Reverse scientific method

Reverse Scientific Method Basics
The term Reverse Scientific Method has been applied to people who reject the actual methodology of the Scientific Method in favor of an ideology-based or belief-based methodology which purports to be scientific and yet starts from a set of unevidenced presuppositions and works toward locating evidence in support of such suppositions, a methodology which is exactly the opposite of the Scientific Method.
The Scientific Method can be summarized as the recursive application of four basic aspects of an inquiry. Roughly in order in which they are applied, these aspects are:
:* Characterizations (observations, of phenomena, defining, describing, and measurements of the observed phenomena)
:* Hypotheses (the formation of theories and models which attempt to explain the characterizations)
:* Predictions (deductive consequences and expectations of tests designed to disprove the hypotheses)
:* Experiments (tests designed to disprove the validity of characterizations, hypotheses, and predictions)
The application of reverse scientific method is rampant around the world due to the evolutionary development of the human brain where consciousness and the cognitive process of belief is an artifact of subjective experiences, not objective, demonstrable truth.
Compartmentalization by the human brain in to what a person will accept through demonstrable evidence and what one will accept through wishful thinking is an artifact of the evolutionary development of the human brain, making reverse scientific methodology prevalent around the world, and the application and acceptance of the artifact of actual scientific method secondary.
Medical Reverse Scientific Method
One of the major arenas where the reverse of the Scientific Method is most evident is in quack medical beliefs where scams and fraud are rampant, and an uninformed, unscientific populace is available to accept claims predicated upon reverse science, driven by fear and a need for hope.
When it comes to cancer treatments, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) noted that claimants of miracle cancer cures employ reverse scientific method where claims are made and then claimants demand that skeptics must provide evidence that the claims are fraudulent, the exact opposite of the burden of evidence that the Scientific Method requires, stating “it's reverse scientific method... It's like putting you in a dark, windowless room and asking you to prove that it's not raining outside."
Paranormal Reverse Scientific Method
When it comes to reverse scientific method in the paranormal arena, the most extensive application is astrology, the paranormal belief that planets other than Earth some how either effect behavioral aspects of living creatures on Earth else some how express, depict, or predict such behaviors, among other unevidenced beliefs.
Astrology belief is pandemic around the world inasmuch as for many cultures for many centuries, planets, stars, the Earth's Moon, and the Sun were considered to be gods, goddesses, messengers of same (Mercury, or otherwise deities and entities with supernatural powers which some how dictated or manipulated events on Earth.
With the advent of the scientific method, astrology morphed in to astronomy, unevidenced, untestable astrology beliefs morphing in to observations yielding testable, falsifiable astronomical theories which successfully attempts to explain observed phenomena. Astrological beliefs are still harbored by a significant percentage of the world's populace despite the advent of astronomy.
Astrology has historically been a technology which attempted to understand what the gods were doing in the “heavens” as well as attempted to decode messages from the gods which described behavioral instructions to mortals on Earth, allowingKings, Queens, and others from the ruling elite to justify their dominions as well as their actions under the guise of the “will of the gods.” (Will of the Gods, Planets in astrology).
At core, astrology applies reverse scientific method in that it begins with an unevidenced precept (that there are gods that control or monitor events on earth) and proceeds with attempting to find evidence in support of the body of unevidenced beliefs (namely, by applying numerical and planetary positional technologies layered with other presuppositions).
Though astrology has been disregarded by scientists for centuries, astrology persists. It is often the degree of belief in astrology that differentiates advocates of astrology in to mundane believers, religious zealots, however regardless of the degree of belief, astrology remains one of the more active applications of reverse scientific method extant.
Political Reverse Scientific Method
One of the more recent applications of reverse scientific method within the political arena is the growth of so-called “911 truth,” a suit of ideologies and conspiracy beliefs which hold as major predicates that the Republican U.S. government under George W. Bush either participated in or knew of in advance the September 11 attacks committed against the United States in 2001 by Saudi Arabian citizens.
