Talk:Pseudoscience/Archive 1

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"Sex is more important than imagination." Evolution

"Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein

"They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Newton. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." -- Carl Sagan

My impression of the usage of Junk Science is that it is primarily reserved for 'scientific' testimony in personal injury and malpractice lawsuits - maybe not, though. --MichaelTinkler

How about adding Aristotle as an example of pseudoscience? Specifically, his assertion that a rock 20 times heavier than another will fall 20 times faster.

See protoscience. Somebody makes a claim, people work on it, the facts come out.

Aristotle was not pseudoscience simply because of the definition of the term. Pseudoscience is work which inaccurately claims to be "scientific" (ie. is in accordance with the accepted scientific method). As the scientific method really only began to take shape during the Renaissance, Aristotle is exempted. Also, the entry on the Socratic Method will better explain the approach used by the ancient great thinkers. And to be fair, Aristotle did not contradict any of the 'facts' as known at the time - it was only around 1500 when Galileo was the first (western thinker) to convincingly prove that acceleration due to gravity is independent of mass. As someone pointed out below, if someone put forward Aristotle's viewpoints *today* then it absolutely would be pseudoscience (or junk science)- MB
Well put. adamrice

Exactamente  :-) Or perhaps more pointedly, if someone today maintained such views in the face of scientific study to the contrary (as opposed to saying, "Oops. I was wrong about that").


That claim may well be pseudoscience. But did Aristotle really make the claim? I suspect what we have here is some pseudoscolarship as well. Who claimed that Aristotle made this claim?

its in the 'Physics'. Heavier things fall faster than lighter things. Also, things only move if there is something in contact with it moving it, and the earth is stationary because if you drop a rock from a high tower it will fall at the base of the tower, whereas if the earth were actually moving, it would fall some distance away from the base of the tower. Aristotles ideas were scientific, but they didn't have a lot of explanatory power and gave rise to a large number of anomalous findings. oddly, it took almost 2000 years for that particular paradigm to shift.

The connotation I have for "pseudo" or "junk" science is that it refers to beliefs or ideas, perhaps wrapped in "scientific-sounding" jargon (Like the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet schtick I just saw on TV), that have no supporting evidence, and usually go so far as to conflict with current scientific thought.

Just assuming for sake of argument that Aristotle or a contemporary did say that ("rate of fall is proportional to weight") -- was that the commonly held "scientific" (or what passed for such in those times) belief, or was it contrary to it? If it summed up the current theory, I'd call it mistaken and later disproved, but not pseudo. If that view were espoused *today*, I would call it junk science, along with indivisible atoms and a Newtonian universe.

These are "approximations" or "metaphors". Good enough to get you to work in the morning. Not good enough for Stephen Hawking.

The Chinese government has put in a lot of scientific research in acupuncture since the 1970s. Has those research proved the discipline as non-scientific? If not, what does it take to remove the pseudoscience label from accupuncture?

Specific uses of acupuncture have shown positive results in tests. The problem is that the only tests that worked were for relief of pain, which is an inherently subjective hard-to-measure thing, so small statistical successes don't mean much (as opposed to tests on things like Aspirin, where results are huge--as a friend of mine once put it, you shouldn't have to squint hard to see reality). Further, the theory behind accupuncture--flow of qi, all of that--is total nonsense; mostly unfalsifiable, and easily falsified where it isn't. If you want to know when "accupuncture" will be acceptable, define your terms: do you mean some specific use of a clearly defined procedure for a clearly defined problem with measurable results? Then name it, and do the tests. If it clearly works (and not just some small statistical subjective result), then that method will be accepted as a fully scientific method. If you mean the "theory" of accumpunture, the answer is "never", because those few aspects of it

that were scientifically testable failed, and the rest is just religious nonsense. --LDC

The definition of acupuncture as "pseudoscience" actually bothers me, simply because I do not know of any literature which claims that acupuncture defines itself as "scientific". My (to be fair, limited) knowledge of it tends to suggest that it does not attempt to defend itself in any way, it just goes on not giving a damn what science thinks. The term pseudoscience is generally reserved for belief systems that claim scientific backing when none is actually present (eg. dianetics, iridology).
I do not see the difference between the "Qi" energy (and related concepts) which underpin acupuncture and, say, the existence of God, Angels, etc which are regular features of any theological belief system. So in summary - if acupuncture is a belief system (with related practices) then it is not pseudoscience, BUT if it claims to be "scientific" then it is, because its therapeutic powers cannot be scientifically verified. That's my $0.02 - MB
I would draw a distinction between the effects of acupuncture and the theories underlying it. There's little doubt in my mind that it works, but we don't have a working scientific explanation of why (note that this is true with some Western medicine as well). Flows of Qi and all that do constitute a sort of self-consistent model (not sure how consistent) but not a scientific one. Much the same could be said of, say, feng shui: following feng shui principles can result in a nice interior layout, but the mystic mumbo jumbo laid on top is another matter. Perhaps these are crafts that have been worked out through experimentation and the like, and which have accreted mystical trappings post-hoc to give them more legitimacy adamrice

-- possibly we want to file acupuncture as a Fringe science if anybody wants to flesh out that entry.

