Talk:Pseudoscience

Is Astrology, Creation science, Intelligent design, Flood geology, Baraminology, Creation biology should consider as Pseudoscience? It still a very controversial issues. Considering it (especially creation science, intelligence design) as Pseudoscience or not might have a very strong religious standing point. So I have put a NPOV here.

Yes, those are all pseudo-sciences because they violate one or more of the principles of science (creation science and intelligent design violate falsifiablilty and you can't do experiments on them for example). gkhan 15:15, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

How about evolution/evolutionary science? We still cannot be clearly observe the evolution process and evidence are limited.

'Depends on what you watch. Fast reproducing bacteria, for example, very clearly evolve. One need only look at antibiotic resistance to see that. Evolution (as compared to, say "Creation Science") is very easily testable and has, in fact, been tested many times.

By the way, don't forget to sign your postings to talk pages with ~~~~.

Atlant 16:21, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Ofcourse you can! There are many more examples than Atlant mentions. Darwin observed it himself i believe with some animal on the Galapagos Islands. gkhan 20:12, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

Umm...if it says that theology is seperate from psuedoscience, why is creationism thrown in with psuedoscience? Seems a bit demeaning. I can understand "intelligent design" being thrown here because it attempts to be proven by scientific means though it is essentially unprovable. But intelligent design can also be taught away from a religious viewpoint (such as claiming that aliens or some higher life form created human life and such...). "Creationism" can easily be taught without relying on scientific examination. This is why I think what is referred to as "Creation science" and Creationism should be -clearly- distinguished.

Please read the current version of the article - it only refers to "creation science", not creationism. Thanks, -Willmcw 04:36, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Ha, you beat me to it! I got an edit conflict trying to say the same thing, you sly dog. --Fastfission 04:37, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You've gotta be fast to pick off these easy ones. The hard ones, well, I sit back and leave those to the better editor. ;) -Willmcw 06:02, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

What constitutes pseudoscience?

The more I look at this article, the more I begin to feel that the examples section does the whole article a disservice. I would suggest moving (with an appropriate link) the contents of that section to a new list type article on subjects which some people consider to be pseudoscientific, perhaps List of pseudoscience ? topics, with the question mark in the title. The basis for including an item on the list would simply be that the issue is considered in the article for it.

It is extremely difficult to maintain encyclopedic perspective on this topic as long as we need to keep fending off claims about whether a particular study is or is not science or pseudoscience. Zealotry, self-righteousness and bullying are common on both sides, and they do us no good. If some people make a claim that SETI is pseudoscientific it's a fact that some people believe that, but that fact is distinct from the question of whether SETI really is pseudoscientific. In a similar vein there may be a significant number of us who consider Tarot readings to be pseudoscientific, but again the fact of the disbelief is distinct from whether Tarot really is pseudoscientific. How can the latter be pseudoscientific in the absence of claims that it is scientific.

This is one area where there is a desparate need to find common ground for discussion. There is also a need to keep these arguments from creeping into a lot of articles where it doesn't belong. I recognize that there is a large community that considers astrology to be a pseudoscience, just as there is another large community that supports astrology. That should not translate into the necessity of having the whole debate over and over again on every article that is a sub-topic of astrology.

In short I think that we should have the following:

A single article (this one) which discusses pseudocience in a general way,
A wikied list article that accepts without debate any subject that anybody considers to be pseudoscientific. The only requirement would be that the link be to the place where the pseudoscience nature of the subject is discussed.
Discussions of pseudoscience should be avoided on sub-topic pages, where the reference to pseudoscience should be limited to a single link to the page where the discussion is more appropriate. Eclecticology 20:51 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)

I agree that it is appropriate to contain debate on the pseudoscientific nature of certain activities to a limited number of articles. I wouldn't object to the creation of a seperate list of topics considered to be pseudoscientific. However, the main pseudoscience article will still need to contain the odd example, for the purposes of explaining the concept of pseudoscience.

The introduction to the list would need to be carefully worded to state that "some" people find the topics listed pseudoscientific. Some, perhaps even a majority of scientists, may disagree, and see the linked article for more discussion.

By the way, I find it interesting that you raise astrology as an example. I thought we'd had that debate before. --Robert Merkel

Thanks, it sounds like we're getting somewhere. I suggested one possible name for the list article, but wasn't wholly satisfied with it. I'd like it to be acceptable to both main tendencies in this debate, without getting too long-winded. Any ideas on this narrow point?

What should we use as examples?

I agree about a carefully chosen selection of examples that can illustrate just what you say, and the broad range of topics that tend to be thrown into the pseudoscience pot from SETI which tends to have strong support in the scientific community to squaring the circle which can be proven impossible. If we can keep focused on the goal that these examples are here to illustrate the problems without descending into a debate on the scientific truth any specific example, it should work out.

There was no particular intention to using astrology as an example, other than that I'm more familiar with it. Of the subjects that might be considered here it likely has the second largest body of available literature (after Christianity/creationism etc.). With such a large body of literature it is far more likely to spawn sub-topic articles than many other things on the list. Eclecticology 00:13 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)

Although I've been watching this article for some time, I want to ponder a little longer before launching into discussion of the specifics. In the meantime though, I want to express general approval of the plan to seperate debate of the particular from description of the general. Tannin 03:04 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)

I strongly oppose the creation of a separate list. This seems to be an attempt to weasel out and it leads us away from fair NPOV and to a list where everyone will just add all sorts of topics (as seems to happen with many of our lists). How about just adding all humanities since they do not rest strongly on empirical observation? No, this is not the way to resolve this problem.

If there is a claim to be made that a significant faction of people believes a certain topic to be pseudoscientific, put it in this article, preferably with a reference. But what I see here are consistent attempts to insert a pro-pseudoscientific agenda into this article by muddling generally recognized distinctions. Prove me wrong: Add references to your claims that a certain discipline is considered pseudoscientific by a large number of people (I have already referenced the support for SETI & Co. in the scientific community). Then we compare the numbers and the types of people who consider it pseudoscientific. Then we can structure the article accordingly. --Eloquence 04:06 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)

How then is this different? There will be a list, of that we may be certain. The question seems to me to be where should that list go? Leaving it here is to risk winding up with an article so full of references to this and that, and so chopped up by the inevitable edit wars that it is unreadable. ("To risk"? What am I saying? It already is.) I'm not sure that Eclecticology's precise idea is the best way to go, but (as I read it) his main point is that there are really two seperate articles here: one on what psudoscience is (i.e., the logical distinction between science and psudoscience) and the other on what things may justly be said to be "psudoscience" as opposed to "real science" (or, for that matter, "non science".) Tannin

No, no, no. Moving stuff away because of the "risk of edit wars" is bad thinking. If there's an edit war, at least one person is acting immaturely, and possibly more than one. This can be documented and, if necessary, punished. Moving it away and letting people edit the list willy nilly would sacrifice accuracy for "edit peace". My opinion is that the current presentation is, for the most part, alright. --Eloquence 15:39 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)

