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This should be 'Demarcation problem" - wiki policy doesn't like caps — Preceding unsigned comment added by Banno ( talk • contribs) 21:54, 6 August 2004 (UTC)
The discussion is unclear. Kuhn thought he could provide a demarcation criterion. But I suggest that it is generally accepted that he failed to do so. Non-sciences also work within paradigms. The talk of "naturalistic" explanations is not from Kuhn, and should be separated from the discussion of his work. Banno 19:19, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)
The last para is just too full of weasels. Unless it can be re-worded to say something, it would be better to leave the discussion hanging… Banno 19:22, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)
Last Para: The problem of demarcation is considered solved by some, for others there is no such thing as an autonomous scientific method, no definitive philosophy of science and no clear and agreed-upon distinction between science and pseudoscience.
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Proposal for criticisms. Mainly, I find the weasel words problematic. But in addition, the thrust of the article is, as it should be, that the demarcation problem is unresolved. The first sentence of this paragraph stands in strange contrast to the remainder of the article. If someone claims that the problem is resolved, then their argument should be presented here, instead of this oblique reference. Banno 21:43, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
Very interesting. Like the idea of including the judgement. Need to think about it for a bit... Banno 09:32, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
The final sentence of this article used 'all' to mean 'those under the juristiction of the United States Supreme Court'. It's been deleted. -- Eienmaru 21:43, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
There is no discussion of the possiblity of partial solutions to the problem. A total solution decides between either science and unscience. Whereas, a partial solution can also decide something is 'maybe science'. I don't know if there is any literature out there on this, but it seems probable that I am not the first to consider it. An example of a partial criterion is Kuhn's paradigm criteria- every science must operate according to a paradigm. An example of a fairly uncontroversial partial criteria is a theory must make at least one prediction about reality. The latter is just a much more inclusive version of falsifiability. Also, it is merely equivalent to the statement that sciences are ontologies, so that rejecting it as a criteria risks an incoherently antirealist stance where even instrumentalist interpretations would be dismissed since instruments do not exist. Such a position quickly leads to a pathological cynicism so bad that one must reject one's own existance. -- Intangir 14:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
I thought that demarcation problem would apply (1) between protoscience and pseudoscience and (2) between science and protoscience (e.g. for both, at what point in history did astrology go from being protoscience to pseudoscience?) — Dunc| ☺ 15:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Just reading the article over and I was curious: What is the difference between a "paradigm" and a "model"? It look a little bit like Kuhn has exchanged the word model for the fancier "paradigm" and made a bunch of controversial statements, que money.
In science all the things he describes as "paradigms" are called "models", so you can see my confusion. It might be of help to the article if we can describe the proper distinction. Jefffire 10:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the following explanation should be dumbed down a little i.e. de-jargonized:
Specifically the "outlying data points" part. Maybe replace with "not very sensitive to external input." or something like that (but preferably something evem less pretentious sounding). I'm not even really sure its a pureley statistical concept. I see what the person was saying, but I suspect robustness is a more abstract term (and also not so tidy a concept as this contributor made it out to be. Its kind of like "elegance", just something not strictly defined but generally felt to communicate some real quality.) Brentt 06:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I'll try and make these at some point when I have more time but I thought I'd just list them here for the moment...
...just some thoughts. More to come later. -- Fastfission 00:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
This is a nice topic. Some historians of science tend to define science in such broad terms that the demarcation problem almost vanishes. (As someone who has studied the astronomies of primitive cultures, which can be very precise while finding expression in mythological terms, I admit to being attracted by such approaches). Here are a few examples:
I think a section on those who seek a broad definition of science to avoid putting limits on our understanding of the ways people have done science in the past or in other cultures would be helpful. -- SteveMcCluskey 03:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Please disambiguate the trope link in the article. I can't do it, because I don't understand it well enough. ike9898 20:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
The intro talks about the demarcation problem as between science and three areas: "non-science", pseudoscience, and religion. It is relatively clear what is meant by pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is imitation science: it is fraud, myth, or ideology that has been dressed up in a lab coat in order to garner the public respect that science has earned.
But it is not clear what is meant by "non-science". From what I have read, one of the concerns about falsificationism is that it does not adequately distinguish scientific statements from other statements of fact. See, e.g. this essay, which points out that we do not usually regard commonplace statements, such as "My eyes are blue," as scientific statements, even though they are falsifiable. -- FOo ( talk) 06:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
This article is full of them, e.g. the whole section entitled "Science and religion part ways," contains not a single citation, it does however make various claims for instance
"The work by Draper and White must???? (emphasis and question marks added) be seen as directly coming out of this social climate, and their model of science and religion as being eternally opposed, if not historically accurate, became a dominant social trope"
This is clearly some form of synthesis if not merely non-reviewed garble.
Even where citation does occur, it is unclear what exactly is being cited, for instance, the entire section on Kuhn, is cited but once at the end -- surely more than just the last sentence is being cited?
