I challenge you:cite ONE paper that discerns Science from Pseudoscience wth CERTAINTY

[bruto]

The first book on logic I read as a teenager several decades ago used the term "logically black is white slide". The example the author gave of such an argument was: there are at least 3 definitions of sunset. Astronomical, maritime and civil. I forget now which is which but one says when the sun touches the horizon, one when the sun's centre reaches the horizon and one when the sun finally disappears below the horizon. Since we can't define a precise point of sunset then we can't tell night from day.
And yet somehow we manage.

That's similar to the "sorites paradox." Which grain of sand makes a heap of sand a heap?

 

[gypsyjackson]

That's similar to the "sorites paradox." Which grain of sand makes a heap of sand a heap?

The top one.

 

[Crossbow]

The fact that every scientific idea, scientific model and scientific theory is falsifiable rather implies that science always has some amount of uncertainty.

And yet science is still the best way we have for showing how things work now and science has done an excellent job of advancing technology by vast amounts in a relatively short amount of time.

 

[xjx388]

The OP (post, not poster) strikes me as sophistry, pure and simple.

Pseudoscience is, simply put, something that gives the appearance of being a science but doesn’t actually act like a science.

Homeopathy is a good example. There’s a testable hypothesis that has never been supported by evidence. It should have died out long ago but it remains because people believe it to be true despite the lack of evidence. They fall for the sophistry of the proponents. They believe their own ********. They blame conspiracies in Medicine and the Pharmaceutical industry. They do everything except the necessary thing: good science.

So my Demarcation Criteria is:

Is the hypothesis on offer being investigated with the proper application of science? If so, then pursuit of that hypothesis is scientific. It may turn out to be an unsupportable hypothesis and pursuit of it fizzles out. Happens all the time.

 

[Mojo]

If we were to stop talking about absolute certainty, which I am fairly sure none of us will profess to possessing, and talk instead of 'beyond reasonable doubt' then perhaps we could make headway.

There are certainly criteria which would put it beyond reasonable doubt in most cases whether a process was scientific or pseudo scientific.

Of course there will always be borderline cases.

Exactly where the line is drawn, or how this is decided, is a recognised issue. I even have a book about it.*. But that in no way means that there aren’t ideas that we can reliably categorise as science, or as pseudoscience.

I couldn’t tell you exactly where Putney ends and Wandsworth starts, but if I was in the Spread Eagle I would be absolutely certain I was in Wandsworth.


*Pigliucci and Boudry (eds)(2013). Philosophy of Pseudoscience: reconsidering the demarcation problem. University of Chicago Press.

 

[metacristi]

My philosophical and intellectual position is that there is NO WAY to tell science from pseudoscience with certainty

I don't think many people accustomed with modern philosophy of Science would disagree with you here (if you talk about the current situation only). That's the truth, there is no criterion, at the moment at least, to make a clear cut, once and forever, difference between science and pseudoscience (Larry Laudan even wrote an influential article in the 1980s in which he talked about the demise of the demarcation problem; Feyerabend, although not a relativist, went dangerously close to it exactly because there is no such criterion etc).

Yet accepted Science works, we cannot just admit almost anything on a par with accepted knowledge, I would argue that we can actually make an objective difference, albeit weaker than what we would like, on a provisional basis, between what deserve to be science and what does not (yet fallibilism in non trivial ways should always be there). It is true now that what we call metaphysics today can very well become the science of tomorrow (at least conceivable in some cases) but only very strong rational justification can lead to such changes in status; involving, possible, also new scientific methodologies (for example ID is clearly metaphysics now but if such strong justification is found in the future I do not exclude that it becomes part of accepted science).

Personally I never understood the hot headed mavericks who never tire to present their pet theory as 'almost surely true', 'kicking with Einstein', 'all rational people should believe the same' and so on (when in fact the justification is, at most, far from being that strong), aggressive 'revolutions' like these, with all costs, solve nothing. On the other hand I never understood people on the other extreme, pseudo-skeptics (usually unaware of Philosophy of Science or considering it useless), denying that existing science could be, potentially, enriched in non trivial ways...I would say that the middle path is definitely the best in this problem.

 

[Dr. Keith]

My impression is that science is antithetical to certainty. Scientist deal in evidence, support, falsifiability, repeatability, confidence levels, and probability, but rarely do I hear of certainty from scientists. Certainty is more readily found in matters of faith or in assertions unfalsifiable.

