To take homeopathy as an example, a skeptic could decide to spend an inordinate amount of time (according to Brandolinis Law) debunking individual statements made by homeopaths. The second is concerned with the internal structure and coherence of a scientific theory. The original use of the term "boundary-work" for these sorts of issues has been attributed to Thomas F. Gieryn, a sociologist, who initially used it to discuss the But that content does not stand up to critical scrutiny. Brulle, R.J. (2020) Denialism: Organized Opposition to Climate Change Action in the United States, in: D.M. The European Skeptic Congress was founded in 1989, and a number of World Skeptic Congresses have been held in the United States, Australia, and Europe. The demarcation problem has a long history, tracing back at the least to a speech given by Socrates in Platos Charmides, as well as to Ciceros critique of Stoic ideas on divination. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, X.4). Setting aside that such a solution is not practical for most people in most settings, the underlying question remains: how do we decide whom to pick as our instructor? Responsibilism is about identifying and practicing epistemic virtues, as well as identifying and staying away from epistemic vices. Letrud notes that Hansson (2009) adopts a broad definition of science, along the lines of the German Wissenschaft, which includes the social sciences and the humanities. The problem is the other side is equating Parliament with the central government. What if we mistake a school of quackery for a medical one? It is certainly true, as Laudan maintains, that modern philosophers of science see science as a set of methods and procedures, not as a particular body of knowledge. One entry summarizes misgivings about Freudian psychoanalysis, arguing that we should move beyond assessments of the testability and other logical properties of a theory, shifting our attention instead to the spurious claims of validation and other recurrent misdemeanors on the part of pseudoscientists. Therefore, a small digression into how virtue epistemology is relevant to the demarcation problem now seems to be in order. Science is not the ultimate arbiter of what has or does not have value. Geographically, a demarcation might be the border that separates two countries or the river that divides two regions. First, that it is a mistake to focus exclusively, sometimes obsessively, on the specific claims made by proponents of pseudoscience as so many skeptics do. This is a rather questionable conclusion. Yet, in the meantime pseudoscience kept being a noticeable social phenomenon, one that was having increasingly pernicious effects, for instance in the case of HIV, vaccine, and climate change denialism (Smith and Novella, 2007; Navin 2013; Brulle 2020). Pigliucci, M. (2013) The Demarcation Problem: A (Belated) Response to Laudan, in: M. Pigliucci and M. Boudry (eds.). The answer is that there is no sharp demarcation because there cannot be, regardless of how much we would wish otherwise. This is why we need to take a brief look at what is sometimes referred to as the skeptic movementpeople and organizations who have devoted time and energy to debunking and fighting pseudoscience. Karl Popper was the most influential modern philosopher to write on demarcation, proposing his criterion of falsifiability to sharply distinguish science from pseudoscience. But occasionally we may be forced to revise our notions at larger scales, up to and including mathematics and logic themselves. A virtue epistemological approach to the demarcation problem is explicitly adopted in a paper by Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam and Weimin Sun (2021), who both provide a general outline of how virtue epistemology may be helpful concerning science-pseudoscience demarcation. The point is subtle but crucial. Contributors include philosophers of science, but also sociologists, historians, and professional skeptics (meaning people who directly work on the examination of extraordinary claims). One chapter recounts the story of how at one time the pre-Darwinian concept of evolution was treated as pseudoscience in the same guise as mesmerism, before eventually becoming the professional science we are familiar with, thus challenging a conception of demarcation in terms of timeless and purely formal principles. Second, there is no way to logically justify the inference of a causal connection. He calls this scientistic (Boudry and Pigliucci 2017) pseudophilosophy. The question, therefore, becomes, in part, one of distinguishing scientific from pseudoscientific communities, especially when the latter closely mimic the first ones. Far more promising are two different avenues: the systemic one, briefly discussed by Bhakthavatsalam and Sun, and the personal not in the sense of blaming others, but rather in the sense of modeling virtuous behavior ourselves. It is part of a doctrine whose major proponents try to create the impression that it represents the most reliable knowledge on its subject matter (the criterion of deviant doctrine). On the other hand, as noted above, pseudoscience is not a harmless pastime. According to Moberger, the term pseudophilosophy, by contrast, picks out two distinct classes of behaviors. Jeffers, S. (2007) PEAR Lab Closes, Ending Decades of Psychic Research. The turning point was an edited volume entitled The Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem, published in 2013 by the University of Chicago Press (Pigliucci and Boudry 2013). Is this not a hopelessly circular conundrum? Commonly boundaries are drawn between Science and