Acupuncture studies are always clinical studies. Clinical studies (done right) make little to no statements about underlying processes, just the external effects. We can have clinical studies about the positive medical effects of prayer, but that doesn't mean that prayer works for the reason its advocates claim. People who know they are prayed for (or think they are) have marginally better medical outcomes on average than the neutral situation -- if I correctly remember what an epidemiologist friend of mine explained to me -- but that's just as likely to be for psychological reasons (in fact, one might argue, more likely than not) as it is for divine intervention. Acupuncture can be a psuedoscience even though there are clinical studies about it -- they are not contradictory terms at all. The sort of work that would make acupuncture a real science would be to make falsifiable theories about how it worked and then to test them ("if the Qi exists, then we should be able to direct it in this manner or it should behave in such a way and not this other way," etc.). But as far as I know nobody has done this, likely because with things like acupuncture, which are so incommensurable with the reliable body of physical knowledge about the world, it's hard to know where to start. --Fastfission 14:46, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would classify Skepdic as pseudoscholarship. They are pretty much written by one guy and often are pretty biased. should we be hesitant to link to an inferior source from here, even if its more comprehensive?

One vote for "Skepdic is generally pretty darn good".

Their hearts are in the right place, and they are pretty comprehensive, but the treatments of each topic are pretty shallow and openly biased. --LDC

Agreed - I think the text accompanying the link makes this clear. - MB

I re-instituted the word "factual" because that is a key defining element of a pseudoscience - they present themselves as being "factual".

Also Lee introduced the idea that a scientific theory that remains to be scientifically verified (ie - it is compatible with current evidence, but makes predictions not yet tested) constitutes pseudoscience. This is simply wrong - this is what is known as protoscience. A pseudoscience is characterised by its claims of accuracy and validation, when such claims are erroneous and/or deliberately misleading. - MB

Do you think so? When we read about claimants for James Randi's million dollar prize they often seem quite evasive about accuracy and validation.

Well then that is pseudoscience. If you are in accordance with the scientific method "as far as is possible", then you are working in protoscience. Pseudoscience is characterised by its attempts to circumvent the rules, or its claims of accuracy where such claims have not been (or cannot be) validated. If I say "here is a hypothesis, here is the supporting evidence, and here are the predictions based on it" then that is good scientific work waiting to be supported or refuted. If I say - "here is my theory and it is correct, so there!", then that is pseudoscience. - MB

What, exactly, do you feel is too "sweeping" about the definition, and how would you suggest changing it? It seems reasonable to me. --LDC

Ed, I don't think protoscience is actually an exception. It hasn't failed the definition, it just hasn't entered for it yet. -- sodium

LDC, sodium: At a glance, it is not easy to distinguish pseudoscience which "has failed to be validated" from protoscience which "has yet to be properly tested and either supported or refuted." Ed Poor

Yes - I misread the definition. It says "failed to be *validated* in accordance with," not "failed in accordance with," meaning any knowledge purporting to be scientific but not rigorously tested yet. Protoscience would (without your sentence) be pseudoscience until it was tested.

So ignore my previous comment - 2 errors in one day :-( -- sodium

You're right, though, that it's hard to distinguish sometimes. And that's for good reason: there isn't much to distinguish them except intent. "Protoscience" is often conjecture that can't be tested yet because of lack of technology or resources, or things currently undergoing testing, but that its proponents fully admit is speculative and intend to reject if those tests fail. Pseudoscience generally avoids testing, or uses bad tests, or uses techniques of rhetoric to support its contention with no intention to ever discard the theories for any reason. An experimental drug, for example, is a protoscience if its makers are currently undergoing good double-blind studies to determine if it works. An herbal remedy that is sold with testimonials (which are known to be invalid evidence) and which its sellers avoid doing good controlled studies on is pseudoscience. --LDC

NB: Science is defined as "any body of knowledge organized in a systematic manner" and as such Dianetics falls into the category of science regardless of popular opinion or accepted scientific method.

Moved here from the main page. I don't believe you are using an accurate def. of science. Please think through this, there are lots of things organized in a systematic manner (my banking statment for example) which are not sciences.

Mark - thanks for fixing that - the rules of "Dungeons and Dragons" are also a science under this definition. This is one of my pet articles, but as I'm presently in India I can't monitor the article closely. I'm mildly perturbed about the statement "parapsychology is on the border between proto and pseudo." I can't see any justification for this statement. Most parapsychology has been refuted completely - hence it is pseudoscience. Thoughts? - User:Manning Bartlett

re "The motivations for the promotion of pseudoscience range from simple naivety about the methodological rigour of the scientific method, to deliberate deception for financial exploitation (e.g., [Psychic surgery]?)." The very specific reference to psychic surgery here suggests that this group's practitioners perform exclusively for financial exploitation. The range of motivation in this group is as varied as in any other group mentioned in this article. Some psychic surgeons have refused payment because they believed that such a motivation would limit their abilities. I plan to delete the example.
I hope to say more on this subject, but I shall tread very carefully so as to maintain the neutral view. I don't really like the word 'pseudoscience' because of its implicit value judgements, but it will have to do for now until something better comes along. I can also live with the short definition in the first paragraph. I am especially pleased that the writer of that paragraph has not committed the logical falacy which claims that not proven means false. user:Eclecticology

