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

devhdb said:
In other words, I DON'T KNOW that such Demarcation Criterion exists. I'm desperately looking for one, but no one seems to address a single one.
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Why are you desparately looking for one?

What would be the problem if no such sharp demarcation existed?
 
devhdb said:
Hi Jack by the hedge, thanks for coming.



My 5 answers to the 5 questions are listed below the 5 questions above.



In other words, I DON'T KNOW that such Demarcation Criterion exists. I'm desperately looking for one, but no one seems to address a single one.



As you all know, the burden of proof goes to the one that makes an assert such as "I know how to tell science from pseudoscience with certainty".



Hence, please show us how do you do it, show us what is your Demarcation Criterion that helps you to tell them apart.



Cheers! :-)
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I'm not making a claim that I can categorise all possible assertions into science or pseudoscience and I don't know why you think anyone would make that claim.

Is it *your* claim that nothing can be scientific unless it is possible to distinguish whether every possible assertion is scientific or not?
 
Robin said:
It is not clear what your position is.

But if your position is that there is no sharp demarcation between science and pseudoscience then it is quite mainstream. By its nature science must provide leeway for people to be wrong and for motives to be various.
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You are right, maybe we shouldn't say that a certain homeopath is 100% pseudoscientific but 80% pseudoscientific, or 30% or even 99.5% pseudoscientific, right?

Hmm... I guess that's not the case, for when you call someone a pseudoscientific there's no middle way with words here: such investigator is either

a) a pseudoscientist
b) a scientist

It's either 0% or 100%, right? In the same way that you cannot be 30% pregnant: you either ARE or ARE NOT.

Hence he could sue you for slander unless you properly justify how is it possible that he is a 100% pseudoscientist.

Would you be ready to be sued for slander? In that case, question 5 goes:

5. What degree of certainty (in percentage) would you demand from a judge to justify his sentence to you for condemning you to indemnify with $100.000 and 5 years of prison for you having slandered the honor of a certain homeopath calling her 'pseudoscientific' without justifying which Demarcation Criterion did you use to discern between Science and Pseudoscience with certainty? 70%?, 95% of certainty? What value (precisely) would leave you satisfied so that your prison sentence would be rationally justified?

Thanks! :-)
 
Robin said:
Why are you desparately looking for one?

What would be the problem if no such sharp demarcation existed?
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I'm desperately looking for one for I have been looking for one for the past 13 years without any success. And also, for intellectual satisfaction. :-)

The problem? Oh, it's not that it would be the end of the world, for, after 13 years of desperately looking for it, I'm used to the feeling of not having found it. :-D

But, maybe, and just maybe, it might come as a SHOCK for some kind people here to learn that, as of today, NOBODY has been able to tell science from pseudoscience properly.

Never.

Ever.

:-)
 
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Why do you keep conflating the two different matters of discerning pseudoscience at all and a universal rule for spotting pseudoscience in any possible assertion?

Is it this sloppy thinking which means that you have nothing to show for 13 years' work?

In your 13 year study, have you come across no examples at all which you feel you can confidently say are pseudoscience or science?
 
Jack by the hedge said:
I'm not making a claim that I can categorise all possible assertions into science or pseudoscience and I don't know why you think anyone would make that claim.

Is it *your* claim that nothing can be scientific unless it is possible to distinguish whether every possible assertion is scientific or not?
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Mine is not a claim, mine is a NEGATION: that it can be possible to distinguish between science and pseudoscience.

And, for the simple rules of logic and argumentation, negations don't need to and cannot be "proved". But assertions do. :-)
 
Robin said:
You forgot to provide your demarcation criterion to distinguish between the two.
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If you cannot aprehend by immediate experience the difference between KNOWING something (i.e. what an iPad *is*) and MAKING something (i.e. making an iPad), then the debate is over I'm afraid.

:-)
 
You are expecting or asking for a "certainty" that reality cannot give you and never will.

Science simply goes for the preponderance of evidence of how reality behaves.
Certainty isn't its gig. Indeed some things that were initially regarded as pseudoscience, continental drift for example, have become with the accumulation of evidence, science. And some things initially thought to be scientific, including homeopathy, have with the accumulation of evidence been dismissed. There is no absolute demarcation. Knowledge is functional.

If you are in need of dogma, so called revelatory religion supplies that sort of security. Take The Lotus Sutra for example (Because The Bible isn't the only scripture claiming to fill the aching gap of less than absolute certainty).

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
 
I think the fallacy on display here is something akin to the fallacy of the excluded middle, but perhaps in reverse. The construction appears to me to go something like this:

P1: Scientists classify investigators as either scientific or pseudoscientific.
P2: There are instances in which a specific investigator cannot be unambiguously assigned to either of these categories.

C: There are no instances in which any investigator can be reliably assigned to either of these categories.

To suggest an alternative construction with the same structure: We generally admit that killing in self-defense is morally acceptable when there is no other alternative, and that killing without provocation is morally unacceptable. However, there are cases where a killer may claim a level of provocation, or be acting in self-defense but have alternatives to killing, where we cannot clearly assign a moral value of acceptable or unacceptable to the act. By the logic in the OP, therefore, we may not make moral judgements on any killing, and therefore, for example, a serial killer could successfully sue anyone for slander who described him or her as immoral because they cannot assign a simple binary moral judgement to any and all killings.

I therefore reject the question as posed in the OP as unworthy of serious consideration.

