EVOLUTIONISM IN CREATIONISM AND THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MANKIND

EVOLUTIONARY CREATIONISM AND THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MANKIND
From all indications the entire animal and plant kingdoms are just two twigs on the branch of Eukaryotes . There are still the two other branches of the Bacteria and Archaea to be accounted for. The extrapolation of the Darwinian mechanisms from peppered moths and fruit flies and finch beaks to the production and evolution of every living thing is a breathtaking extrapolation of gargantuan, brobdingnagian proportions. We know that in science such extrapolations often fail. For example, Albert Einstein attempted to extrapolate his principle of relativity from the special theory to a general principle of relativity that would relativize not only uniform motion but also accelerated and rotary motion. But the extrapolation failed. Instead, what Einstein discovered was a new theory of gravitation. The name “general theory of relativity” is thus something of a misnomer.

Where is the evidence for the extraordinary extrapolation the current paradigm involves? Michael Behe says that “the evidence for common descent seems compelling,” but “. . . except at life’s periphery the evidence for a pivotal role for random mutations is terrible.” Now if he’s wrong about this, then what is the evidence?  But what is it? looking at the evidence objectively , there's no good reason to think that the neo-Darwinian mechanisms are sufficient to explain the evolution of the extraordinary diversity of life that we see on this planet during the time available.

So its not convincing that evolutionary creationism is true. It seems that so-called progressive creationism fits the evidence quite nicely. Progressive creationism suggests that God intervenes periodically to bring about miraculously new forms of life and then allows evolutionary change to take place with respect to those life forms. But as for grand evolutionary change, this would not take place by the mechanisms of natural selection and mutation undirected by God. Rather we would need miraculous interventions of God in the process of biological evolution to bring about broad evolutionary change. So instead of evolutionary creationism, we would have a kind of progressive creationism whereby God creates biological complexity over time.

Ancient Near Eastern context, refer to man as God’s representative regent on Earth and in order to fulfill such a function, man would have to possess certain properties inherent to personhood, like self-consciousness, rationality, freedom, and the ability to stand in personal relationships. These are the sort of properties which theologians have traditionally identified as constitutive of God’s image in man. These are not properties belonging to man’s hominid body but to his soul. So it seems a matter of indifference how man’s physical body might have originated. However God chose to bring about our hominid bodies, the crucial thing that makes us human is our soul, invested with the aforementioned features. 

credits to William 
Crain 

MATHEMATICAL PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE -AN ATHEIST ARGUMENT

Calculating the Probability of God’s Existence
Question
The atheist says by mathematical deduction, to find out the probability of an event happening, you simple divide the event by the total of all events. A simple example of this is the probability of rolling a 1 on a six-sided die, which would be 1 (the event you want) divided by 6 (all possible events). So when you want to know the probability that god exists, you simple divide the one you choose by all possible other events. Since you have no proof that indicate any one god is more likely than any other god, this gives you an infinite number of possible events. So doing the probability you get 1 divided by infinity which is zero." When questioned that infinity is the incorrect constant to use the atheist replies ,why isn't infinity the right number to use? Do you have some proof for a specific god that nobody seems to know about? If you don't, then how is any other god not just as likely? This is basic logic. Since I don't have to prove they exist, I can make up new gods all day long. When something is unprovable it has a infinite set of like instances by default. Again, that's basic logic.
ANSWER

This question raises some technical issues in probability theory, to which I’ll return at the end of this answer.

Probabilities are always relative to some background information. . . . Now the atheist says God’s existence is improbable. You should immediately ask, ‘Improbable relative to what?’ What is the background information? . . . The interesting question is whether God’s existence is probable relative to the full scope of the evidence.
It is evident that the conclusion was made  considering no background information at all! The atheist seems to be talking about a sort of absolute probability of God’s existence Pr (G) in abstraction from any background information B and specific evidence E. That’s a pointless exercise. The atheist seems to be imagining all the possible deities that could exist and asking, “What are the chances apriori that a certain one of these exists?” How silly! That’s like inquiring about the absolute probability that a certain person, for example, you, exists, given the infinite number of possible persons there could be. Nobody is interested in such absolute probabilities, if there even are such things. What we want to know, rather, is the probability of your existence or God’s existence relative to our background information and specific evidence: Pr (G|E & B).

