Before we try to find out what the difference is between science and pseudoscience, it is good to know why it is important to know the difference.
Scientific theories are used in defining new theories, to get a better understanding of the world and in argumentations in daily life, but the most important and practical things are the actions we take based on, what we believe is scientific knowledge. When we do not discriminate pseudoscience from science, we might take actions based on pseudoscientific knowledge. This may cause dangerous situations. Thus it is very important to have some sort of gradation in how much value you can set on a determined theory and statements that are made due to this theory. The distinction science-pseudoscience is a discrimination that can be used for this purpose.
Another important question that needs to be answered is whether or not there are more kinds of science than just science and pseudoscience and whether pseudoscience itself is a kind of science. The question implies that there is also such thing as non-science, something can be not scientific. An example: If two people agree to meet at a certain place and time, both can assume that the other person will be there at that place at that time. It is not scientific knowledge but an agreement among those two people. Another example is religion. Followers of a particular religion make statements about how things work, but they do not pose it as science.
The opposite of non-science is science. That at itself can be divided in two subgroups.
The most important group is good science; this is the core of science. The second group is bad science or sloppy science, the difference with good science is the bad implementation of experiments or wrong conclusions that are taken out of experiments and theories. The most important part of bad science is that it unintentionally gone wrong. The scientist tries to ‘do’ good science but fails.
Pseudoscience is part of non-science but has a narrower meaning. This implies that pseudoscience meets more features than non-science. It is very difficult to formulate a definition that includes all pseudosciences. Hansson made two definitions that can be used in combination with the first definition that pseudoscience is a form of non-science:
(2) it is part of a non-scientific doctrine whose major proponents try to create the impression that it is scientific.
(2’) it is part of a doctrine that conflicts with (good) science (Hansson 1996)
These definitions are not very useful; they say what pseudoscience is in relation to (good) science. But do not make clear what the difference exactly is. It does not make clear what (good) science is and how pseudoscience conflicts with (good) science.
Now we have established which place pseudoscience takes in the whole meaning of science, we can take a look at the difference between good science (further named as science) and pseudoscience. When we speak of demarcation it implies there is a strict separation between these two forms of science. Looking at the literal meaning of the word that is true. The question is whether we can say that a research program or theory is in total scientific or pseudoscientific. There are no research programs that have absolutely no signs of pseudoscience; in all its many aspects it is unlikely that all the experiments, theories, conclusions, etcetera, are pure scientific. Otherwise it is unlikely that a research program meets all characteristics of pseudoscience. So between pseudoscience and science there is a grey area where the different types of science take place. Pseudoscience and science are the boundaries of the area which none of the sciences can reach. The difficulty in this matter is when to define something as science and when as pseudoscience. It is more a matter of degree than strict separation.
Now we have concluded that al sciences have characteristics of both science and pseudoscience, it is time to discuss in which characteristics science and pseudoscience differ. Because there are many types of sciences and pseudosciences and every kind of science and pseudoscience has its own features, it is not easy to point out which features make a type of research a science or a pseudoscience. There are some rough demarcation criteria that are generally accepted on how to separate pseudoscience from science, but to get a detailed picture it is necessary to look at research programs individually.
As stated before, there are some criteria that can be used to identify pseudoscience. In the following paragraphs some of these criteria are being discussed. (Anonymous 2008)
Falsificationism
Falsificationism means that it is possible to falsify a theory. Someone can claim that a particular theory is true and thus scientific. But if it cannot be falsified and thus no evidence in favour of or against the theory can be obtained, the claim that it is a science is false. But otherwise, when a claim can be falsified it doesn’t mean that the claim is scientific. It is not clear when the hard core is falsified. This is called logical falsifiability. Another form of falsifiability is methodological falsifiability. It is a much stronger argument for a theory to be pseudoscientific. Because a theory always is an approach of the truth, a theory cannot predict everything right. With experiments a theory can be falsified. The problem with this criterion is that it is not clear when a theory is falsified and should be rejected.
Problem solving
In Kuhns view, ‘In normal science, the scientist’s activity consists in solving puzzles rather than testing fundamental theories. In puzzle-solving, current theory is accepted, and is required to define the puzzle. (Kuhn 1974) A scientific theory is never completely true, scientists try to approach the truth in their theories. Because this theory is not equal to the truth it is inevitable that they encounter problems sooner or later. In a typical scientific theory, scientists try to find a solution within the theory for the problems by adjusting the theory. When a theory does not encounter problems or the problems are not mentioned as needed to be solved, thus the theory is not changeable, it can be marked as pseudoscientific. But also in this demarcation, it is not sufficient to separate pseudoscience from science.
Scientific progress
Another demarcation criterion is the one of Lakatos (1981). As shown above, problem solving is an important process in science. When a problem is solved, the theory will be adjusted. The new theory solves more problems than the previous theory. A successful scientific research program knows a series of new theories, each of them explain more phenomena than the previous theory. In many pseudosciences there is no progress, sometimes a theory is adjusted but does not solve more problems than the previous theory.
Using a single criterion is not sufficient for demarcating science and pseudoscience. As stated before, to get a detailed picture it is necessary to look at theories individually because none of the pseudoscientific theories meets all criteria. It does not mean if a theory meets one of the criteria, it is a pseudoscientific theory, if it meets a lot of these criteria it is more likely to be pseudoscientific. There are a lot more signs to identify pseudoscience. A few examples: Do the scientists have a critical attitude towards the theory? Are they willing to test the theory and accept falsifications? Are they open for alternative theories and is there theory embedded in other currently accepted theories? With these criteria you can say something seems pseudoscientific and give a gradation to it, but to say that it is pseudoscience is dangerous. What makes it extra complicated is the fact that science is not timeless.
Timeless or not?
Will a science always be a science and a pseudoscience always will be a pseudoscience? If the demarcation from pseudoscience and science is timeless, it means that something that is now science, always will be science. But science at itself is not timeless, science evolves. New theories are made, new discoveries are done. The characteristics of a science or a pseudoscience discussed above change over time. For example scientific progress can fluctuate, if at a given point there is no progress in a research program, it can be classified as pseudoscientific, but that does not mean that it always will be pseudoscientific, progress can be developed at a later time. When something is marked scientific because it is the best theory for a particular phenomenon among others, it does not mean it always will be scientific, better theories can be made in course of time. It does not mean that if something was called scientific earlier and pseudoscientific now, it actually always was pseudoscientific. With the knowledge available in the past it really was scientific then, it is only not scientific in the present. This shows that the demarcation of pseudoscience and science is not static but a dynamic process.
Bibliography
- Anonymous (2008). "Science and pseudoscience", the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy
- Hansson, Sven Ove (1996). “Defining Pseudoscience”, Philosophia Naturalis, 33: 169–176
- Kuhn, Thomas S (1974). “Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?”, pp. 798–819 in P.A. Schilpp,
The Philosophy of Karl Popper, The Library of Living Philosophers, vol xiv, book ii. La Salle: Open Court.
- Lakatos, Imre (1981). “Science and pseudoscience”, pp. 114–121 in S Brown et al. (eds.) Conceptions of Inquiry: A Reader London: Methuen
