ABSTRACT
Historically, the relationship between educational practice and empirical science has been an uncomfortable one. Difficulties in making meaningful connections between practice and evidence are not restricted to education, of course, and numerous fields, from sports coaching to medicine, are struggling with similar concerns. Although science has been defined in many ways, most people who have examined the subject agree it is ultimately not a body of knowledge, but a way of establishing and developing a body of knowledge. Despite the identification of flaws in their ideas, pseudoscientists often keep faith in the original. It is common for promoters of pseudoscience to add supplementary ideas to deflect criticism. Many pseudoscientific ideas seem to come from nowhere, and have little or no relationship with current scientific understanding of a topic. Social media is littered with products prefaced with 'neuro-', 'psych-', 'physio-', and using incomprehensible descriptions, clearly aspiring for some sort of 'science' legitimacy.