My concerns having been voiced, I will wait for responses, none being recieved in a months time, I will begin revisions. Talon 138.246.7.148 ( talk) 08:40, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
The limitations and applicability of the scientific method are not discussed in the article. I thought the demarcation problem also was about that. Or is that discussed in some other article?
I have the following issues in mind:
I just came across an interesting essay on the demarcation problem: Laudan, Larry (1983), "The Demise of the Demarcation Problem", in Cohen, R.S.; Laudan, L. (eds.), Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 76, Dordrecht: D. Reidel, pp. 111–127, ISBN 90-277-1533-5. Laudan begins with a nice historical introduction to the demarcation problem, discussing its origins and development in Ancient Grece, in 17th c. Europe, and in the late 19th c. He then notes that "No one can look at the history of debates between scientists and 'psuedo-scientists' without realizing that demarcation criteria are used as machines de guerre in a polemical battle between rival camps" (p. 119). After considering some of the major 20th c. attempts at a demarcation criteria, Laudan finds all proposed demarcation criteria to be wanting in one or more respects and concludes that "the problem of demarcation between science and non-science is a pseudo-problem (at least as far as philosophy is concerned)" (P. 124).
Laudan's longer historical perspective and his critical take on the demarcation problem should be reflected somewhere in this article. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 20:10, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#UniDiv:
"almost complete disagreement on the general criteria [science/pseudo-science demarcation] judgments should [...] be based upon."
Twipley ( talk) 23:36, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Pondering the link provided by Twipley, I'm wondering what motivates the section "Demarcation in contemporary scientific method". The section contains a nice and agreeable set of criteria for a sound science, that I'm willing to accept, except:
... said: Rursus ( mbork³) 12:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
You're probably right in your critique, but the bigger problem from a Wikipedia standpoint is that the section "Demarcation in contemporary scientific method" provides no citations and seems to violate WP:NOR. It doesn't really matter whether you and I doubt the claims in that section; the key is that they are not verified. SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 21:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
These recent edits raise some Aristotelian background, but don't really deal with what Aristotle had to say about the problem of demarcation. There is some good historical literature on the Greek natural philosophers' (and medical practitioners') attempts do differentiate what they were doing from the arguments of their intellectual rivals (see for example G. E. R. Lloyd's , Magic Reason and Experience and The Revolutions of Wisdom.) The recent edits don't seem really on target and besides that are poorly sourced (the only reference being to an essay with no author given on the web page of something called the "Alpha Institute for Advanced Studies."
As time allows, I will provide a new discussion of the early history based on Lloyd. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 20:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
A passage dealing with the broader cultural significance of the demarcation problem, specifically with its use in determining the legality of teaching "Creation Science" in science courses, was recently deleted with the rationale that this "article is about a conceptual problem inside philosophy". This historian doesn't believe we can draw that line so sharply -- especially in a general encyclopedia like Wikipedia. I propose adding a limited discussion of this issue under a new major heading entitled Cultural significance or Broader significance. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 03:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Steve McCluskey and Arc de Ciel that the "broader cultural significance of the demarcation problem" needs mention. The first sentence of the article talks of distinguishing between science and nonscience and between science and pseudoscience. Nonscience and pseudoscience are issues here as well as science. Creationists like Alvin Plantinga argue that creationist ideas do belong in science. i.e. that demarcation should not exclude them. Pennock's paper was largely about the legal implications of Laudan's article. Laudan himself wrote a follow-on paper entitled "Commentary: Science at the Bar -- Causes for Concern" and Michael Ruse wrote a response to it. The judges in those court cases are "talking about the nature of science," in fact they rule on it. And, I suspect that most readers who will read this demarcation article in the future will do so because of these external issues and not because of an interest in the philosophy of science. Ivar Y ( talk) 10:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
From a very quick scan of Pennock and Ruse's book, it seems that they are concerned with a narrow subset of the Demarcation problem, that of separating science from religion, rather than with the general problem of distinguishing science from non-science. Pennock's criterion of methodological naturalism seems useful for distinguishing science from religion, but doesn't seem useful for distinguishing science from other activities that some philosophers have considered non-scientific, such as astrology or psychoanalysis.
Since the discussion of Pennock is not applicable to the general problem, it should either be qualified to state its limitations or deleted. Perhaps someone who's more familiar with Pennock's work could take a stab at making such qualifications. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 04:10, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Ramos1990 wrote in the Edit summary of his 19 March 2014 revision:
But creationists do make scientific claims. In fact, Wikipedia has an article on Creation science. It says among other things:
The first sentence of this article is:
The implication is that this article is about pseudoscience (including creationism) as well as about science and that both can and should be discussed. It is hard to demarcate between science and pseudoscience if pseudoscience is ignored. Ivar Y ( talk) 06:12, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I didn't respond to your your and SteveMcCluskey's comments at the time but that doesn't mean that I thought that your comments "dealt" with the issue. And, even if you believe that they did, that doesn't mean that we can't deal with the issue again.
