Many Americans are at least slightly familiar with what constitutes “pseudoscience”- the term has permeated popular discussion following the rise of pseudoscientific products and movements amid the pandemic. Although many are quick to point out what and who they think is pseudoscientific, providing a helpful definition of the term is a much harder task, outside of the rudimentary “fake science” or “misinformation.” The interpretation of pseudoscience is, of course, the very point of its existence in common vernacular- it establishes a demarcation between that which is true and “good” science and that which is not. Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy takes a more comprehensive approach by detailing and classifying the different kinds of faulty science, and how the examples that gave rise to this term: it must be both unscientific and designed to create the impression that it is scientific, and that “[w]hat is objectionable about these beliefs is that they masquerade as genuinely scientific ones.” (3.1.) Pseudoscience is not merely false information, but false information that utilizes things other than peer-reviewed research and the scientific method in order to remain convincing. Given the empirical nature of modern science, pseudoscientific theories might be expected to prevail among those without a standard education or familiarity with the scientific method, as nearly all ideas that go up against scientific dogma must face off with an overwhelming majority of evidence in favor of established theory. This, however, could not be farther from the truth, as America- where the public school system has more or less made the scientific process common knowledge- was the epicenter of several pseudoscientific movements, from the “Anti-vaxxers” to the Ivermectin craze. The fraction of Americans who believe that vaccines are responsible for the rise in autism- despite a complete dearth of evidence (CDC 5)- actually skew toward the educated and wealthy (Lubrano 1.) Degree-holding Americans touting blatantly recalcitrant ideas might appear to be contradicting themselves, but a particular tenet of American ideography makes us vulnerable to fake science. America is unique in that it evolved out of theistic primacy only to later regress- the object of worship exchanged for the secular intelligence of the individual. Following the enlightenment, Americans lionized prominent scientists as geniuses, and scientific advancements were (and still are) constrained in history as the singlehanded responsibility of these select few and their “crucial experiments” despite the cumulative progress of the scientific community(9, Stanford 2.) In a similar vein, Americans became obsessed with evaluating and identifying these geniuses; first came phrenology proposals to determine the intelligence of schoolchildren in the 19th century (Goldstein, 11) and then the Intelligence Quotient was implemented in the US army the following century(Fass, 4)- and remains the sole apparatus for Gifted and Talented Education program admissions today. The staying power of this fixation on the individual is formidable, and allows for faulty theories to proliferate as long as the conception of the “genius” might be constructed as a host- behind every pseudoscientific theory, you will find a figurehead fashioned as a martyr for the “truth,” whatever they determine that to be. The emergent pseudoscientific theories have effectively permeated American culture by emphasizing both the merit of the individual and curating the situation of the individual “scientist” and their “crucial experiment” over the actual content of their work or research; Exploiting this “genius” myth is the modus operandi of those working in American markets such as Jordan Peterson and Graham Hancock, although neither are American.
While the early world of science was dominated by figureheads, the establishment of a scientific community…..
Graham Hancock is an author and former journalist- saliently, not an archaeologist- who worked as a correspondent in East Africa for the Economist. His foray into archaeology literature started in 1983, when he claims he approached an Ethiopian monk outside of a chapel near the historical town of Axum. The monk allegedly told him that he was guarding the Ark of the Covenant, a historical Israeli relic mentioned in the bible to contain the two original stone tablets on which the ten commandments were inscribed and previously thought lost to time. Hancock said that he initially doubted the monk’s claim, but after thorough investigation, “found much surprising and neglected evidence that supported it” (Hancock, 11.) This would be later be published in The Sign and the Seal: a Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant in which he claims the Ark could shoot bolts of fire and instantaneously kill human beings, as well as hinting at the existence of hyper-advanced technology in the Great Pyramid and Great Sphinx of Giza. His much more successful Fingerprints of the Gods would solidify the theory that there existed extremely advanced prehistoric civilization, one of which was based in Antarctica, and which holds key similarities to the 19th century myth of the Hyperborea, a super advanced civilization of Nordics who were based in “Atlantis,” and which academics have argued was a catalyst for Hitler’s Aryan mythology that justified the Nazi’s racial purity and euthanization laws. Hancock purports that these civilizations were wiped out by some sort of extinction event that also destroyed nearly all evidence of their existence. Tie in the Hyperborea myth
