Talk:Pseudoscience

Comment

This is potentially a very controversial article, trimmed from a Wikipedia article that has long suffered from disputes, mainly arising from its use as a vehicle to attack particular subjects or fields regarded as discreditable by some, but as respectable by others.

Articles should not seek to promote or to disparage particular beliefs, only to accurately report the opinions of notable authorities when argued carefully in strong, verifiable sources. This article is about the concept of Pseudoscience, and the difficulties of distinguishing pseudoscience from "real" science, and should not get sidetracked into judgements on any area of science or alleged pseudoscience except insofar as is essential to illuminate the problems encountered in trying to make a rigorous distinction. In doing so, the article should not appear either to endorse or to rebutt the proposition that any given area is "pseudoscientific", as a key issue in dispute is whether the term has more than perjorative content. As an on-line encyclopedia, sources should, wherever possible, be verifiable online (e.g. in PubMed abstracts), and some of the present sources could be improved upon in this regard especially. However some major sources are prominent books by Popper, Kuhn and others, and their use is unavoidable; key elements of their content may be available as quotations in secondary sources on-line; if so please add these. The article is still very raw, and I think that neither the views of Popper or those of Kuhn are treated adequately. There should be a section on "popular" conceptions of what constitute pseudoscience; this will be difficult to write neutrally. Gareth Leng 16:20, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

Yes, it is for that reason I was surprised it was selected as one of the pilot articles. Getting hands dirty early I see. :) I'm not sure quoting a dictionary as the first line of an encyclopedia article is something we want to encourage doing either. -- Andrew Lih 04:54, 29 October 2006 (CST)

I think you're correct that the WP article has been used for that purpose (for quite some time, I might add), and you're also quite correct that using it for that purpose is strikingly contrary to the neutrality policy. --Larry Sanger 20:45, 18 January 2007 (CST)

Good point, and fixed?Gareth Leng 08:33, 29 October 2006 (CST)

What concerns me a little is the relatively detailed discussion of 1 & only 1 subject in the last part, psychology, As the article reads, it could be judged as intended to imply that

this is where most of them are found. It may well be that a great many are to be found there, but a discussion of several fields would seem more reasonable. If there's need for a "pseudoscience in psychology" article, so be it, but that is really going to get controversial, It is not my view, but I've known people to say it includes the entire subject. DavidGoodman 23:01, 1 November 2006 (CST)

I think you're absolutely right, and that section is inappropriate and should just be deleted.Gareth Leng 03:31, 3 November 2006 (CST)

Excellent work! This article has transformed from a wholly pejorative embarrassment to a truly education experience. Makes me proud to be a part of it, but all I could find was a missing period;) Good job Gareth. --D. Matt Innis 07:54, 12 December 2006 (CST)

This article is a little weird. A lot of it really belongs under "philosophy of science." It goes on and on about that, but I saw only a handful of references of well-known pseudo-sciences. Wouldn't the reader be better served by a list of oh, five to ten representative ones, along a description of any debate over them that seems especially noteworthy?

I nominate: astrology (gotta have that one), alternative medicine (maybe with subsidiary examples like chiropractic, prayer healing, or acupuncture), ancient astronauts, and ESP / psychic research. Oh, and please trim down the other stuff, and make it not so preachy. And can we get some kind of timeline showing various skeptical campaigns? I know there were anti-Spiritualism activists in between the World Wars. Bei Dawei

Yes, this article is intended as a serious part of the phlosophy of science, and to address the question of whether the term pseudoscience has any "scientific" content at all. It is not intended to pass judgement on whether any particular subject has valid foundations. The list you give all have problems; astrology is not really capable of being confused with science so is scarcely pseudoscience except as a mere pejorative, it has been used extensively as an example, and analysing it as an example has shown how even in this clear cut case of utter rubbish, it's hard to make an objective case distinguishing it from other areas of legitimate science. Chiropractic is a licensed and regulated profession with in some areas a good record of efficacy, and a basis that is not really pseudoscience more "fuzzy" science; acupuncture theory isn't scientific at all in the conventional sense, but again acupuncture has a good record of efficacy in some conditions; prayer healing and spiritualism as religion are outside the domain of science; astronaut stuff is light popular rubbish, and is not treated seriously enough for any authoratative criticism to be citable. The main skeptical campaign that I know of was the AMA crusade against chiropractic which ended in the Wilk case, where the Supreme Court ruled that the AMA had operated a dishonest campaign in defense of its members interests that involved suppressing evidence of the effectiveness of chiropractic. This is covered in the chiropractic article in detail, but is not really relevant here as the issues in the end were about anti competitive selective use of evidence by the AMA, not about weaknesses in the foundations of chiropractic.

Overt debates about the pseudoscientific nature of particular areas don't really feature much in the serious literature except in the context of the demarkation problem (within philosophy), except in some areas of psychology, where these are largely internal debates. Partly, this is because many critics of particular areas simply do not use the term pseudoscience, partly because of the lack of an effective operational definition of pseudoscience, and partly because the pejorative overtones detract from objectivity.

The areas where there has been a lot of serious debate about the pseudoscientific status of a field are 1) intelligent design 2) psychoanalysis and psychotherapies 3) IQ science

Other areas include the social sciences, and nutritional science. I think though that serious critiques belong in their respective articles, not here, which is about the concept of pseudoscience Gareth Leng 06:22, 17 January 2007 (CST)

My point is that there is already an article on Philosophy of Science--this one shouldn't duplicate that.

