Science in Cosmopolitan?.....more like pseudoscience

After learning about pseudoscience, it is surprising how much I notice it now in the media--especially in magazines. Pseudoscience is when something is presented as scientific information, when in reality it lacks scientific thinking principles. There were two primary examples of pseudoscience I came across in the magazine Cosmopolitan. In the first example, there was a picture of a hand indicating different characteristics. For example, one claimed that if a certain line in your hand was more curved, you were more likely to be emotionally expressive. Another line apparently shows whether a guy is a logical thinker or emotional thinker. Even more outrageous was the claim that if a guy's index finger is shorter than his ring finger, he has a bigger "package". This pseudoscience was palm reading for the over-analyzing relationship girl. There is no scientific evidence that hand characteristics are correlated to psychological or behavioral traits in a human. The claims are not falsifiable by any means, and if one considered Occam's razor, it is more likely that the psychological traits (such as logical vs. emotional) are caused by several simpler explanations. Maybe the guy is a logical thinker because it is part of his personality, or maybe his package is big because it runs genetically in his family. Did Cosmo ever stop to think about that?

The second example of pseudoscience I found in Cosmo were horoscopes. Mine claimed that I should volunteer to help my boss on a project because "getting on her good side will score big points later". Well... I don't have a job, and when I did my boss was male. This not only shows pseudoscience, but also shows the concept of 'multiple end points'. It's usually fair to say that most people purchasing a Cosmo magazine have a job. It's more specific to call a boss a "her". Women who read this and coincidentally have a female boss are likely to fall into the trap of illusory correlation, meaning we're more likely to remember coincidences even though the odds are against the correlation. Overall, the palm reading and horoscope articles in Cosmopolitan Magazine prove that pseudoscience is common in our everyday lives. Luckily, by practicing the six principles of scientific thinking we can avoid being the victim of "scientific" nonsense.