It’s time for episode 4: “Zombie Pseudoscience”!You can find a nice (not Substack-generated) transcript of the episode, as well as a music-free remix, here.I know what you’ve been thinking (I have theory of mind, after all). You’ve been wondering, “When are they going to discuss Karl Popper? And Imre Lakatos? And goblins?” Well, in this week’s episode, we’re delighted to finally connect all this “theory of mind deficit” business with the philosophy of pseudoscience.“Zombie Pseudoscience”Autism research focusing on “theory of mind deficits” seems… off. As we’ve already discussed, it has suffered from repeated failures of replication, and seems to involve constantly shifting goalposts. So at this point, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of this research is bad science.But what makes “theory of mind deficit” research bad science? And is it possible that this body of research has become so bad that it’s no longer science at all?We speak with autistic philosopher of science Travis LaCroix (he/him) and neurodivergent philosopher of science Joe Gough (he/him) about the nature of bad science, when bad science becomes pseudoscience, and how bad science can become a zombie that just won’t die.Topics Discussed* Quick recap. (00:30) * The “theory of mind deficit” view of autism seemed to become an unfalsifiable theory over time. (02:39) * Why it’s important for scientific theories (at least in quantitative research) to be falsifiable. (03:41)* Amelia’s sleepy invisible goblin theory. (03:54)* Karl Popper: good scientific theories must be falsifiable. (06:47)* The “theory of mind deficit” view of autism started off as a falsifiable theory, but became unfalsifiable over time. So, it’s not exactly like the sleepy invisible goblin theory; it’s more analogous to the flat-earth conspiracy theory. (07:07)* Travis’s introduction. (10:10)* Travis explains why we can’t simply use Popper’s falsifiability criterion to explain why “theory of mind deficit” research is bad science. Historical example: the precession of the perihelion of Mercury. (11:06)* Travis explains why Imre Lakatos rejected Popper’s falsifiability criterion. According to Lakatos, scientists should not immediately reject a theory when it makes inaccurate predictions. (15:13)* According to Lakatos, a research program contains a “hard core” as well as “auxiliarity hypotheses.” When a research program makes bad predictions, scientists should tinker with their auxiliary hypotheses first, and only abandon the hard core as a last resort. (15:45)* According to Lakatos, it’s time to abandon the “hard core” of a research program when the research program degenerates. A research program degenerates when it ceases to make novel predictions, or when it stops making accurate predictions (in spite of tinkering with auxiliary hypotheses). (18:48)* Travis thinks “theory of mind deficit” research is a degenerating research program. (19:47)* Gernsbacher and Yergeau demonstrate that the “theory of mind deficit” view of autism is a bad auxiliary hypothesis. (20:13)* Why Travis thinks “theory of mind deficit” research has degenerated to the point of being pseudoscience . (22:21)* It’s often not clear what “theory of mind” means. Different researchers measure it in totally different ways. (24:36)* Joe’s introduction. (25:17)* “Theory of mind” in autism research: reasoning explicitly about the mental states of other people disqualifies you from having “good theory of mind.” (26:24)* “Theory of mind” in animal psychology: reasoning explicitly about the mental states of others is essential for having “good theory of mind.” (28:14)* Cross-talk about theory of mind in autism research and in animal psychology dehumanizes autistic people, by creating a (misleading) link between autistic people and non-human animals. (30:02)* “Theory of mind” pops up all over psychology. Is any of this research salvageable? (31:54)* Joe thinks researchers need to get rid of the concept of “theory of