I continue to puzzle over how to fairly approach this topic where the comments of opponents tend to be just as pseudoscientific as the topic they try to attack. The article as it stands is full of gratuitous claims that some practice or other is pseudoscientific, as though merely making such a simple statement were all that was needed to establish that as fact. I like the general tone of the article as long as it is giving a broad outline of pseudoscience, and establishing broad criteria for examining the credibility of a particular status. After that it falls apart because people abandon and ignore the criteria they have just laid down.

One very important criterion is that someone who is broadly respected by the adherents of that practice must have made a claim (perhaps even implicitly) that it is scientific. How can we establish that something is pseudoscientific when nobody claimed ot to be scientific in the first place? The respected spokesperson concept is important, because it prevents us from basing our judgement of an entire subject on the claims of a local practitioner whose application may not even be consistent with the broader practice. See straw man

Eclecticology
Eclecticology, you are quite correct in stating that we should be careful about how we label things in this article.
Firstly, the NPOV policy suggests we shouldn't be trying to reach conclusions on anything. It's not for us to judge whether dianetics is pseudoscience or not. It's far better to have the main article on each subject examine any scientific claims in detail and let readers make up their own mind, rather than trying to reach a one-sentence opinion on the subject here.
What seems to have been most gravely wrong wrong with my approach to the subject is the use of the word "conclusions". Perhaps in the spirit of the steps outlined in the scientific method article I would have done better to use "Provisional evaluation" as the last heading of my outline. (See the revised format proposal at scapulomancy above.) I agree that none of the mentioned subject can be adequately discussed in the context of this article, but something more than a bare dismissive name in a list seems warranted. At least one should say enough to make the reader want to view the more detailed article.
As to the specific example of dianetics, it may be obvious that I am no supporter of the practice. There was, nevertheless, an interesting point arising from this example. The previous writer, after sticking it on the end of the paragraph deating with revelation and theology, arrived at the conclusion that dianetics was pseudoscientific. On the face of the situation I would have reached a different conclusion, but still not that it was scientific. I would rather have left it fall with the Bible into the realm of revelation and inspiration. Even Hubbard's own claim to be scientific doesn't pull it from that pit.
However, it is a fact that most scientists consider astrology, numerology, etc. as pseudosciences, and it's not a violation of the NPOV policy to say so.
I would change "most" to "many" or even "a large number" There is clearly opposition to the view or we wouldn't be having this discussion. In all likelyhood few scientists have ever given the matter enough serious consideration to have an informed opinion one way or the other. Using the fact that these people are scientists as an argument is just another form of logical fallacy.(q.v.)
    • It's a fact. I am a scientist (in training). I have worked with scientists from around the world, from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds. Never have I heard a scientist regard the above practices as anything other than at best amusing nonsense and more often a way to take money from the gullible.
    • Why does it matter what scientists think, then? Because their profession is to determine the nature of the universe and the objects that inhabit it. They have a very long tradition and a highly evolved methodology to do so. Their track record, collectively, is outstanding. Finally, the scientific profession has, on many occasions, had to discard long-held ideas when they have turned out to be wrong. Plenty of scientists have investigated pseudoscientific ideas, and found them wanting. In fact, most scientists consider most such areas so thoroughly debunked that they consider that they have better things to do with their time.
The science is more important than the scientist. The argument, "Scientists say ...." tends to reverse that. There is little doubt about the general reputation that you establish about scientists, but reputation alone doesn't prove anything. Reputation may even be an adequate first hypothesis in any study; it is, after all, "falsifiable" within the understanding of that term in the scientific method.
If you are a biologist, you probably don't need to take it any further when it comes to the inner workings of neclear physics, and you are probably content to let others carry on the debate of wave vs. particle theories of matter. The biologist, however, is unlikely to engage in public pronouncements about nuclear physics. If a survey of scientists asks the question, "Do you believe in astrology?", the result is predictable. If it turns out that the survey is sponsored by a marketting firm, that also asks them if they eat Corn Flakes for breakfast, what can inferred from the statement, "Scientists who don't believe in astrology prefer Corn Flakes for breakfast?"
If you choose to join the battle, being a scientist does not absolve you from the scientific method.
Finally, there seems to be a need to narrow down pseudoscience to quackery that claims scientific credence and exclude quackery that rejects scientific methods and embraces personal endorsement as more compelling evidence. It's all still unscientific quackery and scientists are just as entitled to debunk it. --Robert Merkel
Regretably I had difficulty understanding what point you were trying to make in the first part of this paragraph. Some narrowing down of just what falls into pseudoscience would be useful. Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between the terms pseudoscientific, unscientific, and quackery. Pseudoscience would imply false claims of being scientific, unscientific may merely reflect a naive reliance on anecdotal evidence, and quackery may imply a reckless application of pseudoscientific or unscientific concepts. (Applied vs. pure pseudoscience, if I may make such a parallel.) Yes, scientists are allowed to debunk pseudoscience, but as you have already said that should be discussed at the relevant article for the practice sought to be debunked. Eclecticology
There have in many cases been rigorous scientific studies conducted in these areas which have failed to substantiate many of the claims.