Point taken re ancient astronauts, which isn't even really about science. (I thought of them because of Carl Sagan.) No objection to the three fields you mention.

"Alternative Medicine" (including chiropractic) is often discussed in medical circles, though perhaps not among philosophers of pseudo-science. I'm not proposing that the article should condemn it, only that it should receive mention as a prominent area of discussion. Bei Dawei

There are certainly overlaps with this and Philosophy of Science, and Scientific Method and also Junk science, hence the plan at the top of this Talk page. The concept of pseudoscience is a marginal issue in the philosophy of science. I have some problems with the content that you have added, mainly in that the discussion of the concept of pseudoscience makes it clear that it is not a well formed objective concept; the argument for example of McNally, Lauder, Feyeraband and Tirozzi is essentially that calling anything pseudocience presupposes that there is an objective demarkation between science and non science, and this is what is deeply disputed. This is NOT a defence of bad science, rather it is to say that something might properly be criticised as illogical, contrary to known facts, vague, incoherent, fraudulent etc, all of which can be documented objectively, but the term pseudoscience is merely an arbitrary judgement based on presumed authority; it's a label guaranteed to inflame but with no content. The problem with any examples therefore is that to sustain a critique on them which is fair requires documentation of these specific criticisms - but these criticisms still do not themselves qualify as criteria for calling something pseudoscience. Now a huge number of things have been called pseudoscience by somebody or other at some time or other in popular sources, and cataloguing these is a bit like writing an article on intelligence with lists of people who've ever been called clever or stupid. In other words I feel that there is an arbitrary editorial element in choosing which to discuss. For the serious cases, we'd be duplicating the critiques on theeir articles (intelligent design for example). I think there might be a virtue in taking one or two examples like phrenology and astrology and analysing the reasons why people have tried to label these as pseudoscience and the difficulties in so doing - philosophers have found it very difficult to find objective reasons for calling even astrology pseudoscience, while calling phrenology pseudoscience seems an ahistorical fallacy. What I'd like to suggest therefore is that this article should be restricted to the plan outlined at the top of the page, and that the bulk of your changes be translated to a rewrite of the potentially overlapping article on Junk science; I think that we we'd be developing separate themes, not designing a rather ungainly camel? What do you think? :)Gareth Leng 05:31, 18 January 2007 (CST)

I have to agree with Gareth in that the examples seem somewhat arbitrarily chosen. I also agree that it's quite important that they not be thus arbitrarily chosen. The only nonarbitrary way to choose more than a few examples, and the best way to choose those examples probably, is to consult many texts that discuss pseudoscience, and see what the main examples used by them are. Then you can say: "In discussions of pseudoscience, the following examples come up frequently: ..." I don't know enough about discussions of pseudoscience and the popular field called "skepticism" to be able to have any opinion on what the examples ought to be.

I must also agree with Bei, however, that the philosophical discussions that go rather deeply into the pure question what "science" means, while obviously directly relevant to the topic of "pseudoscience" (you can't say what spurious science is without defining "science"), might more properly belong in the science article. What seems to be wanted, in my humble nonexpert opinion, are the highlights and conclusions of the in-depth discussions of the nature of science, just enough to make sense of claims made about pseudoscience. --Larry Sanger 22:48, 18 January 2007 (CST)

"For example, the nineteenth-century Western traditions of osteopathy and chiropractic champion certain practices which the mainstream rejects as ineffective, and inconsistent with scientific understandings" No this is a misrepresentation of both. Both are clearly recognised as effective in specific conditions (by for example, summaru statements by NIH, advisory bodies, sstematic reviews etc); both had historical origins that were every bit as eccentric as much of the conventional medicine of the time, and both have plausible but disputed rationale for treatment; there is nothing inconsistent with scientific understanding about either and I don't think I've ever heard that claimed, although I have seen it argued (within the chiropractic literature) that some of the concepts used are pseudoscientific in being vague and imprecise. We really have to be careful in this article, because of the danger that it might express the arrogance of experts. Gareth Leng 12:52, 19 January 2007 (CST)

Hear, hear, Gareth. Experts can indeed be quite arrogant, as can their less-expert followers, and in this article and some others, we can easily find ourselves branded as arrogant elitists if we don't do it right. What's ironic, though, is that you, Gareth, tenured professor at a major research institution, and I, editor-in-chief of this project which is sometimes falsely accused of "elitism," are the ones so strongly insisting on this point--against the unfair and arrogant attitude of the Wikipedia article!!! --Larry Sanger 22:45, 19 January 2007 (CST)

Well said, Gareth, I would love to sit in on one of your lectures. I understand that you have been known to have standing ovations. Now I know why. --Matt Innis (Talk) 23:18, 20 January 2007 (CST)

Chiropractic and PS

Hey guys, while I don't consider myself an expert in PS, I do consider myself an expert in chiropractic and I suppose as long as it is going to get an honorable mention here, you probably could use my input. Anybody have any verifiabble and reliable sources that state it is pseudoscience? Otherwise, the pejorative nature of the term pseudoscience seems a little harsh. Maybe some clarification at least? --Matt Innis (Talk) 08:37, 18 January 2007 (CST)

Whether it *is* a pseudoscience, is an opinion (which I happen to accept). But as a matter of *fact*, it is often *called* a pseudoscience. For that matter, almost every form of CAM has been so labeled. If you just want a citation, I could always hunt up something from the AMA statements from those trials--Bei Dawei

