good and bad science essay

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Is Science Good Or Bad? (Essay Sample)

Is science good or bad.

Since the beginning of time man has been on endless exploration of information and knowledge. Because of his hunger and thirst he has accumulated knowledge in many fields. During prehistoric times the desires and wants of man were less but when these cravings started to grow, he started to formulate new ideas. Because of science, man has made a remarkable improvement of life through inventions. Man has used the knowledge of science to understand how the universe works and how to do many things. It is evident that through science man has created modern treatment that has helped in curing various illnesses. Information has greatly improved and an example is the emergence of the internet. However, one can agree that man has done totally immoral things in the name of science; nevertheless it does not mean that science is bad overall, it only means that some bad people have used science for bad intentions. Science is a good thing as well as bad thing. This paper attempts to describe the things that make science good and the things that make science bad.

Because of scientific inventions man is living today a pleasant life. One can imagine, is it possible for humanity live on this world without, the internet, vehicles, television, electricity, medicine, mobile phones, and other millions of scientific inventions? Currently, because of science there is modern medicine which is used to treat and cure sickness. Sickness that could be fatal for mankind is curable because of science and hence the life of people is prolonged. No one can truly oppose the significance of science breakthroughs; however it safe to say that one can underrate the risks of scientific discoveries in the society. Scientific discoveries can have consequences and it is the obligation of man to search for solutions when problems arise instead of just assuming the concealed consequences. Science is a good thing because human is now able to irrigate and plow the land. Through science it is possible to study heavenly bodies like stars, planets, meteors, and comets. One can predict the weather today and this is helpful because people can take special precautions to avoid damage.

All good things can be said about science and its benefits to man however there are problems that may arise. As much as there is electricity, cars that use fuel, and factories, one tends to forget about global warming. Man desires nuclear energy without worrying about the nuclear refuse and hazardous consequences of nuclear radiation. Man wants to have wooden furniture, and paper without thinking about the depletion of natural resources. When all these is taken into consideration, it clear that wants have consequences and these need solutions. Other scientific discoveries can have hazardous results. A good example of this is the discovery of atoms. This field has led to invention of atomic bombs that has brought about the deaths of millions of people. This is evident when the first atomic bomb was used during the world war two on Japanese cities. Till this day, people are still suffering from the effects of nuclear radiation.

In conclusion, the question of whether science is good or bad can be a tricky one. One can list the whole day the benefits of science as well as the consequences. Man has used the knowledge of science to understand how the universe works and how to do many things. Scientific discoveries can have consequences and it is the obligation of man to search for solutions when problems arise instead of just assuming the concealed consequences. Scientific discoveries have made remarkable changes in our environment today.

Science Interviews

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Science: For good or bad?

Interview with , part of the show scrutinizing science, bonsai tree.

Science is usually touted as a good thing, but could there be a dark side? Graihagh Jackson debated this with Tom Ziessen... 

Tom - It becomes quite obvious as to 'why science?' when you look back at at all the advances that have happened.

So I'm Tom Zeissan. I am in the Engaging Science team at the Wellcome Trust.

Graihagh - I was interested in talking to Tom about Wellcome because, well, it provides science funding for thousands of people across the world. It's not a government body, it's a charity and thus has no obligations to do so. Why then does it? Well it starts with a chap called Sir Henry Wellcome...

Tom - He was an American marketeer; he was born in the mid-west and from an early age was trying to sell products to friends and family. He started out selling invisible ink, I think, was his first thing...

Graihagh - Invisible ink!

Tom - Invisible ink which was, just basically, lemon juice - I think he was sixteen when he started that.

He came over to the UK in the 1880s to found the Wellcome Foundation, and Henry Wellcome was always very interested in the arts and science of healing through the ages.

Henry died in 1936 and in his Will he set up the Wellcome Trust.

Graihagh - Because I think what's quite different about Wellcome is that most people get their funding from big research bodies from the government so, EPSRC, STFC, whereas Wellcome sits in this unusual sort of framework?

Tom - Yes, that's right. So we are a very large funder of research that's non-government - we're independent; we're not unique in that respect. But our funding supports, currently, over fourteen thousand people in more than seventy countries.

Graihagh - And I suppose that brings me onto my next question. I wonder - why science? -  why should science be put on a pedestal among all the other things that this money could be used for?

Tom - Actually, Wellcome Trust is not just interested in science. We're interested in all kinds of research related to health and wellbeing but, coming back to your question of: why do we place science as such an important part of what we do - it's because we think that science is a great way of giving us insights into the way the world works, the way we work. It becomes quite obvious as to 'why science?' when you look back at all the advances that have happened since 1936, or since the sort of scientific revolution and the improvements that's made to health and wellbeing.

Graihagh - But arguably it's not always been used for good things. I'm thinking the haber bosch process was used by the Nazi's as the poisonous gas in the holocaust, and then there's nuclear weapons. You've painted a very rosy picture of the use of science there.

Tom - Uh, yes. I mean, I think anything can be useful for bad purposes as well as for good purposes. That's not really a problem with science, that's really a problem with humanity and I don't think science is a force for good or evil. It's a way of understanding the world, understanding of what potential there is there but, hopefully, the majority of uses for it are beneficial.

Graihagh - I suppose the other side of this is that science has enabled populations to grow, it's enabled us to develop cars, which then produce lots of greenhouse gases. And I read this great quote that "man has survived millennia without science but may not survive a mere two centuries of science." With all these problems we're in some ways creating for ourselves, if that makes sense?

Tom - It does make sense. I think it's a very pessimistic view of the world but there's no question that there are problems related to scientific developments; there are more people around; they're living longer and using more resources. They're also happier, healthier and able to enjoy lives that wouldn't have been possible prior to science.

Graihagh - The future of science looks to be an interesting place. In the time that the Naked Scientists have been around, we've seen the advent of global warming and accelerated destruction of our natural world...

David Attenborough - This loss not only diminishes the beauty and diversity of the natural world, it also puts our own future in jeopardy.

Graihagh - And 3D printed guns...

So in this case what's happening is that you're downloading a digital file that defines this object - in this case a gun. You send that to a 3D printer which literally builds it up until you end up with a gun.

Graihagh - But also a new age of physics...

We have discovered a new particle, a boson. Most probably a Higgs boson but we have to find out which kind of Higgs Boson this is - what are its properties and where do they point to?

Ladies and gentleman... we have detected gravitational waves. We did it!

Graihagh - That only leads me to question - what next for science? Only time will tell...

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Positive and negative effects of Science

• September 19, 2017
• Education , General

This might be the umpteenth time you will be reading a huge article on the merits and demerits of science. However, it seems like we cannot really differentiate between the boons and devils of science. One cannot debate on the fact that science plays an inseparable part in everyone’s life. Directly or indirectly, everyone is affected by the progression of science. In the context of a fast-paced life, we need to stall a bit and evaluate ourselves and question whether every progression made in every possible sector of science are justified or not.

Positive effects of Science:

• Convenience: It is amazing as how times have changed. It took us eternity to develop a non-human mode of transportation, but the recent couple of centuries saw us traveling over the mountains and beyond the waters. You can travel back and forth covering the deepest and darkest corners there are to explore. We can communicate to our dear ones sitting at one end of the World to the other. With the introduction of Artificial Intelligence, one does not even need to talk, but simulate a healthy conversation or run a chore.

• Dramatic increase of lifespan: Remember reading the horrific plague that almost nullified Europe as much as to the extent of rejuvenating it through the period of Renaissance? Fast forward to the 21st century and you will see people being spoilt for choice, to live, if yes, how many years would they prefer to. It baffles to see such transformation and enhancement in the field of medical science and technology . With the cure to every known disease, or at least the development of new drugs has brightened the survival rate exponentially. Stillborn and other infant fatalities have gone down significantly, and the third World countries are getting back on their feet as well.

• New technologies and better understanding of where we live in: Technology and Science go hand in hand, and there is no doubt that we have been engulfed in the technological world. Technology has been seeped in with such precision and deftness that we don’t really appreciate it that much. Science has also let us know about our Universe, and there is so much more to the 75% Water-25% Land concept. There are many wonders yet to be discovered, and with science one-day humans will acquire the knowledge of infinity with the help of science.

Negative effects of Science:

• Aesthetically wrong at times: Forget the readings and writings of any religious texts and books. Focus on the alteration made possible by science that tend to haunt the mankind in future. Altering the genetic combination tends to disrupt the balance of the nature, and messes with the ecosystem as well. Genetic alterations on animals have proven to give dubious results and have faced a lot of criticism and backlash.

• Used in strengthening war chances: Gone are the days when people used to stamp their authorities through duels and wars were won with horses, elephants, swords, and other man-made weapons. Times have flown by and the nuclear trump card in every countries arsenal has bolstered the chance of destructing the Earth, and killing many in process.

• Stressful information: The deeper you delve into science; more likely you are going to come up with unrequired or harmful information’s. You might end up discovering some lethal elements buried deep down. Overloaded with information has compelled us to make headways into calamitic consequences.

• Overpopulation: One of the most ironical aspects of science. Science tells you the reason why the Earth is being overpopulated and the measures that should be taken to deal with it. On the other hand, science has enabled us to live longer than average expectancy, decreasing the mortality rate immensely. It might be easy to say that one should not opt for such life expectant drugs and operations, but weighing the emotional side of things it becomes difficult to stick to a rational decision.

• People connecting through social media, but drifting away in person: Technology enables us to talk to strangers staying miles away from us, but we don’t bother to communicate in person when we have the chance to. Artificial Intelligence has ignited the virtual method of communication , and that seems to become the norm in years to come.

Science might be a technical and rational component of this Universe, but the sword of morality has been hanging over the head of every person on this planet. One should greet the progression of science with open arms, but needs to check the rapid growth that might do more harm than good eventually.

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please help me to write a debate that science is not good opposing side

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How to Tell the Difference Between Good and Bad Science

You don't need a stem degree to have high scientific literacy..

Posted December 18, 2018

Nothing makes headlines like the latest medical breakthrough. The heroic work of researchers should lead the news when it fundamentally changes our world and prospects for improved health. However, it can often be difficult to sort good science from bad.

When the Media Misleads

One of the reasons it is difficult to determine breakthrough versus dodgy science is that the media is motivated to present the latest scientific findings in the most interesting way possible. Unfortunately, the trend of clickbait has led to misleading articles like “Red wine compound helps kill off cancer cells, new study finds” from the LA Times . The natural takeaway of the article is that the compound resveratrol can help make radiation therapy more effective for people fighting cancer.

And yet, a quick review of the published study in question makes it apparent that the LA Times vastly overstated its implications. The study wasn’t performed on humans or even mice—it was carried out on melanoma cells in a petri dish. It is a far leap to extrapolate results from a petri dish to the human body. In this case, the problem comes with what wasn’t said rather than what was said. While the article does explain that the compound fights cancer cells, it doesn’t make the distinction that these are cells in a petri dish and not cells in the body—a big difference. That is why for each media review of a scientific study, it is critical to go to the source article or abstract.

A Quick Review of a Scientific Article

Where do you begin once you find the original study? Many people think that the Results section of an academic article is the best way to tell if the work is important. In fact, the most critical section of a research paper is the Methods section. This is the part that tells you whether or not you can trust the results.

Two Types of Study Methodologies to Know

First, there is one type of study that is commonly cited in the news: the clinical trial. A clinical trial evaluates the effectiveness of a treatment by comparing a group of people who were given a treatment to a group who were not, called a “control group.” The best kind of clinical trial is randomized; study coordinators place participants into treatment groups randomly rather than placing them in the group where they think the participants will respond most favorably.

One way of comparing treatment groups is with a placebo. One group receives the treatment and the other receives a placebo, commonly a sugar pill , which has no significant effect on health. While it can be useful to compare all versus nothing to assess efficacy, this is not always helpful or ethical. In fact, the World Medical Association has a specific provision around the use of placebos, stating that “the benefits, risks, burdens, and effectiveness of a new intervention must be tested against those of the best proven intervention.” A placebo may be used if no other intervention exists or if there is solid reasoning behind why another intervention is not needed.

Another study often relayed in the news is the observational study . This type of study does not assign treatments to different groups. Instead, it observes people who are already performing a health behavior­—whether it be taking a drug or engaging in activities like smoking or exercise. One of the most famous observational studies is the Framingham Heart Study . This is an ongoing, epic project. It began in 1948 with 5,209 participants of the Massachusetts town of Framingham and is still collecting data and running participants today. Two considerable findings attributed to this study are that high blood pressure increases the risk of stroke and cigarette smoking increases the risk of heart disease.

What to Look for in the Methods Section

When it comes to examining the robustness of a study, whether it be a clinical trial or an observational study, it can be difficult to discern red flags from acceptable limitations. Generally, it is important to have a large sample size. However, this is not possible if a disease is rare or the population being studied is uncommon or difficult to recruit into a study. This does not mean that the research should be thrown out, just that the effect size of the results should be evaluated carefully, as well as the ability to generalize the study results to the population at large.

Along these lines, it is always preferable to have a representative population in the study. This has been a considerable fault of science in the past. A recent article from STAT News shed light on the clinical trial for Ninlaro, a drug for multiple myeloma. Despite the fact that almost 20 percent of multiple myeloma sufferers are black, only 1.8 percent of trial participants were black. This kind of skewed representation requires a dose of skepticism to evaluate the results—and a demand that medical researchers aim to do better.

The Methods section must also be detailed . This section should answer who, what, when, where, and how. Here are some questions that you could expect the Methods section of a clinical trial study to answer.

• Who was included in the study? Why were some people considered ineligible?
• What is the intervention measured? How was it administered?
• When­ and how long did this study run for?
• Where was the study run? Which hospital or facility?
• How was the data analyzed? What statistical methods were used? Why were they chosen?
• How were the treatment and control groups decided?

Sometimes all these questions may be answered, but there may still be lingering inconsistencies. If you are not certain if a Methods section is sound, ask a scientifically-minded friend to review it as well. Their different experiences may help them notice fallacies or allow them to explain why the methods were laid out in that way and are actually correct. Sometimes the media will review a study. Outlets devoted to science, medicine, or research are usually more adept at identifying holes in studies or acknowledging which are sound.

We look to the research communities to answer our most burning questions about health. The vast majority of studies are done in good faith with strong scientific foundation, but for the ones that are not, we need to be able to assess for ourselves what is good science and what is bad science.

Mylea Charvat, Ph.D. , is a clinical psychologist, translational neuroscientist, and the CEO and founder of the digital cognitive assessment company, Savonix.

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Science and Pseudo-Science

The demarcation between science and pseudoscience is part of the larger task of determining which beliefs are epistemically warranted. This entry clarifies the specific nature of pseudoscience in relation to other categories of non-scientific doctrines and practices, including science denial(ism) and resistance to the facts. The major proposed demarcation criteria for pseudo-science are discussed and some of their weaknesses are pointed out. There is much more agreement on particular cases of demarcation than on the general criteria that such judgments should be based upon. This is an indication that there is still much important philosophical work to be done on the demarcation between science and pseudoscience.

1. The purpose of demarcations

2. the “science” of pseudoscience, 3.1 non-, un-, and pseudoscience, 3.2 non-science posing as science, 3.3 the doctrinal component, 3.4 a wider sense of pseudoscience, 3.5 the objects of demarcation, 3.6 a time-bound demarcation, 4.1 the logical positivists, 4.2 falsificationism, 4.3 the criterion of puzzle-solving, 4.4 criteria based on scientific progress, 4.5 epistemic norms, 4.6 multi-criterial approaches, 5. two forms of pseudo-science, 6.1 scepticism, 6.2 resistance to facts, 6.3 conspiracy theories, 6.4 bullshit, 6.5 epistemic relativism, 7. unity in diversity, cited works, philosophically-informed literature on pseudosciences and contested doctrines, other internet resources, related entries.

Demarcations of science from pseudoscience can be made for both theoretical and practical reasons (Mahner 2007, 516). From a theoretical point of view, the demarcation issue is an illuminating perspective that contributes to the philosophy of science in much the same way that the study of fallacies contributes to our knowledge of informal logic and rational argumentation. From a practical point of view, the distinction is important for decision guidance in both private and public life. Since science is our most reliable source of knowledge in a wide range of areas, we need to distinguish scientific knowledge from its look-alikes. Due to the high status of science in present-day society, attempts to exaggerate the scientific status of various claims, teachings, and products are common enough to make the demarcation issue pressing in many areas. The demarcation issue is therefore important in practical applications such as the following:

Climate policy : The scientific consensus on ongoing anthropogenic climate change leaves no room for reasonable doubt (Cook et al. 2016; Powell 2019). Science denial has considerably delayed climate action, and it is still one of the major factors that impede efficient measures to reduce climate change (Oreskes and Conway 2010; Lewandowsky et al. 2019). Decision-makers and the public need to know how to distinguish between competent climate science and science-mimicking disinformation on the climate.

Environmental policies : In order to be on the safe side against potential disasters it may be legitimate to take preventive measures when there is valid but yet insufficient evidence of an environmental hazard. This must be distinguished from taking measures against an alleged hazard for which there is no valid evidence at all. Therefore, decision-makers in environmental policy must be able to distinguish between scientific and pseudoscientific claims.