The demarcation between science and "religion" is an important demarcation issue. The Pennock paper (Can't philosophers tell the difference between science and religion?: Demarcation revisited) shows why.
Pennock's paper was largely based on the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. The central issue in that trial had to do with the demarcation of science. The Dover school board had decided that Intelligent Design was scientific and should be taught in science classes in the local public schools. Some parents sued, arguing that intelligent design was really religion and that, therefore, it was barred by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Hence, the issue that the judge had to decide was whether intelligent design was really science or not, i.e., was intelligent design on the science side or the non-science side of the demarcation boundary.
It was a famous trial with organizations and individuals from around America supporting the plaintiffs and defendants. The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) with support from the Discovery Institute represented the defendants. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) with support from the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) and others represented the plaintiffs. Pennock was one of the experts called by the plaintiffs. In the end, the judge decided that intelligent design was really religion and that, therefore, it could not be part of the school curriculum. The full text of the judge's decision is available in the wikisource:Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District.
It seems reasonable to me that a famous trial on the demarcation of science should be noted in a Wikipedia article on Demarcation. After all, articles like this one commonly include such examples.
In his paper and in the trial, Pennock offered Methodological Naturalism (MN) as a ground rule for distinguishing science from non-science and pseudoscience. Essentially, he is saying that science can investigate nature, which is structured and logical, but cannot investigate the supernatural, which is unstructured and unpredictable. He writes that MN is "an all-but-universally-accepted assumption of scientific practice and that is well justified on epistemological grounds as a rational basis for empirical research." We might argue whether he is right. However, the current demarcation article also has problems. Is the concept of Methodological Naturalism more ambiguous than, say, Popper's falsifiability? Another question: would the criteria currently in the Demarcation article justify the rejection of intelligent design in Dover?
(I've made some changes to the Logical positivism section to try to make it more meaningful for people who don't know much about the subject.) Ivar Y ( talk) 08:35, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
In response to Machine Elf's 26 March 2014 request in the Demarcation problem Revision history:
I was concerned that some readers might be confused by the earlier version of the Logical positivism section of the Demarcation problem article. The first sentence of the article reads "The demarcation problem ... is about how to distinguish between science and nonscience...." A naive reader is likely to expect to see some words on what is science in the Logical positivism section. But the original version doesn't talk about what is science. It talks about meaningfulness, which seems a somewhat strange way to introduce science. What is a meaningful science? In logical positivism circles, a meaningful statement is one that is "verifiable," but most new readers won't know that. A careful reader will probably figure out what is meant. I was trying to make it easier. A bigger concern are the statements about the death of logical positivism. The paragraph doesn't say why it died; it just says that it is dead. This opens Pandora's box. Are empirical observations no longer required in science? Are scientific hypotheses still required? Is witchcraft now legitimate?
My new version is not completely new. Some of the sentences in the original version were used later in the new version. Ivar Y ( talk) 00:01, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Note the stipulation in the logical positivists section of the Science and Pseudoscience article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ivar Y ( talk) 09:41, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
A suggested new section, probably before Logical Positivism, because this one for most users will be pretty basic.
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Methodological naturalism describes how science is normally done. It requires that scientists must hypothesize only natural causes and must test these hypotheses using only observations of natural events.
From the Natural Academy of Sciences:
Note that methodological naturalism differs from metaphysical naturalism. The latter asserts that nature is everything. There are no gods, no witches, no magic. There is only nature. The former asserts only that nature is what scientist study. Note also that as scientists learn more about nature, the natural world can get bigger. Earlier scientists knew nothing of DNA or quarks or the planet Neptune, for example. Ivar Y ( talk) 09:15, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
The purpose of science is to explain and predict the behavior of our world. Scientists devise theories to do this. Suppose you are trying to create a new or improved scientific theory so that you and others can better understand how the world really works. Over time, most scientists have come to the conclusion that such a project will be successful only if you limit the project to natural causes and effects. There are some who dispute this but their view is rejected by almost all scientists and philosophers. Methodological naturalism is based on this judgment. It essentially says that science projects that incorporate and depend on supernatural elements are not science, i.e., they are nonscience. Supernaturalism is, thus, a demarcation criterion.
Further, tentative science theories must be testable. If you can't test them, if you can't verify that a tentative theory can predict observations that match corresponding observations of the real world, then that theory is not scientific. Hence, testability is another demarcation criterion. There are still other criteria, for example, falsifiability.
Methodological naturalism assumes that scientists are following the scientific method. The main components of the scientific method are making hypotheses, deducing predictions from them, and testing these predictions. See the Overview section of the Scientific method article. Sections of the current Demarcation article, e.g., Falsifiability and Thagard also assume the scientific method. It might be desirable to insert a brief description of the scientific method near the beginning of the current demarcation article to assure that readers are aware of this.