Here, the reverse scientific method was applied to bolster and find evidence for governmental complicity in the worse terrorist attack on United States soil in the nation's history, an act designed, among other reasons being claimed, to provide the Bush regime with justification to further erode citizens' rights, liberties, and freedoms under the banner of “fighting terrorism” and “keeping America safe.”
911 Truthers, as adherents are known, begin their research with observed instances of the Bush regime's illegal actions inside of and outside of the United States as the foundational basis for a growing suit of unevidenced suppositions which culminated in the desire to find evidence tying the Bush regime in to the Saudi conspiracy, either complicit as directly ordering the attacks else complicit as knowing in advance of the attacks and standing aside to allow the attacks to take place.
Overwhelmingly, this instance of the application of reverse scientific method has been debunked however the 911 Truth Movement has been and continues to be one of the more scholarly attempts to proceed from unobserved predicates toward attempting to isolate evidence in support of preconceived beliefs, making 911 Truth one of the more detailed applications of reverse scientific method.
Prejudice Reverse Scientific Method
Reverse scientific method is also used to justify or pretend that racial and other prejudices have legitimate scientific precepts and basis. One of the most recent attempts to classify human intelligence traits along racial lines was The Bell Curve, Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by authors Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray.
In that book, the authors applied cranium volume variations among primates across species boundaries as one predicate designed to show the author's apriori supposition that white skin-hued peoples from Europe and other Northern hemisphere origins were intellectually more capable than brown skin-hued peoples from nations of Southern hemisphere origins.
Historically, Mustard Seeds, flax seeds, cannon shot, and other small, round materials have been used by anthropologists to measure cranium capacity under the generally accepted understanding that intelligence increases with average brain size within a species, and that cross-species comparisons of brain size offers significant insights in to the relative intelligence of various species.
The Bell Curve has been widely debunked as pseudo-science in that all of the unevidenced predicate beliefs harbored by the authors were extant at the onset of the research which comprised the findings enumerated and discussed within the book, beliefs which drove the authors to attempt to identify evidence in support of their unevidenced beliefs. Lack of repeatability, lack of attempts by the authors to falsify their own findings, and lack of the understandings of basic science contributed to the debunking of the findings stated in the Bell Curve.
In actual science, the scientific method starts with the characterizations and measurements of observed phenomena. In reverse scientific method, researchers begin with presupposed findings and then proceed to attempt to find evidence in support of their findings. Legitimate science enumerates racial attributes among the human species which are better than others for specific reasons as predicated by the sexual isolation of groups of people across time, however reverse scientific method is applied by researchers motivated through extant prejudices to find justification for their beliefs.
Religious Reverse Scientific Method
Another major application of reverse scientific method prevalent today is Creationism, the unevidenced, presupposed belief that there are gods and/or goddesses which created the Universe, prompting cult adherents to search for evidence in support of said presuppositions.
Like all other applications of reverse scientific method, believers start with unobserved beliefs and then seek evidence in support of such beliefs. Creationism in contemporary times is considerably altered when compared to Creationism as recorded in extant records going back some 10,000 years in that while historic Creationism focused upon trying to prove that the presupposed gods exist, contemporary Creationism focuses largely on attempting to prove that the Universe (and biological constructs) were some how made by presupposed deity constructs without first attempting to explain or provide evidence for the existence of the presupposed deity constructs themselves. Contemporary Creationism attempts to find evidence for what was created rather than evidence for the gods which created it, leaving as apriori supposed the existence of said gods and goddesses.
Though Creationism has been solidly debunked for centuries in the face of the advent of the Scientific Method, Creationist belief and the religious application of reverse scientific method is still overwhelmingly appealing to cultists inasmuch as Creationist ideologies lessens adherent's fear of their own eventual, otherwise unavoidable death and provides solace in the supposition that there is evidence that human lives somehow have meaning.

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