non-science, science and pseudoscience, science and religion. And it does so in terms of a single, more fundamental, epistemic problem: BSing. Some philosophers of science have indeed suggested that there is a fundamental disunity to the sciences (Dupr 1993), but this is far from being a consensus position. As Moberger puts it, the bullshitter is assumed to be capable of responding to reasons and argument, but fails to do so (2020, 598) because he does not care enough. Did I seriously entertain the possibility that I may be wrong? Second, the approach assumes a unity of science that is at odds with the above-mentioned emerging consensus in philosophy of science that science (and, similarly, pseudoscience) actually picks a family of related activities, not a single epistemic practice. Astronomers had uncovered anomalies in the orbit of Uranus, at that time the outermost known planet in the solar system. Plenty of philosophers after Popper (for example, Laudan 1983) have pointed out that a number of pseudoscientific notions are eminently falsifiable and have been shown to be falseastrology, for instance (Carlson 1985). Ever since Wittgenstein (1958), philosophers have recognized that any sufficiently complex concept will not likely be definable in terms of a small number of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. SOCRATES: But can anyone pursue the inquiry into either, unless he has a knowledge of medicine? If the wise man or any other man wants to distinguish the true physician from the false, how will he proceed? The next time you engage someone, in person or especially on social media, ask yourself the following questions: After all, as Aristotle said: Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends (Nicomachean Ethics, book I), though some scholars suggested that this was a rather unvirtuous comment aimed at his former mentor, Plato. It is hard to imagine how such quantitative estimates of scientificity may be obtained and operationalized. The first statement is auxiliary, the second, core. (2012) The Duhem-Quine Thesis and Underdetermination, in: Dawes, G.W. Arriving now to modern times, the philosopher who started the discussion on demarcation is Karl Popper (1959), who thought he had formulated a neat solution: falsifiability (Shea no date). Had something gone wrong, their likely first instinct, rightly, would have been to check that their equipment was functioning properly before taking the bold step of declaring General Relativity dead. That is precisely where virtue epistemology comes in. Two additional criteria have been studied by philosophers of science for a long time: the evidential and the structural. This entry This article now turns to a brief survey of some of the prominent themes that have so far characterized this Renaissance of the field of demarcation. But virtue epistemology provides more than just a different point of view on demarcation. Deviant criteria of assent. . Hansson, S.O. He ignores critical evidence because he is grossly negligent, he relies on untrustworthy sources because he is gullible, he jumps to conclusions because he is lazy and careless. He would have to be a physician as well as a wise man. Fernandez-Beanato, D. (2020b) The Multicriterial Approach to the Problem of Demarcation. The situation repeated itself shortly thereafter, this time with anomalies discovered in the orbit of the innermost planet of our system, Mercury. He concluded that what distinguishes science from pseudoscience is the (potential) falsifiability of scientific hypotheses, and the inability of pseudoscientific notions to be subjected to the falsifiability test. Moreover, Einsteins prediction was unusual and very specific, and hence very risky for the theory. Did I carefully consider the other persons arguments without dismissing them out of hand? Astrology, for one, has plenty of it. Bhakthavatsalam and Sun are aware of the perils of engaging defenders of pseudoscience directly, especially from the point of view of virtue epistemology. Falsifiability is a deductive standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934). And as a bonus, thought Popper, this looks like a neat criterion to demarcate science from pseudoscience. If not, did I consult experts, or did I just conjure my own unfounded opinion? Again, Le Verrier hypothesized the existence of a hitherto undiscovered planet, which he named Vulcan. But one cannot hold that the positions of the stars and the character and behavior of people are unrelated (Letrud 2019, 8). It is so by nature, Moberger responds, adopting the already encountered Wittgensteinian view that complex concepts are inherently fuzzy. Kre Letrud (2019), like Fasce (2019), seeks to improve on Hanssons (2009) approach to demarcation, but from a very different perspective. What is the problem with demarcation? But what exactly is a virtue, in this context? Sven Ove Hansson (2017) proposed that science denialism, often considered a different issue from pseudoscience, is actually one form of the latter, the other form being what he terms pseudotheory promotion. On the basis of Frankfurts notion of BSing, Moberger carries out a general analysis of pseudoscience and even pseudophilosophy. Nor, therefore, is it in a position to provide us with sure guidance in cases like those faced by Le Verrier and colleagues. Too often so-called skeptics reject unusual or unorthodox claims a priori, without critical analysis or investigation, for example in the notorious case of the so-called Campeche UFOs (Pigliucci, 2018, 97-98). That is because sometimes even pseudoscientific practitioners get things right, and because there simply are too many