Epistemology · Philosophy of Science

Science and Pseudoscience

What distinguishes scientific knowledge from metaphysics, ideology, speculation, or ordinary belief?

Positions

  1. Falsificationism

    A theory is scientific if and only if it makes predictions that could in principle be refuted by observation.

    Held by Critical Rationalism

  2. Kuhnian Puzzle-Solving

    A field is scientific only when its practitioners share a paradigm and work within it on puzzles that the paradigm itself certifies as solvable. Refutable predictions are not enough: astrology made them, saw them fail, and was never a science.

  3. Progressive Research Programmes

    What is scientific is not a single theory but a series of them, and the series earns the title by predicting novel facts rather than only absorbing known ones.

Methods used to investigate this question

  • Falsification Testing

    Falsification testing derives a risky prediction from a theory and looks for the observation that would refute it, treating survival of serious attempts at refutation as the only standing a theory can earn.

    Open in Methods

  • Positive Method

    The positive method investigates observable regularities while refusing to treat inaccessible first causes or essences as scientific explanations. Comte did not prescribe one identical technique for every science: observation, experiment, and comparison take priority in different fields.

    Open in Methods

Discussion

Astrology makes predictions, yet it is the textbook example of a pseudoscience. The question is what genuine science has that such imitations lack. Popper answered that a theory is scientific when, and only when, observation could in principle refute it (Falsificationism). Kuhn answered that a field becomes a science only when its practitioners share a paradigm and solve the puzzles it sets (Kuhnian Puzzle-Solving). Lakatos answered that scientific standing belongs not to a single theory but to a series of theories that keeps predicting new facts (Progressive Research Programmes).

The answer matters because modern philosophy often borrows authority from science while also questioning its limits.

References