I do appreciate your opinion, but I am also looking for the reliable and verifiable source that says the same thing. In the trial you mention, the AMA admitted that they covered up research that chiropractic was beneficial, I'm not sure that would make them reliable considering at that they were direct competitors at the time. Anything more recent? I think that if we could at least clarify that it is the old Innate Intelligence concepts that were PS would work for me. --Matt Innis (Talk) 22:34, 18 January 2007 (CST)

Some comments on the article at present

"Pseudoscience--combining the Greek pseudo (false) and the Latin scientia (knowledge)--refers to a variety of theories and claims..." OK, this is total nit-picking, and I may be off-base, so take this with a grain of salt. We bold all article topics. Therefore, to mention rather than use the word in a title, it should also be italicized: Pseudoscience. The problem with that is that it looks jarring; people might think the article is about a book or a movie called Pseudoscience. To avoid this, then, we might change it to read: "Pseudoscience...is any of a variety of theories and claims..." But now the problem is that, clearly, we don't want to use the word, because it's a biased epithet; that's why you wrote "refers to" in the first place. It's best, with such epithets, to mention them, not use them. OK, so we can say: "Pseudoscience...is a matter of some controversy. The word pseudoscience is used to refer to any of a variety of theories and claims..." There must be a better way in any case.

OK, more later; must get pizza. --Larry Sanger 19:47, 18 January 2007 (CST)

Well, I think I'll make a few edits myself--see what you think. --Larry Sanger 20:44, 18 January 2007 (CST)

Uh, okay. You could always use quotation marks.

By the way, have we decided not to hyphenate, or did this happen more or less at random? --Bei Dawei

Compare [1] and [2], and also [3] and [4]

In popular usage, "pseudoscience" may also encompass certain theories and claims related to history (e.g., the idea that the Great Pyramid was built by space aliens) or religion (e.g., Spiritualist mediumship).

I don't think this sentence pays its own way. It may be true, but it isn't worth a special mention in the opening paragraph(s). --Larry Sanger 21:18, 18 January 2007 (CST)

My point is that the category of "pseudoscience" inevitably blurs into subjects that are not strictly scientific. For example mediums, psychics, and fortune-tellers are not merely persons championing unorthodox claims about psi, but often also religious figures. Discussions of prehistory (creationism, Atlantis) inevitably shade into discussions of history. And the same group of skeptics who go after psychics, also go after Graham Hancock. --Bei Dawei

OK, I agree with that. But then why not at the same time say that as a concept it is similar to "pseudo-psychology" or "pseudo-philosophy" or any number of other "pseudo"-field epithets--as well as "revisionist history" and so forth, even "cults" for religion (called "sects" in Europe)? If you're going to have a comparison to accusations of non-genuineness in one field, why not broaden the discussion altogether? Probably a good idea. --Larry Sanger 22:16, 18 January 2007 (CST)

No, no--that's much too broad. Think of it this way. The claim that I am able to levitate is simultaneously religious and scientific. It is difficult to distinguish attacks on one, from attacks on the other. Prayer is a little more iffy, since most pray-ers don't make definite claims for it, but prayer studies seem to belong on the same fringe of science / pseudoscience (and attract the same discourse, on both sides).

I would say that for practical purposes, the category of "pseudoscience" blurs into the "pseudofactual" (or unscholarly) in general. For example, Graham Hancock says that the Great Pyramid is a lot older than people think, based on astro-archaeology. (Circa 10,000 BC it would have lined up with Sirius, or some such.) This attracts criticm not only from geologists and astronomers, but historians and archeologists.

On another subject, I think accusations of "pseudoscience" cover several different categories. Some theories claim to be "scientific" but never had a chance, like Time Cube. Others (like cold fusion, or the hollow earth) once seemed plausibly scientific, but later turned out not to be. --Bei Dawei

I think there are too many lengthy quotes in the philosophy section, which should be paraphrased, perhaps. --Larry Sanger 22:37, 18 January 2007 (CST)

Yeah. Plus a lot of it tends to be much too wordy. Try to be concise rather than chatty. (I mean there, not here!) Bei Dawei

OK I've cut the longer quotes, trimmed others and elsewhere. On the preceding sections we must have proper authoritative citations, to explicit statements by notable, relevant authorities. So for example, is there a serious physicist who has prperly argued the case that the work of Pons and Fleischmann pseudoscience? Here for example is a case of refuted science not pseudoscience, but all science in the end is refuted or superceded. I am not happy with this article merely repeating prejudices expressed on websites and in popular media. Cold fusion is an idea that is apparently flawed, but that it was taken seriously enough to be published in Nature indicates it was taken pretty seriously at the time. Everything that is now known to be wrong can be said to be not plausibly scientific - but the pace of scientific change means that in biology for example, textbooks are out of date in containing numerous errors of fact about as soon as they are published. So this is the issue I have a real problem with. It's just too easy to call anything you don't like pseudoscience, and that sounds like a serious charge, but is it? What exactly do you mean by it? Gareth Leng 12:44, 19 January 2007 (CST)

