SS > SF > Pseudoscience and Unreason

Just because I'm into science fiction , doesn't mean I'm into pseudoscience.

From the stories in the press about TV shows like the X Files , I might be left wondering if I was the only SF fan who doesn't believe in UFOs, the paranormal, alien abductions, mega government conspiracies, homeopathy, astrology, dowsing, fairies, ghosts, healing crystals, spoon bending, and all the other pseudoscientific claptrap, if I didn't know it's not the SF fans who can't tell fact from fiction !

Yeah, it's not that we don't believe in it, it's that we despise it. It's anti-SF. It's clearly made-up and not consistent, and it's supposed to be real . It's not playing "what-if", it's trying to dictate the terms of the real world, and they're stupid and illogical. SF readers can tell the difference between what's made up and what isn't, and UFO alien twaddle is trying to blur that line, and not even for an interesting fantasy.

-- Jo Walton , rec.arts.sf.written, 1999

But there is a depressing amount of unreason in the world.

Russell Turpin's Characterization of quack theories gives some pointers for separating the good from the bogus, the wheat from the chaff, or the sheep (Hello, Dolly!) from the goats.
Simon Bradshaw's explanation of Brain Eater Syndrome -- or why respected engineers get potty ideas
John Baez's Crackpot Index
James Randi wages a ceaseless battle against the forces of unreason.
Alan Hale (co-discoverer of comet Hale-Bopp) sums up the problems of ignorance and superstition that contributed to the Heaven's Gate mass suicide .
An amusing Mandelbrot crop circle -- and another beautiful fractal one

Reviews of related material
- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
- Martin Gardner, Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?
- The movie Men in Black