Let's try to nail down the definition

It may be useful and interesting to try to nail down some definition of the term pseudoscience that approaches objectivity. I expect it will be a long debate, with various proponents trying to fit a definition to their own pre-set categories, and then an even longer one (possibly interminable) as to what fields are "real sciences". In any case, I think it still needs to be pointed out that in actual usage the term "pseudoscience" is typically not used in an objective sense, but rather more often reflects the speaker's own biases. This should be obvious from the fact that, far from being a clinical term, the term typically carries derogatory and derisive connotations. As Eloquence seems to be pointing out, the recipients of the appellation "pseudoscience" may simply be whichever fields get the most votes in the ongoing scientific unpopularity contest. Forgive my being relatively new to the Wikipedia, but this does raise a question that has come to my mind regarding the 'pedia in general: I know that NPOV is the Holy Grail of the Wikipedia, but failing that, when writing articles, do we try to err on the side of objectivity or on the side of popular opinion? There are strong arguments for both .... Grizzly 11:04 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)

Grizzly, NPOV ≠ objective: see Wikipedia:NPOV. Wikipedia articles should not err on one side or the other; articles should not take a position. They should state facts and state opinions so long as the opinion is pertinent and can be attributed to a particular person or persons. B

I agree with Ecleticology's suggestion for a list of pseudoscientific candidates although I think the list should be broader and categorized to include protoscientific and nonscientific suspects as well and be titled something like: Protoscientific, pseudoscientific and nonscientific candidates. This is in line with wiki policy to report pertinent, attributed opinions whether we like them or not. Then this article can point to the list for an example/model of what some think is pseudoscience. Further, if for example homeopathy were on the list, there should be at least one statement in the list from say the medical community like JAMA or the FDA about homeopathy in general or criticism of a particular homeopathic treatment like the uses of colloidal silver. B

There's absolutely no point in moving this to a separate "list" article. That only encourages sloppy categorization. Just edit the damn article if you think there's something missing. --Eloquence

Ok, perhaps I should explain *why* I think Eclecticology's proposal is a good one. To me, the most important things for the Wikipedia to contain about pseudoscience are: 1) an article accurately describing the concept, and 2) where there is a view by some, many, or a lot of people that a field is pseudoscientific, the article on that topic should discuss that in detail so the reader can make their own determination. Any list of "pseudosciences" is very much of secondary importance.

A list which divides things up into "almost universally regarded as pseudoscience", "regarded as pseudoscience by some scientists", and so on, will necessarily have to short-circuit lots of complexities (including those with the whole concept of pseudoscience) which is very hard to do in a NPOV manner, and to me represents a lot of wasted effort that would be better spent on the topic articles, which the reader will have to read anyway if they want to understand the topic and its scientific credibility.

Therefore, to me Eclecticology's proposal represents a way to concentrate effort on making this article better, and topic articles better, and avoids wasting time having debates on list categorizations that aren't in the final washup that important or useful in the context of the Wikipedia anyway.--Robert Merkel 23:32 Jan 18, 2003 (UTC)

Any encyclopedia article needs to give proper examples for its subject to be understandable. That this is "very hard" for controversial topics is not an excuse to move the examples away to separate pages, especially when Eclecticology states that the list should accept "without debate any subject that anybody considers to be pseudoscientific."

No serious encyclopedia would do that and we are, first and foremost, an encyclopedia. If I read an article about pseudoscience, I expect homeopathy, perpetual motion machines, "intelligent design" and the like to be mentioned and discussed in brief. I don't want an end result that is eloquent but doesn't dare to say anything of value because it might tick off pro-pseudoscientists. If people working on this article violate NPOV to push an agenda, then this is the problem, not the article.

Once again, the current article is fine, what it lacks, for the most part, is a brief summary of the opinions about the subjects mentioned, with the subjects themselves discussed in their respective articles. --Eloquence 01:13 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)~

I have no objection to the article containing a brief number of examples that show the broad range of subjects that are sometimes treated as pseudoscience. But whether SETI or astrology or intelligent design are pseudosciences is not about pseudoscience; it is about SETI or astrology or intelligent design as the case may be. Examples are merely illustrative. If the examples are not "proper" examples then, rather than make the subject more understandable, they create more confusion and unclarity. The article does include a workable list of criteria for determining whether a subject may be classed as pseudoscience; I would feel more comfortable if we strictly conformed to those criteria; that would be a more scientific approach.

To maintain NPOV in this article we need to avoid both a pro-pseudoscience bias and an anti-pseudoscience bias.

Eloquence, if you note my earlier comments, I have already made the point that I still regard the inclusion of examples of possibly pseudoscientific topics as illustrative examples in this article as essential. I have also said that extensive discussions of whether a particular topic is regarded as pseudoscience, by whom, and on what grounds, is appropriate for a particular article page (eg SETI, acupuncture, homeopathy, telepathy). However, to attempt to categorise and summarise what might become very complex arguments about the views of a particular activity in a list where there is not space to do so is likely to lead to endless arguments and isn't particularly useful information, as anybody who wants to find out more should read the topic article anyway! Therefore, if there has to be a list, and we're going to have arguments about it, I would prefer it to be as loosely defined as possible so we don't have to bother with pointless categorization and summarization arguments. --Robert Merkel 11:33 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)

We are in agreement up to a point: detailed discussions are best placed in their respective subject articles. But a separate pseudoscience list with loose criteria is a cop out that only encourages sloppy work. If a particular discussion gets too long, we can always move it to its subject article while retaining a brief summary. What we should try to do is quantify opinions. This can be done, for example, by searching scientific databases for "field name + pseudoscien*". (That alone does not suffice, because any article so found may actually argue that the field is not pseudoscientific.) Skeptical organizations like CSICOP are also a good source for finding scientific claims. I for one think that the current presentation is fairly accurate, but it lacks a few pseudoscientific fields.

--Eloquence 12:00 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)

The classification section on pseudoscience leaves out a few factors in my opinion. It leaves out possibilities such as noting that observations have been made that are not verifiable but that make no claims. For example, I navigated here from the auras page. I can see auras. It's possible that it's a medical condition, a vision problem, or some kind of psychological problem. I suppose from your perspective it's possible that I'm lying to you. However, I make no claims, other than I am observing something that you can't apparently photograph. Others have made these observations as well, and some of the ways that auras are seen fall nicely into a couple of distinct categories. So is the ability to see auras pseudoscientific? No scientific claims are being made, but the rudiments of the scientific process are being used (by taking observations).

Also, does someone first have to claim something is scientific for it to be pseudoscience? --Godshatter 08:19, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Taking observations is not the rudiment of the scientific method. Everybody makes observations. The scientific method is about making claims from observations. If you aren't making claims of any sort, then nobody would confuse it with science, I'm fairly sure. And if that's the case, then I doubt anybody would bother to call it pseudoscience. Though I will say this acknowledging that 100 years of philosophical debate has yet to provide anything close to a way to define what is science and what is not. --Fastfission 13:33, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Lir and Vera Cruz have their say

I agree with Robert Merkel. Vera Cruz

Thanks for supporting my point. --Eloquence

That was very rude and such statements do not foster a positive community environment here at wikipedia. Vera Cruz

I had no idea you could be funny, Lir! -Eloquence 01:22 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)

I am well aware of the "Lir/Vera Cruz" debates, but would it not be to everybody's benefit to accept a simple comment at it's face value without regard to what individual is making the comment? Eclecticology

Agreement on some points

It seems, then, that we are all agreed on the following points:

This article should be about psudoscience in general
It is not about the merits of any particular instance of an alleged psudoscience.
In order to explain the concept of a psudoscience lucidly, it is necessary to use some illustrative examples.
But this article is not the proper place to debate the status of those examples.
Instead, there should be individual articles on whichever alleged psudosciences seem to merit it: for example, astrology, palmistry, creation science, SETI, and so on.