The scientific consensus of archaeologists is that at a fundamental level Hancock’s hypothesis can’t possibly be true, the most damning counterargument being that even the most devastating impacts on Earth would not have completely removed every trace of existing civilizations, particularly metallurgy, which would withstand all but being thrown into the Sun (Shermer, 2.) Most of his work, however, is not concretely falsifiable, as it cleverly operates on the absence, rather than the presence, of large bodies of evidence for certain historical phenomena, and uses his personal experiences and willingness to do away with traditional scientific methods to fill in these “gaps”- there is an element of mystery behind many ancient structures precisely because of how much was lost to time. Hancock jumps on the “gaps” in structures like the Göbekli Tepe or the Great Pyramids of Giza to suggest an almost divine intervention by his proposed hyper civilization, even if theories with more empirical evidence persist. Nevertheless, with such a uniform rejection of Hancock’s work by the likes of everyone from museum curators and archaeology professors to science magazine editorial boards and journalists as well as his outlandish claims about the abilities of the Ark, his work should naturally be constrained to the fringe worlds of conspiracy theorists and crack-pots. The sales of his books say otherwise; Fingerprints of the Gods is currently number one in Amazon’s Ancient Egyptian history and a best-seller (and there are, in fact, several legitimate works such as The Ancient Black Hebrews or The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt produced using legitimate academia which are far outsold in this category.) Among these thousands of glowing reviews is undoubtedly at least a handful of people with a college education and one of his biggest proponents is a college graduate working in tech- who have seemingly thrown scientific consensus out the window. By associating with pieces of evidence that are real but which have interpretations that are contended even in academia, he is allowed a veneer of scientific thought that could convince even those with a college-level education. Hancock is essentially “tricking” his audience by bringing forth legitimate articles of archaeological evidence and then utilizing an extremely personal approach to constructing a warrant for his claims- although he may in fact himself believe he is conducting a legitimate search for the truth, like the explorer or whatever Captain Hook and his medieval map of Antarctica. A large amount of the content in the Fingerprints of the Gods hinges on several facts that Hancock puts forward regarding the Piri Re’is map, an ancient but verified camel skin parchment dated to 1513 CE and widely accepted to be a version of one of Christopher Columbus’s lost maps. What parts of the world that the map discretely depicts in certain portions is not clear, and in the early 20th century some hypothesized that it contained drawings of a segment of Antarctica without the presence of sea ice. This is the Fingerprints of the God’s first “proof,” as at the time of the map’s conception Antarctica would not formally discovered for another 300 years and that that portion of Antarctica, Queen Maud’s Land, has had a permanent ice shelf for the last 5,000 years. Hancock takes advantage of a lack of consensus of the group- in this case, the tentative hypothesis that the map is in fact depicting a portion of Argentina- and instead inserts his own individualized theory to “compensate” for this gap in certainty. The allure of a single man connecting mysterious but legitimate artifacts to a unifying conspiracy is far more compelling than archaeologists’ suggestions that the labels on the map correspond to South America. Even though the tradition of accepting the simplest explanation for a scientific consensus is still being drilled into middle schoolers across the United States as we speak, thousands of his readers and reviewers are willing to accept this much more intricate theory because he’s established that he is an exceptional individual- he is the real Indiana Jones who has seen the Ark of the Covenant, connected the dots on an ancient map, uncovered a conspiracy of an ancient civilization. He matches our mythology of the genius as someone who went against common theory, using their own crucial experiment to find out the truth; Hancock is an x, x, or an x.