 

[acbytesla]

My impression is that science is antithetical to certainty. Scientist deal in evidence, support, falsifiability, repeatability, confidence levels, and probability, but rarely do I hear of certainty from scientists. Certainty is more readily found in matters of faith or in assertions unfalsifiable.

Yep.

 

[metacristi]

Most importantly: could you please rebut each one of Karl Popper's 3 arguments against the existence of the Scientific Method?

i.e.:

The Preface to Popper's Realism and the Aim of Science (1983)
A talk to a meeting of the Fellows of the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford in November 1956.


“As a rule, I begin my lectures on Scientific Method by telling my students that
Scientific Method does not exist. I add that I ought to know, having been for a time, the one and only professor of this non-existent subject within the British Commonwealth.”
—Realism and the Aim of Science, Karl Popper, p. 5

I assert that no scientific method exists in any of these three senses. To put it in a more direct way:

(1) There is no method of discovering a scientific theory.
(2) There is no method of ascertaining the truth of a scientific hypothesis, i. e., no method of verification.
(3) There is no method of ascertaining whether a hypothesis is “probable”, or probably true.

—Realism and the Aim of Science, Karl Popper, p. 6

I believe that the so-called method of science consists in this kind of criticism [severe]. Scientific theories are distinguished from myths merely in being criticizable, and in being open to modifications in the light of criticism. They can be neither verified nor probabilified.
—Realism and the Aim of Science, Karl Popper, p. 7

This alleged but non-existent method [of science] is that of collecting observations and then “drawing conclusions” from them. It is slavishly aped by some historians who believe that they can collect documentary evidence which corresponding to the observations of natural science, forms the “empirical basis” for their conclusions.

This alleged method is one that can never be put into effect: you can neither collect observations nor documentary evidence if you do not first have a problem.
—Objective Knowledge, Karl Popper, p. 186

“What do I teach my students? And how can I teach them?”

Source:
"Realism and the Aim of Science: From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery", by Karl Popper, Routledge, 1983.
ISBN-10: 0-415-08400-8. 464 pp. Pages 5 and 6:

Extract @ Google Books: /books?id=tlowU8nS2ygC


Happy debate!

I don't think one can avoid talking about the existence of a scientific method (if we think at the corroboration context of a theory, leaving apart how the theory is invented) given that he claims that falsiificationism completely solves the problem of demarcation between science and pseudo-science (the method of science being falsificationism of course). What he refutes here is the prevalent way of thinking at the scientific method of the time: the inductive method, verificationism, logical positivism, the idea that scientific theories aim at truth be it probabilistically (Popper is skeptical regarding the problem of diallelus, I am kinda sympathetic here), the theories can be found via a definite method etc are all rejected indeed but this is something else than what you suggest, in spite of Popper's words (he prefers to emphasize the demarcation between science and pseudo-science instead of talking of a scientific method, given its negative connotations); as many scientists argued one can talk meaningfully about falsificationism as being the scientific method, irrespectively how the theories are proposed (of course this view has many problems, being basically replaced these days with the idea that science has a plurality of methods). In his own words:

What I mean is this. The founders of the subject, Plato, Aristotle, Bacon and Descartes, as well as most of their successors, for example John Stuart Mill; believed that there existed a method of finding scientific truth. In a later and slightly more skeptical period there were methodologists who believed that there existed a method, if not of finding a true theory, then at least of ascertaining whether or not some given hypothesis was true; or (even more sceptical) whether some given hypothesis was at least 'probable' to some ascertainable degree.

I assert that no scientific method exists in any of these three senses. To put it in a more direct way :

( 1 ) There is no method of discovering a scientific theory.

(2) There is no method of ascertaining the truth of a scientific hypothesis, that is, no method of verification.

(3) There is no method of ascertaining whether a hypothesis is 'probable', in the sense of the probability calculus.

- Popper, 'Realism and the aim of science'

One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its fallibility, or refuitability, or testability.