The truth is that I don't know exactly what pseudoscience is, but I can cite mechanisms that are recurrently used by those who use science in inappropriate ways to make a case. For example, there's the "true but not relevant" category: in support of telepathy, vast numbers of details about brain anatomy and function are given , none that directly support that the brain has a telepathic function, but all that do show that some of the peripheral functions that might be involved in telepathy (or communication with the dead, or...fill in the blank) exist: the brain can register phenomenom occuring outside the body, the brain can process data; there are language centers in the brain, a human can "think out loud" and that during this process there are correlations evident on pet scan and EEG, etc. This kind of deluge of scientific data is typically combined with statements that appeal to the common wisdom: like only a small fraction of the human brain is used.Finally, the point is made that many phenomena in neuroscience are hard to prove, along with the inflexibility of scientists or prejudice of scientists against those who respect the paranormal. So it's not that I'd say pseudoscience is anything you don't like, but it is making a claim and then using science to back it while at the same time avoiding the kind of logical proofs that science demands, instead obscuring the issue with dazzling facts that are not relevant, even if they are true. Nancy Sculerati MD 23:14, 19 January 2007 (CST)

Excellent rewriting of the opening paragraphs, Nancy! --Larry Sanger 11:11, 20 January 2007 (CST)

Yeah, I see the same problem of demarcation. "Pseudoscience" kind of lumps together

(1) fields (astrology, psi research, TCM or chiropractic) which are claimed as science, but rejected by the scientific mainstream. (Notice however that we never call "political science" or "social science" pseudosciences, even when we don't accept them as scientific)

(2) particular claims like Bigfoot (or is he a part of a would-be scientific field called "Cryptobiology"?), of which

(2a) Some never had a chance (like Time Cube), while

(2b) Others were considered, but rejected (like the hollow earth theory)

(2c) Some still have a chance (like Bigfoot)

and we could also distinguish between

(2-i.) Those which were "good science," but happened to be wrong (e.g. ether or aether), and

(2-ii.) Those which were accused of being "bad science" (e.g. cold fusion)

(3) scientific criticisms of extra-scientific claims (such as the efficacy of prayer) which, if true, would have scientific implications.

And I still think "pseudoscience" also sometimes expands to include the "pseudoscholarly."

Maybe the article should make these distinctions. Are categories like these discussed in the philosophy of science literature on pseudoscience? Bei Dawei

I agree wholly with Nancy that what she describes is exactly pseudoscience - it is using the jargon and appearance of science to give something credibility without the rigorous skepticism and logical coherence that we demand as scientists. But this is a feature of the weak thinking of individuals, not characteristics of a field. To say that investigating claims of the paranormal is pseudoscience would be sheer nonsense, it's the mode of investigation not the subject that can be faulted. I understand that there is still work continuing on cold fusion, it may be possible and it may not be possible, there may have been flawed experiments and errors, but so it is in all science. Generally it seems that philosophers of science have foundered over any attempts to make the concept of "pseudoscience" scientific in the sense of being capable of any consistent objective definition. In fact the social sciences have certainly in their time come in for a hammering, from people like Alan Sokalas well as Richard Feynmann. There are several problems: first is the ahistorical fallacy: we might recall that Galileo's first major scientific undertaking was to estimate the dimensions of hell, that Newton regarded his major mission as being to date the origin of creation from analysing the bible and that he was an avid alchemist, that Einstein's theory of relativity was greeted with blistering invective at the time, that scientists of recent times like Margulis, Gould, and McClintock have all experienced quite virulent attacks for work now widely if not universally accepted, and that the double Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling is still attacked for his promotion of vitamin C. Gareth Leng 10:40, 21 January 2007 (CST)

I do like the new introduction. A question: Must pseudoscience be considered "fraudulent", or is it enough that it be "unsound"?

Galileo, on the dimensions of hell? Heh, I think I read something like that on the internet. Turned out to be endothermic, didn't it?  :-)

On reflection, I think the situation with prayer research (3) is that it is a scientific criticism of scientific claims (prayer effects this or that disease) which happen to have deep extra-scientific implications.

About these header quotes: whenever one leads with a quote, it kind of sets the tone for the whole article or section (like a sort of motto). Often the effect is to make the article appear to endorse the sentiment expressed in the quote. So if we use header quotes at all, they should be balanced, even-handed ones (or else a mix).

Oops, the new quotes weren't headers. Um, does anybody care if we just get rid of the "Other" subsection? I like the quote with a long list of pseudo-sciences, though.

One more thing: Someone has edited the "Complementary and Alternative Medicine" subsection to say that the claims of osteopathy and chiropractic have been proven. (I took that part out.) Is this something we need to talk about? I did leave in a distinction between alternative healing modalities which enjoy some sort of government licensing (homeopaths are licensed in Britian, if memory serves), and those that are still lobbying for it. Bei Dawei

Hi. On the other section, yes, I do care; I think that Feynmann's comments that the significant pseudoscience are things that pass for science but which aren't are absolutely critical, and Feynmann is a most notable and authoritative commentator. Nonsense stuff is trivial, it's the stuff that is taken seriously that matters, in my view anyway. On chiropractic, yes I removed some unsupported and I think unsupportable assertions. Chiropractic in the UK it is regulated in an analagous way to medicine, with a statutory body set up by Parliament that operates like the General Medical Council. In the USA every State has a State regulatory board. The efficacy of chiropractic for some conditions is not in dispute. (see NIH statetemnts, systematic reviews, summary statements of government committtees etc etc - se article on Chiropractic). The scientific basis of chiropractic is arguable, but it is not unscientific nor is it in contradiction to any existing science; i.e. its foundations are plausible but unprooven. This is is stark contrast to homeopathy whose tenets are clearly inconsistent with accepted science and which rejects scientific modes of investigation. Homeopathy is not regulated in the same way, but there are some homeopathic hospitals funded by the NHS, though I'm not sure to what extent they really practise homeopathy in the classical sense. Osteopathy is even more closely alligned with conventional medicine. These are not pseudosciences by ant rational meaning of the word. I'm not claiming any authority as a pseudoscience editor, but for this section on CAMs I do claim to speak with some expert authority. There is plenty of scope for criticism of chiropractic, and indeed there is a live Citizendium article on those, but to call it pseudoscience is not right.Gareth Leng 04:08, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Where in the article should the Feynmann quote go, then? "Other" doesn't seem like the right place for it. (Hey, any friend of Tuva...)

