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ology. Probably the most innovative academic journal in the world.
Do we need Dysology?
Philosophers, natural and social scientists teach and publish text books about the causes and pitfalls to avoid, and how to spot problems when conducting research or examining the results of other people's work. This contributes to a significant body of knowledge that we have amassed about the veracity of evidence, which includes what is known to be harmful, bad or simply weak research practice and how to avoid faulty inference.
Psychologists lead the field in helping to identify, explain and understand irrational thinking.
Myth busting researchers in many different disciplines and areas - from the philosophy of science to journalists and amateur essayists - have authored works on fallacies, myths, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, frauds, downright lies, deliberate and hidden bias.
This all adds up to a widely spread body of disparate knowledge from distinct disciplines, different levels of expertise along with wealth of examples and case studies, But these potential knowledge treasures have never been the subject of comprehensive and systematic scholarly research.
With such a large body of disparate, but important, knowledge do we need to develop a specialist field comprising the study and understanding of veracity in order to better understand what is behind our understanding and beliefs in what and is and is not so? Should we work towards developing a multi-disciplinary science named dysology?
What is Dysology?
Dysology is the study of orthodox bias, academic blind spots, irrationality, pseudo scholarship and fraud influencing bad social science research, bad science, bad policymaking, quackery, counterknowledge, 'voodoo histrories', 'voodoo criminology' 'flat earth news' and other ignorance.
Criminology has no explanation for the general crime drop and rise in Internet crime
Could the communications revolution be a major factor influencing the crime drop in western industrialised countries?
What might a better Crime Science look like?
If we can't forecast crime, but can only explain it post-hoc, that shows the failure of criminology to understand it beyond the fallacy of claiming it is one of those things that cannot really be understood before it happens. Thinking about dysology in criminology and so called 'Crime Science' led me to outline what a new scientific theory of crime might look like. Please note that this particular essay is fundamentally a tongue in cheek work in progress. To read it click the Forecasting Crime page.
What Works, What Fails and Why?
Implementor failure is an ignored contingency in social 'scheme' failure. More research is needed before we can say that unproven or inconsistent templates for social action are good or promising practice.
LATEST MYTH BUSTING
NEWS HERE
• Popeye never once ate spinach for iron
• The Spinach Popeye Iron Decimal Error Myth
• The Beat Policing Myth
Popeye Statistical Challenge NewsUpdate on Granger causality test
What are the reasons for research bias, pseudoscholarship, the dissemination of and widespread belief in counterknowledge, voodoo histories, flat earth news, Frunkfurtian bullshit and lies?
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Criminology and Dysology
Because I am a criminologist, and for no other reason, this website includes many examples from my own field of crimin
Braced Myths
Braced myths begin as fallacies produced by errors, bias, lies, academic fraud, hoaxes and other forms of pseudo scholarship that are created, packaged to look like facts, and disseminated by orthodox experts. These fallacies become myths as more people accept them. They become braced myths when orthodox respected sceptics credulously believe them, and while still believing they are true promote them as examples of the need to be sceptical of fallacies and myths.
Are you aware of any braced myths? If so I would love to hear of them over at the Supermyths blogsite
ology.
Exploring the usefulness of developing a multidisciplinary approach to the discovery and understanding of bad research and strange lack of research in some key areas of scholarship and policymaking.
What is the most effective way to challenge orthodoxy, knowledge consensus, pseudoscience, junk science and apparently simple claptrap?
Michael Shermer is the founder and Editor in Chief of the Skeptic magazine. Shermer’s position has long been that the most effective way to challenge fallacies and myths is to publish from a position of seeking to understand rather than ridicule (Shermer 1997). The same conclusions have been put forward by Hyman (2001) and Loxton (2011). But how do they know they are right? This is a strangely unexplored area and it is surely perverse that these leading and acknowledged healthy sceptics should accept their own intuitive and appealing beliefs in this area albeit supported in part by anecdotal evidence possibly gathered from an unintentional position of confirmation bias. For all we know, sceptics in their aim to be effective myth busters have created another braced myth. Because ridicule, done the right way, might turn out to be the most effective way to spread the word that certain myths are busted and to stop others from publishing claptrap. More research is needed. And from that cause I have created Disology.com as a sibling site
to Dysology.org.
