ABSTRACT
Science – bless it – provides an almost endless supply of esoteric terms that can make any theory, no matter how off-the-wall, sound respectable. The survival of consciousness after death? 'Quantum coherence in the microtubules.' ESP or telepathy? The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle – or maybe quantum mechanics. Creationism and Intelligent Design? 'Evolution is just a theory.' The jargon factor, plus the fact that scientists themselves do not like to speak in certainties but hedge what they say with caveats and statistics, make it hard to explain why one statement is science and another anything but.