- Popper, Science and Falslficatinism

 

[metacristi]

The [demarcation] question is both uninteresting and, judging by its checkered past, intractable. If we would stand up and be counted on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like ‘pseudoscience’ and ‘unscientific’ from our vocabulary”

- Larry Laudan The Demise of the Demarcation Problem, 1983, 125)


To be fair there have been many criticisms lately in the Philosophy departments of Laudan's (too) pessimistic stance. I find them entirely justified, we may not have yet a decisive criterion but happily there are reasonable ones which can make at least a provisional difference between science and pseudoscience. By the way, the OP has some good philosophical points, although of course the stronger conclusions do not follow.

 

[devhdb]

Quote:
One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its fallibility, or refuitability, or testability.
- Popper, Science and Falslficatinism

It is not possible to prove with certainty that an assertion has been falsified. Falsationism as a necessary and sufficient Demarcation Criterion fails.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_holism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem-Quine_thesis


References:

* Curd, Martin; Cover, J.A. (Eds.) (1998). Philosophy of Science, Section 3, The Duhem-Quine Thesis and Underdetermination, W.W. Norton & Company. Duhem, Pierre. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1954.
* W. V. Quine. Two Dogmas of Empiricism. The Philosophical Review, 60 (1951), pp. 20-43. texto online
* W. V. Quine. Word and Object. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1960.
* W. V. Quine. 'Ontological Relativity.' In Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, New York, Columbia University Press, 1969, pp. 26-68.
* D. Davidson. 'On the Very Idea of Conceptual Scheme.' Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association, 17 (1973-74), pp. 5-20.

The [demarcation] question is both uninteresting and, judging by its checkered past, intractable.
If we would stand up and be counted on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like ‘pseudoscience’ and ‘unscientific’ from our vocabulary”

- Larry Laudan The Demise of the Demarcation Problem, 1983, 125)

^this

 

[devhdb]

Not a single person has answered at least ONE of the 5 questions yet.

No one.

None.


My answers:

1. I DON'T KNOW.
2. I DON'T KNOW.
3. I DON'T KNOW.
4. NO.
5. I DON'T KNOW.

Yours?

 

[bruto]

Not a single person has answered at least ONE of the 5 questions yet.

No one.

None.

I don't think that's so. The fact that nobody has come up with an answer you accept is not the same thing.

 

[devhdb]

I don't think that's so. The fact that nobody has come up with an answer you accept is not the same thing.

Please quote one of those answers. Thanks.

 

[Robin]

- Larry Laudan The Demise of the Demarcation Problem, 1983, 125)


To be fair there have been many criticisms lately in the Philosophy departments of Laudan's (too) pessimistic stance. I find them entirely justified, we may not have yet a decisive criterion but happily there are reasonable ones which can make at least a provisional difference between science and pseudoscience. By the way, the OP has some good philosophical points, although of course the stronger conclusions do not follow.

If we are to drop the term 'unscientific' from our vocabularies then that entails that we must also drop the term 'scientific' from our vocabularies, since if it means something to describe a methodology as 'scientific' then there must be some methodologies that are not scientific.

And if there are methodologies that are not scientific then there can be methodologies that superficially resemble scientific methods but are not actually scientific.

I am not totally against dropping the term 'scientific' as we too often hear the supposed argument stopper 'science tells us that ...' which usually means 'some academic has had a paper published saying that ...' or even 'I read in the Scientific American that ...'

What we should be concentrating on is why we know something is true or false.

But on the other hand it would be pointless to try to argue that there are not a set of methodologies which have proved successful over the centuries in getting at the truth about the natural world and no reason why we should not use a word to refer to these methodologies to distinguish them from other methodologies which have been unsuccessful in getting at the truth about the world.

And it seems that 'science' is as good a word as any.

So as soon as we admit that there is such a set of methodologies that can be called scientific and that it is meaningful to describe a methodology as scientific then it is also meaningful to describe a methodology as being not scientific.

And if there is a methodology that is not scientific, but some attempt has been made to make it appear that it was, then that methodology would be (by the meaning of the terms) pseudo-scientific.

We can admit that there is no hard border between methodologies and therefore some intermediate cases where it is not possible to tell if they qualify for the adjective 'scientific'.

But there are many more that can, beyond reasonable doubt, be classified as pseudo-scientific in that they don't use this any of the methodologies that we term scientific, but an attempt is made to create a superficial resemblance to these methodologies.

 

[devhdb]

then it is also meaningful to describe a methodology as being not scientific.

how.

 

[Robin]

Not a single person has answered at least ONE of the 5 questions yet.

No one.