This statement is overly broad after such a long list of diverse practices with varying levels of acceptance. Similar statements might be more appropriate in specific contexts.

I have removed "exobiology". Sure, it is mostly speculation at this point, but the Viking experiments and the examination of the Martian meteorite, for instance, were scientific, and the continued investigation of extremophile bacteria in an effort to determine the most extreme environments life might conceivably be found in, are science.

Sure, this field has attracted a huge number of quacks, but that doesn't mean the whole premise of scientific investigation of this area is wrong. --Robert Merkel

I put exobiology back on the list. Just before the list the criterion "fields of knowledge that many consider in varying extents to be pseudoscientific" is indicated. What you say could easily apply to several items on the list where the evidence has failed to support the existence of the processes in question without proving it false. The scientific method puts the burden of proof upon the proponents of unproved phenomenon. If we start exempting people's pet "sciences" from the list it will soon have nothing left. Eclecticology 07:31 Sep 19, 2002 (UTC)

I agree with Robert, and took it off again. Exobiology follows scientific method. It is not necessary for life outside the earth to exist for it to be a valid science. Proving, or disproving the existence of life in particular places, according to the scientific method, is part of it.--AN 07:45 Sep 19, 2002 (UTC)

You are still ignoring the point emphasized above. Why should your pet "pseudoscience" be exempt? Eclecticology

I also must agree with Robert - exobiology is a valid field of study in biology. However there are more kooks who call themselfs exobiologists than there are real exobiologists. Maybe this should be mentioned somehow. --mav

Similar comments can be made about parapsychology, applied kinesiology and psychic phenomena. Eclecticology
I tend to agree with Eclecticology here. Also mentioned on the list is cryptozoology, which also is a valid field of study (as mentioned in that article), but also attracts a lot of non-scientists and isn't really considered scientific. The same probably holds for several of the other pseudosciences. It would help to annotate the list and say something about the "pseudoscientificness" of each of the listed items. Jeronimo

I've changed the wording a little, to make it clearer that an entry existing in that list isn't necessarily a condemnation of the field in its entirety. I suppose it's too much to hope for that that will keep everybody happy? :-) -- Khendon

You failed to use the same wording to the items that you reinstated, which are clearly no less scientific than exobiology. Eclecticology 15:40 Sep 19, 2002 (UTC)

You're right, of course. How about we remove all the annotations from the list, since they're all covered by the wording at the head of the list anyway? (and since they're inevitably subjective) -- Khendon

That's been exactly my point in this discussion! Eclecticology

Ever since I started watching this subject I've had concerns about the lack of NPOV implicit in the title itself. It suggests from the very beginning that we are dealing with concepts that are necessarily false, rather than ones which have only failed to be proven true. The doctrine of falsifiability from the philosophy of science is of no help because of the misleading connotations of fraud that a word such as "falsify" carries in the public mind. However strictly a philosopher may apply that term, it does not follow that the same rigour will be applied by non-philosophers.

I would propose that most (not all) of the material in this article be moved to a new article under the name anomalous science. The present title could then be restricted to those studies which have been established as false (squaring the circle) or fraudulent (crop circles). Eclecticology 16:34 Oct 1, 2002 (UTC)

"Pseudoscience" is a (perhaps the) standard term for this subject, and the info in the article follows general discussion of the matter. IMHO, the term "pseudoscience" does not refer to whether a concept has or has not been proven false, but the manner in which its enthusiasts approach it; it specifies methodologies which appear or claim to be scientific but are lacking in one or more crucial particulars. "Anomalous science" is not a standard name and frankly, I don't understand what it should mean. If a "scientific" activity follows the standards of science, it might be strange, but it's science. If it doesn't follow the standards of science, it might be anomalous, but it's not science. Why invent an idiosyncratic new term in an encyclopedia? -- Respectfully awaiting your reply.

"Pseudoscience" reflects the POV of people in the mainstream sciences. The prefix "pseudo-" literally means "false", and that alone introduces a bias into the subject. In one sense I can find the definition of pseudoscience at the beginning of the article to be perfectly acceptable, but I don't have faith in people's abilities to strictly adhere to that definition; connotations are not as easily controlled as denotations. To say that we are talking about the manner of approach seems to make sense at first sight, but despite the common origins of the words it seems more applicable to the adjective pseudoscientific than to the noun "pseudoscience". "Science" often relates to the knowledge itself in the broadest sense, while "scientific" relates to the making or producing of knowledge because of the suffix from the Latin verb facere.