Suppose that a supernatural ghost does move some things around. How would you know? The objects are still natural. Ivar Y ( talk) 10:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
It seems unlikely that we are ever going to reach an agreement. The arguments are frequently irrational. For example, Mayan1990 wrote:
The definition of science has nothing to do with the problem of distinguishing science from nonscience?
My concern is that the article is degenerating into an attack on science. I fear that creationists will use this Wikipedia article to demand in state legislatures that creationism be taught in science classes in American public schools. Ivar Y ( talk) 08:27, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
I have problems following your (Mayan1990) reasoning. It seems to me that when The Academy of Science says that "any scientific explanation has to be testable," they are asserting that testability is a demarcation criterion. Arguably, a more detailed explanation is desirable but that does not mean that "testability" is a meaningless criterion. Actually, their description did say more, e.g., "explanations must be based on naturally occurring phenomena," etc. Are the current criteria in the demarcation article supposed to be better examples of good descriptions of criteria? If yes, why?
Science and nonscience cannot be defined separately. The demarcation boundary of nonscience is the same as the demarcation boundary of science. Science activities are on one side of the boundary; nonscience activities are on the other side.
It seems to me that the Logical Positivism criterion and the Falsifiability criterion in the current article together imply that Methodological Naturalism is also a valid criterion. I'm assuming an everyday definition of supernatural, e.g., gods, ghosts, witches, etc. God cannot be reduced to a mathematical equation that predicts what God will and can do. Hence, God cannot be an object of scientific study.
My choice of words about the article "degenerating into an attack on science" was poor. What I meant was that the article does a poor job of defending science. It makes science vulnerable to attacks by creationists, by people who deny the threat of global climate change, and so on. Laudan's views on the demise of demarcation are similarly controversial and were brought up in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial.
The demarcation problem may not be focused on court cases but court cases may be focused on the demarcation problem. Ivar Y ( talk) 10:56, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
The section on logical positivism is devoted almost entirely to bashing on it and claiming that it's "wrong." This is ridiculous. The point of this article is to summarize what various schools of thought believed about philosophy of science and what qualifies as "science." You're not supposed to take sides. I don't see anyone going out of their way to explain how Ancient Greek Science is "obviously dead and wrong," so don't do it with positivism. Just summarize the view and get on with it.
On a related note, I've seen similar bias in other positivism-related sections. It's as if some angry philosophy grad student is taking it upon him/herself to trash positivism throughout Wikipedia. This is not the place for that kind of rhetoric.
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The demarcation problem is rising to the surface of public discussions as information warfare colors media descriptions of current events. Mention of the rising profile of the topic is a worthy feature of a statement in the lead: (“mention of consequential or significant criticism or controversies” WP:Writing better articles#Lead section).
Such a contribution was made, but it was reverted. As the contribution included a pertinent reference to an article by Michael D. Gordin, there was no basis for the reversion. Rgdboer ( talk) 02:21, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
Gordin has been moved to suggested section which is renamed Significance. Another quotation pointing to demarcation as an educational purpose has been cited. Rgdboer ( talk) 03:38, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
The opening of the article states "The debate continues after over two millennia of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in various fields, despite a broad agreement on the basics of the scientific method". This opening line struck me immediately as odd and so went and looked at the source which does not seem to back up this text.
The first source "Scientific Method in Practice. pp. 3–7" (which can be viewed here) in fact directly contradicts this saying: "The mere idea that there exists such things as general principles of scientific method is controversial". It then goes on to say "Many scientists have claimed there is no such thing as a scientific method" which likewise seems to contradict the idea that there is "broad agreement on the basics of the scientific method".
The only thing that could possibly be construed to support the idea of broad agreement is on page 5 where it mentions that the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) believes "Scientists share basic beliefs and attitudes about what they do and how they view their work". This could not possibly be used as a justification for the above line given that (1) this is not an authoritative source because A) it is merely a group of scientists with an opinion and B) it is not their area of expertise, as the demarcation problem is a philosophical problem, not a scientific one (2) It is a self-published opinion and (3) contradicts the opinion of the Cambridge-published author above.
The second source I could not seem to locate online unfortunately so it cannot be assessed. However the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (a peer-reviewed publication, in contrast to the AAAS) paints a contrasting picture, "it is emphasized that there is much more agreement on particular cases of demarcation than on the general criteria that such judgments should be based upon."
