[WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

Wed Dec 21 20:20:37 UTC 2005

Karl A. Krueger wrote:

>>2. The quesiton is about how we decide who falls under it or not. In
>>practice this is difficult, because many forms of things which are
>>considered "legitimate" science do not meet all of the "requirements",
>>and many things which are not considered legitimate science do meet
>>some of them.
>>    
>>
>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.
>
But if you ignore the principles of the philosophy of science, then what 
you do is no longer science.  There's nothing safe at all in calling it 
"pseudoscience".  When "someone" is parading around there is no reason 
to generalize that to everyone who happens to support the practice in 
question.  Accepted science has innumerable supporters who aren't doing 
anything resembling it.

Ec