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Is there a man or a dog in the moon? Visit the pareidolia page to see what you see |
Does my mocking video of a mechanical hamster in a wheel, placed on a mirror, giving a lecture on the Crime Science belief in the opportunity component of Routine Activities Theory (RAT) serve as a useful parody and heuristic device for explaining the unscientific logical fallacy that an easy to vary and irrefutable truism can be an explanation for crime? The video essentially mocks the widely believed Crime Science, RAT and Situation Crime Prevention notions that a mere description of the components of crime is the most important cause of crime. Does the seemingly insane Rev. Hammy Wheel have any chance at all of setting a mad world straight via YouTube? Visit the Dysology Page: 'On Opportunity and Crime' to see the logical fallacy of the old saying 'opportunity makes the thief' - at least as it is currently understood by Crime Science.
References
Hyman, R. (2001) Proper Criticism. The Skeptical Inquirer. Volume 24. 4th July. Available free online from The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. http://www.csicop.org/si/show/proper_criticism/
Loxton, D. (2011) What Is the Most Effective Way To Be A Skeptic: The Great Debate Between Confrontational Activism v. Educational Outreach. Skeptic. Vol. 16. No. 4. pp. 13-17.
Shermer, M. (1997) Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition and other confusions of our time. London. Souvenir Press.
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Immunomythology?
Could being a victim of a minor scams such as an advance fee fraud or online romance scam inoculate people against falling for more serous ones?
Could belief in harmless myths and fallacies and then seeing them get busted inoculate us against credulous belief in more serious myths and fallacies?
If this idea intrigues you, then you might like to see where I got it from. If so then please click here to read my latest blog post on the subject on Best Thinking.
Please note: Theft of a person’s original ideas or written work is theft of their time. Since time is perhaps the most valuable commodity we have, please respect the usual rules of copyright and academic citation.
The original content on this page and on the entire Dysology website is protected by USA and European laws of copyright and also by standard universal and local academic rules and regulations regarding plagiarism.
All rights reserved.
© Dr Michael (Mike) Sutton.
Was the great Karl Popper wrong?
Popper's own refutation of inductive knowledge is achieved using the inductive methods he deplored. See: BestThinking.com
Beware the Toynbee Phenomenon
Is Hot Clocking (cold fusion 'free energy' by another name) a bad explanation for something that probably does not exist that is woven from huge strands of disconfirming evidence? Click the Toynbee Phenomenon link above and visit the comments section of a paper on BestThinking.Com - where the Cambridge professor and Nobel Laureate physicist Brian Josephson - refused to bet with me (at no financial cost to himself) that he is wrong. Will the physicist Professor Berkovich put his reputation where his brain is and take the Dysology Challenge?
Weirdly, because it has never been proven to be effective, my own Market Reduction Approach is recommended as good crime reduction and policing practice by UK, USA, New Zealand and Australian government websites. Click here to read my blog post - entitled Impact of my research - about how the internet enables us to discover evidence of our impact on the world that we might not otherwise know about.
Crime Science is founded on completely unscientific notions. Laycock's Mistake
Infinity Paradox???????
The Meme Muncher by Mike Sutton 2011 (all rights reserved)
Why are good written explanations not infinite in their scope and power in the infinite world of mathematics?
Professor David Deutsch writes that good explanations with universal infinite 'reach' are hard to vary and refutable. Yet varying his weird Infinity Hotel analogy by moving his own book, rather than his example of a puppy in a sack, along an infinite hotel corridor, would the book and its good explanations be annihilated into a singularity? If so then here is one ironic refutation of the books main theme, at least within the theoretical realm of mathematics. And if this insight is a good explanation with infinite reach does that not make Deutsch's own thesis easy to vary and impossible to refute?
Click on the orange Infinity Paradox link above the image to discover my own personal confusions and dysology in the field of quantum physics.
Do We need to understand rather than ridicule to most effectively bust fallacies and myths? If so, show me the research evidence.
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