The "broad agreement on the basics of the scientific method" line therefore does not seem to have any basis in the truly reliable sources and should be amended as such. 80.111.17.229 ( talk) 15:06, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
[3] haven't read yet. Maybe will check later if it looks useful. 67.160.203.180 ( talk) 05:27, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
The distinction between science and scientism is also a kind of demarcation problem, especially as understood by the language of this article's opening. Over the coming months and years we should try to elaborate on this in this article (I'm now motivated to go over cited reliable sources for such info). For now I'm just going to add a link to the Scientism Wiki article into this article's 'See also' section. Tfdavisatsnetnet ( talk)
A summary of this article appears in Philosophy of science. |
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 January 2019 and 24 April 2019. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 19:15, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
This should be 'Demarcation problem" - wiki policy doesn't like caps — Preceding unsigned comment added by Banno ( talk • contribs) 21:54, 6 August 2004 (UTC)
The discussion is unclear. Kuhn thought he could provide a demarcation criterion. But I suggest that it is generally accepted that he failed to do so. Non-sciences also work within paradigms. The talk of "naturalistic" explanations is not from Kuhn, and should be separated from the discussion of his work. Banno 19:19, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)
The last para is just too full of weasels. Unless it can be re-worded to say something, it would be better to leave the discussion hanging… Banno 19:22, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)
Last Para: The problem of demarcation is considered solved by some, for others there is no such thing as an autonomous scientific method, no definitive philosophy of science and no clear and agreed-upon distinction between science and pseudoscience.
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Proposal for criticisms. Mainly, I find the weasel words problematic. But in addition, the thrust of the article is, as it should be, that the demarcation problem is unresolved. The first sentence of this paragraph stands in strange contrast to the remainder of the article. If someone claims that the problem is resolved, then their argument should be presented here, instead of this oblique reference. Banno 21:43, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
Very interesting. Like the idea of including the judgement. Need to think about it for a bit... Banno 09:32, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
The final sentence of this article used 'all' to mean 'those under the juristiction of the United States Supreme Court'. It's been deleted. -- Eienmaru 21:43, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
There is no discussion of the possiblity of partial solutions to the problem. A total solution decides between either science and unscience. Whereas, a partial solution can also decide something is 'maybe science'. I don't know if there is any literature out there on this, but it seems probable that I am not the first to consider it. An example of a partial criterion is Kuhn's paradigm criteria- every science must operate according to a paradigm. An example of a fairly uncontroversial partial criteria is a theory must make at least one prediction about reality. The latter is just a much more inclusive version of falsifiability. Also, it is merely equivalent to the statement that sciences are ontologies, so that rejecting it as a criteria risks an incoherently antirealist stance where even instrumentalist interpretations would be dismissed since instruments do not exist. Such a position quickly leads to a pathological cynicism so bad that one must reject one's own existance. -- Intangir 14:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
I thought that demarcation problem would apply (1) between protoscience and pseudoscience and (2) between science and protoscience (e.g. for both, at what point in history did astrology go from being protoscience to pseudoscience?) — Dunc| ☺ 15:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Just reading the article over and I was curious: What is the difference between a "paradigm" and a "model"? It look a little bit like Kuhn has exchanged the word model for the fancier "paradigm" and made a bunch of controversial statements, que money.
In science all the things he describes as "paradigms" are called "models", so you can see my confusion. It might be of help to the article if we can describe the proper distinction. Jefffire 10:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the following explanation should be dumbed down a little i.e. de-jargonized:
Specifically the "outlying data points" part. Maybe replace with "not very sensitive to external input." or something like that (but preferably something evem less pretentious sounding). I'm not even really sure its a pureley statistical concept. I see what the person was saying, but I suspect robustness is a more abstract term (and also not so tidy a concept as this contributor made it out to be. Its kind of like "elegance", just something not strictly defined but generally felt to communicate some real quality.) Brentt 06:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I'll try and make these at some point when I have more time but I thought I'd just list them here for the moment...
...just some thoughts. More to come later. -- Fastfission 00:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
This is a nice topic. Some historians of science tend to define science in such broad terms that the demarcation problem almost vanishes. (As someone who has studied the astronomies of primitive cultures, which can be very precise while finding expression in mythological terms, I admit to being attracted by such approaches). Here are a few examples:
I think a section on those who seek a broad definition of science to avoid putting limits on our understanding of the ways people have done science in the past or in other cultures would be helpful. -- SteveMcCluskey 03:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Please disambiguate the trope link in the article. I can't do it, because I don't understand it well enough. ike9898 20:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
The intro talks about the demarcation problem as between science and three areas: "non-science", pseudoscience, and religion. It is relatively clear what is meant by pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is imitation science: it is fraud, myth, or ideology that has been dressed up in a lab coat in order to garner the public respect that science has earned.
But it is not clear what is meant by "non-science". From what I have read, one of the concerns about falsificationism is that it does not adequately distinguish scientific statements from other statements of fact. See, e.g. this essay, which points out that we do not usually regard commonplace statements, such as "My eyes are blue," as scientific statements, even though they are falsifiable. -- FOo ( talk) 06:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
This article is full of them, e.g. the whole section entitled "Science and religion part ways," contains not a single citation, it does however make various claims for instance
"The work by Draper and White must???? (emphasis and question marks added) be seen as directly coming out of this social climate, and their model of science and religion as being eternally opposed, if not historically accurate, became a dominant social trope"
This is clearly some form of synthesis if not merely non-reviewed garble.
Even where citation does occur, it is unclear what exactly is being cited, for instance, the entire section on Kuhn, is cited but once at the end -- surely more than just the last sentence is being cited?