Do Chiropractors and/or Osteopaths accept that they are a part of CAM? I wonder to what extent it is possible to separate government recognition from recognition by the wider scientific community. (Sangoma or "witch doctors" are regulated in Swaziland.)

By the way, here is an interesting "fringe science" candidate to consider. Apparently there is a Russian school of geology which believes that oil can be produced artificially, in less than geologic time. Bei Dawei

In 2000 in the UK the Select Committee on Science and Technology published a long report on CAMs, distinguishing several categories according to their degree of acceptance, regulation and integration – chiropractic and osteopathy were the leading two in Group 1 as being regulated by an Act of Parliament. [5] That report for example states “Of the therapies in Group 1 we were made aware of good evidence of the efficacy of osteopathy and chiropractic. Indeed, they appear to be somewhat more effective than the manipulative techniques employed by conventional physiotherapists”

The third group comprised long standing traditional medicines like Chinese Herbal Medicine, and group 3b included crystal therapy, dowsing, iridology, kinesiology and radionics.

There is just such a range of things covered by CAM that pooling them together is not helpful as generalisations will be highly misleading.

On CAMs – chiropractic and osteopathy are based on empirical evidence – i.e. what is reported to work, not on theory – i.e. the theory is a rationalisation to explain what works, not a theory on which treatment is based – this is different to acupuncture, where treatment is according to a traditional theory. This is an important distinction I think.Gareth Leng 04:40, 22 January 2007 (CST)

On the timeline, I'm not really sure what it's a timeline of; is it a listing of significant events, in which case the Nature publication of ultralutions and the subsequent storm is obviously notable (Benveniste). The other high profile controversies would be the AIDS controversy (Duesberg)and the vitiman C controvery (Pauling), the MMR controversy (Wakefield) and allegations linked to that of pharmaceutical company distortion - the founding of the Committee on Publication Ethics = high profile cases of fraud (stem cells..) But what to include and why?Gareth Leng 04:56, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Yes, I was worried about the timeline too. By all means, add other stuff that know about, and take stuff away you think doesn't fit.

My aim was a list of "significant moments" in the dialogue or demarcation between science and pseudoscience, including for example episodes which impacted upon public consciousness (i.e. got into the newspapers). (Obviously a long list of pseudosciences with their dates of creation would take us too far afield.)

Unfortunately Velikovsky was never very well-known, though Sagan took the trouble to debunk him on an episode of Cosmos. I suspect that Mme Blavatsky will have to be taken out as the Hodgson report amounted a scientific debunking of religion, which is different than a scientific examination of the thesis that letters are capable of being teleported from Tibet to a special shrine in India. Bei Dawei

I do not have the time at the moment to scrutinize this article in the depth that is deserves, nor to fine tune my comments from a philosophical perspective (as I am not a professional philosopher descite a Ph.D.) I just want to briefly highlight the Organic farming movement in various versions as one example of a pseudoscience type movement that I would argue do not follow effective science strategies or norms (=pseudo science). I disagree with them because they do not follow norms of scientific methodology, and because this impedes progress. Clearly many of their practices are helpful, and intentions are laudible, but its the lack of accountbility to scientific norms that is unhelpful. Dick Taverne has recently written a readible account of it in The March of Unreason. I do not particularly want to push that topic for various ethical reasons but to flag it an another possible illustration. Ive "spoken" with Dick by email and his major source was Paul Gross, Norman Levitt and Martin Lewis's The Flight from Science and Reason. NYAc Sciences. In short, in this nest of vipers there's lots of material- navigating it , preserving neutrality, and making pertinent points is an ethical challenge which I admire you for tackling (it seems effectively, but I havnt closely read it yet ).

I agree, they way CZ tackles such issues will be the proof of out ethical system.

Ill return when I've more time and see if I can tease out some helpful criticism or points for better clarity - but I may not succeed! David Tribe 05:17, 22 January 2007 (CST)

The organic movement is something I feel strongly about and I suspect have views very similar to yours; I guess because of that I too am wary of introducing it here; my feeling is the rght place for a critique will be in an article on organic farming. But Taverne's book deserves to be added to the reading list, and perhaps accompanied by a sentence of explanation?Gareth Leng 07:56, 23 January 2007 (CST)

Possibly I'm repeating what has already been said, but I have two criticisms of the timeline. Firstly, it is a timeline of skepticism and not pseudoscience. I would say that pseudoscience is only a subset of what enrages skeptics. As an ex-skeptic I know that we can get as upset over sightings of the abominable snowman as over acupuncture. In the introduction we are careful enough to define pseudoscience as "an idea or theory that is held by its proponents to be scientific". I suggest we use that definition as our guide.

Secondly, even if by some means we construe everything that skeptics dislike as pseudoscience, it would still be inaccurate to attribute their timeline to the concept pseudoscience.