Healthcare : Medical science develops and evaluates treatments according to evidence of their effectiveness and safety. Pseudoscientific activities in this area give rise to ineffective and sometimes dangerous interventions. Healthcare providers, insurers, government authorities and – most importantly – patients need guidance on how to distinguish between medical science and medical pseudoscience.

Expert testimony : It is essential for the rule of law that courts get the facts right. The reliability of different types of evidence must be correctly determined, and expert testimony must be based on the best available knowledge. Sometimes it is in the interest of litigants to present non-scientific claims as solid science. Therefore courts must be able to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. Philosophers have often had prominent roles in the defence of science against pseudoscience in such contexts. (Pennock 2011)

Science education : The promoters of some pseudosciences (notably creationism) try to introduce their teachings in school curricula. Teachers and school authorities need to have clear criteria of inclusion that protect students against unreliable and disproved teachings.

Journalism : When there is scientific uncertainty, or relevant disagreement in the scientific community, this should be covered and explained in media reports on the issues in question. Equally importantly, differences of opinion between on the one hand legitimate scientific experts and on the other hand proponents of scientifically unsubstantiated claims should be described as what they are. Public understanding of topics such as climate change and vaccination has been considerably hampered by organised campaigns that succeeded in making media portray standpoints that have been thoroughly disproved in science as legitimate scientific standpoints (Boykoff and Boykoff 2004; Boykoff 2008). The media need tools and practices to distinguish between legitimate scientific controversies and attempts to peddle pseudoscientific claims as science.

Attempts to define what we today call science have a long history, and the roots of the demarcation problem have sometimes been traced back to Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (Laudan 1983). Cicero’s arguments for dismissing certain methods of divination in his De divinatione has considerable similarities with modern criteria for the demarcation of science (Fernandez-Beanato 2020). However it was not until the 20th century that influential definitions of science have contrasted it against pseudoscience. Philosophical work on the demarcation problem seems to have waned after Laudan’s (1983) much noted death certificate according to which there is no hope of finding a necessary and sufficient criterion of something as heterogeneous as scientific methodology. In more recent years, the problem has been revitalized. Philosophers attesting to its vitality maintain that the concept can be clarified by other means than necessary and sufficient criteria (Pigliucci 2013; Mahner 2013) or that such a definition is indeed possible although it has to be supplemented with discipline-specific criteria in order to become fully operative (Hansson 2013).

The Latin word “pseudoscientia” was used already in the first half of the 17th century in discussions about the relationship between religion and empirical investigations (Guldentops 2020, 288n). The oldest known use of the English word “pseudoscience” dates from 1796, when the historian James Pettit Andrew referred to alchemy as a “fantastical pseudo-science” (Oxford English Dictionary). The word has been in frequent use since the 1880s (Thurs and Numbers 2013). Throughout its history the word has had a clearly defamatory meaning (Laudan 1983, 119; Dolby 1987, 204). It would be as strange for someone to proudly describe her own activities as pseudoscience as to boast that they are bad science. Since the derogatory connotation is an essential characteristic of the word “pseudoscience”, an attempt to extricate a value-free definition of the term would not be meaningful. An essentially value-laden term has to be defined in value-laden terms. This is often difficult since the specification of the value component tends to be controversial.

This problem is not specific to pseudoscience, but follows directly from a parallel but somewhat less conspicuous problem with the concept of science. The common usage of the term “science” can be described as partly descriptive, partly normative. When an activity is recognized as science this usually involves an acknowledgement that it has a positive role in our strivings for knowledge. On the other hand, the concept of science has been formed through a historical process, and many contingencies influence what we call and do not call science. Whether we call a claim, doctrine, or discipline “scientific” depends both on its subject area and its epistemic qualities. The former part of the delimitation is largely conventional, whereas the latter is highly normative, and closely connected with fundamental epistemological and metaphysical issues.

Against this background, in order not to be unduly complex a definition of science has to go in either of two directions. It can focus on the descriptive contents, and specify how the term is actually used. Alternatively, it can focus on the normative element, and clarify the more fundamental meaning of the term. The latter approach has been the choice of most philosophers writing on the subject, and will be at focus here. It involves, of necessity, some degree of idealization in relation to common usage of the term “science”, in particular concerning the delimitation of the subject-area of science.

The English word “science” is primarily used about the natural sciences and other fields of research that are considered to be similar to them. Hence, political economy and sociology are counted as sciences, whereas studies of literature and history are usually not. The corresponding German word, “Wissenschaft”, has a much broader meaning and includes all the academic specialties, including the humanities. The German term has the advantage of more adequately delimiting the type of systematic knowledge that is at stake in the conflict between science and pseudoscience. The misrepresentations of history presented by Holocaust deniers and other pseudo-historians are very similar in nature to the misrepresentations of natural science promoted by creationists and homeopaths.

More importantly, the natural and social sciences and the humanities are all parts of the same human endeavour, namely systematic and critical investigations aimed at acquiring the best possible understanding of the workings of nature, people, and human society. The disciplines that form this community of knowledge disciplines are increasingly interdependent. Since the second half of the 20th century, integrative disciplines such as astrophysics, evolutionary biology, biochemistry, ecology, quantum chemistry, the neurosciences, and game theory have developed at dramatic speed and contributed to tying together previously unconnected disciplines. These increased interconnections have also linked the sciences and the humanities closer to each other, as can be seen for instance from how historical knowledge relies increasingly on advanced scientific analysis of archaeological findings.

The conflict between science and pseudoscience is best understood with this extended sense of science. On one side of the conflict we find the community of knowledge disciplines that includes the natural and social sciences and the humanities. On the other side we find a wide variety of movements and doctrines, such as creationism, astrology, homeopathy, and Holocaust denialism that are in conflict with results and methods that are generally accepted in the community of knowledge disciplines.

Another way to express this is that the demarcation problem has a deeper concern than that of demarcating the selection of human activities that we have for various reasons chosen to call “sciences”. The ultimate issue is “how to determine which beliefs are epistemically warranted” (Fuller 1985, 331). In a wider approach, the sciences are fact-finding practices , i.e., human practices aimed at finding out, as far as possible, how things really are (Hansson 2018). Other examples of fact-finding practices in modern societies are journalism, criminal investigations, and the methods used by mechanics to search for the defect in a malfunctioning machine. Fact-finding practices are also prevalent in indigenous societies, for instance in the forms of traditional agricultural experimentation and the methods used for tracking animal prey (Liebenberg 2013). In this perspective, the demarcation of science is a special case of the delimitation of accurate fact-finding practices. The delimitation between science and pseudoscience has much in common with other delimitations, such as that between accurate and inaccurate journalism and between properly and improperly performed criminal investigations (Hansson 2018).

3. The “pseudo” of pseudoscience

The phrases “demarcation of science” and “demarcation of science from pseudoscience” are often used interchangeably, and many authors seem to have regarded them as equal in meaning. In their view, the task of drawing the outer boundaries of science is essentially the same as that of drawing the boundary between science and pseudoscience.

This picture is oversimplified. All non-science is not pseudoscience, and science has non-trivial borders to other non-scientific phenomena, such as metaphysics, religion, and various types of non-scientific systematized knowledge. (Mahner (2007, 548) proposed the term “parascience” to cover non-scientific practices that are not pseudoscientific.) Science also has the internal demarcation problem of distinguishing between good and bad science.

A comparison of the negated terms related to science can contribute to clarifying the conceptual distinctions. “Unscientific” is a narrower concept than “non-scientific” (not scientific), since the former but not the latter term implies some form of contradiction or conflict with science. “Pseudoscientific” is in its turn a narrower concept than “unscientific”. The latter term differs from the former in covering inadvertent mismeasurements and miscalculations and other forms of bad science performed by scientists who are recognized as trying but failing to produce good science.

Etymology provides us with an obvious starting-point for clarifying what characteristics pseudoscience has in addition to being merely non- or un-scientific. “Pseudo-” (ψευδο-) means false. In accordance with this, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines pseudoscience as follows:

“A pretended or spurious science; a collection of related beliefs about the world mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method or as having the status that scientific truths now have.”

Many writers on pseudoscience have emphasized that pseudoscience is non-science posing as science. The foremost modern classic on the subject (Gardner 1957) bears the title Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science . According to Brian Baigrie (1988, 438), “[w]hat is objectionable about these beliefs is that they masquerade as genuinely scientific ones.” These and many other authors assume that to be pseudoscientific, an activity or a teaching has to satisfy the following two criteria (Hansson 1996):

The former of the two criteria is central to the concerns of the philosophy of science. Its precise meaning has been the subject of important controversies among philosophers, to be discussed below in Section 4. The second criterion has been less discussed by philosophers, but it needs careful treatment not least since many discussions of pseudoscience (in and out of philosophy) have been confused due to insufficient attention to it. Proponents of pseudoscience often attempt to mimic science by arranging conferences, journals, and associations that share many of the superficial characteristics of science, but do not satisfy its quality criteria. Naomi Oreskes (2019) called this phenomenon “facsimile science”. Blancke and coworkers (2017) called it “cultural mimicry of science”.

An immediate problem with the definition based on (1) and (2) is that it is too wide. There are phenomena that satisfy both criteria but are not commonly called pseudoscientific. One of the clearest examples of this is fraud in science. This is a practice that has a high degree of scientific pretence and yet does not comply with science, thus satisfying both criteria. Nevertheless, fraud in otherwise legitimate branches of science is seldom if ever called “pseudoscience”. The reason for this can be clarified with the following hypothetical examples (Hansson 1996).

Case 1 : A biochemist performs an experiment that she interprets as showing that a particular protein has an essential role in muscle contraction. There is a consensus among her colleagues that the result is a mere artefact, due to experimental error.

Case 2 : A biochemist goes on performing one sloppy experiment after the other. She consistently interprets them as showing that a particular protein has a role in muscle contraction not accepted by other scientists.

Case 3 : A biochemist performs various sloppy experiments in different areas. One is the experiment referred to in case 1. Much of her work is of the same quality. She does not propagate any particular unorthodox theory.

According to common usage, 1 and 3 are regarded as cases of bad science, and only 2 as a case of pseudoscience. What is present in case 2, but absent in the other two, is a deviant doctrine . Isolated breaches of the requirements of science are not commonly regarded as pseudoscientific. Pseudoscience, as it is commonly conceived, involves a sustained effort to promote standpoints different from those that have scientific legitimacy at the time.

This explains why fraud in science is not usually regarded as pseudoscientific. Such practices are not in general associated with a deviant or unorthodox doctrine. To the contrary, the fraudulent scientist is usually anxious that her results be in conformity with the predictions of established scientific theories. Deviations from these would lead to a much higher risk of disclosure.

The term “science” has both an individuated and an unindividuated sense. In the individuated sense, biochemistry and astronomy are different sciences, one of which includes studies of muscle proteins and the other studies of supernovae. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines this sense of science as “a particular branch of knowledge or study; a recognized department of learning”. In the unindividuated sense, the study of muscle proteins and that of supernovae are parts of “one and the same” science. In the words of the OED, unindividuated science is “the kind of knowledge or intellectual activity of which the various ‘sciences‘ are examples”.

Pseudoscience is an antithesis of science in the individuated rather than the unindividuated sense. There is no unified corpus of pseudoscience corresponding to the corpus of science. For a phenomenon to be pseudoscientific, it must belong to one or the other of the particular pseudosciences. In order to accommodate this feature, the above definition can be modified by replacing (2) by the following (Hansson 1996):

Most philosophers of science, and most scientists, prefer to regard science as constituted by methods of inquiry rather than by particular doctrines. There is an obvious tension between (2′) and this conventional view of science. This, however, may be as it should since pseudoscience often involves a representation of science as a closed and finished doctrine rather than as a methodology for open-ended inquiry.

Sometimes the term “pseudoscience” is used in a wider sense than that which is captured in the definition constituted of (1) and (2′). Contrary to (2′), doctrines that conflict with science are sometimes called “pseudoscientific” in spite of not being advanced as scientific. Hence, Grove (1985, 219) included among the pseudoscientific doctrines those that “purport to offer alternative accounts to those of science or claim to explain what science cannot explain.” Similarly, Lugg (1987, 227–228) maintained that “the clairvoyant’s predictions are pseudoscientific whether or not they are correct”, despite the fact that most clairvoyants do not profess to be practitioners of science. In this sense, pseudoscience is assumed to include not only doctrines contrary to science proclaimed to be scientific but doctrines contrary to science  tout court, whether or not they are put forward in the name of science. Arguably, the crucial issue is not whether something is called “science” but whether it is claimed to have the function of science, namely to provide the most reliable information about its subject-matter. To cover this wider sense of pseudoscience, (2′) can be modified as follows (Hansson 1996, 2013):

Common usage seems to vacillate between the definitions (1)+(2′) and (1)+(2″); and this in an interesting way: In their comments on the meaning of the term, critics of pseudoscience tend to endorse a definition close to (1)+(2′), but their actual usage is often closer to (1)+(2″).

The following examples serve to illustrate the difference between the two definitions and also to clarify why clause (1) is needed:

• A creationist book gives a correct account of the structure of DNA.
• An otherwise reliable chemistry book gives an incorrect account of the structure of DNA.
• A creationist book denies that the human species shares common ancestors with other primates.
• A preacher who denies that science can be trusted also denies that the human species shares common ancestors with other primates.

(a) does not satisfy (1), and is therefore not pseudoscientific on either account. (b) satisfies (1) but neither (2′) nor (2″) and is therefore not pseudoscientific on either account. (c) satisfies all three criteria, (1), (2′), and (2″), and is therefore pseudoscientific on both accounts. Finally, (d) satisfies (1) and (2″) and is therefore pseudoscientific according to (1)+(2″) but not according to (1)+(2′). As the last two examples illustrate, pseudoscience and anti-science are sometimes difficult to distinguish. Promoters of some pseudosciences (notably homeopathy) tend to be ambiguous between opposition to science and claims that they themselves represent the best science.

Various proposals have been put forward on exactly what elements in science or pseudoscience criteria of demarcation should be applied to. Proposals include that the demarcation should refer to a research program (Lakatos 1974a, 248–249), an epistemic field or cognitive discipline, i.e. a group of people with common knowledge aims, and their practices (Bunge 1982, 2001; Mahner 2007), a theory (Popper 1962, 1974), a practice (Lugg 1992; Morris 1987), a scientific problem or question (Siitonen 1984), and a particular inquiry (Kuhn 1974; Mayo 1996). It is probably fair to say that demarcation criteria can be meaningfully applied on each of these levels of description. A much more difficult problem is whether one of these levels is the fundamental level to which assessments on the other levels are reducible. However, it should be noted that appraisals on different levels may be interdefinable. For instance, it is not an unreasonable assumption that a pseudoscientific doctrine is one that contains pseudoscientific statements as its core or defining claims. Conversely, a pseudoscientific statement may be characterized in terms of being endorsed by a pseudoscientific doctrine but not by legitimate scientific accounts of the same subject area.

Derksen (1993) differs from most other writers on the subject in placing the emphasis in demarcation on the pseudoscientist, i.e. the individual person conducting pseudoscience. His major argument for this is that pseudoscience has scientific pretensions, and such pretensions are associated with a person, not a theory, practice or entire field. However, as was noted by Settle (1971), it is the rationality and critical attitude built into institutions, rather than the personal intellectual traits of individuals, that distinguishes science from non-scientific practices such as magic. The individual practitioner of magic in a pre-literate society is not necessarily less rational than the individual scientist in modern Western society. What she lacks is an intellectual environment of collective rationality and mutual criticism. “It is almost a fallacy of division to insist on each individual scientist being critically-minded” (Settle 1971, 174).

Some authors have maintained that the demarcation between science and pseudoscience must be timeless. If this were true, then it would be contradictory to label something as pseudoscience at one but not another point in time. Hence, after showing that creationism is in some respects similar to some doctrines from the early 18th century, one author maintained that “if such an activity was describable as science then, there is a cause for describing it as science now” (Dolby 1987, 207). This argument is based on a fundamental misconception of science. It is an essential feature of science that it methodically strives for improvement through empirical testing, intellectual criticism, and the exploration of new terrain. A standpoint or theory cannot be scientific unless it relates adequately to this process of improvement, which means as a minimum that well-founded rejections of previous scientific standpoints are accepted. The practical demarcation of science cannot be timeless, for the simple reason that science itself is not timeless.

Nevertheless, the mutability of science is one of the factors that renders the demarcation between science and pseudoscience difficult. Derksen (1993, 19) rightly pointed out three major reasons why demarcation is sometimes difficult: science changes over time, science is heterogenous, and established science itself is not free of the defects characteristic of pseudoscience.