It may very well be that the problem lies in having a list at all in the article. Many forms of fortune telling are not pseudocientific because the practitioners believe themselves to be "spiritually inspired" without any claim whatsoever of being scientific. On the other hand, some of the other subjects, such as parapsychology, include entusiasts who make great efforts to apply scientific rigour. All of the topics also have enthusiasts whose belief is beyond belief.


I know better than to introduce an idiosyncratic term into Wikipedia; they never' fare very well. I at least made a point of finding some references for the use of the expression "anomalous science", either directly or as "anomalous" + some specific science.

On a preliminary basis I would tend to define "anomalous science" as the study of those phenomena that are not adequately explained by mainstream science. The scope of this topic can be very broad indeed. As I've mulled over this matter over the last while I considered the expression "alternative science" but rejected it as representing a POV in the other direction. Eclecticology

What your objection ignores is the fact that the information regarded as 'scientific knowledge' is largely socially constructed. Therefore it is entirely appropriate to deal with the ideas of science and pseudoscience from the perspective of the scientific community. What is pseudoscience? put simply, it is any theory about the functioning of the natural world which claims to be scientific but which is rejected as unsatisfactory by the scientific community as a whole. JFQ

I changed the opening sentence. I see a lot of discussion regarding what the definition of the term should be; I did not change the definition at all, I just phrased it the way an encyclopedia would, instead of the way a dictionary would. -- User:Nate Silva

I'm removing the babbling sophistry about Fluffy. It imposes a POV by the use of ridicule, and cannot be considered a serious treatment of the subject. Eclecticology 00:46 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)

Kuhn is vastly more important in the philosophy of science than lakatos, I'm going to reword that section a bit and include a bit about what kuhn thought of as the criteria by which a new paradigm becomes accepted as normal science.JFQ

I may have gotten a little bit overzealous. I added quite a bit to the demarcation section. reread the structure of scientific revolutions this week and it has a tendency to turn me into something of a missionary. I think what I added might be able to be stated in a clearer way, but I think I managed to stay fairly NPOV with my examples. If anything is unclear about what I meant by something, please lemme know and I'll take another crack at it. JFQ

"Kuhn is vastly more important in the philosophy of science than lakatos..."

The section in question is about the problem of demarcation. I think Lakatos probably said more about this than anyone. No matter; Kuhn is interesting and I'm glad you said something about him. --Chris

Here's some feedback I got from another forum on my contribution to the demarcation bit. I've not had time to do anything with it, but it might be of interest:

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on your proposed entry. I was a student of Popper, Lakatos and Feyerabend -- doing my undergrad at UC Berkeley and grad work at University of London.

An encyclopedia-type entry must of course be concise and compartmentalized.

Let me say first that there is nothing objectionable in your entry.

It is important to note that what marks the boundaries of science, and therefore what defines pseudoscience, has never properly been settled.

This is your best statement. I might have phrased it as follows:

"After more than a century of active dialogue, the question of what marks the boundary of science remains fundamentally unsettled. As a consequence the issue of what constitutes pseudoscience continues to be controversial. Nonetheless, there is reasonable consensus on certain sub-issues."

Criteria for demarcation have traditionally been coupled to one philosophy of science or another. Logical positivism, for example, espoused a theory of meaning, which held that only statements about empirical observations are meaningful, effectively asserting that all metaphysical statements are meaningless.

I am fine with this up to the point where you tacitly imply that non-empirical statements are equivalent to metaphysical statements. The difficulty with the LP criterion confronts us long before we consider traditionally metaphysical questions. Most of mathematics and virtually all of the humanities are problematic. History is curiously problematic because of the the ?repeatability? issue ? an apparently apriori standard of what is accepted as ?empirical?. And finally since science itself embodies its own "scientific metaphysics", the criterion was self-defeating.

Later, Karl Popper attacked logical positivism and introduced his own criterion for demarcation based on falsifiability. This in turn was criticised, most notably by Thomas Kuhn, but also by Popper supporter Imre Lakatos who proposed his own criteria that distinguished between progressive and degenerative research programs.

This is fine. People need to look up these references (elsewhere in the encyclopedia) to understand the claims.

Lakatos perhaps marks the start of a trend in the philosophy of science to relax the demarcation criteria. This trend has continued with some philosophers, including Paul Feyerabend, adopting the view that there is no single benchmark for the validity of ideas and that this segregation of knowledge is unhealthy for science.


What you say is fine. I think the thrust might come across better if you point out the implicit challenge: Lakatos and Feyerabend suggest that science is not an autonomous form of reasoning -- but is inseparable from the larger body of human thought and inquiry. If so, then the questions of truth and falsity, and correct or incorrect understanding are not uniquely empirical. Many meaningful questions can not be settled empirically -- not only in practice, but in principle.

(It may move beyond this entry, but I think that Lakatos?s realization that ?bias is good? captures a sense of the new direction. Indeed, bias is essential. Anyone who accepted naive falsificationism would never get out of the lab. This really muddies the waters concerning pseudoscience ? although you keep us open with the introduction of the notion of proto-science.

