[WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

Sat Dec 17 16:28:23 UTC 2005

On 12/17/05, Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu> wrote:
> OK.  I'm not so sure it was, considering the discussion about
> falsifiability.

Well, let me be more specific: the meaning, in a general sense, is
clear. Something which claims to be science but is not science. The
specifics of how one defines "science" in this sense is not clear, not
only not on Wikipedia but not even in the larger academic context in
general, and so things like falsifiability get bandied around as
possible approaches to this.

> I'm not sure I see a wide variety of "requirements" here.  I'm not
> suggesting any complicated philosophy-of-science laundry list of what
> makes Good Science, or Normal Science, or whatever.  I'm just saying
> that we're safe calling it "pseudoscience" when someone parades around
> under the banner of "SCIENCE" but isn't actually doing anything
> resembling it.

Again, you're begging the question, which is entirely how one tells
when one is "resembling it". Science looks like many things, and
whether something resembles it depends on whether you stress the
similarities or the differences.

FF