4. Alternative demarcation criteria

Philosophical discussions on the demarcation of pseudoscience have usually focused on the normative issue, i.e. the missing scientific quality of pseudoscience (rather than on its attempt to mimic science. One option is to base the demarcation on the fundamental function that science shares with other fact-finding processes, namely to provide us with the most reliable information about its subject-matter that is currently available. This could lead to the specification of critierion (1) from Section 3.2 as follows:

This definition has the advantages of (i) being applicable across disciplines with highly different methodologies and (ii) allowing for a statement to be pseudoscientific at present although it was not so in an earlier period (or, although less commonly, the other way around). (Hansson 2013) At the same time it removes the practical determination whether a statement or doctrine is pseudoscientific from the purview of armchair philosophy to that of scientists specialized in the subject-matter that the statement or doctrine relates to. Philosophers have usually opted for demarcation criteria that appear not to require specialized knowledge in the pertinent subject area.

Around 1930, the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle developed various verificationist approaches to science. The basic idea was that a scientific statement could be distinguished from a metaphysical statement by being at least in principle possible to verify. This standpoint was associated with the view that the meaning of a proposition is its method of verification (see the section on Verificationism in the entry on the Vienna Circle ). This proposal has often been included in accounts of the demarcation between science and pseudoscience. However, this is not historically quite accurate since the verificationist proposals had the aim of solving a distinctly different demarcation problem, namely that between science and metaphysics.

Karl Popper described the demarcation problem as the “key to most of the fundamental problems in the philosophy of science” (Popper 1962, 42). He rejected verifiability as a criterion for a scientific theory or hypothesis to be scientific, rather than pseudoscientific or metaphysical. Instead he proposed as a criterion that the theory be falsifiable, or more precisely that “statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable observations” (Popper 1962, 39).

Popper presented this proposal as a way to draw the line between statements belonging to the empirical sciences and “all other statements – whether they are of a religious or of a metaphysical character, or simply pseudoscientific” (Popper 1962, 39; cf. Popper 1974, 981). This was both an alternative to the logical positivists’ verification criteria and a criterion for distinguishing between science and pseudoscience. Although Popper did not emphasize the distinction, these are of course two different issues (Bartley 1968). Popper conceded that metaphysical statements may be “far from meaningless” (1974, 978–979) but showed no such appreciation of pseudoscientific statements.

Popper’s demarcation criterion has been criticized both for excluding legitimate science (Hansson 2006) and for giving some pseudosciences the status of being scientific (Agassi 1991; Mahner 2007, 518–519). Strictly speaking, his criterion excludes the possibility that there can be a pseudoscientific claim that is refutable. According to Larry Laudan (1983, 121), it “has the untoward consequence of countenancing as ‘scientific’ every crank claim which makes ascertainably false assertions”. Astrology, rightly taken by Popper as an unusually clear example of a pseudoscience, has in fact been tested and thoroughly refuted (Culver and Ianna 1988; Carlson 1985). Similarly, the major threats to the scientific status of psychoanalysis, another of his major targets, do not come from claims that it is untestable but from claims that it has been tested and failed the tests.

Defenders of Popper have claimed that this criticism relies on an uncharitable interpretation of his ideas. They claim that he should not be interpreted as meaning that falsifiability is a sufficient condition for demarcating science. Some passages seem to suggest that he takes it as only a necessary condition (Feleppa 1990, 142). Other passages suggest that for a theory to be scientific, Popper requires (in addition to falsifiability) that energetic attempts are made to put the theory to test and that negative outcomes of the tests are accepted (Cioffi 1985, 14–16). A falsification-based demarcation criterion that includes these elements will avoid the most obvious counter-arguments to a criterion based on falsifiability alone.

However, in what seems to be his last statement of his position, Popper declared that falsifiability is a both necessary and a sufficient criterion. “A sentence (or a theory) is empirical-scientific if and only if it is falsifiable.” Furthermore, he emphasized that the falsifiability referred to here “only has to do with the logical structure of sentences and classes of sentences” (Popper [1989] 1994, 82). A (theoretical) sentence, he says, is falsifiable if and only if it logically contradicts some (empirical) sentence that describes a logically possible event that it would be logically possible to observe (Popper [1989] 1994, 83). A statement can be falsifiable in this sense although it is not in practice possible to falsify it. It would seem to follow from this interpretation that a statement’s status as scientific or non-scientific does not shift with time. On previous occasions he seems to have interpreted falsifiability differently, and maintained that “what was a metaphysical idea yesterday can become a testable scientific theory tomorrow; and this happens frequently” (Popper 1974, 981, cf. 984).

Logical falsifiability is a much weaker criterion than practical falsifiability. However, even logical falsifiability can create problems in practical demarcations. Popper once adopted the view that natural selection is not a proper scientific theory, arguing that it comes close to only saying that “survivors survive”, which is tautological. “Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program” (Popper 1976, 168). This statement has been criticized by evolutionary scientists who pointed out that it misrepresents evolution. The theory of natural selection has given rise to many predictions that have withstood tests both in field studies and in laboratory settings (Ruse 1977; 2000).

In a lecture in Darwin College in 1977, Popper retracted his previous view that the theory of natural selection is tautological. He now admitted that it is a testable theory although “difficult to test” (Popper 1978, 344). However, in spite of his well-argued recantation, his previous standpoint continues to be propagated in defiance of the accumulating evidence from empirical tests of natural selection.

Thomas Kuhn is one of many philosophers for whom Popper’s view on the demarcation problem was a starting-point for developing their own ideas. Kuhn criticized Popper for characterizing “the entire scientific enterprise in terms that apply only to its occasional revolutionary parts” (Kuhn 1974, 802). Popper’s focus on falsifications of theories led to a concentration on the rather rare instances when a whole theory is at stake. According to Kuhn, the way in which science works on such occasions cannot be used to characterize the entire scientific enterprise. Instead it is in “normal science”, the science that takes place between the unusual moments of scientific revolutions, that we find the characteristics by which science can be distinguished from other activities (Kuhn 1974, 801).

In normal science, the scientist’s activity consists in solving puzzles rather than testing fundamental theories. In puzzle-solving, current theory is accepted, and the puzzle is indeed defined in its terms. In Kuhn’s view, “it is normal science, in which Sir Karl’s sort of testing does not occur, rather than extraordinary science which most nearly distinguishes science from other enterprises”, and therefore a demarcation criterion must refer to the workings of normal science (Kuhn 1974, 802). Kuhn’s own demarcation criterion is the capability of puzzle-solving, which he sees as an essential characteristic of normal science.

Kuhn’s view of demarcation is most clearly expressed in his comparison of astronomy with astrology. Since antiquity, astronomy has been a puzzle-solving activity and therefore a science. If an astronomer’s prediction failed, then this was a puzzle that he could hope to solve for instance with more measurements or adjustments of the theory. In contrast, the astrologer had no such puzzles since in that discipline “particular failures did not give rise to research puzzles, for no man, however skilled, could make use of them in a constructive attempt to revise the astrological tradition” (Kuhn 1974, 804). Therefore, according to Kuhn, astrology has never been a science.

Popper disapproved thoroughly of Kuhn’s demarcation criterion. According to Popper, astrologers are engaged in puzzle solving, and consequently Kuhn’s criterion commits him to recognize astrology as a science. (Contrary to Kuhn, Popper defined puzzles as “minor problems which do not affect the routine”.) In his view Kuhn’s proposal leads to “the major disaster” of a “replacement of a rational criterion of science by a sociological one” (Popper 1974, 1146–1147).

Popper’s demarcation criterion concerns the logical structure of theories. Imre Lakatos described this criterion as “a rather stunning one. A theory may be scientific even if there is not a shred of evidence in its favour, and it may be pseudoscientific even if all the available evidence is in its favour. That is, the scientific or non-scientific character of a theory can be determined independently of the facts” (Lakatos 1981, 117).

Instead, Lakatos (1970; 1974a; 1974b; 1981) proposed a modification of Popper’s criterion that he called “sophisticated (methodological) falsificationism”. On this view, the demarcation criterion should not be applied to an isolated hypothesis or theory, but rather to a whole research program that is characterized by a series of theories successively replacing each other. In his view, a research program is progressive if the new theories make surprising predictions that are confirmed. In contrast, a degenerating research programme is characterized by theories being fabricated only in order to accommodate known facts. Progress in science is only possible if a research program satisfies the minimum requirement that each new theory that is developed in the program has a larger empirical content than its predecessor. If a research program does not satisfy this requirement, then it is pseudoscientific.

According to Paul Thagard (1978, 228), a theory or discipline is pseudoscientific if it satisfies two criteria. One of these is that the theory fails to progress, and the other that “the community of practitioners makes little attempt to develop the theory towards solutions of the problems, shows no concern for attempts to evaluate the theory in relation to others, and is selective in considering confirmations and disconfirmations”. A major difference between this approach and that of Lakatos is that Lakatos would classify a nonprogressive discipline as pseudoscientific even if its practitioners work hard to improve it and turn it into a progressive discipline. (In later work, Thagard has abandoned this approach and instead promoted a form of multi-criterial demarcation (Thagard 1988, 157-173).)

In a somewhat similar vein, Daniel Rothbart (1990) emphasized the distinction between the standards to be used when testing a theory and those to be used when determining whether a theory should at all be tested. The latter, the eligibility criteria, include that the theory should encapsulate the explanatory success of its rival, and that it should yield testable implications that are inconsistent with those of the rival. According to Rothbart, a theory is unscientific if it is not testworthy in this sense.

George Reisch proposed that demarcation could be based on the requirement that a scientific discipline be adequately integrated into the other sciences. The various scientific disciplines have strong interconnections that are based on methodology, theory, similarity of models etc. Creationism, for instance, is not scientific because its basic principles and beliefs are incompatible with those that connect and unify the sciences. More generally speaking, says Reisch, an epistemic field is pseudoscientific if it cannot be incorporated into the existing network of established sciences (Reisch 1998; cf. Bunge 1982, 379).

Paul Hoyninengen-Huene (2013) identifies science with systematic knowledge, and proposes that systematicity can be used as a demarcation criterion. However as shown by Naomi Oreskes, this is a problematic criterion, not least since some pseudosciences seem to satisfy it (Oreskes 2019).

A different approach, namely to base demarcation criteria on the value base of science, was proposed by sociologist Robert K. Merton ([1942] 1973). According to Merton, science is characterized by an “ethos”, i.e. spirit, that can be summarized as four sets of institutional imperatives. The first of these, universalism , asserts that whatever their origins, truth claims should be subjected to preestablished, impersonal criteria. This implies that the acceptance or rejection of claims should not depend on the personal or social qualities of their protagonists.

The second imperative, communism , says that the substantive findings of science are the products of social collaboration and therefore belong to the community, rather than being owned by individuals or groups. This is, as Merton pointed out, incompatible with patents that reserve exclusive rights of use to inventors and discoverers. The term “communism” is somewhat infelicitous; “communality” probably captures better what Merton aimed at.

His third imperative, disinterestedness , imposes a pattern of institutional control that is intended to curb the effects of personal or ideological motives that individual scientists may have. The fourth imperative, organized scepticism , implies that science allows detached scrutiny of beliefs that are dearly held by other institutions. This is what sometimes brings science into conflicts with religions and ideologies.

Merton described these criteria as belonging to the sociology of science, and thus as empirical statements about norms in actual science rather than normative statements about how science should be conducted (Merton [1942] 1973, 268). His criteria have often been dismissed by sociologists as oversimplified, and they have only had limited influence in philosophical discussions on the demarcation issue (Dolby 1987; Ruse 2000). Their potential in the latter context does not seem to have been sufficiently explored.

Popper’s method of demarcation consists essentially of the single criterion of falsifiability (although some authors have wanted to combine it with the additional criteria that tests are actually performed and their outcomes respected, see Section 4.2). Most of the other criteria discussed above are similarly mono-criterial, of course with Merton’s proposal as a major exception.

Most authors who have proposed demarcation criteria have instead put forward a list of such criteria. A large number of lists have been published that consist of (usually 5–10) criteria that can be used in combination to identify a pseudoscience or pseudoscientific practice. This includes lists by Langmuir ([1953] 1989), Gruenberger (1964), Dutch (1982), Bunge (1982), Radner and Radner (1982), Kitcher (1982, 30–54), Grove (1985), Thagard (1988, 157–173), Glymour and Stalker (1990), Derksen (1993, 2001), Vollmer (1993), Ruse (1996, 300–306) and Mahner (2007). Many of the criteria that appear on such lists relate closely to criteria discussed above in Sections 4.2 and 4.4. One such list reads as follows:

• Belief in authority : It is contended that some person or persons have a special ability to determine what is true or false. Others have to accept their judgments.
• Unrepeatable experiments : Reliance is put on experiments that cannot be repeated by others with the same outcome.
• Handpicked examples : Handpicked examples are used although they are not representative of the general category that the investigation refers to.
• Unwillingness to test : A theory is not tested although it is possible to test it.
• Disregard of refuting information : Observations or experiments that conflict with a theory are neglected.
• Built-in subterfuge : The testing of a theory is so arranged that the theory can only be confirmed, never disconfirmed, by the outcome.
• Explanations are abandoned without replacement . Tenable explanations are given up without being replaced, so that the new theory leaves much more unexplained than the previous one.

Some of the authors who have proposed multicriterial demarcations have defended this approach as being superior to any mono-criterial demarcation. Hence, Bunge (1982, 372) asserted that many philosophers have failed to provide an adequate definition of science since they have presupposed that a single attribute will do; in his view the combination of several criteria is needed. Dupré (1993, 242) proposed that science is best understood as a Wittgensteinian family resemblance concept. This would mean that there is a set of features that are characteristic of science, but although every part of science will have some of these features, we should not expect any part of science to have all of them. Irzik and Nola (2011) proposed the use of this approach in science education.

However, a multicriterial definition of science is not needed to justify a multicriterial account of how pseudoscience deviates from science. Even if science can be characterized by a single defining characteristic, different pseudoscientific practices may deviate from science in widely divergent ways.

Some forms of pseudoscience have as their main objective the promotion of a particular theory of their own, whereas others are driven by a desire to fight down some scientific theory or branch of science. The former type of pseudoscience has been called pseudo-theory promotion , and the latter science denial(ism) (Hansson 2017). Pseudo-theory promotion is exemplified by homeopathy, astrology, and ancient astronaut theories. The term “denial” was first used about the pseudo-scientific claim that the Nazi holocaust never took place. The phrase “holocaust denial” was in use already in the early 1980s (Gleberzon 1983). The term “climate change denial” became common around 2005 (e.g. Williams 2005). Other forms of science denial are relativity theory denial, tobacco disease denial, hiv denialism, and vaccination denialism.

Many forms of pseudoscience combine pseudo-theory promotion with science denialism. For instance, creationism and its skeletal version “intelligent design” are constructed to support a fundamentalist interpretation of Genesis. However, as practiced today, creationism has a strong focus on the repudiation of evolution, and it is therefore predominantly a form of science denialism.

The most prominent difference between pseudo-theory promotion and science denial is their different attitudes to conflicts with established science. Science denialism usually proceeds by producing false controversies with legitimate science, i.e. claims that there is a scientific controversy when there is in fact none. This is an old strategy, applied already in the 1930s by relativity theory deniers (Wazeck 2009, 268–269). It has been much used by tobacco disease deniers sponsored by the tobacco industry (Oreskes and Conway 2010; Dunlap and Jacques 2013), and it is currently employed by climate science denialists (Boykoff and Boykoff 2004; Boykoff 2008). However, whereas the fabrication of fake controversies is a standard tool in science denial, it is seldom if ever used in pseudo-theory promotion. To the contrary, advocates of pseudosciences such as astrology and homeopathy tend to describe their theories as conformable to mainstream science.

6. Some related terms

The term scepticism (skepticism) has at least three distinct usages that are relevant for the discussion on pseudoscience. First, scepticism is a philosophical method that proceeds by casting doubt on claims usually taken to be trivially true, such as the existence of the external world. This has been, and still is, a highly useful method for investigating the justification of what we in practice consider to be certain beliefs. Secondly, criticism of pseudoscience is often called scepticism. This is the term most commonly used by organisations devoted to the disclosure of pseudoscience. Thirdly, opposition to the scientific consensus in specific areas is sometimes called scepticism. For instance, climate science deniers often call themselves “climate sceptics”.

To avoid confusion, the first of these notions can be specified as “philosophical scepticism”, the second as “scientific scepticism” or “defence of science”, and the third as “science denial(ism)”. Adherents of the first two forms of scepticism can be called “philosophical sceptics”, respectively “science defenders”. Adherents of the third form can be called “science deniers” or “science denialists”. Torcello (2016) proposed the term “pseudoscepticism” for so-called climate scepticism.

Unwillingness to accept strongly supported factual statements is a traditional criterion of pseudoscience. (See for instance item 5 on the list of seven criteria cited in Section 4.6.) The term “fact resistance” or “resistance to facts” was used already in the 1990s, for instance by Arthur Krystal (1999, p. 8), who complained about a “growing resistance to facts”, consisting in people being “simply unrepentant about not knowing things that do not reflect their interests”. The term “fact resistance” can refer to unwillingness to accept well-supported factual claims whether or not that support originates in science. It is particularly useful in relation to fact-finding practices that are not parts of science. (Cf. Section 2.)