Other points remain at issue, but these five are not. I am suggesting that we can table discussion of the remaining controversial points for the time being in order to take action on the points that are not controversial. (Should there be a list? If so, what sort of list? What goes in and what stays out? - These are all matters that can be dealt with seperately.) In the meantime, all that is required is one or two or at most three examples that are clearly non-controversial.

I am sure that we can all agree that chemistry is not a psudoscience: that one is iron-clad. To contrast with it, can we not find an iron-clad example of a psudoscience? It is obvious that none of the currently controversial ones are suitable - the very fact that they are controversial shows that. So why not choose an extinct psudoscience as our example: one that did represent itself as a real science and has subsequently been completely discredited.

I'll suggest two or three possibilities in a moment, but please bear it in mind that the suitability of these particular examples is not relevant to the validity of my suggestion: in other words, if you think my examples are bad, do not discard the underlying validity of the idea unless and until we have considered and rejected all possible candidates for the role of non-contoversial psudoscience.

I'm sure that others will come up with better candidates, but, just to provide a starting point, what about phrenology? Or scientology? (Is that one completely dead yet?) Or astrology? (Yes, there are people who still believe in it, but not one of them is a scientist. Not the best choice, this one, but it would do at a pinch.) The history of science must be littered with former psudosciences that are now defunct. Which is the most suitable one to use as an example?

Tannin 12:43 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)

I can't follow you. Why should we limit ourselves to two or three examples? Your logic seems to be "As long as nobody is likely to show up and be offended by a particular example, it's a good one". Sorry, I don't buy it. We're not here to create a non-offensive wishy-washy encyclopedia, we're here to create a complete and accurate encyclopedia. That entails coverage of controversial subjects in the articles where they belong. Again, a detailed discussion may be reserved for the subject articles, but there's no reason not to have a summary of the opinions here ("most medical professionals believe .." etc.). This reminds me of the Richard Wagner discussion, where it was argued that Wagner's anti-Semitism should be discussed elsewhere because it would be too upsetting for Wagner fans .. --Eloquence 13:09 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)

I'm surprised, Eloquence. It's very simple propositon, after all. To explain the concept of "psudoscience" is one task, and that task (a) needs no more than two or three examples, and (b) requires that the examples cited be clear and accurate, and sufficiently uncontroversial that the mere mention of them does not invite partisans to wade in and obscure the real topic (what is a psudoscience) with their own agenda (why X is/is not a psudoscience).

This is not about being non-offensive, it's about being practical. I have no objection to having most medical professionals believe statements in a secondary part of the article (i.e., after point #1 in my list above is satisfied) - indeed, I think it is important that these things be covered - and I retain an open mind as to whether that purpose is best served by a single, two-part article or by two seperate articles. But it is an elementary rule of both good teaching and good writing that a subject should first be defined and introduced in as plain and simple a way as possible, free of distractions, and only then should the complexities be tackled.

Of those 5 numbered points I made above, which one do you not agree with? Tannin

Sorry, perhaps I misunderstood you. Yes, in the first part of the article, we should use non-controversial examples. But the question "is X pseudoscience or is it not" should be discussed for most X here until the list gets too long. --Eloquence

Excellent. I think we are making progress. I suppose the next question must be the more difficult one of how to decide if any given X ought to be listed. Is it better to select grounds for this a priori, or just on an ad hoc basis as each question arises? Tannin

First, we must note that nobody wants to be called a pseudoscientist -- this word can, by its nature, only be objectively applied by others. We must therefore look at the number of scientists who are not directly involved with a particular field and who express an opinion as to its status as pseudoscience. If a strong majority of these scientists feels that the field is pseudoscience, this should be mentioned in the article (preferably with references, such as database search results). In the case of SETI, for example, some astronomers feel that it is pseudoscience or questionable science, but these are a small minority. As to the inevitable question "why scientists", scientists are the largest group sharing a similar definition of pseudoscience and understanding of the scientific method; other groups such as religions are also relevant, but they typically do not use the term and, if so, with greatly varying definition. --Eloquence 14:24 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)

Acupuncture and lucid dreaming

Not to throw a monkey wrench into the works, but...

The statement that "acupuncture and lucid dreaming may be considered protosciences" is a little off the mark to me. Specifically, acupuncture makes two types of claims: (i) that the practice of acupuncture will "cure what ails ya"; and (ii) that the theory of acupunture (qi, etc.) is an accurate representation of physical reality. At first thought, it seems to me that the protoscientific aspect of acupuncture is only (i); this appears to be a set of claims which are testable (e.g., "if there is back pain, then accupuncture at points a, b, c, etc."), and may or may not turn out to be verifiable. But the vitalistic theory underpinning (ii) seems less likely to be testable; and in fact may already be refutable (e.g., the claim that there are energy nodes located in a series of chains within the body). It is in the latter area that people tend to claim that acupuncture is a pseudo (rather proto) science - evidence which contradicts the theory tends to be discounted, because the practice still works (according to some; I'm not arguing either way here!).

To contrast, radiation cancer therapy (as practiced by standard Western medicine) doesn't stand just on its observed efficacy in treating cancer - it is also accompanied by a theory of how it works, based on the scientific method as applied to medicine. Which is the "science", the practice of radiation therapy, or the theory which describes "why" it works?

How do we deal with issues of this nature? Is the area of interest to be taken as the results of the techniques, or the theory which purports to be proven by the results of the techniques?

To me, a better (i.e., less ambiguous) example of a protoscience might be the "membrane" theory of gravitation - it's a theory all right, but it is currently untestable (and may never be testable). OK, the example is a bit too abstract (OK, way too abstract!), but I hope the point gets across. (Psychotherapy a better example?) It's the "may" in "may never" that makes it a protoscience to me... Chas zzz brown 22:23 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

Good points Chas. However, using psychotherepy as an example would open a huge can of worms. This is not the place to go into detail, but essentially the effacacy of psychotherepy has been pretty well documented. Within the limits of study error, it seems to reliably score "success" values within a fairly narrow and readily reproducable range. On the face of things, this says that psychotherapy has had modest but demonstrable success. What is equally well documented but (for obvious reasons) less well-known, is that similarly measured "success" values of other non-chemical intervention methods fall into that same predictable range, and these "other" treatments include any number of clearly non-scientific approaches: palmistry, astrology, crystal therapy, and so on. Psychotherapy does work, with demonstrated success rates (as I recall) of the order of one-third, and there have been many examples of particularly effective psychotherapists who are able to improve on this figure reliably. The particular type of therapy practiced, however, does not predict any individual therapist's success rate. The bottom line is that most people are able to effect measurable improvements in their client's wellbeing at least some of the time, and that some people are able to effect improvements most of the time, but there is no particular evidence to show that the method they use matters a damn (be it Freudian psychoanalysis, Rogerian client-centred therapy, or astrology). The literature provides compelling evidence for only two observations: (a) that sitting down and talking to someone often helps, and that some people are better to talk to than others, and (b) that psychological therapists are very good at not reading the literature. Tannin 00:24 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

Perpetual motion

The last paragraph implies that the idea of perpetual motion involves a logical contradiction - which it doesn't. It goes against a well-tested scientific theory - thermodynamics - but it could plausibly be possible even though there's no accepted good reason for thinking so, hope excepted. As such it belongs to a quite different category to mathematical impossibilities like trisecting the angle. I'd call it plain pseudoscience, myself, though some might disagree.

