[WikiEN-l] Creationism is not horse-shit, it's pseudo-science

Fri Jul 1 11:38:37 UTC 2005

On Thursday 30 June 2005 21:56, Jtkiefer wrote:
> > Stating that creationism is pseudoscience is not POV-pushing. Maybe 
> > Intelligent Design, which is a bit more controversial -- but 
> > creationism as in "God created the World", where it makes "scientific" 
> > claims, is pretty much universally regarded as pseudoscience by people 
> > from existing scientific disciplines.

As an aside: I find Perakh and Young's (2004) definition of pseudoscience to 
be useful:

[[ Results for 'Perakh and Young 2004'
          + Is intelligent design science?
               o ch=12 p=Rutgers University press bt=Why Intelligent
                 Design Fails y=2004 e=Matt Young, Taner Edis a=New
                 Brunswick r=20050209
               o intelligent design is not bad science like cold fusion
                 or wrong science like Lamarckian inheritance (Perakh
                 and Young 2004:185)
               o some features of pseudoscience
                    # denial of established fact (e.g., homeotherapy and
                      young earth creationists) (Perakh and Young
                      2004:186)
                    # untestable hypotheses: a theory that explains
                      everything explains nothing (e.g., astrology)
                      (Perakh and Young 2004:187)
                    # tries to "prove that": "a pseudoscientist tries to
                      prove that something is true; a good scientist
                      tries to find out whether it is true." (Perakh and
                      Young 2004:188)
                    # everyone is wrong but us (Perakh and Young
                      2004:188)
                    # other features: never admit to mistakes, made-up
                      terms and vague concepts (Perakh and Young
                      2004:189)
]]