Generally speaking, conspiracy theories are theories according to which there exists some type of secret collusion for any type of purpose. In practice, the term mostly refers to implausible such theories, used to explain social facts that have other, considerably more plausible explanations. Many pseudosciences are connected with conspiracy theories. For instance, one of the difficulties facing anti-vaccinationists is that they have to explain the overwhelming consensus among medical experts that vaccines are efficient. This is often done by claims of a conspiracy:

At the heart of the anti-vaccine conspiracy movement [lies] the argument that large pharmaceutical companies and governments are covering up information about vaccines to meet their own sinister objectives. According to the most popular theories, pharmaceutical companies stand to make such healthy profits from vaccines that they bribe researchers to fake their data, cover up evidence of the harmful side effects of vaccines, and inflate statistics on vaccine efficacy. (Jolley and Douglas 2014)

Conspiracy theories have peculiar epistemic characteristics that contribute to their pervasiveness. (Keeley 1999) In particular, they are often associated with a type of circular reasoning that allows evidence against the conspiracy to be interpreted as evidence for it.

The term “bullshit” was introduced into philosophy by Harry Frankfurt, who first discussed it in a 1986 essay ( Raritan Quarterly Review ) and developed the discussion into a book (2005). Frankfurt used the term to describe a type of falsehood that does not amount to lying. A person who lies deliberately chooses not to tell the truth, whereas a person who utters bullshit is not interested in whether what (s)he says is true or false, only in its suitability for his or her purpose. Moberger (2020) has proposed that pseudoscience should be seen as a special case of bullshit, understood as “a culpable lack of epistemic conscientiousness”.

Epistemic relativism is a term with many meanings; the meaning most relevant in discussions on pseudoscience is denial of the common assumption that there is intersubjective truth in scientific matters, which scientists can and should try to approach. Epistemic relativists claim that (natural) science has no special claim to knowledge, but should be seen “as ordinary social constructions or as derived from interests, political-economic relations, class structure, socially defined constraints on discourse, styles of persuasion, and so on” (Buttel and Taylor 1992, 220). Such ideas have been promoted under different names, including “social constructivism”, the “strong programme”, “deconstructionism”, and “postmodernism”. The distinction between science and pseudoscience has no obvious role in epistemic relativism. Some academic epistemic relativists have actively contributed to the promotion of doctrines such as AIDS denial, vaccination denial, creationism, and climate science denial (Hansson 2020, Pennock 2010). However, the connection between epistemic relativism and pseudoscience is controversial. Some proponents of epistemic relativism have maintained that that relativism “is almost always more useful to the side with less scientific credibility or cognitive authority” (Scott et al. 1990, 490). Others have denied that epistemic relativism facilitates or encourages standpoints such as denial of anthropogenic climate change or other environmental problems (Burningham and Cooper 1999, 306).

Kuhn observed that although his own and Popper’s criteria of demarcation are profoundly different, they lead to essentially the same conclusions on what should be counted as science respectively pseudoscience (Kuhn 1974, 803). This convergence of theoretically divergent demarcation criteria is a quite general phenomenon. Philosophers and other theoreticians of science differ widely in their views on what science is. Nevertheless, there is virtual unanimity in the community of knowledge disciplines on most particular issues of demarcation. There is widespread agreement for instance that creationism, astrology, homeopathy, Kirlian photography, dowsing, ufology, ancient astronaut theory, Holocaust denialism, Velikovskian catastrophism, and climate change denialism are pseudosciences. There are a few points of controversy, for instance concerning the status of Freudian psychoanalysis, but the general picture is one of consensus rather than controversy in particular issues of demarcation.

It is in a sense paradoxical that so much agreement has been reached in particular issues in spite of almost complete disagreement on the general criteria that these judgments should presumably be based upon. This puzzle is a sure indication that there is still much important philosophical work to be done on the demarcation between science and pseudoscience.

Philosophical reflection on pseudoscience has brought forth other interesting problem areas in addition to the demarcation between science and pseudoscience. Examples include related demarcations such as that between science and religion, the relationship between science and reliable non-scientific knowledge (for instance everyday knowledge), the scope for justifiable simplifications in science education and popular science, the nature and justification of methodological naturalism in science (Boudry et al 2010), and the meaning or meaninglessness of the concept of a supernatural phenomenon. Several of these problem areas have as yet not received much philosophical attention.

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Anthroposophy

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Climate science denialism

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Creationism

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Holocaust denial

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Parapsychology

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Psychoanalysis

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Quackery and non–scientific medicine

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Opinion article, the good, the bad and the ugly science: examples from the marine science arena.

• Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

The terms “good science,” “bad science,” and especially “sound science” are frequently used in the policy arena. Most often, this is so parties with interests (usually economic) in the outcome of a political decision can promote certain results and attempt to discredit others. It has been argued that the terms “sound science” and “junk science” have been appropriated by various industries, such as the oil and gas industry and the tobacco industry. “Junk science” is the term used to tar scientific studies that disagree with positions favorable to the industry ( Mooney, 2004 , 2006 ; Oreskes and Conway, 2011 ; Macilwain, 2014 ). But can science actually be “good” or “bad”?

Science is a process. It's the act of taking observations made in the natural world to test hypotheses, preferably in a rigorous, repeatable way. The tested hypotheses are then rejected if they fall short, rather than accepted if the data are compatible, and the results are ultimately critically reviewed by the scientific community. Concepts that work survive, whereas those that do not fit the observed data die off. Eventually, concepts that survive the frequent and repeated application of enormous amounts of observational data become scientific theory. Such theories become as close to scientific fact as is possible—nothing can be proved absolutely. This process holds for social science as much as for chemistry, physics or biology: it does not matter if the data come from surveys or observational data from humans. A study either follows this protocol or it does not. Put simply, it is science or it isn't science.

That said, what is sometimes referred to as “bad science” is the use of a bad experimental design. This is typically a set-up that has not accounted for confounding variables, so the hypothesis has not been appropriately tested and the inferences based upon this work are flawed and incorrect. These flaws may include the use of an inappropriate sample size or time frame. Use of selective data is another problem, where data that don't fit are simply left out of statistical analyses as “outliers.” In short, “bad science” is a study that does not follow the scientific process. It could also be used to describe studies that have flaws and limitations that are not highlighted by researchers. The term “bad science” has also been applied to inappropriate interpretations of the results. The reason for this, mentioned above, is that science never proves anything. Thus personal opinions can color interpretations of what data actually mean. This is where most of the debate in the scientific community really lies. We may all agree that a given hypothesis has not yet been invalidated, but what if alternative explanations for the observed data are possible? Or, as noted above, there might be limitations and caveats in particular study—for example an ex situ experimental study on a small sample of a single species in an aquarium produces interesting results, but to ignore these limitations and extrapolate these results to make conclusions about multiple species in multiple ecosystems in the wild over-reaches the real limits of the study in question (see Parsons et al., 2008 for an example related to captive cetacean studies and the impacts underwater sound). However, when scientific studies are interpreted beyond hyperbole, and are deliberately misinterpreted to fit a particular world view or to favor special interests, this is when science is no longer just “bad,” but it becomes ugly.

Government decisions regarding the marine environment are typically required to be based on the “best available science.” The typical tools for aiding decision-making are environmental impact assessments (EIAs). However, such EIAs are typically restricted by a timeline and a tight budget, and frequently focus on simple species descriptions and habitat reviews. Conversely the marine environment is logistically difficult, complex, and expensive to study ( Norse and Crowder, 2005 ). It is frequently the case that the scientific content of an EIA, due to these limitations, is insufficient to fully ascertain the impacts of a project. However, the EIA's conclusions often do not acknowledge the deficiencies of the assessment. This “bad” science can, moreover, turn ugly if conclusions of an EIA go contrary to the findings of the actual assessment in order to allow a project to get approval. After all, if an environmental consultant says a project cannot go ahead they may risk not being awarded any further contracts. Thus there is a major financial incentive to not highlight an EIA's limitations, or even to give the client the determination that they desire, contrary to the data gathered in the assessment ( Wright et al., 2013a ). It should be noted that the data in an EIA might actually be very rigorously gathered in an appropriate scientific manner, and thus technically be “good science.” However, when the interpretation of the science is not based on the data, but rather on the interests of industry, individuals or politics, is not longer “good science.” In fact, it ceases to be science at all.

One high-profile example of inappropriate interpretation of marine science data was research conducted to assess the impacts of the Acoustic Thermometry of the Ocean Climate (ATOC) program. This project was designed to detect changes in oceanic temperatures using a high-intensity, low-frequency sound source. After expressions of concern by scientists and NGOs about the possible impact of the high-intensity sound to be used in the project, a field test was conducted in 1991. While the sound source was operating, researchers acoustically monitored nearly 5000 km 2 area of ocean. They found that acoustic detections of long-finned pilot whales ( Globicephala melas ) and sperm whales ( Physeter macrocephalus ) were substantially lower when the sound source was operating than when it was not ( Bowles et al., 1994 ). Despite the results of this test, the ATOC project continued, albeit with a quieter (~20 dB) source level than used in the test. Several environmental NGOs subsequently launched a court case, which was settled out of court, but it did lead to a program of marine mammal-oriented studies ( McCarthy, 2004 ; Oreskes, 2004 , 2014 ). Several of these studies noted significant changes in the behavior/distribution of whales around the ATOC sound source ( Calambokidis, 1998 ; Frankel and Clark, 1998 , 2000 , 2002 ). A Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) was released in 2000, which concluded that there was no short- or long-term biologically significant impact from the sound source, a stance that was criticized in a US National Research Council report ( National Research Council, 2003 ). The critique stated that the studies relied on by the DEIS were insufficient to adequately test whether there had, or had not, been short- or long-term effects on marine mammals, nor the biological significance of any such effects if they occurred ( National Research Council, 2003 ). That is to say, the hypotheses tested in the various marine mammal studies were not consistent with the conclusions drawn. Sadly, this is a common situation with many EIAs which have a seemingly supportive case for an impact in the part of the document that presents scientific data, but the conclusion is that there is no significant impact irrespective of the science presented ( Wright et al., 2013a ).

Another second case study on the nature of science in the marine environmental realm is that of the impact of naval sonar on cetaceans. Many scientists were initially convinced that the main concern for injury to cetaceans from high-intensity noise was temporary or permanent deafness or threshold shifts (referred to as TTS and PTS, respectively). However other scientists were concerned that behavioral changes, such as surfacing too quickly, might lead to injury through “the bends”-like effects ( Jepson et al., 2003 ; Fernández et al., 2004 , 2005 ; Cox et al., 2006 ; and see review in Parsons et al., 2008 ). These behavioral effects could potentially occur at levels much lower than those which were known to cause TTS/PTS. The latter hypothesis was criticized by several as being “bad” or “junk science” (pers. obs.), possibly because the hypothesis did not fit with the then held assumptions about the impacts of sound on marine mammals. Another possibility is that accepting the hypothesis would support the implementation of a more precautionary management regime, with heavier restrictions on noise-producing activities. However, the hypothesis was subsequently tested. Beaked whales and other cetaceans were exposed to military sonar, and potentially problematic behavioral changes were observed ( Tyack et al., 2011 ). This was a good example of using the scientific method to investigate a problem. As a result, we know that there can be important impacts on cetaceans at levels of sound much lower than previously thought and management regimes can be adjusted accordingly. Prior to these experiments, many complained that the hypothesis whereby behavioral changes induced a “bends”-like effect was not “sound science” (pers. obs.). However, the fact that the majority now accept revised hypotheses that have been tested, and management recommendations are starting to be proposed based on the latest understanding of sound impacts, is an example of what one might consider “good science.”

This example leads us to another aspect of the scientific method: rejecting previously accepted hypotheses as additional data shows that these hypotheses are, in fact, false. If a scientist were to follow the scientific method, a “good” scientist's understanding of the environment changes as additional data are acquired, whereas a “bad” scientist sticks stubbornly to previously held beliefs despite being faced with data that suggest an alternative scenario. It is a basic tenant of scientific inquiry after all that hypotheses are rejected when not supported by data. Good scientists are willing to change their opinions quickly in the face of new evidence or in response to a good valid argument. However, opinions that are not based in data-tested hypotheses do not represent good or bad science; they are simply not scientific at all.

Sticking to an opinion or an idea despite evidence to the contrary is sadly quite common in the science community. One sees “scientists” who stubbornly resist new ideas and studies, especially those that contradict a paper that the “scientists” wrote or concepts that they have publicly supported, or even based their career on. But adapting to new evidence is a key criterion of the scientific method. When scientists stubbornly resist new evidence contrary to their opinion, it really is “bad science,” i.e., refusing to reject a hypothesis that has been shown to be false.

Combating bad science ideally should be done through scientific peer-review, as professional scientists should understand the intricacies of the scientific method, and in an ideal world this happens. However, reviewers with conflicts of interest are sadly too frequent. Moreover, any problems are exacerbated when science meets policy, or public opinion. Policy makers and the general public, who are not trained in the scientific method, may not understand the difference between “good” and “bad” science or recognize misrepresentations of science (see Wright et al., 2013b for further discussion). This is not helped by the fact that scientists that may be well-trained in the scientific method may not be trained in (or even very good at) the art of communication. Fortunately, some scientists forego research to become involved in policymaking and management, journalism, and/or teaching. However, there have been concerns that science journalism in traditional media has been in decline ( Brumfiel, 2009 ; Nature, 2009a , b ) with few newspapers employing journalists with a scientific background. The result is that articles on science often display a tenuous grip on the scientific method and the real implications of the results ( Rose and Parsons, in press ). Brunning (2014) provides a checklist to help the lay person to spot “bad science” (Table 1 ), whether it be in science-related articles, government reports or in EIAs (also recommended is McConway and Spiegelhalter, 2012 and www.badscience.net ).

Table 1. A “bad science” checklist .

Marine scientists should try to avoid the tainted terms “sound” or “junk” science as these terms have been co-opted by special interests and have now become somewhat tainted by association, as noted earlier. There can be “good science” or “bad science,” but arguably only because a project uses a scientific methodology in which the experimental design is well-thought out, potential confounding variables are addressed, conclusions are appropriate for the hypotheses that were tested and the data that were gathered, and caveats are expressed… or this is not the case. In short, science has been properly conducted or it has not been conducted. There is no middle ground. Then there are situations where lip service is often paid to “science” but actual scientific data have been willfully ignored because of dogma, special interest or politics. This is often the realm of purveyors of the terms “sound science” for studies that supports their agenda, and “junk science” for those that don't. But to paraphrase Yoda, there are studies where data has been collected in an appropriate scientific fashion and interpreted appropriately, and there those that have not, there is no in between.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We wish to thanks Amy Bauer for kindly editing draft versions of this manuscript and we are grateful for the useful comments of two reviewers.

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Keywords: science, good science, bad science, junk science, sound science, policy making, science communication

Citation: Parsons ECM and Wright AJ (2015) The good, the bad and the ugly science: examples from the marine science arena. Front. Mar. Sci . 2 :33. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2015.00033

Received: 21 February 2015; Accepted: 18 May 2015; Published: 04 June 2015.

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Copyright © 2015 Parsons and Wright. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: E. C. M. Parsons, [email protected]

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• Published: 17 May 2021

The natural selection of good science

• Alexander J. Stewart   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5234-3871 1 &
• Joshua B. Plotkin   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2349-6304 2  

Nature Human Behaviour volume  5 ,  pages 1510–1518 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Scientists in some fields are concerned that many published results are false. Recent models predict selection for false positives as the inevitable result of pressure to publish, even when scientists are penalized for publications that fail to replicate. We model the cultural evolution of research practices when laboratories are allowed to expend effort on theory, enabling them, at a cost, to identify hypotheses that are more likely to be true, before empirical testing. Theory can restore high effort in research practice and suppress false positives to a technical minimum, even without replication. The mere ability to choose between two sets of hypotheses, one with greater prior chance of being correct, promotes better science than can be achieved with effortless access to the set of stronger hypotheses. Combining theory and replication can have synergistic effects. On the basis of our analysis, we propose four simple recommendations to promote good science.

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The authors thank P. Smaldino for constructive feedback. The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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A.J.S. and J.B.P. conceived the project and developed the model. A.J.S. ran the simulations and analysed the model with input from J.B.P. A.J.S. and J.B.P. wrote the paper.

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A Critical Reflection on Automated Science pp 279–292 Cite as

What Is ‘Good Science’?

• Christopher Tollefsen 4  
• First Online: 06 February 2020

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Part of the book series: Human Perspectives in Health Sciences and Technology ((HPHST,volume 1))

This paper approaches the question concerning the “human character” of science. Recent controversies over particular scientific endeavors have led some commentators to assert the impropriety of imposing moral, political, or religious limits on scientific inquiry. In such claims, I suggest, we also have an attempt to minimize the “human character” of science, and, in particular, of “good science.” I want here to look more closely at the relationship between science – “good science” – and morality. This relationship exists, I shall argue, on at least three axes which I shall call the external ethics of science, the social ethics of science, and the internal ethics of science. Of these, only the first – the external ethics of science – suggests that good science may not necessarily be good morally. If good science has the characteristics I describe in this paper, then the project of science “populated and exercised by machines” is chimerical. Good science as science is and must be a human activity permeated by human concerns and norms.