My concerns having been voiced, I will wait for responses, none being recieved in a months time, I will begin revisions. Talon 138.246.7.148 ( talk) 08:40, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
The limitations and applicability of the scientific method are not discussed in the article. I thought the demarcation problem also was about that. Or is that discussed in some other article?
I have the following issues in mind:
I just came across an interesting essay on the demarcation problem: Laudan, Larry (1983), "The Demise of the Demarcation Problem", in Cohen, R.S.; Laudan, L. (eds.), Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 76, Dordrecht: D. Reidel, pp. 111–127, ISBN 90-277-1533-5. Laudan begins with a nice historical introduction to the demarcation problem, discussing its origins and development in Ancient Grece, in 17th c. Europe, and in the late 19th c. He then notes that "No one can look at the history of debates between scientists and 'psuedo-scientists' without realizing that demarcation criteria are used as machines de guerre in a polemical battle between rival camps" (p. 119). After considering some of the major 20th c. attempts at a demarcation criteria, Laudan finds all proposed demarcation criteria to be wanting in one or more respects and concludes that "the problem of demarcation between science and non-science is a pseudo-problem (at least as far as philosophy is concerned)" (P. 124).
Laudan's longer historical perspective and his critical take on the demarcation problem should be reflected somewhere in this article. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 20:10, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#UniDiv:
"almost complete disagreement on the general criteria [science/pseudo-science demarcation] judgments should [...] be based upon."
Twipley ( talk) 23:36, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Pondering the link provided by Twipley, I'm wondering what motivates the section "Demarcation in contemporary scientific method". The section contains a nice and agreeable set of criteria for a sound science, that I'm willing to accept, except:
... said: Rursus ( mbork³) 12:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
You're probably right in your critique, but the bigger problem from a Wikipedia standpoint is that the section "Demarcation in contemporary scientific method" provides no citations and seems to violate WP:NOR. It doesn't really matter whether you and I doubt the claims in that section; the key is that they are not verified. SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 21:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
These recent edits raise some Aristotelian background, but don't really deal with what Aristotle had to say about the problem of demarcation. There is some good historical literature on the Greek natural philosophers' (and medical practitioners') attempts do differentiate what they were doing from the arguments of their intellectual rivals (see for example G. E. R. Lloyd's , Magic Reason and Experience and The Revolutions of Wisdom.) The recent edits don't seem really on target and besides that are poorly sourced (the only reference being to an essay with no author given on the web page of something called the "Alpha Institute for Advanced Studies."
As time allows, I will provide a new discussion of the early history based on Lloyd. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 20:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
A passage dealing with the broader cultural significance of the demarcation problem, specifically with its use in determining the legality of teaching "Creation Science" in science courses, was recently deleted with the rationale that this "article is about a conceptual problem inside philosophy". This historian doesn't believe we can draw that line so sharply -- especially in a general encyclopedia like Wikipedia. I propose adding a limited discussion of this issue under a new major heading entitled Cultural significance or Broader significance. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 03:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Steve McCluskey and Arc de Ciel that the "broader cultural significance of the demarcation problem" needs mention. The first sentence of the article talks of distinguishing between science and nonscience and between science and pseudoscience. Nonscience and pseudoscience are issues here as well as science. Creationists like Alvin Plantinga argue that creationist ideas do belong in science. i.e. that demarcation should not exclude them. Pennock's paper was largely about the legal implications of Laudan's article. Laudan himself wrote a follow-on paper entitled "Commentary: Science at the Bar -- Causes for Concern" and Michael Ruse wrote a response to it. The judges in those court cases are "talking about the nature of science," in fact they rule on it. And, I suspect that most readers who will read this demarcation article in the future will do so because of these external issues and not because of an interest in the philosophy of science. Ivar Y ( talk) 10:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
From a very quick scan of Pennock and Ruse's book, it seems that they are concerned with a narrow subset of the Demarcation problem, that of separating science from religion, rather than with the general problem of distinguishing science from non-science. Pennock's criterion of methodological naturalism seems useful for distinguishing science from religion, but doesn't seem useful for distinguishing science from other activities that some philosophers have considered non-scientific, such as astrology or psychoanalysis.
Since the discussion of Pennock is not applicable to the general problem, it should either be qualified to state its limitations or deleted. Perhaps someone who's more familiar with Pennock's work could take a stab at making such qualifications. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 04:10, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Ramos1990 wrote in the Edit summary of his 19 March 2014 revision:
But creationists do make scientific claims. In fact, Wikipedia has an article on Creation science. It says among other things:
The first sentence of this article is:
The implication is that this article is about pseudoscience (including creationism) as well as about science and that both can and should be discussed. It is hard to demarcate between science and pseudoscience if pseudoscience is ignored. Ivar Y ( talk) 06:12, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I didn't respond to your your and SteveMcCluskey's comments at the time but that doesn't mean that I thought that your comments "dealt" with the issue. And, even if you believe that they did, that doesn't mean that we can't deal with the issue again.