As for the technical issues, when the question of , “If you don't [have evidence of God’s existence], then how is any other god not just as likely? arises,it's logical to say,” the atheist is presupposing a theory of logical probability which is highly controverted and is rejected by almost all probability theorists today. Timothy McGrew, Professor of Philosophy at Western Michigan, who writes on probability theory explains that most theorists would deny that in the absence of evidence would conclude on the premise of  absolute probability just as the atheist would.

It is correct that in the complete absence of evidence there is a sort of symmetry of ignorance about competing views. We’d have no idea which is true. But the atheist interprets this to mean that the competing options are all equally probable. And that’s false. To see why, consider an illustration provided by the mathematician Peter Walley of a closed bag of colored marbles. If you reach in and draw a marble, what is the probability that the marble will be red? Walley says,

A naïve answer is to say that, because there are two possible outcomes (red or non-red) and no information to favour either, the probability must be 1/2 . . . . But one could apply the same principle to the colors blue and green instead of red . . . and they cannot each have the probability 1/2 . . . . Any precise assessment seems quite arbitrary.1

According to Walley, the correct answer is to say, “I don’t have any information at all about the chance of drawing a red marble, so I do not see why I should bet on, or against, red at any odds.”

Wally then provides a different model of probability which assigns, not precise values to different alternatives, but intervals. For example, in the absence of any information about the color of the marbles in the bag, the model assigns the vacuous probability of 0 to 1 of drawing a red marble, which is just what it should be for a state of complete ignorance.

Applied to the existence of God, what this means is that in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, we should simply have no opinion about whether or not God exists. There is no implication that the probability of God’s existence is 0.

The atheist' theory resembles Rudolf Carnap’s Logical Foundations of Probability (1951), in which Carnap attempted to formalize prior probabilities in terms of state descriptions and structure descriptions of a system. McGrew comments,

The attempt to nail down prior probabilities in an objective manner using state descriptions and structure descriptions does capture two of our intuitions: it permits learning from experience, and it endorses the commonsense idea that in the utter absence of information, it would be rash to be very confident of a complex contingent claim. But it also has many problems that have been well known since the publication of Carnap’s Logical Foundations of Probability in 1951. In particular, the probabilities are relative to the language used in the description – adding more predicates changes the probabilities, a fact that Carnap himself understood very well. There are other approaches to learning from experience that do not suffer from this defect. To use this sort of artificial system to raise a presumption against the existence of God is really rather comical.

As confident and appealing as it may seem to “basic logic.” the atheist' position lacks commonsense .

Notes

[1] Peter Walley, “Inferences from Multinomial Data: Learning about a Bag of Marbles,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B 58/1 (1996): 3-57, pp. 4-5.
Culled from
William Lane Craig

MIRACLES : A VIOLATION OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY . AN ATHEIST ARGUMENT .

Arguments for the Possibility of Miracles  There are two arguments for the possibility of miracles: one from the side of God, the miracle-worker, or the cause, and the other from the side of the world, or the effect. We must show that both are open, not closed, to miracles.   First, there is no defence against miracles in God’s nature, no assurance that God would not work a miracle. For if there is a God, he is omnipotent , and thus able to work miracles. Whether he would freely choose to do so or not is not a matter we can know a priori, for it would depend on his free choice. An omnipotent God could not be compelled to work or not work a miracle. So there is no obstacle to miracles in God. If there is a God, miracles are possible.   Second, there is no obstacle to or defense against miracles on the part of the world of nature. If God created it in the first place, that is, if nature is open to the possibilities of existing or not existing, then it is open to the possibilities of containing miracles or not containing them. In other words, if God can bang out the Big Bang of creation, he can certainly add some smaller bangs of miracles. If the author can create the play, he can change it too. And if the play is dependent on God, its author, for its very existence, then it is also dependent on him for whatever else he may want to do in it.  

Objections Against Miracles  Each objection tries to prove that miracles are impossible (or overwhelming improbable). If miracles are impossible, then they are not actual, and if no miracles ever actually happened, then Christianity is false. For the fundamental claims and doctrines of Christianity are all miracles: Incarnation, resurrection, salvation, inspiration. If any one of these objections is valid, the whole of Christianity is refuted.     

Objection 1: Miracles violate the principle of the uniformity of nature.
Reply: What is meant by the “uniformity of nature”? If it means that we can explain whatever happens wholly in terms of the system of natural causes, then the objection begs the question. It amounts to saying “miracles violate the principle that miracles never happen.”
 
