Adding epicycles

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That's what you end up with

Adding epicycles is an expression used by some scientists to describe a fallacious attempt to make a theory conform to observations by making it more complicated.

The expression comes from a tactic used by defenders of the Ptolemaic system to explain observations that planets would often reverse direction in the sky. Such observations made sense in a sun centered view of the solar system, but not an Earth centered one. People defending the geocentric model claimed that the planets did not orbit in neat circles around the earth, but rather they rotated on circles that themselves rotated around earth. As more and more observations came in the epicycles had to become more and more complex. It's also interesting to note that it has been proven mathematically possible to approximate any shape using this method, therefore it could theoretically be used to match any observations. Adding epicycles is the fastest way to make sure that Occam's razor makes your theory implausible.

[edit] Modern epicycles

Of course most people today don't actually believe in the geocentric model, but that doesn't mean people don't use equally silly tactics to defend pseudo-scientific positions. Here are a few examples:

  • Young Earth creationists may claim that observations from carbon dating or similar methods don't actually prove the age of anything because rates of radioactive decay could change, something that has never been observed, despite a significant amount of effort put into changing the rates of radioactive decay.
  • No "energies" associated with Qi or Reiki have ever been detected. It turns out the energies are just too "subtle" to be noticed by some of the most sensitive scientific instruments ever created.
  • Any scientist could tell you that the concentration of any chemical in a homeopathic remedy is far too small to have any effect. Defenders will claim that water has "memory".
  • And of course, the ever popular God/fall/Satan/aliens did it.
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