In the 19th century and earlier, junk sciences like phrenology, alchemy, and astrology were fairly easily recognized for what they were, pseudoscience based on dogma and anecdotal evidence. Today things are a bit more complicated, often to the point that some people apparently don't know when junk science is being used to convince them something is actually scientically sound when in fact it may not be.

Things like junk science being used by the tobacco companies to dismiss the dangers of smoking and second hand smoke, or pro-pot smokers using JS in an attempt to legalize marijuana...or, using JS to deny the existence or the potential harm of environmental problems such as Global Warming, asbestos, lead in drinking water, mercury in fish, etc. Also attempting to use JS to support bogus claims for things like alternative or homeopathic medicine...reflexology, colon purges, magnetic therapy for arthritis, psychic healing, etc.

I recently read a blog where they were claiming that Rachel Carson and the modern environmental movement were responsible for the deaths of thousands and perhaps even millions of people around the planet from malaria by using junk science to get the pesticide DDT banned.

Former tobacco company lobbyist Steven Milloy, the self-proclaimed "Junkman" or junk science debunker at Fox news came out right after 9-11 and said if the builders of the Twin Towers had used more asbestos, the building's collapse would have been delayed. Like Milloy, you can publicly endorse any research or science that supports your political or economic agenda, and condemn and ridicule that which does not. You can also call them insulting names and attack them personally which is always good for a laugh if you're a media personality.

If there is an issue which you do support, and that issue has been called into question by some in the scientific community, you can simply hire a PR firm or Think Tank and use their expertise to accuse these same scientists of being purveyors of junk science. Or you can hire your own scientists to do a study which ends up supporting your claim or cause, be it political or otherwise. You might also form your own professional association, like the TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition) which you can disband once the issue is settled.

So what is your favorite Junk Science and why do you believe it is junk and not real science? Or is it junk science being promoted as real science and nobody can see this but you?

As science has developed, it has slowly separated itself from its earlier association with magic, religion, mysticism and the charlatans.

Yes, you can sell anything as being "science" if you have the power to do so. You can suppress or edit the "facts" to suit your agenda, if you have the power. To prevent these things from happening, you need an interested public and an independent and credible media.

If my memory serves me correctly, I read that the oil industry has been in contact with the tobacco industry, because the tobacco industry is an expert on the techniques suppressing scientific evidence and in misinformation.

The Bush administration has attempted on many occasions to suppress information with regards to human impact on climate change, and many scientists have spoke out about the Bush administrations anti-scientific policies. Even Al Gore, had a car running outside, all the time while he lectured about car emissions, greenhouse gases and climate change.

Politicians and corporations are no strangers to hypocrisy, to the art of "spin" and editing scientific results to suit their agenda.

Oddly enough, more and more scientists are stepping up to say the global warming scare, itself, is based upon junk science. Oh where will it end.

The funniest junk science nonsense I have seen recently was in a show on crocodiles. The host was interviewing a crocodile expert, some PhD in Biology, about the cocs. THe biologist was lamenting how global warming was going to drive the crocs to extinction because the sex of the crocs is determined by the temperature at which the eggs incubate. Warmer temps means more females. The biologist was claiming the croc population would become all female and die out. He then went on to talk about how the crocs had been around for more than a 100 million years and it was a tragedy that human actions over a hundred years would wipe them out. I almost pissed myself laughing...It seems they do not teach paleoclimatology to biologists...he might have known then that the crocs, with their hundred million year history, had been through quite a few warming and cooling cycles with temperatures quite a bit hotter than the most gloom and doom global warming predictions postulate. They are still with us.

Junk science is just that...junk.

Ray, I believe I asked you for evidence of this once before and the best you came up with was some "scientists" website who was on the oil industries payroll. Have you come up with anything better yet?

OK. How about we start with Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was quoted in the Wall Street Journal concerning global warming: "These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming." [Emphasis in original]

That's enough for now.

CUBS (Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors) at Univ. at Buffalo, N.Y. has been doing research on biometrics as a means of identifying potential and real terrorist threats. Physical boimetrics claims there are certain human features that are nearly impossible to falsify. The three main steps to obtaining these features are 1. capture the image 2. convert it to a template 3. match the template against a database of stored records to authenticate it. Biometric companies have and still are improving upon the technology...it used to be they converted 2-D into 3-D images using around 200 or so points on the face, whereas now they use 10,000 plus points in less than one second. Lasers are also being used as well.

UB scientists are carrying this technology a step further and claiming they can use this science to determine that an individual may be about to commit a crime and or terrorist act. the system looks for certain facial expressions, tics, smirks, frowns, smiles, and also unconscious movements like arched eyebrows, raised eyelids, etc. which are then matched with various emotional expressions common around the world in all cultures. Prof. Mark Frank has identified movements in the 44 facial muscles and connected them to emotions often used during deception.

The system began by studying common criminals, but then branched out to include terrorist activity. Frank first became interested in this kind of approach when he worked as a bouncer in a Buffalo N.Y. bar, claiming he could spot guys who were underage or packing a gun or looking for a fight by the way they looked. Frank also studied hours of videotapes showing criminals denying they were guilty.

The question is can this be an accurate predictor of guilt or not? And would it stand up in court if it was submitted as evidence against you? Suppose you get called out of the line at the airport because they ran your face through the software program and the way you were grimacing or your nervous tic indicated you might be a terrorist. Is this all junk science masquerading as real science so they can take advantage of post 9-11 govt. research funds and sell these systems to law enforcement agencies and airport security firms?

Ray, can you please provide someone who isn't connected to the oil industry. Please. That's all I ask.

I'm not saying the guy you provided is wrong but that's two scientists you drug out that have connections to the oil industry. While the other guy was a bit more blatent in his theory that global warming isn't due to a buildup of greenhouse gasses, at least this guys doesn't say that's not the case. I see his opinion as more of a "We don't know" type. He doesn't really come out one way or another.

So again, get back in the drawing room and find someone a bit more credible.

Junk science can also be used to lock a person away for a crime he or she may not have committed, usually as a result of a so-called "expert witness" that the prosecutor brings into the courtroom. In 1992, Kennedy Brewer, a mildly retarded black man was convicted of killing a three year old girl in Macon, Mississippi, and sentenced to death. He's spent 15 years in jail so far. In 2002 he was cleared by a DNA test but not released from jail. Evidently the prosecutor plans to retry him based largely on a jailhouse informant's story that Brewer had been forced to bite the little girl's body (several times) at gunpoint.

At the first trial, the prosecutor's star expert witness was Michael West, a dentist and self-proclaimed bite mark expert whose expert testimony has been disproven by DNA in two other cases. Dr. West was suspended by the American Board of Odontology. He resigned from the American Academy of Forensic Science. West testified that at least 5 of the 19 teeth marks found on the girl's body were made by Brewer.

I am not sure about crocs dying out, but the increased heat may cause a gender imbalance. Of course, crocs bury their eggs in rotting vegetation, and cover or uncover the eggs, in order to regular the temperature they are incubating at.

I suspect, crocs will change their behavior and leave eggs uncovered more, because some ancient set of neural instructions is activated by a reoccurrence of warmer temperatures, or you will see natural selection coming into play, and crocs which naturally are more likely to bury their eggs less deep, or uncover more, will be more favorably selected.

Crocs have been around a lot longer than we have, so I suspect they will survive, but global warming will effect them in some way, that is for sure.