Objection 2: A miracle, by definition, must violate some law of nature, and therefore must be a maximally improbable event. But then it is always more likely that the event never really occurred as described (or remembered), or that it did not really violate the laws of nature.  
Reply A: A miracle does not “violate” the laws of nature – any more than a school principal violates the schedule of classes by cancelling gym for a special assembly. Violations take place whenever someone who has to follow or uphold an established order fails or refuses to do so – for example, when the gym teacher cancels classes on his own to lead his students in an hour of spontaneous prayer. But the principal has done nothing like that if he modifies the schedule within the limits of his authority.   Now the Creator of the universe has authority over all creation. It is truly odd to call his suspending this or that regularly observed sequence a “violation,” as if it were something he should feel guilty or embarrassed about. A miracle violates nothing. When one happens, God has (mercifully) modified the schedule of the day.
 
Reply B: Why are miracles called “maximally improbable”? They are certainly unusual, but how do we know whether they are likely to happen or not? Only if we have already decided whether or not it is likely that God exists – or that he would ever work a miracle. In that case calling miracles “maximally improbable” is not a neutral description: it stacks the deck against them. For it places every report of miracles in a setting where it is most likely that God does not exist or does not intervene in the system of natural causes, and therefore that the event reported is not a miracle at all. Hence the conclusion that reports of miracles should be disbelieved is really assumed in, and assured by, the words used in the premises to describe them.
 
Reply C: We are creatures of habit. Life is one darn thing after another – often the same sort of darn thing. We expect that today is going to be pretty much like yesterday, and we know that people, including ourselves, are given to exaggeration and deceit. So we naturally approach stories of “signs and wonders” with deep suspicion. Our experience of humanity teaches us to have our guard up much of the time. And when we hear of “miracles” from people of questionable or unstable character, we dismiss them as mere oddities, frauds or delusions. But when an event seems for its setting so right, and the person to whom it is imputed so noble, then it seems to demand a more serious response. The place of fittingness has not often enough been acknowledged in discussions of miracles. But surely it is a key factor in the way we concretely assess events we hear about – or even witness.  

Objection 3: To accept miracles would be to abandon the method by which science operates.
Reply: Nonsense. All the natural sciences operate by assuming certain things as given: the world of matter, natural causes operating within that world, and an order or regularity that makes empirical investigation possible. That is why questions like: “How come the world of matter exists at all – rather than nothing?” or “What caused the Big Bang – the absolute beginning of all material being?” are not, strictly speaking, questions within physical science. This does not mean that such questions are unreal, only that science as such cannot answer them. A scientist who believes that God caused the universe to exist has not abandoned scientific method, but, merely acknowledged its limits.   Consider the following example. A doctor witnesses a most unusual event: a patient of his with terminal AIDS is suddenly cured after bathing in the waters of Lourdes. He thinks: “Some cause has reversed the progress of this disease – but what exactly was it?” so he sets out in search of this unknown cause. He checks on all the drugs the patient had taken before, during and after the pilgrimage. He investigates the water of the shrine to see whether some as-yet unknown element in it is able to destroy the AIDS virus. After weeks of fruitless labour, he begins to wonder whether even this terrible disease could be psychosomatically reversed. Finally, he throws up his hands and admits that as a scientist he can find no plausible empirical explanation. This is a possible scenario. But there is another.   Suppose that while visiting Lourdes to gather water for testing, the doctor finds himself deeply moved, even shaken, by the faith of the pilgrims he sees there. He has already been impressed by the faith-filled charity which radiates from his newly-cured patient who was once so bitter and self-absorbed. He feels the same thing here at the shrine, only in almost over-whelming intensity. So he inquires about the message of Lourdes, then about Christianity. Finding no plausible empirical explanation, he comes to believe, as a person who is also a scientist, that God did specially intervene in curing his patient of AIDS, and that no description of the event which left God out would be adequate. But notice: he did not come to disbelieve in empirical explanation. He did not cease to be a scientist. He simply acknowledged that empirical explanation has its limitations, and believed that, in this case, the true explanation transcended them.