Pseudoscience translates in historical contexts to something more like heresy, so maybe our timeline should be a list of scientific heresies. Less appealing for me, although I grudgingly admit it is an option, is a list of ideas from the past that in hindsight we see as pseudoscientific. --Christian Steinbach 15:52, 30 January 2007 (CST)

A list of heresies - Oh, this is just such a wonderful idea, if you think you can make it work I'd love to see it. An admixture of cold fusion and water memory with black holes, the heliocentic universe, the absurdity of flight, Kelvin's rejection of an old age for the Earth, bacteria as a cause of stomach ulcers, the bacterial origin of mitochondria, Ho[y]le and the extraterrestrial origin of life, string theory, emergent behaviour, punctuated equilibrium, vitamin C and Linus Pauling, John Taylor's dalliance with Uri Geller... but didn't everything interesting start as heresy? I have to say I'm not against a timeline but, I don't really see an objective plan for it. Exactly what would we want it to enlighten? Please try if you think you can flesh this out; if it doesn't work here I'm sure it would seed a great spin off article.Gareth Leng 17:42, 30 January 2007 (CST)

Pseudoscience VS Science

Hi philosophy authors, sorry for my intrusion, but I have to say I really don't like how this article starts:

     Pseudoscience is an idea or theory that is held by its proponents to be scientific,
     but rejected by the general scientific community as fraudulent.

What I am abjecting here is "rejected by the general scientific community" sentence. When defined this way, Pseudoscience is a subjective matter. No doubts there is a historical change in the view of some parts of science (see the example of Plate Tectonics) but there must be a more objective way to define Pseudoscience. Plate Tectonics skeptics would be convinced today after all, if they were still alive, and they would agree that Plate Tectonics is indeed part of Science.

Science is defined much more objectively. May I suggest to start this article with something like:

Pseudoscience is any theory that is held by its proponents to be scientific, but cannot be defined as Science because it finds no correspondence in reality or lacks logical consistency.

Sorry for the ugly form, I hope you got the idea anyway. In other words, may I suggest to agree on a definition of Science, and define Pseudoscience as something that looks like Science, but it is not (Link to the definition of Science)?

Nereo Preto 06:30, 29 January 2007 (CST)

The problem is that science has no definition that can serve as an operational definition, i.e. one that is useable in a way to distinguish science from non science. Indeed its methodology is so variable between fields that essentially science is precisely the things that we scientists do, and so just as this defines science, so does the judgement os scientists define what is not acceptable as science.

As for convincing skeptics; Kuhn at least argued that scientists seldom abandon the theory to which they have given years of research, and remain tenaciously skeptical of new theories. However, scientists do not use the term pseudoscience is any serious way, its a term of mere abuse, signifying that something is beneath their serious consideration. It is not a reasoned conclusion with precise definition and careful rationale, with very few exceptions, the exceptions being philosophers who really failed to resolve the demarkation problem.

However, in response to uour comment, the bottom line I thinlk is that there is nothing objective about the term pseudoscience While itself appearing to be a scientific judgement, it is a term that seems irremediably subjective and unscientificGareth Leng 07:45, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Re "rejected by the general scientific community" issue, Isnt better to argue does not attempt to meet the ethical norms of good scientific practice, or something similar, fitting with the concept expounded by Gareth of science as defined by how scientist operate. David Tribe 17:20, 30 January 2007 (CST)

Thanks Gareth for your answer. Since I have noted that Science was defined (though the definition sounds technical, and perhaps difficult for the average reader), and since I can live with that definition, I was suggesting to link to that definition to explain what Pseudoscience is (if it is anything). But, perhaps, a firm definition survives in Science only because that article was worked less than this.

I've read Kuhn's "structure of scientific revolutions" (did I get the title right?). But I believe scientists DO change their mind, when convinced by evidence (or logics). Also, scientific revolutions that I know about are based on solid facts. The Earth DO rotate around the Sun. The universe IS more accurately described by general relativity rather than Newton's dynamics and gravitational theories. But I understand this is my opinion, which might be not so obvious to philosophers as it is for me.

It's just I can't believe ID is Pseudoscience and Evolution is Science only because most scientists think it is so. There must be something more about it. I think this article contains a lot of good stuff, and it is very important. Hence my persistence... Later in the article there is this sentence:

 Generally, pseudoscientific claims either (1) lack any supportive evidence, or
 (2) are based on evidence that is not established by scientific methods or
 (3) cite well-established evidence but do not use that evidence to logically
 prove the conclusions asserted in the claim.

Isn't it at odds with the definition opening the article? More specifically, this sentence do not require that "many" scientists believe that particular claim is Pseudoscience, it just explains some objective characteristics of pseudoscientific claims. I'd like this much more.