The demarcation between science and "religion" is an important demarcation issue. The Pennock paper (Can't philosophers tell the difference between science and religion?: Demarcation revisited) shows why.
Pennock's paper was largely based on the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. The central issue in that trial had to do with the demarcation of science. The Dover school board had decided that Intelligent Design was scientific and should be taught in science classes in the local public schools. Some parents sued, arguing that intelligent design was really religion and that, therefore, it was barred by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Hence, the issue that the judge had to decide was whether intelligent design was really science or not, i.e., was intelligent design on the science side or the non-science side of the demarcation boundary.
It was a famous trial with organizations and individuals from around America supporting the plaintiffs and defendants. The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) with support from the Discovery Institute represented the defendants. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) with support from the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) and others represented the plaintiffs. Pennock was one of the experts called by the plaintiffs. In the end, the judge decided that intelligent design was really religion and that, therefore, it could not be part of the school curriculum. The full text of the judge's decision is available in the wikisource:Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District.
It seems reasonable to me that a famous trial on the demarcation of science should be noted in a Wikipedia article on Demarcation. After all, articles like this one commonly include such examples.
In his paper and in the trial, Pennock offered Methodological Naturalism (MN) as a ground rule for distinguishing science from non-science and pseudoscience. Essentially, he is saying that science can investigate nature, which is structured and logical, but cannot investigate the supernatural, which is unstructured and unpredictable. He writes that MN is "an all-but-universally-accepted assumption of scientific practice and that is well justified on epistemological grounds as a rational basis for empirical research." We might argue whether he is right. However, the current demarcation article also has problems. Is the concept of Methodological Naturalism more ambiguous than, say, Popper's falsifiability? Another question: would the criteria currently in the Demarcation article justify the rejection of intelligent design in Dover?
(I've made some changes to the Logical positivism section to try to make it more meaningful for people who don't know much about the subject.) Ivar Y ( talk) 08:35, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
In response to Machine Elf's 26 March 2014 request in the Demarcation problem Revision history:
I was concerned that some readers might be confused by the earlier version of the Logical positivism section of the Demarcation problem article. The first sentence of the article reads "The demarcation problem ... is about how to distinguish between science and nonscience...." A naive reader is likely to expect to see some words on what is science in the Logical positivism section. But the original version doesn't talk about what is science. It talks about meaningfulness, which seems a somewhat strange way to introduce science. What is a meaningful science? In logical positivism circles, a meaningful statement is one that is "verifiable," but most new readers won't know that. A careful reader will probably figure out what is meant. I was trying to make it easier. A bigger concern are the statements about the death of logical positivism. The paragraph doesn't say why it died; it just says that it is dead. This opens Pandora's box. Are empirical observations no longer required in science? Are scientific hypotheses still required? Is witchcraft now legitimate?
My new version is not completely new. Some of the sentences in the original version were used later in the new version. Ivar Y ( talk) 00:01, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Note the stipulation in the logical positivists section of the Science and Pseudoscience article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ivar Y ( talk) 09:41, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
A suggested new section, probably before Logical Positivism, because this one for most users will be pretty basic.
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Methodological naturalism describes how science is normally done. It requires that scientists must hypothesize only natural causes and must test these hypotheses using only observations of natural events.
From the Natural Academy of Sciences:
Note that methodological naturalism differs from metaphysical naturalism. The latter asserts that nature is everything. There are no gods, no witches, no magic. There is only nature. The former asserts only that nature is what scientist study. Note also that as scientists learn more about nature, the natural world can get bigger. Earlier scientists knew nothing of DNA or quarks or the planet Neptune, for example. Ivar Y ( talk) 09:15, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
The purpose of science is to explain and predict the behavior of our world. Scientists devise theories to do this. Suppose you are trying to create a new or improved scientific theory so that you and others can better understand how the world really works. Over time, most scientists have come to the conclusion that such a project will be successful only if you limit the project to natural causes and effects. There are some who dispute this but their view is rejected by almost all scientists and philosophers. Methodological naturalism is based on this judgment. It essentially says that science projects that incorporate and depend on supernatural elements are not science, i.e., they are nonscience. Supernaturalism is, thus, a demarcation criterion.
Further, tentative science theories must be testable. If you can't test them, if you can't verify that a tentative theory can predict observations that match corresponding observations of the real world, then that theory is not scientific. Hence, testability is another demarcation criterion. There are still other criteria, for example, falsifiability.
Methodological naturalism assumes that scientists are following the scientific method. The main components of the scientific method are making hypotheses, deducing predictions from them, and testing these predictions. See the Overview section of the Scientific method article. Sections of the current Demarcation article, e.g., Falsifiability and Thagard also assume the scientific method. It might be desirable to insert a brief description of the scientific method near the beginning of the current demarcation article to assure that readers are aware of this.
