Pseudoscience

Critics of the Distinction

Despite its apparent utility, the term pseudoscience has fallen upon hard times. Many historians and philosophers of science have questioned whether any principled and consistent distinction can be made between science and pseudoscience. The most radical of these critics suggests that the distinction resembles the border between two nations that share a common landmass. In itself it is arbitrary, reflecting nothing more than the conventions by which it is established and the interests of those who support them. On this view, one can describe the ways in which people distinguish between science and pseudoscience, but the distinction has no normative significance. It tells us something about the people labeling the practices in question, but nothing about the practices themselves. In particular, it does not correspond to a distinction between reliable and unreliable ways of attaining knowledge.

A second form of criticism takes a more moderate line. It does distinguish between reliable and unreliable ways of attaining knowledge but argues that these are not captured by the terms science and pseudoscience. This view was made famous in a 1983 essay by Larry Laudan who argued that [Page 760]attempts to distinguish science from pseudoscience have repeatedly failed. Early efforts at making such a distinction focused on method, assuming that there was a single scientific method. But this assumption has been shown to be false. Later attempts focused on the criterion of verifiability or falsifiability, the latter made popular by the work of the philosopher Karl Popper. A scientific theory was one that could be shown to be true, or (on the Popperian view) shown to be false. But many practices we may think of as pseudoscientific are eminently falsifiable. The efficacy of homeopathy, for instance, is testable by way of randomized trials. So this criterion also fails. Laudan is keen to distinguish between reliable and unreliable cognitive practices. But with regard to the term pseudoscience, his conclusion is very similar to that of the more radical critics: It is an empty term, of merely rhetorical significance. Since it does no useful work, it should be abandoned.

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