"Through certain vagaries of history, some of which I have alluded to here, we have managed to conflate two quite distinct questions: What makes a belief well founded (or heuristically fertile)? And what makes a belief scientific? The first set of questions is philosophically interesting and possibly even tractable; the second 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 "pseudo-science" and "unscientific" from our vocabulary; they are just hollow phrases which do only emotive work for us. As such, they are more suited to the rhetoric of politicians and Scottish sociologists of knowledge than to that of empirical researchers. Insofar as our concern is to protect ourselves and our fellows from the cardinal sin of believing what we wish were so rather than what there is substantial evidence for (and surely that is what most forms of "quackery" come down to), then our focus should be squarely on the empirical and conceptual credentials for claims about the world. The "scientific" status of those claims is altogether irrelevant.""
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Larry Laudan, "The Demise of the Demarcation Problem", in Cohen, R.S.; Laudan, L., Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf GrĂĽnbaum (1983)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pseudoscience
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Pseudoscience
12 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Pseudoscience →
Related Quotes
"A good rule of thumb for diagnosing an activity as pseudoscientific is the existence of ad hoc explanations: “my tele…"
"Using the term pseudoscience, then, leads to unnecessary polarization, mistrust, disrespectfulness, and confusion aro…"
"Although pseudoscience is a fairly common epithet, it is not exactly universal. Scientists do not just call anything …"
"“Pseudoscience” is an empty category, a term of abuse, and there is nothing that necessarily links those dubbed pseud…"
"As long as we have science, we will have a process of demarcation that happens every day in the laboratories, field s…"
"There is an important lesson in this. All so-called pseudoscientists believe they are simply scientists, albeit ones …"
"We can sensibly build science policy only upon the consensus of the scientific community. This is not a bright line, …"
"Understanding the scientific fringe as a necessary shadow of the professional scientific consensus not only emphasize…"
"'Tis strange how like a very dunce, Man, with his bumps upon his sconce, Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he H…"
"The problem of demarcation between science and pseudoscience has grave implications also for the institutionalization…"