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Quotations in this paragraph are from the invitation to participate in the March 2018 conference, “Will Science Remain Human? Frontiers of the Incorporation of Technological Innovations in the Bio-Medical Sciences,” received by email July 19, 2017.

The name given to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Title 45 (public welfare), Part 46 (protection of human subjects).

I have made these points at greater length in Tollefsen 2008 , Chapter Two.

For the claim that the early human embryo is not a human being, see, e.g., Smith and Brogaard 2003 . For the claim that embryos, even if human beings, are nevertheless not persons, see Harris 1999 . These essays are merely representative.

A further review of such claims, and responses to objections, is to be found in George and Tollefsen 2008 . Jason Morris, a biologist, has criticized our claims in Morris 2012 ; George and I, with Patrick Lee, respond in Lee et al. 2014 .

The history of this particular form of racism in science is told in Jones 1992 .

For example, Owen-Smith et al. write: “Though history has taught us the benefits of thoughtful, rationally driven science policy (the response by the scientific community to recombinant DNA research offers a historical case in point), some types of research are chilled by thoughtless, irrationally driven science policy. We take the response by the political conservatives to climate change and human embryonic stem cell science to be exemplary of this negative case” (Owen-Smith et al. 2012 , 727).

For a helpful discussion of Nazi science which reveals many of these vices, see Evans 2009 , Chapter 6. Nazi medical science was, of course, especially egregious.

This bleak verdict seems to me to be substantially confirmed by the work of J. Benjamin Hurlbut in his study of the history of human embryo research; see Hurlbut 2017 . I should stress that while the failures of Nazi science are used to illustrate a point about the internal ethics of science, and while I think that contemporary human embryo research also involves moral failings, I do not intend to suggest any moral parity between Nazi researchers and contemporary scientists.

Nor, of course, do I assume that even epistemically science is an entirely technical activity. But that question, though central to this volume, is beyond the scope of this paper.

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Tollefsen, C. (2020). What Is ‘Good Science’?. In: Bertolaso, M., Sterpetti, F. (eds) A Critical Reflection on Automated Science. Human Perspectives in Health Sciences and Technology, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25001-0_14

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Editing and revision are two of the most important steps in the writing process.

Editing is the process of reviewing your work to make sure its grammar and style are correct. Revision is the process of revisiting your work and making changes to improve it.

Editing and revision are essential for producing a high-quality piece of writing. So make sure you don't skip this step!

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Get Feedback From Someone Else

Once you're satisfied with your edit, ask someone else (preferably an experienced science essay writer) to read it over and give their feedback. 

Having your essay proofread by others can help you pick up on mistakes that you might have missed. It can also help you identify areas where your argument may be unclear or could use more evidence to support your claims.

Getting feedback is an important part of the writing process, so make sure you take the time to do it.

Finalize Your Essay

Finally, polish up your formatting and page layout, and you're good to go! Make sure that your essay follows the formatting guidelines provided by your instructor.

Here are some general formatting rules:

• Use standard font, such as Times New Roman
• Set the font size to 12 point
• Double-space your essay
• Include page numbers
• 1-inch margins on both sides
• Indent the first line of every paragraph

By following these simple tips, you can write a great science essay without too much trouble. Just remember to choose a good topic, do your research, make an outline, and edit & revise your final draft before submitting it.

In conclusion,

Writing a science essay can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. With the samples and tips provided in this blog, you will surely ace it!

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Essay on Science for Students and Children

500+ words essay on science.

Essay on science:  As we look back in our ancient times we see so much development in the world. The world is full of gadgets and machinery . Machinery does everything in our surroundings. How did it get possible? How did we become so modern? It was all possible with the help of science. Science has played a major role in the development of our society. Furthermore, Science has made our lives easier and carefree.

Science in our Daily Lives

As I have mentioned earlier Science has got many changes in our lives. First of all, transportation is easier now. With the help of Science it now easier to travel long distances . Moreover, the time of traveling is also reduced. Various high-speed vehicles are available these days. These vehicles have totally changed. The phase of our society. Science upgraded steam engines to electric engines. In earlier times people were traveling with cycles. But now everybody travels on motorcycles and cars. This saves time and effort. And this is all possible with the help of Science.

Secondly, Science made us reach to the moon. But we never stopped there. It also gave us a glance at Mars. This is one of the greatest achievements. This was only possible with Science. These days Scientists make many satellites . Because of which we are using high-speed Internet. These satellites revolve around the earth every day and night. Even without making us aware of it. Science is the backbone of our society. Science gave us so much in our present time. Due to this, the teacher in our schools teaches Science from an early age.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Science as a Subject

In class 1 only a student has Science as a subject. This only tells us about the importance of Science. Science taught us about Our Solar System. The Solar System consists of 9 planets and the Sun. Most Noteworthy was that it also tells us about the origin of our planet. Above all, we cannot deny that Science helps us in shaping our future. But not only it tells us about our future, but it also tells us about our past.

When the student reaches class 6, Science gets divided into three more subcategories. These subcategories were Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. First of all, Physics taught us about the machines. Physics is an interesting subject. It is a logical subject.

Furthermore, the second subject was Chemistry . Chemistry is a subject that deals with an element found inside the earth. Even more, it helps in making various products. Products like medicine and cosmetics etc. result in human benefits.

Last but not least, the subject of Biology . Biology is a subject that teaches us about our Human body. It tells us about its various parts. Furthermore, it even teaches the students about cells. Cells are present in human blood. Science is so advanced that it did let us know even that.

Leading Scientists in the field of Science

Finally, many scientists like Thomas Edison , Sir Isaac Newton were born in this world. They have done great Inventions. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. If he did not invent that we would stay in dark. Because of this Thomas Edison’s name marks in history.

Another famous Scientist was Sir Isaac Newton . Sir Isaac Newton told us about Gravity. With the help of this, we were able to discover many other theories.

In India Scientists A..P.J Abdul was there. He contributed much towards our space research and defense forces. He made many advanced missiles. These Scientists did great work and we will always remember them.

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Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Human Nature — Human Nature: The Eternal Debate of Good and Bad

Human Nature: The Eternal Debate of Good and Bad

• Categories: Good and Evil Human Nature

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Words: 726 |

Published: Sep 5, 2023

Words: 726 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Inherent goodness: altruism and empathy, inherent badness: selfishness and aggression, the role of environment and culture, conclusion: the complexity of human nature.

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Relationships Articles & More

What makes technology good or bad for us, how technology affects our well-being partly depends on whether it strengthens our relationships..

Everyone’s worried about smartphones. Headlines like “ Have smartphones destroyed a generation? ” and “ Smartphone addiction could be changing your brain ” paint a bleak picture of our smartphone addiction and its long-term consequences. This isn’t a new lament—public opinion at the advent of the newspaper worried that people would forego the stimulating pleasures of early-morning conversation in favor of reading the daily .

Is the story of technology really that bad? Certainly there’s some reason to worry. Smartphone use has been linked to serious issues, such as dwindling attention spans , crippling depression , and even increased incidence of brain cancer . Ultimately, though, the same concern comes up again and again: Smartphones can’t be good for us, because they’re replacing the real human connection of the good old days.

Everyone’s heard how today’s teens just sit together in a room, texting, instead of actually talking to each other. But could those teenagers actually be getting something meaningful and real out of all that texting?

The science of connection

A quick glance at the research on technology-mediated interaction reveals an ambivalent literature. Some studies show that time spent socializing online can decrease loneliness , increase well-being , and help the socially anxious learn how to connect to others. Other studies suggest that time spent socializing online can cause loneliness , decrease well-being , and foster a crippling dependence on technology-mediated interaction to the point that users prefer it to face-to-face conversation.

It’s tempting to say that some of these studies must be right and others wrong, but the body of evidence on both sides is a little too robust to be swept under the rug. Instead, the impact of social technology is more complicated. Sometimes, superficially similar behaviors have fundamentally different consequences. Sometimes online socialization is good for you, sometimes it’s bad, and the devil is entirely in the details.

This isn’t a novel proposition; after all, conflicting results started appearing within the first few studies into the internet’s social implications, back in the 1990s. Many people have suggested that to understand the consequences of online socialization, we need to dig deeper into situational factors and circumstances. But what we still have to do is move beyond recognition of the problem to provide an answer: When, how, and why are some online interactions great, while others are dangerous?

The interpersonal connection behaviors framework

As a scientist of close relationships, I can’t help but see online interactions differently from thinkers in other fields. People build relationships by demonstrating their understanding of each other’s needs and perspectives, a cyclical process that brings them closer together. If I tell you my secrets, and you respond supportively, I’m much more likely to confide in you again—and you, in turn, are much more likely to confide in me.

This means that every time two people talk to each other, an opportunity for relationship growth is unfolding. Many times, that opportunity isn’t taken; we aren’t about to have an in-depth conversation with the barista who asks for our order. But connection is always theoretically possible, and that’s true whether we’re interacting online or face-to-face.

Close relationships are the bread and butter of happiness—and even health. Being socially isolated is a stronger predictor of mortality than is smoking multiple cigarettes a day . If we want to understand the role technology plays in our well-being, we need to start with the role it plays in our relationships.

And it turns out that the kind of technology-mediated interactions that lead to positive outcomes are exactly those that are likely to build stronger relationships. Spending your time online by scheduling interactions with people you see day in and day out seems to pay dividends in increased social integration . Using the internet to compensate for being lonely just makes you lonelier; using the internet to actively seek out connection has the opposite effect .

“The kind of technology-mediated interactions that lead to positive outcomes are exactly those that are likely to build stronger relationships”

On the other hand, technology-mediated interactions that don’t really address our close relationships don’t seem to do us any good—and might, in fact, do us harm. Passively scrolling through your Facebook feed without interacting with people has been linked to decreased well-being and increased depression post-Facebook use.

That kind of passive usage is a good example of “ social snacking .” Like eating junk food, social snacking can temporarily satisfy you, but it’s lacking in nutritional content. Looking at your friends’ posts without ever responding might make you feel more connected to them, but it doesn’t build intimacy.

Passive engagement has a second downside, as well: social comparison . When we compare our messy lived experiences to others’ curated self-presentations, we are likely to suffer from lowered self-esteem , happiness, and well-being. This effect is only exacerbated when we consume people’s digital lives without interacting with them, making it all too easy to miss the less photogenic moments of their lives.

Moving forward

The interpersonal connection behaviors framework doesn’t explain everything that might influence our well-being after spending time on social media. The internet poses plenty of other dangers—for two examples, the sense of wasting time or emotional contagion from negative news. However, a focus on meaningful social interaction can help explain decades of contradictory findings. And even if the framework itself is challenged by future work, its central concept is bound to be upheld: We have to study the details of how people are spending their time online if we want to understand its likely effects.

In the meantime, this framework has some practical implications for those worried about their own online time. If you make sure you’re using social media for genuinely social purposes, with conscious thought about how it can improve your life and your relationships, you’ll be far more likely to enjoy your digital existence.

This article was originally published on the Behavioral Scientist . Read the original article .

About the Author

Jenna Clark

Jenna Clark, Ph.D. , is a senior behavioral researcher at Duke University's Center for Advanced Hindsight, where she works to help people make healthy decisions in spite of themselves. She's also interested in how technology contributes to our well-being through its effect on our close personal relationships.

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Essay On Science: A Good Servant But A Bad Master (Step By Step)

Hello Friend, In this post “ Essay On Science: A Good Servant But A Bad Master “, We will read An Essay About A Good Servant But A Bad Mater in detail with an In-depth Analysis .

Essay On Science: A Good Servant But A Bad Master

Science exists for man; man does not exist for science. The aim of human life is a harmonious development of the faculties of knowing, feeling, and willing or doing.

Material progress, unless balanced, enriched, and refined by intellectual, moral, and spiritual progress, will not bring the satisfaction which all men seek.

What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?

Nobody should question the importance of science. But this importance should not be given to science at the expense and sacrifice of other vital things.

As the poet says: Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell.

To overfeed the mind and starve the heart is no part of wisdom. The final goal of life is not knowledge but wisdom.

So long as theoretical and applied science serve desirable material ends, science is a blessing.

Cheap and quick transport, electricity, time and labor-saving devices, progress in medicine and surgery, the gift of chemistry in the form of artificial manures and other very useful chemicals, atoms for peace, exploration of space for the advancement of knowledge, relieving human suffering in hundreds of ways, bringing in the age of plenty and prosperity- all these go to show that science is a goód servant.

But if science is allowed to cause suffering and destruction, if it is let loose without the control dictated by moral and human considerations, then science becomes a bad master.

We may let science enslave, or keep in slavery, backward nations, we may let science result in colonialism and imperialism, we may let it become an instrument of mass destruction through nuclear weapons or rockets with nuclear warheads, we may let science become an instrument of mass poisoning and germ warfare, and then science will no more be a good servant but a bad master.

There is a story of an attempt to invent a liquid that will destroy every other object. When a villager saw some students of science engaged in concocting such a liquid he innocently asked them,

But where will you keep it ?” We are also reminded of the story of King Midas whose prayer that whatever he touched should be transformed into gold was granted and with disastrous results.

To be morally backward but scientifically advanced is not a blessing but a curse. Like fire, science is a good servant but a bad master.

Thanks For Reading “ Essay On Science: A Good Servant But A Bad Master “.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, bad college essays: 10 mistakes you must avoid.

College Essays

Just as there are noteworthy examples of excellent college essays that admissions offices like to publish, so are there cringe-worthy examples of terrible college essays that end up being described by anonymous admissions officers on Reddit discussion boards.

While I won't guarantee that your essay will end up in the first category, I will say that you follow my advice in this article, your essay most assuredly won't end up in the second. How do you avoid writing a bad admissions essay? Read on to find out what makes an essay bad and to learn which college essay topics to avoid. I'll also explain how to recognize bad college essays—and what to do to if you end up creating one by accident.

What Makes Bad College Essays Bad

What exactly happens to turn a college essay terrible? Just as great personal statements combine an unexpected topic with superb execution, flawed personal statements compound problematic subject matter with poor execution.

Problems With the Topic

The primary way to screw up a college essay is to flub what the essay is about or how you've decided to discuss a particular experience. Badly chosen essay content can easily create an essay that is off-putting in one of a number of ways I'll discuss in the next section.

The essay is the place to let the admissions office of your target college get to know your personality, character, and the talents and skills that aren't on your transcript. So if you start with a terrible topic, not only will you end up with a bad essay, but you risk ruining the good impression that the rest of your application makes.

Some bad topics show admissions officers that you don't have a good sense of judgment or maturity , which is a problem since they are building a class of college students who have to be able to handle independent life on campus.

Other bad topics suggest that you are a boring person , or someone who doesn't process your experience in a colorful or lively way, which is a problem since colleges want to create a dynamic and engaged cohort of students.

Still other bad topics indicate that you're unaware of or disconnected from the outside world and focused only on yourself , which is a problem since part of the point of college is to engage with new people and new ideas, and admissions officers are looking for people who can do that.

Problems With the Execution

Sometimes, even if the experiences you discuss could be the foundation of a great personal statement, the way you've structured and put together your essay sends up warning flags. This is because the admissions essay is also a place to show the admissions team the maturity and clarity of your writing style.

One way to get this part wrong is to exhibit very faulty writing mechanics , like unclear syntax or incorrectly used punctuation. This is a problem since college-ready writing is one of the things that's expected from a high school graduate.

Another way to mess this up is to ignore prompt instructions either for creative or careless reasons. This can show admissions officers that you're either someone who simply blows off directions and instructions or someone who can't understand how to follow them . Neither is a good thing, since they are looking for people who are open to receiving new information from professors and not just deciding they know everything already.

College Essay Topics To Avoid

Want to know why you're often advised to write about something mundane and everyday for your college essay? That's because the more out-there your topic, the more likely it is to stumble into one of these trouble categories.

Too Personal

The problem with the overly personal essay topic is that revealing something very private can show that you don't really understand boundaries . And knowing where appropriate boundaries are will be key for living on your own with a bunch of people not related to you.

Unfortunately, stumbling into the TMI zone of essay topics is more common than you think. One quick test for checking your privacy-breaking level: if it's not something you'd tell a friendly stranger sitting next to you on the plane, maybe don't tell it to the admissions office.

• Describing losing your virginity, or anything about your sex life really. This doesn't mean you can't write about your sexual orientation—just leave out the actual physical act.
• Writing in too much detail about your illness, disability, any other bodily functions. Detailed meaningful discussion of what this physical condition has meant to you and your life is a great thing to write about. But stay away from body horror and graphic descriptions that are simply there for gratuitous shock value.
• Waxing poetic about your love for your significant other. Your relationship is adorable to the people currently involved in it, but those who don't know you aren't invested in this aspect of your life.
• Confessing to odd and unusual desires of the sexual or illegal variety. Your obsession with cultivating cacti is wonderful topic, while your obsession with researching explosives is a terrible one.

Too Revealing of Bad Judgment

Generally speaking, leave past illegal or immoral actions out of your essay . It's simply a bad idea to give admissions officers ammunition to dislike you.