On the other hand, there has been some reluctance to declare the concept of pseudoscience bankrupt.

The questions of truth and falsity, and correct understanding remain, but appear not to be reducible to, or settled by any of the simple empiricist models of inquiry and belief.

Science seen, instead, as a rich tradition of logic, empiricism, experimentation, individualism , opportunism and many other things, still has to reject (at least provisionally) some ideas and support others.

I lot could be said about this sentence. You are offering a definition of science by reference to a series of -isms and "many other things". It is unhelpful. You seem to be seeking a closure. Integrity requires you to leave it open.

I do like the last part (modified): Yet even when one considers science as an integral part of the broader enterprise of human reason and inquiry, one is still confronted with the need to reject some ideas and support others.

Scientists who want to remove ideological contamination from this process, need only recognise that there is no such thing as the scientific method, no definitive philosophy of science and no clear and agreed-upon distinction between science and pseudoscience.

I think you should be more blunt here.

Those who consider themselves scientists need to recognize that there is no such thing as an autonomous scientific method, no definitive philosophy of science and no clear and agreed-upon distinction between science and pseudoscience. --Terry Bristol

Just a note to JFQ. I reverted your change to the Feyerabend text. Maybe a feyerabendian metacriterion can be formed, but certainly not the one proposed. Feyerabend has written whole chapters defending ancient ideas and dead philosophies! His epistemological anarchism should make formation of a metacriterion problematic: "Given any rule, however 'fundamental' or 'necessary' for science, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite." --Chris

I appreciate the effort that you have put into this article, especially in the light of the prejudices that are often brought into the subject. I still find the title prejudicial, but that's another story.

I do have one question. Given that Popper was an Austrian, does the German terminology that he uses for "falsification" have the same connotations of fraud and wrongdoing that it does in English? It seems to me that Popper's falsification is used to define science, but that in the popular mind science is used to define falsification. Eclecticology 18:57 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)

(Apologies for the delayed reply.). I can't really answer your question, being an Englishman (don't be fooled by the name) with a very poor command of the German language. My guess is that the negative connotations are unintentional, but who knows? --Chris

SETI and exobiology differ from the other fields listed in that most scientists consider them perfectly scientific undertakings, with a few people using these fields as cover for pseudoscientific undertakings, much as there are pseudoscientists who claim to be physicists or biologists. The other fields are almost universally considered to be pseudoscientific by people in the relevant neighboring scientific fields (e.g. cryptozoology by biologists, astrology by astronomers etc.). I am absolutely not willing to tolerate legitimate fields of scientific inquiry like SETI and exobiology listed next to cryptozoology and creationism. --Eloquence

I agree. Those are valid fields of study that are merely the victims of more than their share of cranks who claim to be experts. --mav

I disagree. We had this argument before and the heading of the list was a compromise wording at the time. Others will have a different perspective about which items should be removed from the list. Who says that biologists haven't objected to exobiology as much as to cryptozoology? Most of the subjects on the list have varying degrees of acceptance, and many also have people using scientific means to investigate them, even if often without success. It doesn't do to have something removed because of a personal whim that his pet subject is being criticized. Eclecticology 14:02 Dec 27, 2002 (UTC)

In no way whatsoever can SETI be or exobiology be called pseudo-science. Mintguy
Sure it can. Card-carrying skeptic (and CSICOP member, if I'm not mistaken) A.K. Dewdney calls the SETI enterprise pseudo-science, as described in his debunking book "Yes, We Have No Neutrons". (Of course, one may argue that one person calling it so doesn't make it so.) He allows that many people, including scientists, will find the SETI exercise interesting. His objection is that SETI doesn't have a well-formed (for scientific purposes) hypothesis or theory, and so it doesn't qualify as a science. Grizzly

While we're on the topic of the infamous list in the article, I have some issue with the inclusion of cartomancy, fortune-telling, and numerology being on the list. Who is claiming these things to be scientific? Someone must be claiming these to be based on science in order for them to qualify as pseudo-sciences. It is not enough for their practitioners to simply claim that they "work".

I also question the inclusion of "psychic phenomena". Phenomena of any sort may be the subject of study but do not in and of themselves constitute a field of study, and hence cannot constitute a pseudo-science. Parapsychology is the field of study that includes the study of psychic phenomena and is the proper candidate for being a pseudo-science. But given that there are serious scientists in the field following proper protocols, etc, I agree with leaving parapsychology off the list. If you want to leave SETI off, then you need to leave parapsychology off as well.

I suppose this means that I should not add "nutrition" to the list. Grizzly 23:14 Dec 27, 2002 (UTC)

When I witness the claims of some skeptics and proponents of "science" I find it difficult to distinguish their rhetoric from that used by fundamentalist creationists. In looking for answers to their approach I found an essay by Ray Hyman on Proper Criticism at http://www.hcrc.org/contrib/hyman/propcrit.html Amateur debunkers would do well to read this article by a person who is clearly on the side of the skeptics. He laments the efforts of would-be skeptics as counterproductive. He summarizes his advice to skeptics with eight suggestions.