When asked their reason for following Jordan Peterson, many of his loyal readers and listeners cite his ability to hold his ground in a debate or their perception of his intelligence, both of which are commonly described as exceptional. His character and ability to argue on live television is often more appraised (or scrutinized) than his writings, which is all for the better- the foundations of his arguments on both air and paper are frustratingly vague and unfocused. Peterson is inclined to make sweeping statements, from claiming that a Canadian bill would eventually force him to use whatever pronouns students fancy (Bateman, 3) to asserting that the human brain is strikingly similar to that of a lobster (Gonçalves, 4.) Not many of his claims see empirical evidence, but of those that do- particularly the lobster hypothesis- Peterson, too, emphasizes the damning evidence that is the “crucial experiment” where someone, somewhere, has singlehandedly proven his point. For his infamous lobster analogies, he uses a study that he purports found lobsters and humans’ brains to be remarkably analogous, indicating a common ancestor that dictates the behavior of both. This single comparison is on what much of his further arguments hinge: Because lobsters have hierarchies that they benefit from on a neurological level then so must humans; the presence of dominance and survival of the fittest within communities is inherent to lobsters, therefor it is inherent to us; interspecies aggression lowers serotonin in lobsters that lose social fights, evidencing that competition among humans must be natural to our biology. These extensions of the comparison are, in turn, are the basis of his psychological advice in his seminal 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: be precise, be assertive, assume control of yourself and your surroundings. These pieces of advice could stand alone as more or less harmless, common-sense rules that would not need case studies of lobster behavior in order to seem reasonable, but the association with evolutionary biology lends him an element of polymath-like credence that a psychology professor wouldn’t necessarily have otherwise. The analogy doesn’t particularly hold up from an argumentative standpoint for his theory that humans need hierarchy; Peterson rarely goes into specifics, and the lobsters are no exception. It’s not likely that this observed behavior of lobsters was ever truly designed to be a grounds for his arguments, as he doesn’t appear to have ever scrutinized it- otherwise, he might have realized that it’s not even true.
Criticized as “repackaged social Darwinism” by scientists and writers alike (Fluss, 7) a particular rebuttal by Neuroscientist Dr. Leonor Gonçalves takes it apart comprehensively. Peterson claims that lobsters gain serotonin and thus happiness from aggressive or dominant behavior and climbing up their social ladders; Gonçalves points out that the concept of happiness is superfluous for arthropods, as their brains are essentially clusters of nerves without even a fraction of the complexity of a mammal’s. In fact, the article outlines that for lobsters serotonin actually has the opposite effect- low levels of serotonin has been found to be associated with decreases in aggression in lobsters and increases of aggression in humans, indicating that the pair’s “happy” neurotransmitters are essentially inversed versions of themselves(5.) Moreso, there is a myriad species of animals without hierarchies that utilize neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine similar to humans, and even some plants(6.) While the demarcation of science from pseudoscience in Peterson’s lobster claim is a fairly easy one- it’s factually incorrect, however phrased- it's completely irrelevant. It allows him credibility and ammunition for his (almost exclusively televised) debates. For Peterson, the breadth and detail of his writings and claims do not have the same need for deliberation like Graham’s does; Peterson is careful to word nearly everything he says as either vague enough to be interpreted multiple different ways (often leading in to his catchphrase: “That’s not what I meant”) or in hypotheticals. Peterson’s followers are willing to take on what he preaches not because of the merit or quality of what he’s saying- as critics are quick to point out, he seldom actually says much (Fluss, 21-) but because he has established himself as not only competent but highly individualistic and interdisciplinary in his views; people like Peterson because he’s proven himself over and over tackling underprepared and inflammatory journalists, not because he has constructed ideas that are sound or even coherent. Those who call out Peterson’s infactual claims- that the Bible was the first book ever written, the ancient Chinese knew of the structure of DNA, lobsters and humans are one in the same- are met with the same attitude by ardent defenders, that “pseudoscience” is merely a defamation of a man who cannot possibly be wrong. By way of endless commentary and debates on topics that already have a consensus in popular opinion but are presented as controversial- so that there might be a clear “winner,” such as transgender athletes competing in gendered events or fringe activists insisting that all white people are inherently evil-- and common-sense rhetoric and advice- clean your room, stay organized, logics trump emotion-- Peterson can assert both his individuality and image as a paragon intellectual without ever having to intellectual engage with anything. His public parade of himself is as incessant as it is mandatory- the maintenance of his image is vital for his claims to hold water, given that they’re so inconstruable that it necessitates giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Pseudoscience is never actually about the science. Faulty theories are a kind of creature that cannot subsist on empirical evidence, and must instead use the veneer of the Genius as a host. Americans are conditioned to accept ideas that go against the consensus if they come out of the mouth of a Genius- this was how Galileo discovered that the Earth orbits the Sun, Newton the laws of gravity. Science is a community effort, and given the purity of objectivity that is achieved through replicating experiments multiple times to make empirical evidence, the consensus must supersede all else-- even if the collectivist slant of the concept is like nails on a chalkboard for American individualism.
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