Some exceptions might be if you did something in a very, very different mindset from the one you're in now (in the midst of escaping from danger, under severe coercion, or when you were very young, for example). Or if your essay is about explaining how you've turned over a new leaf and you have the transcript to back you up.

• Writing about committing crime as something fun or exciting. Unless it's on your permanent record, and you'd like a chance to explain how you've learned your lesson and changed, don't put this in your essay.
• Describing drug use or the experience of being drunk or high. Even if you're in a state where some recreational drugs are legal, you're a high school student. Your only exposure to mind-altering substances should be caffeine.
• Making up fictional stories about yourself as though they are true. You're unlikely to be a good enough fantasist to pull this off, and there's no reason to roll the dice on being discovered to be a liar.
• Detailing your personality flaws. Unless you have a great story of coping with one of these, leave deal-breakers like pathological narcissism out of your personal statement.

Too Overconfident

While it's great to have faith in your abilities, no one likes a relentless show-off. No matter how magnificent your accomplishments, if you decide to focus your essay on them, it's better to describe a setback or a moment of doubt rather that simply praising yourself to the skies.

• Bragging and making yourself the flawless hero of your essay. This goes double if you're writing about not particularly exciting achievements like scoring the winning goal or getting the lead in the play.
• Having no awareness of the actual scope of your accomplishments. It's lovely that you take time to help others, but volunteer-tutoring a couple of hours a week doesn't make you a saintly figure.

Too Clichéd or Boring

Remember your reader. In this case, you're trying to make yourself memorable to an admissions officer who has been reading thousands of other essays . If your essay makes the mistake of being boring or trite, it just won't register in that person's mind as anything worth paying attention to.

• Transcribing your resume into sentence form or writing about the main activity on your transcript. The application already includes your resume, or a detailed list of your various activities. Unless the prompt specifically asks you to write about your main activity, the essay needs to be about a facet of your interests and personality that doesn't come through the other parts of the application.
• Writing about sports. Every athlete tries to write this essay. Unless you have a completely off-the-wall story or unusual achievement, leave this overdone topic be.
• Being moved by your community service trip to a third-world country. Were you were impressed at how happy the people seemed despite being poor? Did you learn a valuable lesson about how privileged you are? Unfortunately, so has every other teenager who traveled on one of these trips. Writing about this tends to simultaneously make you sound unempathetic, clueless about the world, way over-privileged, and condescending. Unless you have a highly specific, totally unusual story to tell, don't do it.
• Reacting with sadness to a sad, but very common experience. Unfortunately, many of the hard, formative events in your life are fairly universal. So, if you're going to write about death or divorce, make sure to focus on how you dealt with this event, so the essay is something only you could possibly have written. Only detailed, idiosyncratic description can save this topic.
• Going meta. Don't write about the fact that you're writing the essay as we speak, and now the reader is reading it, and look, the essay is right here in the reader's hand. It's a technique that seems clever, but has already been done many times in many different ways.
• Offering your ideas on how to fix the world. This is especially true if your solution is an easy fix, if only everyone would just listen to you. Trust me, there's just no way you are being realistically appreciative of the level of complexity inherent in the problem you're describing.
• Starting with a famous quotation. There usually is no need to shore up your own words by bringing in someone else's. Of course, if you are writing about a particular phrase that you've adopted as a life motto, feel free to include it. But even then, having it be the first line in your essay feels like you're handing the keys over to that author and asking them to drive.
• Using an everyday object as a metaphor for your life/personality. "Shoes. They are like this, and like that, and people love them for all of these reasons. And guess what? They are just like me."

Too Off-Topic

Unlike the essays you've been writing in school where the idea is to analyze something outside of yourself, the main subject of your college essay should be you, your background, your makeup, and your future . Writing about someone or something else might well make a great essay, but not for this context.

• Paying tribute to someone very important to you. Everyone would love to meet your grandma, but this isn't the time to focus on her amazing coming of age story. If you do want to talk about a person who is important to your life, dwell on the ways you've been impacted by them, and how you will incorporate this impact into your future.
• Documenting how well other people do things, say things, are active, while you remain passive and inactive in the essay. Being in the orbit of someone else's important lab work, or complex stage production, or meaningful political activism is a fantastic learning moment. But if you decide to write about, your essay should be about your learning and how you've been influenced, not about the other person's achievements.
• Concentrating on a work of art that deeply moved you. Watch out for the pitfall of writing an analytical essay about that work, and not at all about your reaction to it or how you've been affected since. Check out our explanation of how to answer Topic D of the ApplyTexas application to get some advice on writing about someone else's work while making sure your essay still points back at you.

(Image: Pieter Christoffel Wonder [Public domain] , via Wikimedia Commons)

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Too Offensive

With this potential mistake, you run the risk of showing a lack of self-awareness or the ability to be open to new ideas . Remember, no reader wants to be lectured at. If that's what your essay does, you are demonstrating an inability to communicate successfully with others.

Also, remember that no college is eager to admit someone who is too close-minded to benefit from being taught by others. A long, one-sided essay about a hot-button issue will suggest that you are exactly that.

• Ranting at length about political, religious, or other contentious topics. You simply don't know where the admissions officer who reads your essay stands on any of these issues. It's better to avoid upsetting or angering that person.
• Writing a one-sided diatribe about guns, abortion, the death penalty, immigration, or anything else in the news. Even if you can marshal facts in your argument, this essay is simply the wrong place to take a narrow, unempathetic side in an ongoing debate.
• Mentioning anything negative about the school you're applying to. Again, your reader is someone who works there and presumably is proud of the place. This is not the time to question the admissions officer's opinions or life choices.

College Essay Execution Problems To Avoid

Bad college essays aren't only caused by bad topics. Sometimes, even if you're writing about an interesting, relevant topic, you can still seem immature or unready for college life because of the way you present that topic—the way you actually write your personal statement. Check to make sure you haven't made any of the common mistakes on this list.

Tone-Deafness

Admissions officers are looking for resourcefulness, the ability to be resilient, and an active and optimistic approach to life —these are all qualities that create a thriving college student. Essays that don't show these qualities are usually suffering from tone-deafness.

• Being whiny or complaining about problems in your life. Is the essay about everyone doing things to/against you? About things happening to you, rather than you doing anything about them? That perspective is a definite turn-off.
• Trying and failing to use humor. You may be very funny in real life, but it's hard to be successfully funny in this context, especially when writing for a reader who doesn't know you. If you do want to use humor, I'd recommend the simplest and most straightforward version: being self-deprecating and low-key.
• Talking down to the reader, or alternately being self-aggrandizing. No one enjoys being condescended to. In this case, much of the function of your essay is to charm and make yourself likable, which is unlikely to happen if you adopt this tone.
• Being pessimistic, cynical, and generally depressive. You are applying to college because you are looking forward to a future of learning, achievement, and self-actualization. This is not the time to bust out your existential ennui and your jaded, been-there-done-that attitude toward life.

(Image: Eduard Munch [Public Domain] , via Wikimedia Commons)

Lack of Personality

One good question to ask yourself is: could anyone else have written this essay ? If the answer is yes, then you aren't doing a good job of representing your unique perspective on the world. It's very important to demonstrate your ability to be a detailed observer of the world, since that will be one of your main jobs as a college student.

• Avoiding any emotions, and appearing robot-like and cold in the essay. Unlike essays that you've been writing for class, this essay is meant to be a showcase of your authorial voice and personality. It may seem strange to shift gears after learning how to take yourself out of your writing, but this is the place where you have to put as much as yourself in as possible.
• Skipping over description and specific details in favor of writing only in vague generalities. Does your narrative feel like a newspaper horoscope, which could apply to every other person who was there that day? Then you're doing it wrong and need to refocus on your reaction, feelings, understanding, and transformation.

Off-Kilter Style

There's some room for creativity here, yes, but a college essay isn't a free-for-all postmodern art class . True, there are prompts that specifically call for your most out-of-left-field submission, or allow you to submit a portfolio or some other work sample instead of a traditional essay. But on a standard application, it's better to stick to traditional prose, split into paragraphs, further split into sentences.

• Submitting anything other than just the materials asked for on your application. Don't send food to the admissions office, don't write your essay on clothing or shoes, don't create a YouTube channel about your undying commitment to the school. I know there are a lot of urban legends about "that one time this crazy thing worked," but they are either not true or about something that will not work a second time.
• Writing your essay in verse, in the form of a play, in bullet points, as an acrostic, or any other non-prose form. Unless you really have a way with poetry or playwriting, and you are very confident that you can meet the demands of the prompt and explain yourself well in this form, don't discard prose simply for the sake of being different.
• Using as many "fancy" words as possible and getting very far away from sounding like yourself. Admissions officers are unanimous in wanting to hear your not fully formed teenage voice in your essay. This means that you should write at the top of your vocabulary range and syntax complexity, but don't trade every word up for a thesaurus synonym. Your essay will suffer for it.

Failure to Proofread

Most people have a hard time checking over their own work. This is why you have to make sure that someone else proofreads your writing . This is the one place where you can, should—and really must—get someone who knows all about grammar, punctuation and has a good eye for detail to take a red pencil to your final draft.

Otherwise, you look like you either don't know the basic rules or writing (in which case, are you really ready for college work?) or don't care enough to present yourself well (in which case, why would the admissions people care about admitting you?).

• Typos, grammatical mistakes, punctuation flubs, weird font/paragraph spacing issues. It's true that these are often unintentional mistakes. But caring about getting it right is a way to demonstrate your work ethic and dedication to the task at hand.
• Going over the word limit. Part of showing your brilliance is being able to work within arbitrary rules and limitations. Going over the word count points to a lack of self-control, which is not a very attractive feature in a college applicant.
• Repeating the same word(s) or sentence structure over and over again. This makes your prose monotonous and hard to read.

Bad College Essay Examples—And How to Fix Them

The beauty of writing is that you get to rewrite. So if you think of your essay as a draft waiting to be revised into a better version rather than as a precious jewel that can't bear being touched, you'll be in far better shape to correct the issues that always crop up!

Now let's take a look at some actual college essay drafts to see where the writer is going wrong and how the issue could be fixed.

Essay #1: The "I Am Writing This Essay as We Speak" Meta-Narrative

Was your childhood home destroyed by a landspout tornado? Yeah, neither was mine. I know that intro might have given the impression that this college essay will be about withstanding disasters, but the truth is that it isn't about that at all.

In my junior year, I always had in mind an image of myself finishing the college essay months before the deadline. But as the weeks dragged on and the deadline drew near, it soon became clear that at the rate things are going I would probably have to make new plans for my October, November and December.

Falling into my personal wormhole, I sat down with my mom to talk about colleges. "Maybe you should write about Star Trek ," she suggested, "you know how you've always been obsessed with Captain Picard, calling him your dream mentor. Unique hobbies make good topics, right? You'll sound creative!" I played with the thought in my mind, tapping my imaginary communicator pin and whispering "Computer. Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. And then an Essay." Nothing happened. Instead, I sat quietly in my room wrote the old-fashioned way. Days later I emerged from my room disheveled, but to my dismay, this college essay made me sound like just a guy who can't get over the fact that he'll never take the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. So, I tossed my essay away without even getting to disintegrate it with a phaser set on stun.

I fell into a state of panic. My college essay. My image of myself in senior year. Almost out of nowhere, Robert Jameson Smith offered his words of advice. Perfect! He suggested students begin their college essay by listing their achievements and letting their essay materialize from there. My heart lifted, I took his advice and listed three of my greatest achievements - mastering my backgammon strategy, being a part of TREE in my sophomore year, and performing "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" from The Pirates of Penzance in public. And sure enough, I felt inspiration hit me and began to type away furiously into the keyboard about my experience in TREE, or Trees Require Engaged Environmentalists. I reflected on the current state of deforestation, and described the dichotomy of it being both understandable why farmers cut down forests for farmland, and how dangerous this is to our planet. Finally, I added my personal epiphany to the end of my college essay as the cherry on the vanilla sundae, as the overused saying goes.

After 3 weeks of figuring myself out, I have converted myself into a piece of writing. As far as achievements go, this was definitely an amazing one. The ability to transform a human being into 603 words surely deserves a gold medal. Yet in this essay, I was still being nagged by a voice that couldn't be ignored. Eventually, I submitted to that yelling inner voice and decided that this was not the right essay either.

In the middle of a hike through Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, I realized that the college essay was nothing more than an embodiment of my character. The two essays I have written were not right because they have failed to become more than just words on recycled paper. The subject failed to come alive. Certainly my keen interest in Star Trek and my enthusiasm for TREE are a great part of who I am, but there were other qualities essential in my character that did not come across in the essays.

With this realization, I turned around as quickly as I could without crashing into a tree.

What Essay #1 Does Well

Here are all things that are working on all cylinders for this personal statement as is.

Killer First Sentence

Was your childhood home destroyed by a landspout tornado? Yeah, neither was mine.

• A strange fact. There are different kinds of tornadoes? What is a "landspout tornado" anyway?
• A late-night-deep-thoughts hypothetical. What would it be like to be a kid whose house was destroyed in this unusual way?
• Direct engagement with the reader. Instead of asking "what would it be like to have a tornado destroy a house" it asks "was your house ever destroyed."

Gentle, Self-Deprecating Humor That Lands Well

I played with the thought in my mind, tapping my imaginary communicator pin and whispering "Computer. Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. And then an Essay." Nothing happened. Instead, I sat quietly in my room wrote the old-fashioned way. Days later I emerged from my room disheveled, but to my dismay, this college essay made me sound like just a guy who can't get over the fact that he'll never take the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. So, I tossed my essay away without even getting to disintegrate it with a phaser set on stun.

The author has his cake and eats it too here: both making fun of himself for being super into the Star Trek mythos, but also showing himself being committed enough to try whispering a command to the Enterprise computer alone in his room. You know, just in case.

A Solid Point That Is Made Paragraph by Paragraph

The meat of the essay is that the two versions of himself that the author thought about portraying each fails in some way to describe the real him. Neither an essay focusing on his off-beat interests, nor an essay devoted to his serious activism could capture everything about a well-rounded person in 600 words.

(Image: fir0002 via Wikimedia Commons .)

Where Essay #1 Needs Revision

Rewriting these flawed parts will make the essay shine.

Spending Way Too Long on the Metanarrative

I know that intro might have given the impression that this college essay will be about withstanding disasters, but the truth is that it isn't about that at all.

After 3 weeks of figuring myself out, I have converted myself into a piece of writing. As far as achievements go, this was definitely an amazing one. The ability to transform a human being into 603 words surely deserves a gold medal.

Look at how long and draggy these paragraphs are, especially after that zippy opening. Is it at all interesting to read about how someone else found the process of writing hard? Not really, because this is a very common experience.

In the rewrite, I'd advise condensing all of this to maybe a sentence to get to the meat of the actual essay .

Letting Other People Do All the Doing

I sat down with my mom to talk about colleges. "Maybe you should write about Star Trek ," she suggested, "you know how you've always been obsessed with Captain Picard, calling him your dream mentor. Unique hobbies make good topics, right? You'll sound creative!"

Almost out of nowhere, Robert Jameson Smith offered his words of advice. Perfect! He suggested students begin their college essay by listing their achievements and letting their essay materialize from there.

Twice in the essay, the author lets someone else tell him what to do. Not only that, but it sounds like both of the "incomplete" essays were dictated by the thoughts of other people and had little to do with his own ideas, experiences, or initiative.

In the rewrite, it would be better to recast both the Star Trek and the TREE versions of the essay as the author's own thoughts rather than someone else's suggestions . This way, the point of the essay—taking apart the idea that a college essay could summarize life experience—is earned by the author's two failed attempts to write that other kind of essay.

Leaving the Insight and Meaning Out of His Experiences

Both the Star Trek fandom and the TREE activism were obviously important life experiences for this author—important enough to be potential college essay topic candidates. But there is no description of what the author did with either one, nor any explanation of why these were so meaningful to his life.

It's fine to say that none of your achievements individually define you, but in order for that to work, you have to really sell the achievements themselves.

In the rewrite, it would be good to explore what he learned about himself and the world by pursuing these interests . How did they change him or seen him into the person he is today?

Not Adding New Shades and Facets of Himself Into the Mix

So, I tossed my essay away without even getting to disintegrate it with a phaser set on stun.

Yet in this essay, I was still being nagged by a voice that couldn't be ignored. Eventually, I submitted to that yelling inner voice and decided that this was not the right essay either.

In both of these passages, there is the perfect opportunity to point out what exactly these failed versions of the essay didn't capture about the author . In the next essay draft, I would suggest subtly making a point about his other qualities.

For example, after the Star Trek paragraph, he could talk about other culture he likes to consume, especially if he can discuss art forms he is interested in that would not be expected from someone who loves Star Trek .

Or, after the TREE paragraph, the author could explain why this second essay was no better at capturing him than the first. What was missing? Why is the self in the essay shouting—is it because this version paints him as an overly aggressive activist?