  Objection 4: Miracles are an affront to the glory of God. If he designed the system of nature, and then has to intervene in its regular workings he must be an incompetent architect.
Reply: This argument would only be true if God designed a system in which he should never intervene – in which he should never answer prayers or reveal himself in special and spectacular ways. If you acquired a newly-built house and found it had no bathrooms, that would indeed reflect badly on the architect. For the concrete design of the house would lack what it unquestionably ought to have. But if miracles happen, then God did not design a system in which he should never intervene. The intervention is part of the plain; he designed it that way.   Is anyone in a position to say God ought not to have designed the system this way? We do not, and cannot, know the extent of God’s creation. There may be worlds in which there are no specially answered prayers, no interventions in the system of natural causes. How can we really know that it was wrong for him to have created a world in which he does intervene?  

REPOSITIONED FOR TESTIMONIES OF FINANCIAL INCREASE

POSITION YOURSELF TO RECIEVE TESTIMONIES OF  FINANCIAL INCREASE NOW
The number 10 is the spiritual number for divine sufficiency , accomplishment and prosperity , it is in the light of this truth that this month holds a lot for those who believe and has been prophetically declared as the month of testimonies confirming increase in your finances .
Dear Friend,the supply of our need as promised by the lord is guaranteed however it is POSITIONAL . The scriptures in 1Kings 17. Shows us how God does this through the experiece of Elijah the prophet.1 Kings 17:2-4:And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, [3] Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. [4] And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.Elijah's provision wasn't where he was; it was where God told him to go! This is profound!Some of us have an impression from God to do something. Maybe to start a new business, make a job change, move to another town, go to Bible college, speak to a person, etc. We are persuaded to do it, but we keep holding back because the provision isn't there yet. You're saying, "God, I can't do what You're asking without first seeing the provision. How do I know all these things are going work out?" This principle in 1 Kings applies directly to your situation. God is sending the provision for your needs not to where you are but to where He told you to go! The question is, "Are you positioned to recieve it" Some of us aren't experiencing supernatural provision because we aren't positioned . There is a position  for you.In verse 4,  we see the ravens on their way to where Elijah was supposed to go.First Kings 17:5 says,So [Elijah] went and did according unto the word of the Lord: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.Elijah wouldn't have seen God's provision if he hadn't gone where God instructed.One of the reasons we aren't seeing a greater provision from God financially, emotionally or in our circumstances is because we aren't doing what God told us to do. We've got a word from God that we haven't acted on. We're somewhere other than where He told us to be.Now, by the doctrine of  God's grace He provides things for us and that it's not based on our obedience or holiness. God loves us independent of our performance-that's absolutely true! But does this mean obeying Him is unimportant? Just the opposite.God has a plan for your life and He chose you from your mother's womb and ordained you to be a servant of God and He has great things planned for you, things earmarked for you that has your name on them. But if we don't obey, step out, and do what He tells us to do, God still would provide, but we would miss out on it. We have to be positioned .God just needs our cooperation to bring things to pass .This isn't intended to hurt or condemn anyone, because I know you doing your utmost best and now thinking, Maybe that's why things aren't working in my life-I haven't been obedient to what God told me to do! Well... that's absolutely correct! It's not that God won't bless you because you haven't obeyed Him; it's that His blessing is positional ! It's like receiving a mobile phone as a gift, you would need to go to where there is sufficient network to use it.  If the reason you won't step out is because you've got some form of "security" but you're miserable and things are just going wrong, I encourage you to do what God told you to do.God is meeting all of your needs-He's sending His supply to where He told you to be. This is one of the great lessons from the life of Elijah.Let's look at 1 Kings 17:6:And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.As I mentioned before, I believe that since God had already commanded the ravens, if Elijah hadn't obeyed, God would still have been faithful to send the provision where He told him to go. I believe that these ravens would have brought bread and meat every morning and evening but that it all would have piled up beside the brook and gone to waste. Elijah could have starved to death even though God had been faithful to provide for his needs.Here's something else to consider: How did Elijah know which spot along the brook Cherith to go? If the brook was ten miles long, he could have been five or ten miles away from where the ravens were bringing him food. The ravens could fly faster than Elijah could walk or run. I'm convinced that one of the ways he knew he was at the right spot was because the ravens were already "positioned" with the bread and meat. When Elijah saw the provision God had promised, that was one of the signs that he was in the right place.The same will be true of you when you step out. You have to take a step of faith with no guarantees that things are going to work. And then you will start seeing the provision of the Lord. It'll be confirmation that you're going in the right direction and doing what He told you to do. You'll be able to say, "It was God who told me to do this."This is how it's worked in my life. God's provision isnt given accidentally but positionally . I'm a product of  1 Kings 17 taking  steps of faith got me where I am. And I'm going to keep taking steps of faith. All you have to do to get started is take a step of faith this could radically change your life if you would act on it and may the God of Elijah prove himself strong on your behalf in Jesus name.