Wolfram

I see that recently an anonymous user removed the Wolfram item from the list of pseudosciences, with the comment/question "Why does genius Wolfram appear on the list?". I plan to add it the entry back in, along with a bit more in the article on some additional criteria for pseudosciences. Some of the criteria by which Wolfram's A New Kind of Science qualify for pseudoscience status are grandiose and unsubstantiated claims, and bypassing the methods of science in the large, namely peer review of his ideas. Did you hear about his aborted contract to have his book published by Addison Wesley? He wanted the reviewers to sign a non-disclosure statement and promise not to study math or physics for the ensuing ten years. A real nut-case, genius or no. No, I did not get this from reading all 1280 pages of his tome. I have read a couple of scathing reviews in the Notices of the AMS and the Bulletin of the AMS. And Freeman Dyson's comment regarding ANKOS is "There's a tradition of scientists approaching senility to come up with grand, improbable theories. Wolfram is unusual in that he's doing this in his 40s." So there are more than a few professionals who consider this particular work to be pseudoscience. Grizzly

I would probably keep it off for different reasons. I would distinguish between pseudoscience and nut-case science. What distinguishes the latter would be the connection with a single individual. When he's gone his "science" will also be gone and draw no more interest than an historical curiosity. ☮ Eclecticology 17:07 27 May 2003 (UTC)

Heavy stuff! Does a lack of peer review make science pseudoscience? It shouldn't. Peer review is not part of the scientific method itself, it's a part of scientific professionalism, which some could argue, is itself a contradiction of terms. I think Wolfram does bonified theoretical experimentation, via the empirical method, which distinguishes himself from pseudoscientists. Eclecticology is right: history will sort-out the importance of his work. Wolfram's a bonified scientist with grandiose claims, nothing less. rmbh 19:47, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Peer review is a basic tenant of science. If you close off your theories to scrutiny, you are not acting in a scientific manner. A credible scientist willw ant their theory to be subjected to the scrutiny of other scientists. Think about it, reproducibility is a very basic requirement for scientific practice, but how can you reproduce something if you won't open your theory to scrutiny? Scientists will have no idea whether the results they got mean anything unless they know how the theory works. Nathan J. Yoder 00:58, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Defining pseudoscience

I am concerned about the posted definition of pseudoscience, that it claims some data is collected scientifically but was not actually performed via the scientific method. For example, don't the Princeton group PEAR or the Psychophysical Research labs (I can't find links to it) actually perform scientifically valid experiments? They and others have found both evidence supporting parapsychology and evidence undermining it. However, they are on controvertial topics, and therefore rather than being labeled protoscience, they are considered pseudoscience. I agree that the vast majority of pseudoscience does not stand up to the rigors of the scientific method (see Bad Astronomy (http://badastronomy.com) for extensive debunking), but isn't it possible that some DOES do things "right"? If they did, I would still call them pseudoscience.

In addition, I don't feel Occam's Razor is a good criterion for defining science/pseudoscience. Take the Big Bang for example: to quote John Dobson, is it more likely that "nothing made something from nothing (even a kindergartener knows that can't happen)" or that an omnipotent omniscient power did it? I think God is a "simpler" explanation, even though I don't believe in him! But perhaps this conversation treads the line between science and religion--which many philosophers, anthropologists and some educators feel are the same thing: "a systematic method of understanding the empirical world" (Sara Delamont).

--zandperl 13:22, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well you've hit on one of the problems of using Occam's razor as the criterion for demarcation. Simplicity is no easier to pin down than science. In fact it may be difficult to find a criterion that actually solves the problem, rather than just displacing it. Unbiased peer review also comes up every now and again as a possible candidate. In this case it is the concept bias that presents difficulties.

If I understand you correctly, you say that the subject matter of a research program can be the sole judge of things. It doesn't matter that the methods of science are bieng applied. How do you come to this conclusion? --213.113.78.12 18:52, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I guess it's a matter of peer review: the majority of the science community (if you define science in the Western academia-centric POV) considers certain fields to be included in science (such as physics, biology, chemistry, math) and other fields to be external to science (such as telepathy, UFOlogy, religion, spirituality). Some of these "external" fields the scientists do respect to a certain degree (religion, spirituality), while others they deride and label pseudoscience (telepathy, UFOlogy). As a current member of academia, I generally agree with those labels based upon the field of study. However, as an educator trying to make science more accessible to a diverse group of people, I am uncertain in the case where something like telepathy is studied in a scientific manner. This also brings up the issue of "who is a scientist?" and various forms of elitism, but probably this is not the proper forum for that. Maybe Talk:science education would be better? --zandperl 22:35, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

About Paul Feyerabend

I removed these words said about Feyerabend:

Feyerabend has been quite famous for his statements, comparing science to voodoo in example. His way of thinking boils down to: "Anything goes."

I have studied Feyerabend for many years and know of no instance where he compares science to voodoo. Feyerabend's thinking hardly ever "boils down". And when it did he was always ready to mix things up again. These two quotes show what I mean:

The only principle which does not inhibit progress is: anything goes.

'anything goes' is not a 'principle' I hold...but the terrified exclamation of a rationalist who takes a closer look at history.

Sorry, my professors have misled me. Please accept my humblest apologies. - Sigg3.net

Say two "Hail Mary"s and three "Our Father"s and you are forgiven :) More seriously, one of the problems with Feyerabend is that he is so difficult to pin down. You can find him arguing for relativism and against it. Elsewhere he defends astrology only to say that it "bores him to tears" later. He is overly argumentative, inconsistent, often rude. It all makes great reading. --Chris 11:42, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks again. Seems like interesting reading, I will check it out sometime. - Sigg3.net 20:59, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Evidence and mathematical proof

It says on this page that experimentalists, apparently as a class, think that experiment leads to an equal or higher standard of certainty than mathematical proof. Can someone support this claim? If not, it should be removed. Gene Ward Smith 10:16, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

experimentalists, inparticular the foremost ones, think that experiments leads to an equal or higher standard of certainty (as far as I can tell). "Support this claim"? See Nikola Tesla or Edwin H. Armstrong's view on the "superiority" of mathematics ... "Should be removed"? umm no ... Sincerely, JDR

The discussion of "proof" vs. "proof" is utterly pointless, allthough interesting. When it comes to experimentalists, I find that it goes without saying that they neglect other proofs than those you can observe through an experiment. - Sigg3.net 12:23, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The characterization of Marxism-Leninism as a Pseudoscience is based on the self-characterization of Marxism-Leninism as a science: for example, "The open abandonment by the Soviet revisionists of the scientific Marxist-Leninist concept of socialism comes out clearly, also, when they proclaim the development of the productive forces as the only decisive factor of its construction." and "The frontal attack of Soviet revisionism on the fundamental questions of Marxism-Leninism could not leave the theory and practice of scientific socialism untouched." [1] (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/albind/socalb1.htm) Fred Bauder 05:55, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)

Intuition

Re:

If the claims of a given pseudoscience can be experimentally tested it may be real science, however odd or astonishing. If they cannot be tested, it is likely pseudoscience. If the claims made are inconsistent with existing experimental results or established theory, it is often presumed to be pseudoscience. Conversly, if the claims of any given "science" cannot be experimentally tested it may not be a real science, however odd or astonishing.