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Essay #2: The "I Once Saw Poor People" Service Trip Essay

Unlike other teenagers, I'm not concerned about money, or partying, or what others think of me. Unlike other eighteen year-olds, I think about my future, and haven't become totally materialistic and acquisitive. My whole outlook on life changed after I realized that my life was just being handed to me on a silver spoon, and yet there were those in the world who didn't have enough food to eat or place to live. I realized that the one thing that this world needed more than anything was compassion; compassion for those less fortunate than us.

During the summer of 2006, I went on a community service trip to rural Peru to help build an elementary school for kids there. I expected harsh conditions, but what I encountered was far worse. It was one thing to watch commercials asking for donations to help the unfortunate people in less developed countries, yet it was a whole different story to actually live it. Even after all this time, I can still hear babies crying from hunger; I can still see the filthy rags that they wore; I can still smell the stench of misery and hopelessness. But my most vivid memory was the moment I first got to the farming town. The conditions of it hit me by surprise; it looked much worse in real life than compared to the what our group leader had told us. Poverty to me and everyone else I knew was a foreign concept that people hear about on the news or see in documentaries. But this abject poverty was their life, their reality. And for the brief ten days I was there, it would be mine too. As all of this realization came at once, I felt overwhelmed by the weight of what was to come. Would I be able to live in the same conditions as these people? Would I catch a disease that no longer existed in the first world, or maybe die from drinking contaminated water? As these questions rolled around my already dazed mind, I heard a soft voice asking me in Spanish, "Are you okay? Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?" I looked down to see a small boy, around nine years of age, who looked starved, and cold, wearing tattered clothing, comforting me. These people who have so little were able to forget their own needs, and put those much more fortunate ahead of themselves. It was at that moment that I saw how selfish I had been. How many people suffered like this in the world, while I went about life concerned about nothing at all?

Thinking back on the trip, maybe I made a difference, maybe not. But I gained something much more important. I gained the desire to make the world a better place for others. It was in a small, poverty-stricken village in Peru that I finally realized that there was more to life than just being alive.

What Essay #2 Does Well

Let's first point out what this draft has going for it.

Clear Chronology

This is an essay that tries to explain a shift in perspective. There are different ways to structure this overarching idea, but a chronological approach that starts with an earlier opinion, describes a mind changing event, and ends with the transformed point of view is an easy and clear way to lay this potentially complex subject out.

(Image: User:Lite via Wikimedia Commons)

Where Essay #2 Needs Revision

Now let's see what needs to be changed in order for this essay to pass muster.

Condescending, Obnoxious Tone

Unlike other teenagers, I'm not concerned about money, or partying, or what others think of me. Unlike other eighteen year-olds, I think about my future, and haven't become totally materialistic and acquisitive.

This is a very broad generalization, which doesn't tend to be the best way to formulate an argument—or to start an essay. It just makes this author sound dismissive of a huge swath of the population.

In the rewrite, this author would be way better off just concentrate on what she want to say about herself, not pass judgment on "other teenagers," most of whom she doesn't know and will never meet.

I realized that the one thing that this world needed more than anything was compassion; compassion for those less fortunate than us.

Coming from someone who hasn't earned her place in the world through anything but the luck of being born, the word "compassion" sounds really condescending. Calling others "less fortunate" when you're a senior in high school has a dehumanizing quality to it.

These people who have so little were able to forget their own needs, and put those much more fortunate in front of themselves.

Again, this comes across as very patronizing. Not only that, but to this little boy the author was clearly not looking all that "fortunate"—instead, she looked pathetic enough to need comforting.

In the next draft, a better hook could be making the essay about the many different kinds of shifting perspectives the author encountered on that trip . A more meaningful essay would compare and contrast the points of view of the TV commercials, to what the group leader said, to the author's own expectations, and finally to this child's point of view.

Vague, Unobservant Description

During the summer of 2006, I went on a community service trip to rural Peru to help build an elementary school for kids there. I expected harsh conditions, but what I encountered was far worse. It was one thing to watch commercials asking for donations to help the unfortunate people in less developed countries, yet it was a whole different story to actually live it. Even after all this time, I can still hear babies crying from hunger; I can still see the filthy rags that they wore; I can still smell the stench of misery and hopelessness.

Phrases like "cries of the small children from not having enough to eat" and "dirt stained rags" seem like descriptions, but they're really closer to incurious and completely hackneyed generalizations. Why were the kids were crying? How many kids? All the kids? One specific really loud kid?

The same goes for "filthy rags," which is both an incredibly insensitive way to talk about the clothing of these villagers, and again shows a total lack of interest in their life. Why were their clothes dirty? Were they workers or farmers so their clothes showing marks of labor? Did they have Sunday clothes? Traditional clothes they would put on for special occasions? Did they make their own clothes? That would be a good reason to keep wearing clothing even if it had "stains" on it.

The rewrite should either make this section more specific and less reliant on cliches, or should discard it altogether .

The conditions of it hit me by surprise; it looked much worse in real life than compared to the what our group leader had told us. Poverty to me and everyone else I knew was a foreign concept that people hear about on the news or see in documentaries. But this abject poverty was their life, their reality.

If this is the "most vivid memory," then I would expect to read all the details that have been seared into the author's brain. What did their leader tell them? What was different in real life? What was the light like? What did the houses/roads/grass/fields/trees/animals/cars look like? What time of day was it? Did they get there by bus, train, or plane? Was there an airport/train station/bus terminal? A city center? Shops? A marketplace?

There are any number of details to include here when doing another drafting pass.

Lack of Insight or Maturity

But this abject poverty was their life, their reality. And for the brief ten days I was there, it would be mine too. As all of this realization came at once, I felt overwhelmed by the weight of what was to come. Would I be able to live in the same conditions as these people? Would I catch a disease that no longer existed in the first world, or maybe die from drinking contaminated water?

Without a framing device explaining that this initial panic was an overreaction, this section just makes the author sound whiny, entitled, melodramatic, and immature . After all, this isn't a a solo wilderness trek—the author is there with a paid guided program. Just how much mortality is typically associated with these very standard college-application-boosting service trips?

In a rewrite, I would suggest including more perspective on the author's outsized and overprivileged response here. This would fit well with a new focus on the different points of view on this village the author encountered.

Unearned, Clichéd "Deep Thoughts"

But I gained something much more important. I gained the desire to make the world a better place for others. It was in a small, poverty-stricken village in Peru that I finally realized that there was more to life than just being alive.

Is it really believable that this is what the author learned? There is maybe some evidence to suggest that the author was shaken somewhat out of a comfortable, materialistic existence. But what does "there is more to life than just being alive" even really mean? This conclusion is rather vague, and seems mostly a non sequitur.

In a rewrite, the essay should be completely reoriented to discuss how differently others see us than we see ourselves, pivoting on the experience of being pitied by someone who you thought was pitiable. Then, the new version can end by on a note of being better able to understand different points of view and other people's perspectives .

The Bottom Line

• Bad college essays have problems either with their topics or their execution.
• The essay is how admissions officers learn about your personality, point of view, and maturity level, so getting the topic right is a key factor in letting them see you as an aware, self-directed, open-minded applicant who is going to thrive in an environment of independence.
• The essay is also how admissions officers learn that you are writing at a ready-for-college level, so screwing up the execution shows that you either don't know how to write, or don't care enough to do it well.
• The main ways college essay topics go wrong is bad taste, bad judgment, and lack of self-awareness.
• The main ways college essays fail in their execution have to do with ignoring format, syntax, and genre expectations.

What's Next?

Want to read some excellent college essays now that you've seen some examples of flawed one? Take a look through our roundup of college essay examples published by colleges and then get help with brainstorming your perfect college essay topic .

Need some guidance on other parts of the application process? Check out our detailed, step-by-step guide to college applications for advice.

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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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7 signs someone just isn't a good friend, no matter your history

• Friendships, especially long-term ones, usually experience highs and lows.
• But if you consistently don't feel good around a friend, it can be a sign that they're a bad one.
• A psychologist shared signs a friend isn't treating you right, even if you've known them forever.

Friendships — especially the close, long-term kind — can be prone to ups and downs. But sometimes, a rough patch (or several) can mean more than a temporary blip in the relationship, Miriam Kirmayer , a clinical psychologist, said.

Kirmayer said that your friendships are closely tied to your personal growth as well as your overall health and even professional success. Not feeling connected, understood, or even safe around a friend you see all the time can have detrimental effects on your life.

But being honest about how a friend makes you feel is easier said than done. "Generally, this is one of those questions that we don't take the time to ask ourselves," Kirmayer said, even though the answer is usually "very telling."

She shared some signs a friend is just not treating you right, even if you have a long history or empathize with them.

1. They take way more than they give back

Kirmayer said that one of the most important aspects of friendships is a "sense of balance or equality."

"We don't want to feel though we're scorekeeping or counting the minutes, but there should be this spirit that each person is able to contribute as much as they want to," she said. A friend might communicate by talking more , for example, but you should still feel like they ask you questions and are interested in your life.

A friend who feels like more of an energy vampire can make you feel drained and used because one-sided friendships tend to create resentment over time.

2. They use 'brutal honesty' to criticize you

There's a fine line between that and constructive critiques. It's one thing for a friend to worry about your attachment to an abusive ex; it's another for them to comment on how you talk, your mannerisms, or your hobbies.

"We feel the truest sense of belonging and connection when we feel seen, heard, and appreciated for who we actually are," Kirmayer said. If you constantly get told you're doing something wrong, "it can end up feeling like that friendship is conditional on our willingness or ability to mold ourselves into who they want us to be."

Whether they're taking jabs out of potential jealousy or sending you long therapy-speak texts about your faults, they're not helping you grow — they're cutting you down.

3. They don't respond well to feedback

Another really important part of a solid friendship is their ability to take feedback, Kirmayer said.

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"When you share that something makes you uncomfortable, something they've said, are they receptive to that?" she said. "Are they willing to take accountability or just your hear you out in a way that allows for constructive conversations?"

If you notice that your friend is reactive to feedback no matter how politely and diplomatically it's presented, it sends the signal that you have to put up with their behavior or risk explosive conflict, neither of which is healthy.

4. They rarely initiate communication

Tying back to reciprocity, Kirmayer said it's really crucial for close friends to feel equal in making time for and prioritizing each other. There's a general balance between reaching out to each other or initiating plans, even if one person is a little busier or going through a major life change.

"That consistency is important for keeping our friendships thriving," she said. Otherwise, you might worry if your friend is quiet quitting the relationship if you're always the one to text first.

5. They don't take 'no' for an answer

Friends respect your boundaries , Kirmayer said. If you say no to talking about a vulnerable topic, do they step back or keep prodding? If you don't want to go out on a weeknight, do they listen or start shaming you?

She said someone not respecting the word "no" is a huge red flag in all relationships — and, ironically, can push you away from a friend even more.

6. They gossip in a way that tears people down

Not all gossip is bad, Kirmayer said, nor does it always mean someone who talks about others will talk about you.

"Sometimes, our friends are gossiping as a need to secure support or to set out our perspectives and experiences," she said. It can be a way to work through a problem or grow closer via shared values.

That being said, there's a difference between healthy gossip and a friend frequently putting other friends down to make themselves feel better. In general, she said a solid friendship should present other ways of connecting besides what you don't like about other people.

But if you get a pit in your stomach about all the small things your friend rips other people apart over, it might be a sign that they'd speak just as badly about you, too.

7. They're not interested in your growth

If you've known each other for a while, you'll inevitably experience some changes in your careers, interests, relationships, health, or general outlooks on life.

That's why Kirmayer said it's a great sign if your friend asks questions and actively wants to keep learning about you , "and that you aren't only repeating the same conversations that you've had for years on end."

If a friend is only invested in a past version of you — and actively rejects the newer updates in your life — it can be a sign that you're outgrowing each other .

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Hamas Took Her, and Still Has Her Husband

The story of one family at the center of the war in gaza..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

I can’t remember the word, but do you know the kind of fungi connection between trees in the forest? How do you call it?

Mycelium. We are just — I just somehow feel that we are connected by this kind of infinite web of mycelium. We are so bound together. And I don’t think we really realized that until all this happened.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It’s quite hard to explain, to me in a sense, because some people would say, oh, I’m so hoping your father will come, and then everything will be OK. And it’s very hard to explain that really this group of people decided to bring us up together, shared all their resources over 75 years, grow into each other, fight endlessly with each other, love and hate each other but somehow stay together. And their children will then meet and marry and make grandchildren.

And there’s so many levels of connection. And I’m sitting here in the room, and I see their faces, some of them. And we are incredibly — it’s hard to explain how much these people are missing from our kind of forest ground. [CHUCKLES SOFTLY]

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily.”

It’s been nearly six months since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and took more than 200 people into Gaza. One of the hardest hit places was a village called Nir Oz, near the border with Gaza. One quarter of its residents were either killed or taken hostage.

Yocheved Lifshitz was one of those hostages and so was her husband, Oded Lifshitz. Yocheved was eventually released. Oded was not.

Today, the story of one family at the center of the war.

It’s Friday, March 29.

OK, here we go. OK.

Good morning, Yocheved. Good morning, Sharone.

Good morning.

Yocheved, could you identify yourself for me, please? Tell me your name, your age and where you’re from.

[SPEAKING HEBREW]

OK, I’ll translate. My name is Yocheved Lifshitz. I’m 85 years old. I was born in 1938. When I was 18, I arrived at kibbutz Nir Oz. I came alone with a group of people who decided to come and form and build a community on a very sandy territory, which was close to the Gaza Strip.

And my name is Sharone Lifschitz. I am 52 years old. I was raised in kibbutz Nir Oz by my mom and dad. So I lived there until I was 20. And I live for the last 30-something years in London.

And, Sharone, what do you have next to you?

Next to me I have a poster of my dad in both English and Hebrew. And it says, “Oded Lifshitz, 83.” And below that it says, “Bring him home now.” And it’s a photo where I always feel the love because he is looking at me. And there’s a lot of love in it in his eyes.

And why did you want to bring him here today, Sharone?

Because he should be talking himself. He should be here and able to tell his story. And instead, I’m doing it on his behalf. It should have been a story of my mom and dad sitting here and telling their story.

The story of Oded and Yocheved began before they ever met in Poland in the 1930s. Anti-Semitism was surging in Europe, and their families decided to flee to Palestine — Yocheved’s in 1933, the year Hitler came to power, and Oded’s a year later. Yocheved remembers a time near the end of the war, when her father received news from back home in Poland. He was deeply religious, a cantor in a synagogue. And he gathered his family around him to share what he’d learned.

And he said, we don’t have a family anymore. They’ve all been murdered. And he explained to us why there is no God. If there was a God, he would have protected my family. And this means that there is no God.

And suddenly, we stopped going to synagogue. We used to go every Saturday.

So it was a deep crisis for him. The shock and the trauma were very deep.

Abstention.

Abstention. Soviet Union? Yes. Yes. The United Kingdom? Abstained.

Yocheved’s father lived long enough to see a state establish for his children. The UN resolution of 1947 paved the way for a new country for Jews. And the next spring, Israel declared its independence. Yocheved remembers listening to the news on the radio with her parents.

The General Assembly of the United Nations has made its decision on Palestine.

We had a country. So now we’ll have somebody who’s protecting us. It’s a country for the people, to rebuild the people. This was the feeling we had.

In other words, if God could not protect you, this nation maybe could?

Yes. But the next day, it was already sad.

Israel was immediately forced to defend itself when its Arab neighbors attacked. Israel won that war. But its victory came at a great cost to the Palestinian Arabs living there. More than 700,000 either fled or were expelled from their homes. Many became refugees in Gaza in the south.

Suddenly, Yocheved and Oded saw themselves differently from their parents, not as minorities in someone else’s country, but as pioneers in a country of their own, ready to build it and defend it. They moved to the south, near the border line with Gaza. It was there, in a kibbutz, where they met for the first time.

The first time I met him, he was 16, and I was 17. And we didn’t really have this connection happening. But when we arrived at Nir Oz, that’s where some sort of a connection started to happen. And he was younger than I am by a year and a half. So at first I thought, he’s a kid. But for some reason, he insisted. Oded really insisted. And later, turned out he was right.

What was it about him that made you fall in love with him?

He was cute.

He was a cute kid. He was a cute boy.

What’s so funny?

He was a philosopher. He wrote a lot. He worked in agriculture. He was this cute boy. He was only 20, think about it.

And then I married him. And he brought two things with him. He brought a dog and he brought a cactus. And since then we’ve been growing a huge field of cacti for over 64 years.

What did it feel like to be starting a new life together in this new country? What was the feeling of that?

We were euphoric.

And what did you think you were building together?

We thought we were building a kibbutz. We were building a family. We were having babies. That was the vision. And we were thinking that we were building a socialist state, an equal state. And at first, it was a very isolated place. There were only two houses and shacks and a lot of sand. And little by little, we turned that place into a heaven.

Building the new state meant cultivating the land. Oded plowed the fields, planting potatoes and carrots, wheat and cotton. Yocheved was in charge of the turkeys and worked in the kitchen cooking meals for the kibbutz. They believed that the best way to live was communally. So they shared everything — money, food, even child-rearing.