USING MAKE- UP, WEAVON, AND OTHER BEAUTY ASSESORIES WILL NOT AND CAN NOT LEAD A PERSON TO HELL.

USING MAKE UP , PUTING ON WEAVON AND OTHER BEAUTY ASSESORIES WILL NOT AND CAN NOT LEAD A PERSON TO HELL . WORSHIP GOD IN THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS.
Do not be decieved by those who claim to have died and met with God and were given codes of conduct and score card and ordained as global ecclesiatical umpires for every human being on earth. They are not to be taken seriously for God can not go contrary to His word and the word of God is not to be given a personal interpretation . God does not have umpires in the church. These self acclaimed prophets or prophetesses are nothing but mere dreamers . Jeremiah 23.25

"Let no one defraud you by acting as an umpire and declaring you unworthy and disqualifying you for the prize, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions [he claims] he has seen, vainly puffed up by his sensuous notions and inflated by his unspiritual thoughts and fleshly conceit, :And not holding fast to the Head, from Whom the entire body, supplied and knit together by means of its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. :If then you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things and have escaped from the world’s crude and elemental notions and teachings of externalism, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? [Why do you submit to rules and regulations?—such as] AMP:Do not handle [this], Do not taste [that], Do not even touch [them], Referring to things all of which perish with being used. To do this is to follow human precepts and doctrines. Such [practices] have indeed the outward appearance [that popularly passes] for wisdom, in promoting self-imposed rigor of devotion and delight in self-humiliation and severity of discipline of the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (the lower nature). [Instead, they do not honor God but serve only to indulge the flesh.]" COLOSSIANS 2.18-23 Amplified . Bible.            
NB. Do feel free to share this post you could be saving a life.

MIRACLES AND SCIENCE (PART2)

Use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims

Assertion of scientific claims that are vague rather than precise, and that lack specific measurements

Failure to make use of operational definitions (i.e. publicly accessible definitions of the variables, terms, or objects of interest so that persons other than the definer can independently measure .Failure to make reasonable use of the principle of parsimony, i.e. failing to seek an explanation that requires the fewest possible additional assumptions when multiple viable explanations are possible

Use of obscurantist language, and use of apparently technical jargon in an effort to give claims the superficial trappings of science Lack of boundary conditions: Most well-supported scientific theories possess well-articulated limitations under which the predicted phenomena do and do not apply.

Lack of effective controls, such as placebo and double-blind, in experimental design Lack of understanding of basic and established principles of physics and engineering

Over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation

Assertions that do not allow the logical possibility that they can be shown to be false by observation or physical experiment (see also: Falsifiability)

Assertion of claims that a theory predicts something that it has not been shown to predict Scientific claims that do not confer any predictive power are considered at best "conjectures", or at worst "pseudoscience"

Assertion that claims which have not been proven false must be true, and vice versa

Over-reliance on testimonial, anecdotal evidence, or personal experience: This evidence may be useful for the context of discovery (i.e. hypothesis generation), but should not be used in the context of justification (e.g. Statistical hypothesis testing).

Presentation of data that seems to support its claims while suppressing or refusing to consider data that conflict with its claims This is an example of selection bias, a distortion of evidence or data that arises from the way that the data are collected. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. Reversed burden of proof: In science, the burden of proof rests on those making a claim, not on the critic. "Pseudoscientific" arguments may neglect this principle and demand that skeptics demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that a claim (e.g. an assertion regarding the efficacy of a novel therapeutic technique) is false. It is essentially impossible to prove a universal negative, so this tactic incorrectly places the burden of proof on the skeptic rather than the claimant.

Appeals to holism as opposed to reductionism: Proponents of pseudoscientific claims, especially in organic medicine, alternative medicine, naturopathy and mental health, often resort to the "mantra of holism" to dismiss negative findings.