The last sentence was recently added. I essentially have no complaint about it except for the last words. "Odd or astonishing" represents an immediate intuitive opinion of the subject. Thus we establish the scientific truth of something that would otherwise have been odd or astonishing, and disprove something that would have initially been intuitively acceptable. Eclecticology 00:12, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)

Biogeometry

I'm looking for skeptic info about biogeometry, negative green, Chaumery and De Belizal for w:nl:Biogeometrie and w:nl:negatief groen. Guaka 17:54, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Zionology

On Talk:Zionology, I've raised the question whether Zionology is properly included in the Category:Pseudoscience. I mention the point here in the hope that people who've thought about the definition of "pseudoscience" will contribute there. I can see good arguments each way. (The particular point at issue is whether to remove the Pseudoscience category listing from the Zionology article, so I suggest that responses should be on that Talk page rather than this one.) JamesMLane 20:22, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Some maintain that there is nothing scientific in any kind of "political science", thus it makes no sense to characterize any particular political study as a "pseudoscience".

The definition

I've changed a key element of the definition from "one or more of these characteristics" to "a combination of these characteristics". This removes the implication that any one of these alone is sufficient to term something a pseudoscience. I treat the word "claim" as somewhat equivalent to "theory". When a theory is first put forth it often lacks any kind of evidence, it can be nothing more than a call to others to look into the matter. Similarly, the application of Ockham's Razor may not be determinative, because there can be times when using it may be an unwarranted short-cut. The other three fare better as stand-alone characteristics. Eclecticology 23 July

In defense of Feyerabend (again)

If I'm not mistaken, almost the same note on Feyerabend was inserted a while ago:

Feyerabend also infamously claimed that witchcraft and astrology should be considered as scientific as any of the canon scientific disiciplines.

Since it has re-appeared I should perhaps explain a little before I remove it once more. First of all, it is simply not the case that Feyerabend made such a claim.

In the introduction to Against Method F. says that he thinks it "necessary to re-examine our attitude towards myth, religion, magic, witchcraft and towards all those ideas which rationalists would like to see forever removed from the surface of the earth ".

If one didn't read further it is possible to imagine that he went on to suggest that such things should should be considered scientific. This is not the case. What he does suggest is that science is not an autonomous form of reasoning:

"A scientist who wishes to maximize the empirical content of the views he holds and who wants to understand them as clearly as he possibly can must therefore introduce other views; that is, he must adopt a pluralistic methodology. [...] Knowledge so conceived is not a series of self-consistent theories that converges towards an ideal view; it is not a gradual approach to the truth. It is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible (and perhaps even incommensurable) alternatives, each single theory, each fairy tale, each myth that is part of the collection forcing the others into greater articulation and all of them contributing, via this process of competition, to the development of our consciousness." (Feyerabend, 1975, Against Method, p. 30)

In Three Dialogues on Knowledge, Feyerabend went to the defense of astrology in face of rationalist critcism. Here his fictional interlocutor is forced to admit that he has only a subjuctive bias against astrology and only rhetorical means of attacking it.

Claiming that witchcraft and astrology are scientific is, admittedly, the kind of thing Feyerabend might do. To my knowledge he stopped short of this claim. Chris 11:11, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In my reading of Against Method, it was not Feyerabend's purpose to say that witchcraft or astrology were scientific so much as to say that that philosophically speaking one could not easily demarcate between what is "scientific" and what is not. That is, there would be no rigid line separating the two -- which is not the same thing as saying that witchcraft is scientific (rather, it calls into question what makes something rigidly "scientific"). --Fastfission 19:23, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Demarcation section merged and extracted

I have merged the demarcation section with that on the Scientific Method article and extracted it to its own article: Demarcation Problem. I think that there is still some material to merge from The Criterion of Demarcation, but I'll wait to see if there are any complaints so far. -- Chris 08:27, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

All three demarcation sections are now merged from Pseudoscience, Falsifiability and the Scientific Method. -- Chris

SETI

RK removed a part of the article that mentioned exobiology, astrobiology, SETI, and CETI, stating that they are not pseudoscience... which is true, but that isn't what the article said of them. I think the point was made quite well that:

~~These fields are "young fields of science."~~
~~They are "sometimes frowned upon."~~
~~The point was driven home: "are not considered pseudoscientific or protoscientific by most scientists..."~~

I think the section served as a good disambiguation, pointing out that some newer fields of legitimate science are, indeed, sometimes frowned upon, and are often incorrectly labeled "pseudoscience" by those who might wish to criticize them.AdmN 14:58, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I like RK's last changes, good stuff. :) AdmN 17:27, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Editing

The community at www.randi.org has recently been notified of this article in a request for skeptical help, and that's why I at least am here.

I have been trying to revise the article to focus on the idea that pseudoscience is a property of the means of justifying or investigating a claim more than a property of a claim itself. Many of the fields called "pseudoscientific" here actually have been investigated sceintifically, but the scientific study fails to confirm the hypotheses. Also, the [i]sine qua non[/i] of a pseudoscience is that it be purported to be science without following the appropriate procedures.

Part of the conflation in the article is that the word "science" can mean several different things. The four that are most important here are 1) the scientific method, 2) the overall process of doing the scientific method with other people, 3) a body of work in which science 1 and 2 has been useful, and 4) a statement of accuracy produced by 1 and 2. It seems to me that 3 and 4 are very different from 1 and 2 and should be in separate threads. 1 and 2 science per se and apply everywhere science is used, while 3 and 4 describe particular applications of science. Pseudoscience seems to me, as a term, more related to 1 and 2. Usually, pseudoscience emphasized 2 without doing 1 properly, although sometimes there are social processes (such as allowing hostiles access to your data) that it fails to meet as well.

I noticed that there was a reference to cold fusion, but it seems to be gone. Cold fusion is actually a good example, because it's going through the phases of protoscience, junk science, science, and pseudoscience in roughly that order.

However, to talk about this, what the previous author said may be a good idea. Make two articles. Call them Article I and Article II.

Article I would be about what pseudoscience is, as contrasted to protoscience, junk science, and science. Article I could be made from a completely neutral point of view without using phrases like "some people believe." Examples, such as cold fusion, would only be used when they are useful as historical examples to compare and contrast. It would contain the main section without the harm part, the Classifying Pseudoscience section, about half the Pseudoscience and Protoscience section, the Demarcation section, and just a reference to pseudomathematics.

Article II would contain examples, a description of harm, the Examples, the other half of the Pseudoscience and Protoscience section.

Both will have to be rewritten and expanded so that they flow and make sense, but that's the easy part.

What do y'all think?