After long days in the fields, Oded would venture outside the kibbutz to the boundary line with Gaza and drink beer with Brazilian peacekeepers from the UN and talk with Palestinians from the villages nearby. They talked about politics and life in Arabic, a language Oded spoke fluently. These were not just idle conversations. Oded knew that for Israel to succeed, it would have to figure out how to live side by side with its Arab neighbors.

He really did not believe in black and white, that somebody is the bad guy and somebody is the good guy, but there is a humanistic values that you can live in.

Sharone, what was your father like?

My father was a tall man and a skinny man. And he was —

he is — first of all, he is — he is a man who had very strong opinion and very well formed opinion. He read extensively. He thought deeply about matters. And he studied the piano. But as he said, was never that great or fast enough for classical. But he always played the piano.

[PIANO MUSIC]

He would play a lot of Israeli songs. He wound play Russian songs. He would play French chansons.

And he had this way of just moving from one song to the next, making it into a kind of pattern. And it was — it’s really the soundtrack of our life, my father playing the piano.

[PLAYING PIANO]:

[CONVERSATION IN HEBREW]:

[PLAYING PIANO]

So one side of him was the piano. Another side was he was a peace activist. He was not somebody who just had ideals about building bridges between nations. He was always on the left side of the political map, and he actioned it.

[NON-ENGLISH CHANTING]:

I remember growing up and going very regularly, almost weekly, to demonstrations. I will go regularly with my father on Saturday night to demonstrations in Tel Aviv. I will sit on his shoulders. He will be talking to all his activist friends. The smoke will rise from the cigarettes, and I will sit up there.

But somehow, we really grew up in that fight for peace.

Yocheved and Oded’s formal fight for peace began after the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. Israel had captured new territory, including the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip. That brought more than a million Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

Oded immediately began to speak against it. Israel already had its land inside borders that much of the world had agreed to. In his view, taking more was wrong. It was no longer about Jewish survival. So when Israeli authorities began quietly pushing Bedouin Arabs off their land in the Sinai Peninsula, Oded took up the cause.

He helped file a case in the Israeli courts to try to stop it. And he and Yocheved worked together to draw attention to what was going on. Yocheved was a photographer, so she took pictures showing destroyed buildings and bulldozed land. Oded then put her photographs on cardboard and drove around the country showing them to people everywhere.

They became part of a growing peace movement that was becoming a force helping shape Israeli politics. Israel eventually returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1982.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Whenever there is a movement towards reconciliation with our neighbors, it’s almost like your ability to live here, your life force, gets stronger. And in a way, you can think of the art of their activism as being a response to that.

And why did he and your mother take up that fight, the cause of the land? Why do you think that was what he fought for?

My father, he had a very developed sense of justice. And he always felt that had we returned those lands at that point, we could have reached long-term agreement at that point. Then we would have been in a very different space now. I know that in 2019, for example, he wrote a column, where he said that when the Palestinians of Gaza have nothing to lose, we lose big time. He believed that the way of living in this part of the world is to share the place, to reach agreement, to work with the other side towards agreements.

He was not somebody who just had ideals about building bridges between nations. Two weeks before he was taken hostage, he still drove Palestinians that are ill to reach hospital in Israel and in East Jerusalem. That was something that meant a lot to him. I think he really believed in shared humanity and in doing what you can.

Do you remember the last conversation you had with your father?

I don’t have a clear memory which one it was. It’s funny. A lot of things I forgot since. A lot of things have gone so blurred.

We actually didn’t have a last conversation. The last thing he said was, Yoche, there is a war. And he was shot in the hand, and he was taken out. And I was taken out. I couldn’t say goodbye to him. And what was done to us was done.

We’ll be right back.

Yocheved, the last thing Oded said was there’s a war. Tell me about what happened that day from the beginning.

That morning, there was very heavy shelling on Nir Oz. We could hear gunfire. And we looked outside, and Oded told me, there are a lot of terrorists outside. We didn’t even have time to get dressed. I was still wearing my nightgown. He was wearing very few clothes. I remember him trying to close the door to the safe room, but it didn’t work. He wasn’t successful in closing it.

And then five terrorists walked in. They shot him through the safe room door. He was bleeding from his arm. He said to me, Yoche, I’m injured. And then he fainted. He was dragged out on the floor. And I didn’t know if he was alive. I thought he was dead. After that, I was taken in my nightgown. I was led outside. I was placed on a small moped, and I was taken to Gaza.

And we were driving over a bumpy terrain that had been plowed. And it didn’t break my ribs, but it was very painful.

And I could see that the gate that surrounds the Gaza Strip was broken, and we were driving right through it.

And as we were heading in, I could see so many people they were yelling, “Yitbach al Yahud,” kill the Jews, slaughter the Jews. And people were hitting me with sticks. And though the drivers on the moped tried to protect me, it didn’t help.

What were you thinking at the time? What was in your mind?

I was thinking, I’m being taken; I’m being kidnapped. I didn’t know where to, but this decision I had in my head was that I’m going to take photographs in my mind and capture everything I’m seeing so that when I — or if and when I am released, I’ll have what to tell.

And when I came to a stop, we were in a village that’s near Nir Oz. It’s called Khirbet Khuza. We came in on the moped, but I was transferred into a private car from there. And I was threatened that my hand would be cut off unless I hand over my watch and my ring. And I didn’t have a choice, so I took my watch off, and I took my ring off, and I handed it to them.

Was it your wedding ring?

Yes, it was my wedding ring.

After that, they led me to a big hangar where the entrance to the tunnel was, and I started walking. And the entrance was at ground level, but as you walk, you’re walking down a slope. And you’re walking and walking about 40 meters deep underground, and the walls are damp, and the soil is damp. And at first, I was alone. I didn’t know that other people had been taken too. But then more hostages came, and we were walking together through the tunnels.

Many of whom were from kibbutz Nir Oz. These were our people. They were abducted but still alive. And we spoke quietly, and we spoke very little. But as we were walking, everybody started telling a story of what had happened to him. And that created a very painful picture.

There were appalling stories about murder. People had left behind a partner.

A friend arrived, who, about an hour or two hours before, had her husband murdered and he died in her hands.

It was a collection of broken up people brought together.

So you were piecing together the story of your community and what had happened from these snapshots of tragedies that you were looking at all around you as you were walking. What’s the photograph you’ll remember most from that day?

It would be a girl, a four-year-old girl. People kept telling her — walk, walk, walk. And we tried to calm her down. And her mom tried to carry her on her arms. It was the most difficult sight to see a child inside those tunnels.

What were you feeling at that moment, Yocheved?

Very difficult.

Where did they lead you — you and your community — from Nir Oz.

They led us to this chamber, a room, that they had prepared in advance. There were mattresses there. And that’s where we were told to sit.

I saw people sitting on the mattresses, bent down, their heads down between their hands. They were broken. But we hardly spoke. Everybody was inside their own world with themselves, closed inside his own personal shock.

Yocheved was without her glasses, her hearing aids, or even her shoes. She said she spent most days lying down on one of the mattresses that had been put out for the hostages. Sometimes her captors would let her and others walk up and down the tunnels to stretch their legs.

She said she was given a cucumber, spreading cheese, and a piece of pita bread every day to eat. They had a little bit of coffee in the morning and water all day long.

One day, a Hamas leader came to the room where she and others were being held. She said she believes it was Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, who is believed to be the architect of the October 7 attack. Two other hostages who were held with Yocheved also identified the man as Sinwar, and an Israeli military spokesman said he found the accounts reliable.

He came accompanied with a group of other men. He just made rounds between the hostages, I suppose. And he spoke in Hebrew, and he told us not to worry, and soon there’s going to be a deal and we’ll be out. And others told me, don’t speak. And I said, what is there for me to be afraid of? The worst already happened. Worst thing, I’ll be killed.

I want to say something, and I spoke my mind. I told Sinwar, why have you done what you just did to all of the same people who have always helped you? He didn’t answer me. He just turned around and they walked off.

Were you afraid to ask him why Hamas did what it did, to challenge him?

I wasn’t afraid.

I was angry about the whole situation. It was against every thought and thinking we ever had. It was against our desire to reach peace, to be attentive and help our neighbors the way we always wanted to help our neighbors. I was very angry. But he ignored what I said, and he just turned his back and walked away.

In this entire time, you had no answers about Oded?

What was the hardest day for you, the hardest moment in captivity?

It’s when I got sick. I got sick with diarrhea and vomiting for about four days. And I had no idea how this will end. It was a few very rough days. And probably because of that, they decided to free me.

They didn’t tell me they were going to release me. They just told me and another girl, come follow us. They gave us galabiya gowns to wear and scarves to wear over our heads, so maybe they’ll think that we are Arab women. And only as we were walking, and we started going through corridors and ladders and climbing up we were told that we’re going home.

I was very happy to be going out. But my heart ached so hard for those who were staying behind. I was hoping that many others would follow me.

It’s OK. Let’s go. It’s OK. Let’s go.

You go with this one.

Shalom. Shalom.

There was a video that was made of the moment you left your captors. And it seemed to show that you were shaking a hand, saying shalom to them. Do you remember doing that?

I said goodbye to him. It was a friendly man. He was a medic. So when we said goodbye, I shook his hand for peace, shalom, to goodbye.

What did you mean when you said that?

I meant for peace.

Shalom in the sense of peace.

An extraordinary moment as a freed Israeli hostage shakes hands with a Hamas terrorist who held her captive.

I literally saw my mom on CNN on my phone on the way to the airport. And it was the day before I was talking to my aunt, and she said, I just want to go to Gaza and pull them out of the earth. I just want to pull them out of the earth and take them. And it really felt like that, that she came out of the earth. And when she shook the hand of the Hamas person, it just made me smile because it was so her to see the human in that person and to acknowledge him as a human being.

I arrived in the hospital at about 5:30 AM. My mom was asleep in the bed. And she was just — my mom sleeps really peacefully. She has a really quiet way of sleeping. And I just sat there, and it was just like a miracle to have her back with us. It was just incredible because not only was she back, but it was her.

I don’t know how to explain it. But while they were away, we knew so little. We were pretty sure she didn’t survive it. The whole house burned down totally. So other homes we could see if there was blood on the walls or blood on the floor. But in my parents’ home, everything was gone — everything. And we just didn’t know anything. And out of that nothingness, came my mom back.

It was only when she got to the hospital that Yocheved learned the full story of what happened on October 7. Nir Oz had been mostly destroyed. Many of her friends had been murdered. No one knew what had happened to Oded. Yocheved believed he was dead. But there wasn’t time to grieve.

The photograph she had taken in her mind needed to be shared. Yocheved knew who was still alive in the tunnels. So she and her son called as many families as they could — the family of the kibbutz’s history teacher, of one of its nurses, of the person who ran its art gallery — to tell them that they were still alive, captive in Gaza.

And then in November came a hostage release. More than 100 people came out. The family was certain that Oded was gone. But Sharone decided to make some calls anyway. She spoke to one former neighbor then another. And finally, almost by chance, she found someone who’d seen her father. They shared a room together in Gaza before he’d gotten ill and was taken away. Sharone and her brothers went to where Yocheved was staying to tell her the news.

She just couldn’t believe it, actually. It was as if, in this great telenovela of our life, at one season, he was left unconscious on the floor. And the second season open, and he is in a little room in Gaza with another woman that we know. She couldn’t believe it.

She was very, very, very excited, also really worried. My father was a very active and strong man. And if it happened 10 years ago, I would say of course he would survive it. He would talk to them in Arabic. He will manage the situation. He would have agency. But we know he was injured. And it makes us very, very worried about the condition in which he was — he’s surviving there. And I think that the fear of how much suffering the hostages are going through really makes you unable to function at moment.

Yocheved, the government has been doing a military operation since October in Gaza. You have been fighting very hard since October to free the hostages, including Oded. I wonder how you see the government’s military operation. Is it something that harms your cause or potentially helps it?

The only thing that will bring them back are agreements. And what is happening is that there are many soldiers who have been killed, and there is an ongoing war, and the hostages are still in captivity. So it’s only by reaching an agreement that all of the hostages will be released.

Do you believe that Israel is close to reaching an agreement?

I don’t know.

You told us that after the Holocaust, your father gathered your family together to tell you that God did not save you. It was a crisis for him. I’m wondering if this experience, October 7, your captivity, challenged your faith in a similar way.

No, I don’t think it changed me. I’m still the same person with the same beliefs and opinions. But how should I say it? What the Hamas did was to ruin a certain belief in human beings. I didn’t think that one could reach that level that isn’t that much higher than a beast. But my opinion and my view of there still being peace and reaching an arrangement stayed the same.

You still believe in peace?

Why do you believe that?

Because I’m hoping that a new generation of leaders will rise, people who act in transparency, who speak the truth, people who are honest, the way Israel used to be and that we’ll return to be like we once were.

I go to many rallies and demonstrations, and I meet many people in many places. And a large part of those people still believe in reaching an arrangement in peace and for there to be no war. And I still hope that this is what we’re going to be able to have here.

Bring them home now! Bring them home now! Bring them home now! Bring them home now! Bring them home! Now! Bring them home! Now! Bring them home! Now! Bring them home!

Yocheved is now living in a retirement home in the suburbs of Tel Aviv. Five other people around her age from Nir Oz live there too. One is also a released hostage. She hasn’t been able to bring herself to go back to the kibbutz. The life she built there with Oded is gone — her photographs, his records, the piano. And the kibbutz has become something else now, a symbol instead of a home. It is now buzzing with journalists and politicians. For now, Yocheved doesn’t know if she’ll ever go back. And when Sharone asked her, she said, let’s wait for Dad.

So I’m today sitting in this assisted living, surrounded by the same company, just expecting Oded, waiting for Oded to come back. And then each and every one of us will be rebuilding his own life together and renewing it.

What are you doing to make it a home for Oded?

We have a piano. We were given a piano, a very old one with a beautiful sound. And it’s good. Oded is very sensitive to the sound. He has absolute hearing. And I’m just hoping for him to come home and start playing the piano.

Do you believe that Oded will come home?

I’d like to believe. But there’s a difference between believing and wanting. I want to believe that he’ll be back and playing music. I don’t think his opinions are going to change. He’s going to be disappointed by what happened. But I hope he’s going to hold on to the same beliefs. His music is missing from our home.

[SPEAKING HEBEW]:

[SPEAKING HEBREW] [PLAYING PIANO]

I know that my father always felt that we haven’t given peace a chance. That was his opinion. And I think it’s very hard to speak for my father because maybe he has changed. Like my mom said, she said, I hope he hasn’t changed. I haven’t changed. But the truth is we don’t know. And we don’t the story. We don’t know how the story — my father is ending or just beginning.

But I think you have to hold on to humanistic values at this point. You have to know what you don’t want. I don’t want more of this. This is hell. This is hell for everybody. So this is no, you know? And then I believe that peace is also gray, and it’s not glorious, and it’s not simple. It’s kind of a lot of hard work. You have to reconcile and give up a lot. And it’s only worth doing that for peace.

[PIANO PLAYING CONTINUES]

After weeks of negotiations, talks over another hostage release and ceasefire have reached an impasse. The sticking points include the length of the ceasefire and the identity and number of Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged for the hostages.

[BACKGROUND CONVERSATION IN HEBREW]:

Here’s what else you should know today. Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday, capping an extraordinary saga that upended the multi-trillion-dollar crypto industry. Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, was convicted of wire fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering last November.

Prosecutors accused him of stealing more than $10 billion from customers to finance political contributions, venture capital investments, and other extravagant purchases. At the sentencing, the judge pointed to testimony from Bankman-Fried’s trial, saying that his appetite for extreme risk and failure to take responsibility for his crimes amount to a quote, “risk that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future.”

Today’s episode was produced by Lynsea Garrison and Mooj Zaidie with help from Rikki Novetsky and Shannon Lin. It was edited by Michael Benoist, fact checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, Diane Wong, Elisheba Ittoop, and Oded Lifshitz. It was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. The translation was by Gabby Sobelman. Special thanks to Menachem Rosenberg, Gershom Gorenberg, Gabby Sobelman, Yotam Shabtie, and Patrick Kingsley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you on Monday.

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Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Produced by Lynsea Garrison and Mooj Zadie

With Rikki Novetsky and Shannon Lin

Edited by Michael Benoist

Original music by Marion Lozano ,  Dan Powell ,  Diane Wong and Elisheba Ittoop

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

Warning: this episode contains descriptions of violence.

It’s been nearly six months since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, when militants took more than 200 hostages into Gaza.

In a village called Nir Oz, near the border, one quarter of residents were either killed or taken hostage. Yocheved Lifshitz and her husband, Oded Lifshitz, were among those taken.

Today, Yocheved and her daughter Sharone tell their story.

On today’s episode

Yocheved Lifshitz, a former hostage.

Sharone Lifschitz, daughter of Yocheved and Oded Lifshitz.

Background reading

Yocheved Lifshitz was beaten and held in tunnels built by Hamas for 17 days.

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We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Fact-checking by Susan Lee .

Additional music by Oded Lifshitz.

Translations by Gabby Sobelman .

Special thanks to Menachem Rosenberg, Gershom Gorenberg , Gabby Sobelman , Yotam Shabtie, and Patrick Kingsley .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

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