None.


My answers:

1. I DON'T KNOW.
2. I DON'T KNOW.
3. I DON'T KNOW.
4. NO.
5. I DON'T KNOW.

Yours?

Actually these have been answered a number of times but apparently you did not like (or didn't understand) the answers. OK, lets be explicit:

1. False premise, it is processes or methodologies that can be classified as scientific, not assertions.
2. Follow up to a question to a question with a false premise
3. No apparent relevance to the subject
4. No apparent relevance to the subject
5. Category mistake, neither I nor the judge could plausibly have a function or a rule to assign a numeric quantity to this, I would be looking for a valid and sound argument from the judge.

 

[Robin]

how.

You have snipped away the part that came before 'then' and asked me what was the part that came before 'then'.

That makes no sense. Why didn't you just read the part that came before 'then' and comment on that?

Here:

But on the other hand it would be pointless to try to argue that there are not a set of methodologies which have proved successful over the centuries in getting at the truth about the natural world and no reason why we should not use a word to refer to these methodologies to distinguish them from other methodologies which have been unsuccessful in getting at the truth about the world.

And it seems that 'science' is as good a word as any.

So as soon as we admit that there is such a set of methodologies that can be called scientific and that it is meaningful to describe a methodology as scientific then it is also meaningful to describe a methodology as being not scientific.

So let us start at the beginning and take it one by one, I said "But on the other hand it would be pointless to try to argue that there are not a set of methodologies which have proved successful over the centuries in getting at the truth about the natural world" So are you disagreeing with this part. Do you deny that there are a set of methodologies that have proved successful over the centuries in getting at the truth about the natural world?

 

[metacristi]

It is not possible to prove with certainty that an assertion has been falsified. Falsationism as a necessary and sufficient Demarcation Criterion fails.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_holism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem-Quine_thesis


References:

* Curd, Martin; Cover, J.A. (Eds.) (1998). Philosophy of Science, Section 3, The Duhem-Quine Thesis and Underdetermination, W.W. Norton & Company. Duhem, Pierre. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1954.
* W. V. Quine. Two Dogmas of Empiricism. The Philosophical Review, 60 (1951), pp. 20-43. texto online
* W. V. Quine. Word and Object. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1960.
* W. V. Quine. 'Ontological Relativity.' In Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, New York, Columbia University Press, 1969, pp. 26-68.
* D. Davidson. 'On the Very Idea of Conceptual Scheme.' Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association, 17 (1973-74), pp. 5-20.^this

I know that. I was arguing in the framework of Popper's set of beliefs, if you accept that falsificationism can make a clear cut distinction between science and pseudoscience (his stance, and of quite many scientists by the way, some talk even now of falsifiicationism as THE criterion of separation) then it is hard to avoid talking about falsificationism as the method of science (in spite of Popper's attempt to avoid talking about a method in science). Anyways we can safely talk about falsificationism as being ONE of the methods used by the current science.

On the other hand it is true that we do not have yet the criterion you mention but as I've already argued this does not mean we cannot talk meaningfully about a separation between science and pseudo-science, at least on a provisional basis. Science has definitely its (distinct enough) methodologies in spite of the fact that some of what we label metaphysics today could, potentially, find its way in an extended (in non trivial ways) science of tomorrow.

 

[xjx388]

Not a single person has answered at least ONE of the 5 questions yet.

No one.

None.


My answers:

1. I DON'T KNOW.
2. I DON'T KNOW.
3. I DON'T KNOW.
4. NO.
5. I DON'T KNOW.

Yours?

Maybe you are asking the wrong questions and people are skipping them to give you an answer to the question(s) you should be asking.

Your first question, for example, asks us to come up with an assertion that can be labeled, definitively, science or pseudoscience. It’s a bad question. An assertion isn’t scientific or pseudoscientific.

“Allium cepa 6X HPUS, treats cold symptoms.” That’s an assertion that we can also label a testable hypothesis. We can determine whether or not Allium cepa has a measurable effect in cold symptoms. If the testing tends to confirm that it does, it becomes part of the branch of science known as medicine. If it doesn’t, the hypothesis should be rejected.

Continuing to claim efficacy for Allium cepa 6X HPUS when the hypothesis isn’t supported by evidence is a false claim. False claims backed only by scientific-sounding verbiage but not actual evidence is pseudoscience.