such claims to be successfully challenged (again, Brandolinis Law). In thinking about this aspect of the problem, we need to recognize that there are different types of definitions. What is Poppers solution to the demarcation problem? Here, Dawes builds on an account of scientific communities advanced by Robert Merton (1973). The problem is the other side is equating Parliament with the central government. For instance: One can be an astrologist while believing that Virgos are loud, outgoing people (apparently, they are not). Neglect of refuting information. Webdemarcation. The group saw two fundamental reasons to continue scholarship on demarcation. Fasce, A. and Pic, A. The problem is the other side is equating Parliament with the central government. (no date) Karl Popper: Philosophy of Science. Never mind that, of course, an even cursory inspection of such anomalies turns up only mistakes or misunderstandings. Eventually astronomers really did have to jettison Newtonian mechanics and deploy the more sophisticated tools provided by General Relativity, which accounted for the distortion of Mercurys orbit in terms of gravitational effects originating with the Sun (Baum and Sheehan 1997). For instance, Einsteins theory of general relativity survived a crucial test in 1919, when one of its most extraordinary predictionsthat light is bent by the presence of gravitational masseswas spectacularly confirmed during a total eclipse of the sun (Kennefick 2019). On the one hand, science has acquired a high social status and commands large amounts of resources in modern society. First, it identifies specific behavioral tendencies (virtues and vices) the cultivation (or elimination) of which yield epistemically reliable outcomes. Throughout history, the human being has developed new knowledge, theories and explanations to try to describe natural processes in the best possible way . (2011) Immunizing Strategies and Epistemic Defense Mechanisms. Pseudoscience, then, is also a cluster concept, similarly grouping a number of related, yet varied, activities that attempt to mimic science but do so within the confines of an epistemically inert community. But even Laudan himself seems to realize that the limits of falsificationism do not deal a death blow to the notion that there are recognizable sciences and pseudosciences: One might respond to such criticisms [of falsificationism] by saying that scientific status is a matter of degree rather than kind (Laudan 1983, 121). Some of the contributors ask whether we actually evolved to be irrational, describing a number of heuristics that are rational in domains ecologically relevant to ancient Homo sapiens, but that lead us astray in modern contexts. School reforms certainly come to mind, but also regulation of epistemically toxic environments like social media. The contributors to The Philosophy of Pseudoscience also readily admit that science is best considered as a family of related activities, with no fundamental essence to define it. The demarcation problem has a long history, tracing back at the least to a speech given by Socrates in Platos Charmides, as well as to Ciceros critique of Stoic ideas on divination. As Stephen Jay Gould (1989) put it: The report of the Royal Commission of 1784 is a masterpiece of the genre, an enduring testimony to the power and beauty of reason. Regarding Laudans second claim from above, that science is a fundamentally heterogeneous activity, this may or may not be the case, the jury is still very much out. This is followed by an essay proposing that belief in pseudoscience may be partly explained by theories about the ethics of belief. Popper became interested in demarcation because he wanted to free science from a serious issue raised by David Hume (1748), the so-called problem of induction. Letrud, K. (2019) The Gordian Knot of Demarcation: Tying Up Some Loose Ends. After a by now de rigueur criticism of the failure of positivism, Laudan attempts to undermine Poppers falsificationism. Derksen, A.A. (1993) The Seven Sins of Demarcation. One of the chapters explores the non-cognitive functions of super-empirical beliefs, analyzing the different attitudes of science and pseudoscience toward intuition. The point is that part of the denialists strategy is to ask for impossible standards in science and then use the fact that such demands are not met (because they cannot be) as evidence against a given scientific notion. The The problem of demarcating science from non- or pseudo-science has serious ethical and political implications for science itself and, indeed, for all societies in which science is practised. One contribution looks at the demographics of pseudoscientific belief and examines how the demarcation problem is treated in legal cases. Fasce, A. Scientific reasoning is based on induction, a process by which we generalize from a set of observed events to all observable events. The idea is to explicitly bring to epistemology the same inverse approach that virtue ethics brings to moral philosophy: analyzing right actions (or right beliefs) in terms of virtuous character, instead of the other way around. A Discriminant Metacriterion Facilitates the Solution of the Demarcation Problem. Am I an expert on this matter? From the Cambridge English Corpus. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he consider his statements to be false. Knowledge itself is then recast as a state of belief generated by acts of intellectual virtue. Of course, we all (including scientists and philosophers) engage in occasionally vicious, or simply sloppy, epistemological practices. 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