  1. Be prepared
  2. Clarify your objectives
  3. Do your homework
  4. Do not go beyond your level of competence
  5. Let the facts speak for themselves
  6. Be precise
  7. Use the principle of charity
  8. Avoid loaded words and sensationalism

When a believer in the God of Science makes an idiotic comment like "scientists say ...", he might as well be saying "The Bible says..." Referring to a biologist or astronomer in the same tone about a more specific topic produces the same effect. If the skeptics are to have any hope of success (and in many but not all respects they should succeed), they are going to need to apply the same scientific rigour to their skepticism as they would to the views of those whom they criticize. Abandoning the self-indulgent hypocrisy of the true-believer would be a good start.

The list in the article is headed by the phrase Examples of fields of knowledge that many consider to varying extents to be pseudoscientific include. This was a compromise phrase to start with. It was fair and open-ended, and made no definitive statement about any item in the list being a pseudoscience. Deleting any single item from the list implies a POV that the deleter somehow has an insight that others don't have, and that there is something special about his pet subject that makes it les pseudoscientific than the others. Eclecticology 00:15 Dec 28, 2002 (UTC)

sigh OK, I'll do this once, and hopefully I'll be able to use copy & paste in the future.

Who says that biologists haven't objected to exobiology as much as to cryptozoology?

"There are no academic departments of cryptozoology" - Paul McCarthy, The Scientist, January 11, 1993.

Compare:

The same can be done for SETI:

If there is a cryptozoology or parapsychology department at Harvard or Berkeley, I must have missed it. Add to this the fact that one of the most renowned and famous scientists, Carl Sagan, was both an exobiologist and a SETI advocate (and also an opponent of pseudoscience) and it's quite obvious that there is a clear separation here. Your POV is only shared by people outside science.

There is no compromise to be made here. Unless you can make similar lists for the other fields of study in the list, those stay in and SETI and exobiology/astrobiology stay out. But I'll make a change that should still make you happy, see page. --Eloquence

I appreciate the change to the page.

In the vein you suggest, I would point out that, as described on the wikipedia's own parapsychology page, there are university sponsored programs in parapsychology. Not Berkeley or Harvard perhaps, but at respectable institutions like Princeton, the University of Edinburgh, Duke University, and the University of Utrecht. Grizzly 09:35 Dec 28, 2002 (UTC) Also the University of Virginia, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Adelaide. Grizzly 06:16 Dec 29, 2002 (UTC)

Duke University has long had a program on ESP research. -- Zoe

A short list (add more if you want) of Pseudosciences? If not, then what? my responses:

Some suggested categories: psuedoscientific, unscientific or non-science, quackery, protoscience, pathological science, others?

The current presentation is fine, we don't want to create a subjective list. (SETI equivalent to ESP? please!) What we need are attributed, preferably quantifiable opinions on pseudoscience. --Eloquence
I'm not suggesting that SETI and ESP are equivalent. I am suggesting the diversity of protoscience to entail subjects some of which may be more respectable than others but that would not make it any less a protoscience. If you don't think SETI and ESP fall in the same category, then please answer the original question: in what category would you put them in. I think this process may help flesh out the categorical concepts by identifying what subjects belong in what categories and why. B

Those who consider themselves scientists need to recognize that there is no such thing as an autonomous scientific method, no definitive philosophy of science and no clear and agreed-upon distinction between science and pseudoscience.

This is an example of the Wikipedia taking a position and quite clearly against the NPOV policy. Hence, I'm going to remove it. --Robert Merkel 04:28 Jan 14, 2003 (UTC)

Only the word "need" above involves taking a position. I can change that to "often fail". That helps to avoid the POV that such a distinction exists. Eclecticology 05:59 Jan 14, 2003 (UTC)
That's better, though I still have problems with it.
Of course there is no definitive philosophy of science, but there are some elements of science that have been remarkably consistent through its history. For instance, I have yet to see a philosophy of science that does not include a belief in the importance of empirical evidence and testing ideas against such. Many pseudosciences violate this most basic tenet of science.
I think you may also be missing the fact that most scientists reject some of the wilder claims of postmodern philosophers with regard to their craft. They don't have any trouble identifying what they think is pseudoscience. There is disagreement among scientists, but it really is only at the margins. --Robert Merkel 09:52 Jan 14, 2003 (UTC)

Robert. The consistent elements, you mention are the very points at issue. Rationalists (of which there are various sorts) say that such elements exist and can be encapsulated in simple rules to form (in our case) demarcation criteria. Others say this is not so.

Yes many people, including some scientists, reject some of the claims of 'postmodern' philosophers (although Kuhn is often bundled with these and seems to be highly influential today). Does that mean a summary should disclude them? This seems to be a meta-demarcation criterion.

