Seven signs of scientific charlatanism
A charlatan is someone who, with every intention, claims to have knowledge that they don’t actually have and know they don’t have (or at least knew they didn’t have early in their career). I’m dealing here with charlatanism in the scientific realm, not with someone who falsely claims to be able to cure a disease or talk to the spirit of Elizabeth Taylor. Some of these that I am listing may appear in a very young person who has just become familiar with a subject and is not familiar with academic standards; But in my opinion, it is not accepted from someone who holds the title of professor and doctor (and even from a post-bachelor’s student).
1. In his discussion, he repeatedly says that he does not have time. He even spends a considerable part of his time to say that he does not have time to say all his words; He has fifty minutes to speak (and no one is going to interrupt him) and in the first seven minutes he says that the matter is serious and important and it is a pity that the time is short. It does not explain the importance and seriousness of the issue; He just says that the matter is too deep and he doesn’t have time.
2. He calls names a lot. He mentions the names of at least ten famous people and does not give specific reference to any of them.
3. I don’t know about him or I don’t know or I haven’t read it, you don’t hear much and you will definitely hear it a lot.
4. He uses ambiguous phrases and sentences, and when you ask him to explain a little about a certain phrase that he apparently uses as a technical term, he practically says that if you are not familiar with this term/subject, you have no right to enter into the discussion. He doesn’t state his argument clearly and concisely, even if you ask him to.
5. He does not go beyond the basics in his discussion. For example, in the title of his speech, he says that there is an incompatibility between a certain idea of John Stuart Mill (who also has a fancy name) and the opinions of John Rawls. He tells us about Mill and how he was as a child and what his private life was like and he was Russell’s godfather and the spiritual father of the modern liberal western society and so on. He avoids some logical terms (and says that he is not interested in logical or scientific aspects in this speech). He says when Rawls died and he says that he was an important person and his book was published several times and he tells a memory of one of Rawls’s classes by quoting a friend. He says that fairness was important to Rawls. He tells Rawls about his interest. It probably does some comparative work, in stating that our thinkers have of course said similar things centuries before Rawls. After all, two minutes about Rawls’s justice is about as much as anyone can read at the beginning of a Wikipedia entry. Then he regrets that his time is up.
6. He tries to reject famous schools and theories completely in five minutes (or in one and a half pages).
7. Instead of reasoning logically, he reads poetry and quotes the sayings of elders. His quotations are the kind of things that can be found, for example, on sites that publish a beautiful sentence a day.
|Dr. Kaveh Lajordi| Join us: @Madeh_33