Nereo Preto 09:33, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Thanks for this very interesting thread. (The book is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Do scientists change their minds? They certainly do about things that they think are minor, and I guess big changes come in small steps sometimes. I think Kuhn was right though in saying that scientists generally hang onto their ideas pretty tenaciously. In my experience as an editor referees generally dislike challenges to accepted wisdom, even on a minor scale. If I can take myself as representative of scientists. I read perhaps 50 papers a month? Of these a few I'll consider as solid and interesting, and a few as utter rubbish, fraudulent in their use of statistics, illogical or ingenuously deceptive in their argument, misleadingly selective in their citations and casual or ignorant about the limitations of their methodology. For me, this minority of the literature is pseudoscience. But this is within my own field, and it's a judgement that requires immersion in my field to judge its validity, and it requires an acceptance of some tenets that might be challenged by others. I don't expect others reading those papers to see what I see without my background. ID and Natural Selection provide challenging issues. I think that most (almost all?) scientists who have thought in depth about ID consider it wholly unscientific and do so because they believe that what is presented as an explanation but merely evades attempted explanation. However the Theory of Natural Selection (and I was a primary author of the WP article) is not strictly scientific in Popper's terms. It's hard to see it as falsifiable, and hard to see studies of Natural Selection as determined attempts at disproof; instead it's a broad schema within which to accomodate all facts, whatever they are, where anomalies result in refinements or modification of the definitions or ad hoc explanations (and there have been many anomalies, see the articles on Horizontal gene transfer for some examples). Scientists accept this worldview because they consider it to be useful, but there is a strong aesthetic element in this; it's useful in part because it can be condensed to a simplistic form that will persuade many of its inevitable truth - even though that simplistic form will be strictly wrong, and the persuasion accordingly in part a deception.

So I think that in a head to head comparison (ID vs Natural Selection) it may be easy to see why scientists accept one and reject the other and to explain this. But different reasons apply to different head-to-head comparisons, and particular things may be regarded as critical by some groups of scientists in some contexts but not by others in other contexts. Nevertheless, I think a choice between competing theories might be explainable rationally if not wholly objectively. But even this is contentious, Kuhn argued that theories are incommensurable, you cannot fairly judge one by the assumptions of another, and he argued that they are rarely objectively decided by facts, because most give rise to anolmalies so it comes to the importance that you attribute to those anomalies. And where there is a field but no competition between theories what can we say? Feynmann for example considered that the theories of educationalists about how children learn were fundamentally unscientific - but what competition was there?Gareth Leng 06:16, 30 January 2007 (CST)

I can offer an opinion as a casual observer with interest in the topic that the text is starting to flow and the lead in is aestheically enjoyable. I sense progress being made. I see my comment here as just one vote from a potential audience David Tribe 17:13, 30 January 2007 (CST)

I understand from this talk page this is a hot and difficult topic.

I also realize I have sort of a bias here: I believe K. Popper was right, and T. Kuhn, wrong (I'll put this in my personal page!). This has roots in my education, as I grown my philosophical ideas in a course by Enrico Bellone (a researcher of history of science who worked on Galileo, Einstein and, yes, Popper). I'll try to be neutral about this.

Still, my sensation is the incipit of this article is also slightly biased, towards Kuhn's view of science.

Let me put forward a couple of proposals, which I hope can sound neutral enough:

• 1) may we define pseudoscience more similarly to dictionaries? In my (limited!) survey i didn't find definitions based on the "majority of scientists": cf. these definitions
• 2) this talk is getting much longer than the article itself, and it's probably about much more that Pseudoscience. It is also (mostly?) about Science, Scientific methods, the Problem of demarcation, and perhaps other philosophical topics as well. I suggest we move this discussion in the forum of the Phylosophy workgroup. The discussion might also be about which sections belong to which of the articles above. If someone agrees, please start a thread there! I'll join!
• 3) I probably know Popper a little better than Kuhn. I'll try to edit the relative section here, making use of Popper's books as much as I can. I believe I have something to contribute in accuracy, at least. But I'll need a couple of days to organize my mind on this before I can do something.

Thanks for this exciting discussion! I love this! --Nereo Preto 08:44, 31 January 2007 (CST)

Yes, this article needs to be in the context of (and consistent with) all those articles and others too - obviously including the articles on Popper Kuhn and Feyeraband. This has the particular problem of meeting Citizendium ideals of fairness, neutrality and balance.

For me personally, I think I'm with Popper in my heart but with Kuhn and Feyeraband in my head; but all three are wonderful and exciting thinkers. I'm very glad to see you join in here!Gareth Leng 12:33, 31 January 2007 (CST)

I think your dictionary definitions do include the concept of "in the view of a "majority of scientists", but instead of saying it explicitly, they imply it, for example: "any of various methods, theories, .... considered as having no scientific basis." Who does the considering here, do you think? :-) Nancy Nancy Sculerati MD 08:51, 31 January 2007 (CST)

Ciao Nancy Sculerati MD. You are right, in part. Yes, some of those definitions refer to "someone" considering... etc. Still, I like them better because they allow to discuss the problem under Science or Problem of demarcation, which I believe are more appropriate. But look at the 3rd, 4th and 5th: these are different. The last of them is particularly interesting:

 a system of theories, assumptions, and methods
 erroneously regarded as scientific

(pseudoscience. Dictionary.com. Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pseudoscience (accessed: January 31, 2007)).

Here, "someone" considering... are pseudoscientists, not scientists! This would also do it in my view. --Nereo Preto 09:28, 31 January 2007 (CST)

Ok, I made my attempt to contribute. I was not sure it was a good idea, many changes here, but I have seen Popper's philosophy is treated in many articles, and I suppose it will be eventually gone from this one, and substituted by a link (that is, I'm not doing too much harm anyways).

1) Title: I wanted to change it, because Popper believed that the scientific method do not exist (e.g., in Conjectures and refurations). It seamed to me unfair to describe Popper's solution of the problem of demarcation under "Defining science by the scientific method".

2) Many changes and deletions: sorry, I couldn't help. This version is more accurate in my view, but it is perhaps less easy to read for non specialists. Since I'm also a non-specialist, however, I thought this text should be understandable as well. The previous version had a far better English, you might decide this is another good reason to eventually revert.

