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In reply to the discussion: What pseudoscience is and is not. [View all]Silent3
(15,909 posts)...in the sense those words are normally used.
Science done badly due to greed, ineptitude, laziness, sloppiness, etc.
Pseudoscience is a different kind of beast, or at least a particular subset, of badly done science. It typically appeals to anecdote over evidence -- a very different thing than, for instance, fraudulently faking evidence. It much more often appeals to "there are things we just don't understand", trying to turn the unknown anything we want or need it to be, placing the burden of proof on anyone who dare challenge the claims of the promoters of the pseudoscience.
Finding out that some FDA-approved drug doesn't really work as it was expected to, or that it does what it was supposed to do but with bad side effects that weren't originally caught (or were unscrupulously hidden), does not make that drug "woo" in any way, shape or form like claiming you can channel "energy" into a crystal and program it to "heal" you. The bad drug is simply badly done science, and possibly fraud.
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