[WikiEN-l] Creationism and pseudoscience

Sun Jul 3 05:21:06 UTC 2005

Leif Knutsen wrote:

>I think that if a field of inquiry, or a theory if you will, is to be called "pseudoscience," then it has to be explained by what criteria it is distinct from "real" science or protoscience.  And then the rebuttal from those who believe it is real science must be presented as well.  
>
>The argument for creationism (which I don't buy) is that the fossil record and other physical evidence leaves unanswered questions in the "theory" of evolution.  Hence, they argue, you can't reject creationism as a valid form of scientific inquiry.  The fallacy is that if one explanation doesn't explain everything, then all other explanations are equally valid.  
>
"God created the universe," and "Creationism is a pseudoscience" are 
both hypotheses, and as such both should be subject to hypothesis 
testing.  For a "sciense" to be a pseudoscience it must fall rigorously 
within a formal definition of the term.  More simply put the fallacy is 
"If A implies B, then not A implies not B".

>I think it is important to have an article about pseudoscience, but it would be more interesting and readable, and less contentious, if we omitted examples altogether.  
>
Possibly.  It's a reasonable suggestion, but avoids the problem that 
people put all manner of material under this heading.  A strictly 
correct article based on the philosophy would satisfy the purists among 
us, and chase away everybody else on both sides of these arguments.

Ec