Pseudoscientists - Demographics

Demographics

In his book The Most Precious Thing Carl Sagan discusses the government of China and the Chinese Communist Party concern about Western pseudoscience developments and certain ancient Chinese practices in China. He sees pseudoscience occurring in the U.S. as part of a worldwide trend and suggests its causes, dangers, diagnosis and treatment may be universal. In Spain, another science writer Luis Alfonso Gámez was sued after he notified the public about the lack of efficacy to support the claims of a popular pseudoscientist. In the US, 54% of the population believe in psychic healing and 35% believe in telepathy. In Europe, the statistics are not that much different. A significant percentage of Europeans consider homeopathy (34%) and horoscopes (13%) to be reliable science. Over the past decade, consumer interest in the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practices and/or products has increased. Surveys demonstrate that the people with the most serious medical conditions, such as cancer, chronic pain, and HIV, are the most routine consumers of CAM.

The National Science Foundation stated that pseudoscientific beliefs in the U.S. became more widespread during the 1990s, peaked near 2001, and declined slightly since with pseudoscientific beliefs remaining common. According to the NSF report, there is a lack of knowledge of pseudoscientific issues in society and pseudoscientific practices are commonly followed. Bunge states, "A survey on public knowledge of science in the United States showed that in 1988 50% of American adults evolution, and 88% believed astrology is a science." Other surveys indicate about a third of all adult Americans consider astrology to be scientific.

In the Journal of College Science Teaching, Art Hobson writes, "Pseudoscientific beliefs are surprisingly widespread in our culture even among public school science teachers and newspaper editors, and are closely related to scientific illiteracy."