Truth in the age of crisis: pitfalls of pseudoscience

An old philosophical problem of delineating science from pseudoscience has in today’s world far superseded the task of unearthing sufficient and necessary conditions which science should be able to satisfy and on which pseudoscience would fall short. Our interests have shifted from the search for the rigorous criteria of demarcation, to describing various scientific and pseudoscientific activities – as well as bringing the psychological backgrounds of beliefs in numerous pseudoscientific theories to light. We aim to pinpoint some of the key characteristics of said activities and the strategies they employ. Also, we attempt to answer the question of why are individuals prone to believing various conspiracy theories, alternative historical explanations and other pseudoscientific theories.