Re: Pseudo science

[Gary Karshner <karshner@STMARYTX.EDU>]

Kyle,
        I have a little problem with Thagard's definition of pseudo science. The
terms progressive and long period of time seem as imprecise as anything I
would label pseudo science. Is Newtonian mechanics or electrostatics pseudo
sciences? They seem to fit his definitions and creationism is not one since
there is a tremendous little industry out in California churning out papers
trying to explain the world in those terms.
        I think Popper's testability is far more workable as it falls back to our
Galilean roots, but it is the outcomes of those tests that is important.
I think we are all starting out like the congressman on pornography ("I
know it when I see it."), and like many philosophical discussions trying to
define it after the fact.
        Thagard's second test would have been failed by Copernicus since he had to
abandon Aristotelian Physics along with astronomy. Aristotle argued that
the earth could not move since there would be great winds caused by its
motion. A point Copernicus ignores and Tycho tried to address with his
model. Often in science we have to start over to make progress and by this
definition change it into pseudo science!

Gary


> There was a thread a few weeks back about pseudo-science and I just
> ran across an essay by Paul Thagard titled 'Why Astrology is a
> Pseudoscience' which gives an interesting definition of pseudoscience.
>
> Thagard says:
>
> "A theory or discipline which purports to be scientific is
> pseudoscientific if and only if:
>
> 1. It has been less progressive than alternative theories over a long
> period of time, and faces many unsolved problems; but
> 2. the community of practitioners makes little attempt to develop the
> theory towards solutions of the problems, shows no concern for
> attempts to evaluate the theory in relation to others and is
> selective in considering confirmations and disconfirmations"
>
> Thagard points out (and rightly so I think) that by this definition
> we can forgive Copernicus, Kepler and the lot for casting horoscopes
> (which almost all astronomers at that time did); at the time the idea
> was new, untested and there was little in the way of alternative
> psycological theory which was any better. Today, in retrospect, we
> can see that astrology is a dead end, unproductive and so should be
> abandoned as a scientific endeavor.

Gary Karshner

St. Mary's University
San Antonio, Texas
KARSHNER@STMARYTX.EDU