The disagreement among scientist has often crossed 'margins'. It wasn't long ago that research into how the universe began was dismissed as metaphysical nonsense. Think of how long it took for atomism to gain acceptance. Scientists have not only differed over the details, but have at times dismissed whole areas of (now main-stream) research. --Chris

Chris, Thanks for your reply. What I am trying to say that those "others" whom you refer to do not include many practising scientists. Whilst there are cases of disagreement, there are many, many areas where I would strongly argue that virtually every scientist would agree that the area of concern is not scientific - for instance creationism and its intelligent design variant. --Robert Merkel

I don't know who you have in mind, but the most 'post-modern' philosopher I can think of is Feyerabend who did research on quantum theory. Kuhn (if you count him) had a Ph.D in physics. Einstein (influenced by ErnstMach, another scientist) is, of course, famous for mocking the rationalist fixation with "verification of little effects" which might explain why he is dismissed by some philosophers of science as a mere mathematician.

As you mention, there are many research projects which scientists do not deem worthy of their attention, and there is some level of agreement on what those areas are. If this is your criterion for demarcation, then you are obligated to give in to peer pressure. Most rationalist philosophers were looking something more substantial or "objective" than this. --Chris

One difference between science and pseudoscience is that science admits in general that it makes mistakes, and works to correct those mistakes. The examples you provide (the origins of the Universe, the Big Bang Theory) are examples of how something originally considered "fringe" has since been widely accepted. However, the reason why it has been widely accepted is because it has been verified by unbiased peer reviews. Pseudoscience does not admit when it is wrong, which is why we still have people hawking quack medicines and junk science that was proven to be worthless at the beginning of the 20th century or before. And pseudoscience is notoriously reluctant to submited to unbiased peer review. Dianetics, anyone? -- Modemac

Are you saying that our suspected pseudoscientist should admit to mistakes he does not necessarily agree with? Or perhaps you are proposing another method for demarcation based on "unbiased peer review". This does not solve the problem of demarcation; it only displaces it. The problem of separating science from non-science becomes the problem of separating biased from unbiased peer review. --Chris

Should "pseudoscientists" admit to mistakes they do not "necessarily" agree with? Yes. If the evidence clearly proves that their theories are wrong, then they should admit so. The problem is, many pseudosciences do not. For various reasons, a pseudoscience continues to promote itself as a legitimate science, even when it has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt (in the eyes of most people other than the pseudoscientists themselves) that the pseudoscience is not scientifically valid. The pseudoscientists deny evidence that does not support their claims, refuse to admit that any peer review of their techniques is valid and nonbiased, and may even resort to conspiracy theory ("Our valuable theories are being suppressed by the scientific community!"). Especially in areas of science that are largely uncharted and fluctuating, such as psychotherapy and its many variants, a pseudoscience can (and often does) persist for years, decades, or longer, even when it is largely rejected by the scientific community because it has been proven to be nonsense. -- Modemac
Modemac, Although psychotherapy (or any "counselling" for that matter) has problems, I wonder if you actually meant psychoanalysis (the first form of psychotherapy devised by Sigmund Freud). Informed people would agree that psychoanalysis has been debunked and is a pseudoscience (although it is still practiced). There is far less support that psychotherapy in general has been debunked. Substantial numbers of folks are still getting graduate degrees in clinical psychology from any number of respectable universities and providing psychotherapeutical services. B

Both Lakatos and Feyerabend suggest that science is not an autonomous form of reasoning -- but is inseparable from the larger body of human thought and inquiry. If so, then the questions of truth and falsity, and correct or incorrect understanding are not uniquely empirical. Many meaningful questions can not be settled empirically -- not only in practice, but in principle.

I have several problems with the above. Firstly, how does the conclusion in the second sentence follow from the statements in the first?


Secondly, it is trivially obvious that "many meaningful questions cannot be settled empirically -- not only in practice, but in principle". Most scientists would not have a single quibble with the above statement. "What is intelligence?" is a good one of which I'm quite familiar (there are others that are perhaps more fundamental, but it happens to be one I'm familiar with through an acquaintance with the topic of artificial intelligence). It's just that I, and my hypothetical "most scientists", would not see the relevance of such a claim, unless it is somehow strengthened to include topics that are currently under investigation by science. --Robert Merkel 04:50 Jan 14, 2003 (UTC)

Popper said it more clearly, although he never came to the same conclusion. For Popper observational facts were theory-laden. This follows from his critique of inductivism and is also expressed in his use of a falsifying hypothosis (rather than falsifying observations). Do you get it yet? --Chris

I have removed the following because I think it is too convoluted:

There has been some reluctance to declare the concept of pseudoscience bankrupt. The questions of truth and falsity, and correct understanding remain, but appear not to be reducible to, or settled by any of the simple empiricist models of inquiry and belief. Yet even when one considers science as an integral part of the broader enterprise of human reason and inquiry, one is still confronted with the need to reject (at least provisionally) some ideas and support others.

I don't see how we say anything here we haven't already said further above and below. The distinction between science and pseudoscience is hard to make but important, yadda yadda yadda. As for the "Those who consider themselves scientists .." part below it, I think it needs some more NPOV work, but it is valid. --Eloquence 08:45 Jan 14, 2003 (UTC)