Why do so many people in the US believe in Pseudoscience?

Why do so many people in the USA believe in pseudoscience? I have a hard time understanding it myself, but it seems every day someone is claiming that X is pseudoscience, or Y is pseudoscience. 

It makes no sense at all.

There is no science of calling things pseudoscience, other than name-calling. Things called pseudoscience range from acupuncture to ufology and more. None of them are sciences. None claim to be sciences. Why are they called pseudo-sciences? 

Many of the things classified as pseudoscience are simply nonsense - totally rejected today - like levitation and psychokinesis, bending spoons with the mind and the like. They are widely understood to be nonsense or magic tricks and are only brought forward as demonstrations of the folly of pseudoscience to support the propaganda. However, these are rarely debated in the media. Not many people in the USA believe in them. It's interesting that medical sciences actively use the concept of placebo effect, as if it were scientific, while rejecting the fundamental concepts of mental-physical interactions.

Some of the things claimed to be pseudoscience are borderline. These are frequently seen in the media because there is considerable debate. The power of prayer and other faith based concepts fit here, on the strange boundary between placebo effect and pseudo-science.

Some of the things called pseudoscience are simply not pseudoscience and the claims are an ongoing propaganda, negative judgement aimed at dismissal. Acupuncture is a clear example. There are many others. However, naming them without evidence, or even with considerable evidence risks being branded a pseudoscientific idiot.

Many so-called pseudosciences are medical practices, not sciences. All medical practices are practices, not sciences. Most medical practices bear little relationship to sciences and instead pick and suit the science that suits commercial success. They use ideas and information gathered from science for technical purposes - and are more technologies than sciences. 

At first glance, it seems that anyone can call anything a pseudoscience. A closer look reveals the truth. Ideas shamed as pseudosciences are anti-bureaucracy. It's official (according to the bureaucracies). 

• the bureaucracies, the corporate and government bureaucracies are not-pseudoscience,
• ideas and practices they support are not- pseudoscience,
• the ideas and practices they ignore or don't care about are “probably just pseudoscience” and
• the things they don't like or don't agree with are pseudoscience.

A lot of things classed as pseudoscience are total nonsense, safely ignored, like ufology. Others are important practices like acupuncture, that deserve scientific investigation to aid understanding and to advance the practice. Instead, Western bureaucratic forces use pretentions of scientific processes to dismiss them.

But, back to the question, and a direct answer: Why do so many people in the USA believe in Pseudoscience? 

Belief in pseudoscience is a belief in bureaucracy. A belief in the propaganda of national and international, corporate and government bureaucracies. Many people in the USA believe in the concept of pseudoscience and judgements of pseudoscience claims because of the power of the media, skillfully wielded by the corporate and government bureaucrats.

Corporate and government bureaucrats like to believe in pseudoscience because they can use it to further their bureaucratic goals and objectives.

Media representatives like to believe in pseudoscience because it's news, because it sells.

Of course, the corporate and government bureaucracies use the word pseudoscience as a negative label, so they claim to "not believe" in "pseudoscience".  Maybe we should ask them if "doublespeak" is a pseudoscience?   

To your health, Tracy

Founder: Healthicine
Note: This post began as an answer to the Quora question: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-so-many-people-in-the-US-believe-in-psuedoscience/answer/Tracy-Kolenchuk 

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