3) Peter Singer's quote: I deleted it, because it mostly refers to Popper's political philosophy and critics of the historicism, and probably belongs more to historicism or Karl Popper. Yes, the quote includes also a description of astrology as a non-scientific system, but it is only because Popper's political philosophy derives from his epistemology and from his solution of the problem of demarcation. Thus, it comes natural to summarize Popper's critics to historicism by starting from his falsification principle.

4) Citations: my references are Italian translations of Popper's books and speaches, though good translations supervised by known philosophers. If someone could check out the references and substitute them with their originals, that would be great! This also means some key terms may be wrong, e.g.: was falsificabile (Italian) originally falsifiable? Or was the Italian term the translation of something else?

I fear this post is going to be controversial... please comment, or revert! --Nereo Preto 07:38, 6 February 2007 (CST)

No need to fear controversy, I think we're all anxious to get things right and can only do that by addressing problems, and I think you have some good points. I'm sure that as the articles on Popper are written it will become easier to link to them, but for the moment I think we have to make the article self contained. I dont have a copy of C and R but in Objective Knowledge he talks extensively of The Scientific Method, though in terms that make me think he was really attacking Kuhn - (e.g. "Should anyone think of scientific method as a way to success in science he will be disappointed. there is no royal road to success."). I agree about Singer, I had included it because he expressed Poppers position so very clearly, but you are right, the context for the quote is historicism. I'm very glad you're getting involved...Gareth Leng 12:18, 6 February 2007 (CST)

Thanks Gareth, I feel encouraged to continue in my contributions - see below... --Nereo Preto 04:15, 7 February 2007 (CST)

Definition of Pseudoscience

(I'm reformatting in an attempt to not have to scroll through the whole page in order to comment.) That is interesting. I guess that the implied view is really from "a majority of reasonable people", and that the majority of reasonable people take their view from the majority of scientists about what is science and what is not. Nancy Sculerati MD 09:39, 31 January 2007 (CST)

Let's try to keep things in order. Defining 'pseudoscience' is related to the problem of demarcation, but is NOT the problem of demarcation itself. So I suppose there must be something in the definition which is more than "a thing which is not science".

In my view, it is common sense that all 'pseudosciences' pretend to be sciences. This enter some of the definitions we find in dictionaries. I suggest we define pseudoscience according to those definitions. Such definition should try to be objective (i.e., no reference to someone that believes something) and should include the concept that a pseudoscience 'looks like' or 'pretend to be' a science. All agree? Should I try to post a new definition? Ciao! --Nereo Preto 04:20, 7 February 2007 (CST)

Some time back the article began: The term pseudoscience which combines the Greek pseudo (false), and the Latin scientia (knowledge), appears to have been used first in 1843 by Magendie, who referred to phrenology as "a pseudo-science of the present day" [1] In 1844 it was used in the Northern Journal of Medicine to describe "That opposite kind of innovation which pronounces what has been recognized as a branch of science, to have been a pseudo-science, composed merely of so-called facts, connected together by misapprehensions under the disguise of principles". - this is from OED. Before then it did start with an abbreviated dictionary definition (I think....). We might be going round in circles. Some editors feel it's better not to start with a dictionary type definition, but get straight into the tone of the article. I think I started out with a dictionary type definition but saw why others preferred a different approach. I'd worry about the opening of the article later, as there are probably bigger issues about content to get right. Its easy to go round in circles about what is probably a point of style in the end. However, go ahead and post whatever you think, its always much easier to decide with an example rather than in theoryGareth Leng 11:21, 7 February 2007 (CST)

Thanks. I see your point, I don't want to go back to versions that were discarded already. I'll study the history page before posting. But not today, I'm going to spend many (expensive) hours at SEM. I anticipate I believe an article should indeed start with a definition. I believe the reader of 'pseudoscience' wants, first of all, know what 'pseudoscience' is, and then, maybe, spend other time learning more. See you soon! --Nereo Preto 02:20, 8 February 2007 (CST)

We can have it both ways. If we were to adopt a format that -at the very top of the page gave a "dictionary" definitions, or depending on the subject, the etymology of the word, followed by some kind of "break" and then the body of the article, a user would quickly learn where to focus tor information. Ideally the "top of the page" information would be in a smaller- or at least different- font. The break can be something like a triple horizontal line. Nancy Sculerati MD 09:41, 8 February 2007 (CST) addendum-another way to do it would to have a "top section" with a slightly different background color-like a light blue or yellow. Nancy Sculerati MD 10:09, 8 February 2007 (CST)

Doesn't table of contents make a sufficient break line itself? We may put a relatively short definition before the first section. If we feel that dictionary-like essentials are not enough for a vast topic, we start the article with the first section entitled e.g. "Introduction" (this is at least what I try to do in Fractal). Proportions may depend heavily on the given topic. For example, in the present article the first two phrases would make a basic definition (that could be then slightly extended to include the first paragraph in an assertive way), the rest of the present "zeroth section" would make a good intro. Just a simple thought. --Alex Halicz (hello) 13:28, 8 February 2007 (CST)

PS. We are invited to discuss the issue on Article Mechanics talk page. Shouldn't it be copied (or at list linked) there?

Protected?

If this article was ever protected, it shouldn't have been. Since we can shut down vandals so quickly, and since everyone else behaves themselves so well ;-), there is no need to protect any pages other than, perhaps, the front page. --Larry Sanger 12:08, 7 February 2007 (CST)