Dave
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Is it this sloppy thinking which means that you have nothing to show for 13 years' work?

In your 13 year study, have you come across no examples at all which you feel you can confidently say are pseudoscience or science?
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My thinking is certainly sloppy: I have nothing to show for 13 years of work, no.
No, I haven't come across any examples at all which I feel I can confidently say that are pseudoscience or science.

Hence, hopefully you help me citing just ONE.

-> Google Scholar, please.

:-)
 
Apathia said:
You are expecting or asking for a "certainty" that reality cannot give you and never will.

Science simply goes for the preponderance of evidence of how reality behaves.
Certainty isn't its gig. Indeed some things that were initially regarded as pseudoscience, continental drift for example, have become with the accumulation of evidence, science. And some things initially thought to be scientific, including homeopathy, have with the accumulation of evidence been dismissed. There is no absolute demarcation. Knowledge is functional.

If you are in need of dogma, so called revelatory religion supplies that sort of security. Take The Lotus Sutra for example (Because The Bible isn't the only scripture claiming to fill the aching gap of less than absolute certainty).

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
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Again, as I mentioned to Robin above:

In other words, you are right, maybe there is NO CERTAINTY and we shouldn't say that a certain homeopath is 100% pseudoscientific but 80% pseudoscientific, right?

Hmm... I guess that's not the case, for when you call someone a pseudoscientific there's no middle way with words here: he is either

a) a pseudoscientifist
b) a scientifist

right?

I'm glad you agree with me that there's no absolute demarcation. :-)
 
devhdb said:
If you cannot aprehend by immediate experience the difference between KNOWING something (i.e. what an iPad *is*) and MAKING something (i.e. making an iPad), then the debate is over I'm afraid.

:-)
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You mean like Plato couldn't and two millenia of philosophers couldn't?

But you have the criterion which can distinguish between the two in all cases with absolute certainty, right?

But you aren't going to tell anyone because you think that it should be obvious to everyone.

When did the making of the iPad start? With Turing, Church and Kleene? Babbage and Lovelace? Jacquard or Pascal?

Or maybe it started when some ancient Greek rubbed some cloth on a piece of amber?

I suppose you know that too with absolute certaintly, but won't tell us.
 
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alfaniner said:
See my sig.
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Hi alfaniner, welcome!

Science is self-correcting.
Woo is self-contradicting.

I like that.

Please, for sake of argument, let's imagine the following:

- Scientist H investigates an hypothesis: if the relationship between Matter and Consciousness might mean that a certain amount of Matter diluted in water might heal a certain disease, for Matter and Consciousness might be one and the same thing.

He makes 10 experiments and he fails. He changes the conditions in his experiment. (i.e.: instead of making it at sea level he conducts his experiment 4.000 meters above sea level)
He makes 100 experiments and he fails. He changes the conditions in his experiment. (i.e.: he adds a bit of salt to each dilution).
He makes 1000 experiments and he fails. He changes the conditions in his experiment.
He makes 1000000 experiments and he fails. He changes the conditions in his experiment.

1. Is he self-correcting himself, hence being scientific?
2. What's the number of experiments that he has to make in order to ascertain that his hypothesis doesn't work?
3. In what particular way is the hypothesis that Matter and Consciousness might be one and the same would be self-contradicting?

Thanks! :-D
 
Robin said:
You mean like Plato couldn't and two millenia of philosophers couldn't?

But you have the criterion which can distinguish between the two in all cases with absolute certainty, right?

But you aren't going to tell anyone because you think that it should be obvious to everyone.

When did the making of the iPad start? With Turing, Church and Kleene? Babbage and Lovelace? Jacquard or Pascal?

Or maybe it started when some ancient Greek rubbed some cloth on a piece of amber?

I suppose you know that too with absolute certaintly, but won't tell us.
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Please, allow me to clarify this, just in case I am misundestanding you:

Do you mean that science is that AND ONLY THAT *KNOWLEDGE* which produces *TECHNOLOGY*, such as an iPad? Please correct me if I'm wrong... is that your final posture?

Fine.

In that case, please, let me know:

- are Mathematics science?

- what kind of technology has produced String Theory?
- what kind of technology has produced the hypothesis of the Multiverse?

Are String Theory and/or the hypothesis of the Multiverse science of pseudoscience?

Thanks. :-)
 
devhdb said:
My thinking is certainly sloppy: I have nothing to show for 13 years of work, no.
No, I haven't come across any examples at all which I feel I can confidently say that are pseudoscience or science.

Hence, hopefully you help me citing just ONE.

-> Google Scholar, please.

:-)
Click to expand...

If you have been working at this for thirteen years and searching through Google Scholar and have found not a single example of science then I can't help you.

Perhaps you have unique criteria for detecting science.
 
devhdb said:
You are right, maybe we shouldn't say that a certain homeopath is 100% pseudoscientific but 80% pseudoscientific, or 30% or even 99.5% pseudoscientific, right?
Click to expand...
I am not sure how you got from what I said to that, but maybe you should try again.

The point is that you seem to be saying that if there are cases where it is not completely certain whether something is an X or not X then this implies that there can be no cases in which you can be completely certain if something is X or not X.

I am pointing out that this is a non-sequitur.

When I walk into a house there are points at which you could not say for certain that I was in the house or not in the house. That does not imply that there are cases in which I am definitely in the house.

The absence of a sharp demarcation between X and not X does not imply that nothing can be X and it does not imply that nothing can be not X
 
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