Deliberate Vagueness Source: Wikipedia.org Obscurantism: a new defense mechanism? Usually pseudoscience is criticized because of its blatant falsehoods and absurd claims. But some of these ideas have peculiar properties that make them harder to criticize. In this blog post I will examine one of those properties that I think is the worst (i.e. has the biggest impact). That property is the vagueness of the idea that is proposed (or simply obscurantism). I will pose that (I) this is a very smart adaptation for ideas to have and (II) it makes it harder to oppose. What is obscurantism? To illustrate what obscurantism is, I will use two examples of pseudoscience: one with very precise claims and one that obscures its claims by using, among other techniques, vague language and sciencey-sounding words. Creationism is the most used exemplar of pseudoscience. It is the idea that the earth is created in six 24-hour days and that it is about 6,000 years old (this is actually Yo