Suppose that a supernatural ghost does move some things around. How would you know? The objects are still natural. Ivar Y ( talk) 10:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
It seems unlikely that we are ever going to reach an agreement. The arguments are frequently irrational. For example, Mayan1990 wrote:
The definition of science has nothing to do with the problem of distinguishing science from nonscience?
My concern is that the article is degenerating into an attack on science. I fear that creationists will use this Wikipedia article to demand in state legislatures that creationism be taught in science classes in American public schools. Ivar Y ( talk) 08:27, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
I have problems following your (Mayan1990) reasoning. It seems to me that when The Academy of Science says that "any scientific explanation has to be testable," they are asserting that testability is a demarcation criterion. Arguably, a more detailed explanation is desirable but that does not mean that "testability" is a meaningless criterion. Actually, their description did say more, e.g., "explanations must be based on naturally occurring phenomena," etc. Are the current criteria in the demarcation article supposed to be better examples of good descriptions of criteria? If yes, why?
Science and nonscience cannot be defined separately. The demarcation boundary of nonscience is the same as the demarcation boundary of science. Science activities are on one side of the boundary; nonscience activities are on the other side.
It seems to me that the Logical Positivism criterion and the Falsifiability criterion in the current article together imply that Methodological Naturalism is also a valid criterion. I'm assuming an everyday definition of supernatural, e.g., gods, ghosts, witches, etc. God cannot be reduced to a mathematical equation that predicts what God will and can do. Hence, God cannot be an object of scientific study.
My choice of words about the article "degenerating into an attack on science" was poor. What I meant was that the article does a poor job of defending science. It makes science vulnerable to attacks by creationists, by people who deny the threat of global climate change, and so on. Laudan's views on the demise of demarcation are similarly controversial and were brought up in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial.
The demarcation problem may not be focused on court cases but court cases may be focused on the demarcation problem. Ivar Y ( talk) 10:56, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
The section on logical positivism is devoted almost entirely to bashing on it and claiming that it's "wrong." This is ridiculous. The point of this article is to summarize what various schools of thought believed about philosophy of science and what qualifies as "science." You're not supposed to take sides. I don't see anyone going out of their way to explain how Ancient Greek Science is "obviously dead and wrong," so don't do it with positivism. Just summarize the view and get on with it.
On a related note, I've seen similar bias in other positivism-related sections. It's as if some angry philosophy grad student is taking it upon him/herself to trash positivism throughout Wikipedia. This is not the place for that kind of rhetoric.
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The demarcation problem is rising to the surface of public discussions as information warfare colors media descriptions of current events. Mention of the rising profile of the topic is a worthy feature of a statement in the lead: (“mention of consequential or significant criticism or controversies” WP:Writing better articles#Lead section).
Such a contribution was made, but it was reverted. As the contribution included a pertinent reference to an article by Michael D. Gordin, there was no basis for the reversion. Rgdboer ( talk) 02:21, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
Gordin has been moved to suggested section which is renamed Significance. Another quotation pointing to demarcation as an educational purpose has been cited. Rgdboer ( talk) 03:38, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
The opening of the article states "The debate continues after over two millennia of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in various fields, despite a broad agreement on the basics of the scientific method". This opening line struck me immediately as odd and so went and looked at the source which does not seem to back up this text.
The first source "Scientific Method in Practice. pp. 3–7" (which can be viewed here) in fact directly contradicts this saying: "The mere idea that there exists such things as general principles of scientific method is controversial". It then goes on to say "Many scientists have claimed there is no such thing as a scientific method" which likewise seems to contradict the idea that there is "broad agreement on the basics of the scientific method".
The only thing that could possibly be construed to support the idea of broad agreement is on page 5 where it mentions that the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) believes "Scientists share basic beliefs and attitudes about what they do and how they view their work". This could not possibly be used as a justification for the above line given that (1) this is not an authoritative source because A) it is merely a group of scientists with an opinion and B) it is not their area of expertise, as the demarcation problem is a philosophical problem, not a scientific one (2) It is a self-published opinion and (3) contradicts the opinion of the Cambridge-published author above.
The second source I could not seem to locate online unfortunately so it cannot be assessed. However the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (a peer-reviewed publication, in contrast to the AAAS) paints a contrasting picture, "it is emphasized that there is much more agreement on particular cases of demarcation than on the general criteria that such judgments should be based upon."
The "broad agreement on the basics of the scientific method" line therefore does not seem to have any basis in the truly reliable sources and should be amended as such. 80.111.17.229 ( talk) 15:06, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
[3] haven't read yet. Maybe will check later if it looks useful. 67.160.203.180 ( talk) 05:27, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
The distinction between science and scientism is also a kind of demarcation problem, especially as understood by the language of this article's opening. Over the coming months and years we should try to elaborate on this in this article (I'm now motivated to go over cited reliable sources for such info). For now I'm just going to add a link to the Scientism Wiki article into this article's 'See also' section. Tfdavisatsnetnet ( talk)