives.”

People who believe such claims say that archaeologists have been brainwashed by years of university education into unquestioned acceptance of the idea that Indigenous people could do amazing things too. But Rafferty points out that archaeologists aren’t the ones who just accept whatever they’re told. When compelling new evidence is uncovered, we change our minds — “something a pseudoscientist never does.”

Rafferty makes it clear that pseudoscience, even when it’s not blatantly racist, is not harmless fun. Proponents of these various claims think they’re smarter than the so-called experts. This mindset lends itself to rejecting the expert advice of climate scientists and doctors and makes dangerously false claims of election fraud seem somehow plausible.

Rafferty says his primary goal as a teacher is to make his students “good consumers of information … whether that information is scientific theory, a sales pitch, or a political message.”

Brad Lepper is the senior archaeologist for the Ohio History Connection’s WorldHeritage program.blepper@ohiohistory.org