Neutrality Disputed

I'm still really new here, but I find it odd that an anon IP can come along and place the text "The neutrality of this article is disputed." on the article without discussing it here on the talk page or even providing any edit summary, so I've performed my first wiki "revert". Does anyone believe that the article, in its current form, needs a neutrality disclaimer? AdmN 04:16, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hit-and-run neutrality disputes like that don't count, reverting is fine. The place an article's neutrality might be disputed is here, on its talk page: a notice without a record of what's being objected to just doesn't cut it. (And no, I don't think it needs it either). - Nunh-huh 04:22, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Demarcation clarification needed

An addition to the demarcation section reads "Newton-Smith has criticized both approaches, arguing that only a rough heuristic is needed...". Which two approaches are refered to by "both approaches"? Since I couldn't find much about Newton-Smith on the web it might be an idea for those who know more about him to fill in a few details. In particular a short description of his "rough heuristic" would be appreciated. -- Chris 13:43, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Removed last para on demarcation:

"Fortunately, this is of minor relevance with respect to pseudoscience. The claimant has already presented the claim as scientific, but if the actual justification does not use the Scientific Method or ignores results produced by the Scientific Method, then it is pseudoscience."

After saying in the first paragraph that "a century of active dialogue" has failed to produce agreement on demarcation criteria, I don't think we can then glibly state that scientific method marks the boundry and all other discussion is of "minor relevance". Especially so since the nature and relevance of scientific method is also a topic of endless debate. -- Chris 14:04, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, no kidding. How'd that slip in there? --Fastfission 04:32, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Is this still an invalid NPOV alert, or have valid reasons come up? I figured I'd check before removing the NPOV alert... [[User:GregNorc|GregNorc (talk) ]]

United States Supreme Court decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals

"The Frye rule is now superseded by this decision. The Court's ruling in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals effectively establishes, as the law of the land, the Popperian principle of falsification as the determinant of scientific knowledge." [2] (http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume5/j5_3_2.htm). The source deals with the implications of this decision on expert witnesses in cases of child sexual abuse. (They are "experts", too often.) --Moonlight shadow 16:36, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Pseudomathematics

Should pseudomathematics be a subsection on this page? Doing so implies that it is a sub-category of pseudoscience, and perhaps that math is a sub-category of science, while I do not believe that either of those statements are generally accepted. I would suggest removing the subsection and listing the topic in the "see also" section. --zandperl 20:31, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I would argue that there is no such thing as pseudomathematics. The classifications of pseduomath stated in the article are all tasks undertaken by a crank. In that sense, I would create (or modify, haven't checked) the entry crank and list some common attributes instead.

Non-NPOV

This view-point is woven deeper into the fabric of the article than I'm able to untangle, but still, the article approaches pseudo-science as a negative of science. That's not NPOV. Basically, if pseudo-science can not be weighed on its own, which judging from the name is what I would expect, then it shouldn't be covered like this at all. Aliter 19:13, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Psuedoscience" is by definition a perjorative term, I'm not sure how to get around that -- the name itself virtually defines it as a "negative of science." One example might be the way scientific racism is handled, which tries (but perhaps does not accomplish) as an article to emphasize that the term is perjorative, that its application to specific people/work is often contested, and then explain what it means and the history of it. That is, one could rewrite the introduction to imply that the existence of "pseudoscience" at all is assuming a certain POV, rather than just postulating it as a given. --Fastfission 19:53, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That article is not about scientific racism, but rather: about the term "scientific racism". We're quite close to the border with Wiktionary here. It could still be an article, but is this the most appropriate title?
I agree the same approach could be used for pseudoscience, however, I think it would require more rewriting than just an introductory paragraph. Aliter 19:18, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Close to wiktionary or not, I'm not sure how one can write an article on a contested term which does not in some way acknowledge the history/use of that term itself, as a term... Just a comment. --Fastfission 19:38, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If it were not possible, that could be because it really was just a dictionary entry, rather than an encyclopedic one. Aliter 19:20, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK, so if we're going to change this to an article on the term "pseudoscience":

What does this mean for all other terms in wikipedia?
Will this still be the right title?

Aliter 19:20, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I think it would be just a mess to try and really historicize this term on here. I think a few paragraphs on the controversy of using the term, and whether demarcation is even possible, would probably be fine, and I think it already has that. I'm not really worried about it either way. I don't think it's possible to get away from the notion of pseudoscience as a negative or false science -- it's in the name by default. A non-pejorative name like "alternative ways of knowing" would have to be used if you wanted to avoid that connotation. Maybe a paragraph on just this question -- is pseudoscience a pejorative term? -- would be enough to balance things out? --Fastfission 15:21, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In my view, pseudoscience is used to classify a field whose practitioners are falsely trying to use the name science for their work without following the rules of science in an attempt to gain the prestige or clout of being a science. If the people in that field simply want to use the glamour of the name: science, without the rigor of the accepted scientific methods and techniques, then they are practicing pseudoscience and are in the LIE when they call their work science.

This article does a very good job of stating basically that. How can that be point of view? Perhaps those crying POV are practitioners of one of the fields labeled pseudoscience by the article and rather than properly defend (if they could) their field, they try to call the whole thing biased. If your favorite pseudoscience is listed here and you don't like that - then clarify the situation in that field, clean it up so it is not considered a pseudoscience, or pick up your marbles and go away.

The issue is clear, the definitions are clear, and I see no major problem with NPOV vs POV in this article. -Vsmith 17:00, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Misconceptions

I have just finished reading the comments on this talk page and most of the disagreements seem to result from the misconceptions about the definitions. I know that it is written in the article, but it seems to be confusing nonetheless, so I’ll try to briefly explain what I believe to cause the most problems.

First of all, “scientific” does not mean “true” and “pseudoscientific” does not mean “false.” Also, “unscientific” does not mean “false” and still it does not have to mean “pseudoscientific.”

Some fields of knowledge are scientific, others are not. The distinction is in the method, not in the truth or importance or value thereof. Those fields that are based on the scientific method are scientific, those that are not, are not. Additionally, some of the fields that are not scientific, claim to be scientific, and those are pseudoscientific. (I am not aware of any fields that falsely claim to not be scientific, but those would be cryptoscientific.) So it is a matter of two questions: (1) “is it scientific?” and (2) “does it claim to be scientific?”

Now, the difference between scientific and not-scientific fields is in the method, while the difference between not-scientific and pseudoscientific fields is only in the claim of being scientific, which itself does not affect the underlying concepts whatsoever, so any pseudoscientific field can be just as true/correct/insightful as any other explicitly not-scientific one, even though there might be no way to verify it scientifically—by definition. (I overuse the term “field” but that is because I try to avoid using terms such as “theory” and “hypothesis” which both have strict scientific definitions.)

For example, creationism or intelligent design may be true, even being examples of pseudoscience. By not following the Occam’s razor they may be suboptimal as scientific hypotheses, by not providing verifiable predictions they may be irrelevant from the scientific point of view, by not being falsifiable they may be meaningless from the scientific point of view, et cetera, but that doesn’t mean they are not “true”—whatever that means—and furthermore, what may be even more important here, if they didn’t claim to be scientific in the first place, they would not be examples of pseudoscience, but rather questions of philosophy, theology and religion.

On the other hand, we can have, and in fact we do have, purely scientific theories which are false, which we know to be false, and which we even still use because they are good approximations of reality, like the classical Newtonian mechanics.

The point is that “pseudoscience” per se is not a pejorative term, at least not by definition. Anything that is pseudoscientific can be true and correct in every aspect except the fact whether it follows the scientific method or not, which itself is quite an objective fact, for those rules to follow are rather straightforward. Nothing that doesn’t claim to be scientific can ever be called pseudoscientific, so it is fairly easy to avoid being called pseudoscientific in the first place.