Lack of openness to testing by other experts

Evasion of peer review before publicizing results (called "science by press conference"):  Some proponents of ideas that contradict accepted scientific theories avoid subjecting their ideas to peer review, sometimes on the grounds that peer review is biased towards established paradigms, and sometimes on the grounds that assertions cannot be evaluated adequately using standard scientific methods. By remaining insulated from the peer review process, these proponents forgo the opportunity of corrective feedback from informed colleagues.
Some agencies, institutions, and publications that fund scientific research require authors to share data so others can evaluate a paper independently. Failure to provide adequate information for other researchers to reproduce the claims contributes to a lack of openness.

Appealing to the need for secrecy or proprietary knowledge when an independent review of data or methodology is requested.

Absence of progress

Failure to progress towards additional evidence of its claims ,Terence Hines has identified astrology as a subject that has changed very little in the past two millennia. 
Lack of self-correction:
scientific research programmes make mistakes, but they tend to eliminate these errors over time. By contrast, ideas may be accused of being pseudoscientific because they have remained unaltered despite contradictory evidence. The work Scientists Confront Velikovsky (1976) Cornell University, also delves into these features in some detail, as does the work of Thomas Kuhn, e.g. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) which also discusses some of the items on the list of characteristics of pseudoscience. Statistical significance of supporting experimental results does not improve over time and are usually close to the cutoff for statistical significance. Normally, experimental techniques improve or the experiments are repeated, and this gives ever stronger evidence. If statistical significance does not improve, this typically shows the experiments have just been repeated until a success occurs due to chance variations.

Personalization of issues

Tight social groups and authoritarian personality, suppression of dissent, and groupthink can enhance the adoption of beliefs that have no rational basis. In attempting to confirm their beliefs, the group tends to identify their critics as enemies.

Assertion of claims of a conspiracy on the part of the scientific community to suppress the results

Attacking the motives or character of anyone who questions the claims (see Ad hominem fallacy)

Use of misleading language

Creating scientific-sounding terms to add weight to claims and persuade nonexperts to believe statements that may be false or meaningless: For example, a long-standing hoax refers to water by the rarely used formal name "dihydrogen monoxide" and describes it as the main constituent in most poisonous solutions to show how easily the general public can be misled. Using established terms in idiosyncratic ways, thereby demonstrating unfamiliarity with mainstream work in the discipline.

MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. (Part 1)

PSEUDOSCIENCE
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.  Pseudoscience is often characterized by the use of vague, contradictory, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, a lack of openness to evaluation by other experts, and a general absence of systematic processes to rationally develop theories.

A field, practice, or body of knowledge can reasonably be called pseudoscientific when it is presented as consistent with the norms of scientific research, but it demonstrably fails to meet these norms.  Science is also distinguishable from revelation, theology, or spirituality in that it offers insight into the physical world obtained by empirical research and testing. Commonly held beliefs in popular science may not meet the criteria of science. "Pop science" may blur the divide between science and pseudoscience among the general public, and may also involve science fiction.

Pseudoscientific beliefs are widespread, even among public school science teachers and newspaper reporters.

The demarcation problem between science and pseudoscience has ethical political implications, as well as philosophical and scientific issues. Differentiating science from pseudoscience has practical implications in the case of health care, expert testimony, environmental policies, and science education.  Distinguishing scientific facts and theories from pseudoscientific beliefs such as those found in astrology, medical quackery, and occult beliefs combined with scientific concepts, is part of science education and scientific literacy.

The term pseudoscience is often considered inherently pejorative, because it suggests something is being inaccurately or even deceptively portrayed as science. Accordingly, those labeled as practicing or advocating pseudoscience usually dispute the characterization.

While the standards for determining whether a body of knowledge, methodology, or practice is scientific can vary from field to field, a number of basic principles are widely agreed upon by scientists. The basic notion is that all experimental results should be reproducible, and able to be verified by other individuals. These principles aim to ensure experiments can be measurably reproduced under the same conditions, allowing further investigation to determine whether a hypothesis or theory related to given phenomena is both valid and reliable. Standards require the scientific method to be applied throughout, and bias will be controlled for or eliminated through randomization, fair sampling procedures, blinding of studies, and other methods. All gathered data, including the experimental or environmental conditions, are expected to be documented for scrutiny and made available for peer review, allowing further experiments or studies to be conducted to confirm or falsify results. Statistical quantification of significance, confidence, and error are also important tools for the scientific method.