Now I’ve read what I’ve written above and I can only hope that it would decrease the amount of confusion instead of increasing it even further. If I have accidentally written anything worth including in the article, which I somehow doubt, please feel free to copy it. Rafał Pocztarski 10:01, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the article does give that impression of good and bad study, in my opinion, hence my doubts. Also, if that is the definition of science, it ought to be very prominent in that article, which it currently is not. As it is, this gives an impression of circular definition. Aliter 23:02, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I assume that you are referring to the way how I have described science in the text above: “Those fields that are based on the scientific method are scientific, those that are not, are not.” It would be a circular definition if the scientific method itself was defined as a method used in science, but in fact it is a strict set of rules to follow. Rafał Pocztarski 11:08, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that the difference between pseudoscience and science -- the demarcation problem -- it not a rigorously justifiable problem; hence the collapse in philosophical circles of Popper and Lakatos' positivism. Pseudoscience may not be, by definition, a perjorative term, but it is certainly taken as one. Nobody is proud to do pseudoscience -- everybody wants to say they do science. To try and define what is science and what is not by the method is an approach to science only shared by laymen and undergraduate scientists, and to examine the history of science is to find exceptions to every rule counted among "science" (i.e. Paul Feyerabend). Numerous sociological and anthropological, much less historical, studies of scientific practice (i.e. Sharon Traweek's well-respected study on particle physics) have shown time and time again that even the practicing scientists know that the "scientific method" is a way to explain your results to the public more than it is a research program.

All of which is said by me not to denegrate science nor to be postmodern or anything like that, but to emphasize that the strong push to label something as psuedoscience (as a rigorous category) is generally only undertaken by those who ascribe to a particular brand of positivism, one not even ascribed to by most senior scientists in their field (much less historians, sociologists, or anthropologists of science). That is, "pseudoscience" is not a simple category which can be assigned based on the characteristics of the research in question.

Personally, I feel that in an operational sense, what is "science" is what scientists communicate with, what is non-science or often pseudoscience is what scientists do not communicate with. The Cold fusion practitioners became psuedoscientists when they stopped being talked to by the scientists. For this model "scientist" refers to someone with recognized academic/industrial/military credentials as a "scientist" and nothing more. That's my personal take on it, anyway -- that is not something to be included in the article, of course.

Now the question arises: what sort of article should Wikipedia have on the subject? Personally, I think the current one stands just fine, if it is made clear from the beginning that pseudoscience is a contested category in and of itself (much less the assignment to sciences). I think it would be wonderful to have a history of the term but I don't know if such things have been written on before (OED says the term was first used in the mid-19th century, which feels about right to me, as this is the period when scientists became extremely anxious about their own subjectivity for the first time and began setting up elaboratorate technical and philosophical mechanisms to reinforce their notions of objectivity, to variable effect).

Despite all of this writing, I'm not actually that concerned on a personal level with this, but I can understand how someone would find the Wikipedia entry to be have a very positivistic slant to it; but part of that is because the notion of pseudoscience, taken seriously, itself has a very positivistic slant to it. --Fastfission 15:09, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Exobiology

Exobiology has no place in this article - it is no more a protoscience than the study of DNA (both begun around the same time) and it certainly isn't pseudoscience. It's just applying our knowledge of extremophiles to known planetary conditions, and has been studied in situ by the likes of Viking, and was the subject of the recent Beagle 2 mission. Future missions on the subject include JIMO. Study on Earth continues apace. Dan100 23:00, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

The question in the context here is not whether it is protoscience but whether it is regarded by some as protoscience -- and I think that certain approaches to it are, in the way that certain forms of cryptozoology are as well. I'm not passing my own judgment on it, the question is whether or not it is sometimes put into that category, and I'm pretty sure that it is. This article is not the place to debate the merits of such classification, though -- its inclusion in this article is only to indicate that it is sometimes questioned on its methodology. There are quite a few non-fringe people who think that speculative observationary sciences of this sort do not conform to the ideals of the scientific method and would thus be considered a form of proto- or pseudoscience.

As I understand it, the designation of protoscience is not about the age of a field, but about its epistemic status; about whether or not it has the conceptual tools developed to be considered a "true" science. Do I think this is a useful distinction? Not entirely, but that's not really the point. Evolutionary psychology is often included in the same distinction. Again, not necessarily included by me (this is not about what I, or you, think are protosciences). Whether it is supported by NASA influences this distinction depends on whether you take a philosophical approach to the classification scheme (is it based on methodology?) or an operational one (is it based on whether it is done by authorized "scientists"?). I think most people talking about pseudoscience do so with the former (personally, I like the latter, but this article isn't about my view of things). Does it matter that it has been along for 40 years and that you have studied it for two of them? Not by a philosophical definition of pseudoscience or protoscience. The hardcore critic (e.g. Feyerabend) would say, "Alchemy was studied for three times that long, yet it is still methodologically poor today!"

Astrobiology is listed both on the pages for protoscience and List of protosciences, by the way. I don't have terribly strong feelings on this either way, I have to admit, but it seems more accurate to include it on the list of "thought of by others to be" than to remove it simply because you think it isn't a protoscience. The question that is posed is: "Do some people regard exobiology/astrobiology as being in part or wholly a protoscientific enterprise?" I think the answer is "yes", but I'm most definitely willing to listen to other opinions. --Fastfission 02:18, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think, considering that, we should leave it out of this page and leave it on the Protoscience page. But please don't compare it to something like cryptozoology - do a biological sciences degree at a university and you will quite likely study exobiology at some point (how I experienced it). As I said, it's just comparing the known conditions on other planets (as measured by telescopes or probes) to the extreme environments on Earth (eg deep underground, frozen lakes, ocean vents, geyesers) where microbes (somehow) exist. It's not particularly fanciful, and I don't think it's even slightly close to being pseudoscience. Protoscience maybe though.

I also recieved a message from COMPATT stating that exobiology's case to be regarded as mainstream science would be strengthened if in-situ study of ET life occured - again let me stress that such study was the mission of Beagle 2 and the Viking program. Viking's results were inconclusive, and sadly Beagle 2 never reached the surface of Mars, so yes it's yet to happen, many many hundreds of millions of pounds/dollars have been spent on such efforts!

Fastfission, I note the exobiology page makes no mention of extremophiles - I'll update that later :) Dan100 17:37, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Added an example

"by asserting claims or theories without first verifying them in experiments"

I think this describes a subsection of this subject not mentioned. The wording seems ackward to me though, if anyone can make it sound better, by all means, edit it. [[User:GregNorc|GregNorc (talk) ]]

I'm not sure asserting theories without experimenting is something only pseudoscience does. One could easily interpret that in a way which would make Einstein a pseudoscientist, unless I'm missing something. It seems to miss the fact that not all science is experiment. --Fastfission 13:27, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Adding controversial examples does not help people understand pseudoscience. If you wish to argue that some particular theory is pseudoscience you should do it on the page relevant to it, not here. DJ Clayworth 22:05, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

NPOV tag

I put an NPOV tag on this because I believe the introduction did not make any attempt to inform the reader that this is a value-laden label. Black-and-white. Us-against-them. Over-simplification. Kind of like "racist". The person applying the label to someone else considers it valid, but the person to whom the label is applied can never agree with it. Shouldn't the intro say something about this aspect?

For an example of how this has been treated elsewhere in Wikipedia, see Racism. Quoting from there (replace racist with pseudoscientist): ". . . there have been few in developed nations who describe themselves as racist, so that identification of a group or person as racist is nearly always controversial." Something like that seems to be missing in the intro to this article. I have made a poor attempt to reflect this in the first paragraph; I'm sure someone else can do it better. --Smithfarm 10:31, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In case somebody immediately reverts my edits, here is my (admittedly inadequate) version of the first paragraph:

Pseudoscience is a term used by some advocates of classical science when referring to alternative and/or disputed fields of scientific endeavor. The term is generally applied to a body of knowledge that, in the opinion of the user, only purports to be scientific or supported by science but fails to comply with the scientific method. Pseudoscience, these advocates say, is a kind of counterfeit or masquerade of science that makes use of some of the superficial trappings of science but does not involve the substance of science.

I would add a sentence to the effect that "No one who has been labeled an advocate of, or believer in, pseudoscience is known to have agreed with the use of that term to describe their work." --Smithfarm 10:41, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that lets pseudoscience off way too easily. It usually isn't a personal opinion that makes something a pseudoscience; it's a complete lack of correct application of the scientific method. To use one example, the non-existence of perpetual motion machines isn't an opinion, it's a consequence of the laws of thermodynamics. And whenever anyone comes up to you and claims to have a perpetual motion machine, you know they are not acting scientifically; no opinion is required. The only thing anyone needs to do to escape the label of pseudoscience is to support the rigorous appication of the scientific method.

Atlant 11:32, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So let me get this straight. You agree that Pseudoscience is a label, but oppose any mention of the fact in the article? Why not simply state that "Pseudoscience is a label used to refer to any supposedly scientific endeavor that does not rely on rigorous application of the scientific method"? Why the value-laden language? --Smithfarm 11:58, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That would be an acceptable statement. My main point is/was that whether something is pseudoscience or not isn't an opinion (in contrast to your originally-proposed lede). Something is simply pseudoscience when its proponents refuse to allow it to be tested by the scientific method.

Atlant 12:09, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Here's my suggestion:

A pseudoscience is any body of knowledge purported to be scientific or supported by science but which is judged by the mainstream scientific community to fail to comply with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is seen as a kind of counterfeit or masquerade of science that makes use of some of the superficial trappings of science but does not involve the substance of science.

I think it is important to use "mainstream scientific community" as our demarcation principle. As the article clearly states, there is no hard-and-fast way to tell whether something is pseudoscience or not from a philosophical point of view. From a practical point of view, though, it is easy to say that "pseudoscience is what the mainstream scientific community says it is," which I think is also the most accurate way of defining it. This is more complex than saying it is simply an "opinion", but also lets us avoid pretending it is just a simple rule which can be applied (which anybody well versed in the history and philosophy of science will realize is not the case). I also think adding the line that those who are labeled it usually reject the label is worth adding as well. I say this as someone who has no tolerance for pseudoscience, but recognize that what is science and what isn't is a historically contested problem which has little chance to be resolved along purely philosophical lines. Hence I prefer a pragmatic approach, "pseudoscience is what scientists say it is", which tells you exactly who is doing the labeling and what they think it means (and one is free to question that, which I think is just fine). --Fastfission 16:47, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That sounds fine to me.

Atlant 17:18, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think Fastfission's proposed solution would resolve the POV issues I had. Thanks. --Smithfarm 20:59, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I tried to brush up the entire intro along these lines. Let me know if anybody thinks I went too far either way. --Fastfission 03:26, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

User:Barnaby dawson has just changed the "universal" objection of people whose work is labelled as pseudoscience to "almost always" object. Is that justified? Does Barnaby dawson know of anyone who doesn't object to the label being applied to their work? --Smithfarm 08:52, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Justified. Universal objection is way too broad. Do you know that all object? Don't even know if almost always can be verified, certainly universal can't be. Maybe should read presumably almost always object. No? Vsmith 13:14, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion: with few or no exceptions instead of almost always. Since neither of us knows whether all object, but we presume that very few do not object, if any. --Smithfarm 18:35, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Anyone for Newton Smith?

I will now remove the reference to Newton Smith that reads,

"Newton-Smith has criticized both approaches, arguing that only a rough heuristic is needed to be able to do real science."

The removed sentence has been there for a while, but no extra information has emerged. If anyone feels strongly about Smith's contribution, then this might be a good time to begin an article on him, or add something more substantial here. Chris 08:35, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Category:Pseudoscience

FYI, the Category:Pseudoscience has been nominated for deletion. Editors wishing to register an opinion on one side or the other should make their comments promptly. Thanks, -Willmcw 02:59, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Psychoanalysis?

Psychoanalysis is listed as an example of a pseudoscience, but I think it's a poor choice. I can understand how one might feel that it doesn't fully conform to the scientific method, but psychoanalysis doesn't really purport to be a fully scientific field for the most part. If there's no objection, I'll remove it from the list. Deleuze 14:08, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Unscientific does not mean false

User:Rfl writes above: "“scientific” does not mean “true” and “pseudoscientific” [or unscientific] does not mean “false.”" I, and it seems User:Atlant, agree the definition given in the intro is incomplete without this clarification of 'pseudoscience.' It is a popular misconception that pseudoscientific means false, but it seems more accurate to define it as (to put it simply) 'unscientific but claiming to be scientific.'--Nectarflowed ^T 02:40, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Anything can fit the claim that "it doesn't mean it's false!" Despite the lack of evidence, all religions can say "it doesn't mean we're wrong." This is also the case with logical fallacies: although the means to get to the conclusions are completely illogical, "it doesn't mean the conclusions are false!" This clarification probably should be in the article, but not in the lead section, since it's not in the lead sections for similar articles. God doesn't say in the lead section: "Despite the lack of any physical evidence of His existence, it doesn't mean there is no God!" Or, along more similar lines, fallacy doesn't include such a clarification in its lead section. --brian0918 ™ 03:05, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with brian -- I don't think it is necessary. The introductory line as it is which defines it as "Pseudoscience refers to any body of knowledge or practice which purports to be scientific or supported by science but which is judged by the mainstream scientific community to fail to comply with the scientific method," is fine as it is for an introduction -- it doesn't engage with the question of truth or false at all which I think is the correct stance. However if people really thought this was necessary to emphasize, I think a better approach might be to modify this line:

As the term pseudoscience has negative connotations, those who are labelled as practicing or advocating it almost always reject this classification, and often the distinction itself.

into:

The term "pseudoscience" has negative connotations, implying generally that things so labeled are false and deceptive (though a strict interpretation of the term would not necessarily have it mean either). As such, those who are labelled as practicing or advocating a "pseudoscience" almost always reject this classification, and often the distinction itself.

What do you think? I think that is the better place to put a statement like that, not right in the intro, for the reasons brian gave, and because it the question of truthness/falseness is a complicated one and should be handled a little more carefully than saying "it doesn't necessarily mean it is false". The term almost certainly, however, implies deceptiveness ("fake science") if you accept the classification. I don't think people are confused when they think being called "pseudoscience" implies falseness -- it's often a deliberate association! --Fastfission 02:03, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I like your version... go with it. --brian0918 ™ 02:51, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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