Dawes 2018 Pseudoscience JGPS 19 45176482

Identifying Pseudoscience: A Social Process Criterion
Author(s): Gregory W. Dawes

Source: Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für allgemeine
Wissenschaftstheorie, Vol. 49, No. 3 (September 2018), pp. 283-298
Published by: Springer
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J Gen Philos Sci (2018) 49:283-298
https://doi.org/10.1007/sl0838-017-9388-6
ARTICLE
Identifying Pseudoscience: A Social Process Criterion
Gregory W. Dawes1
Published online: 6 January 2018

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract Many philosophers have come to believe there is no single criterion by which
one can distinguish between a science and a pseudoscience. But it need not follow that no
distinction can be made: a multifactorial account of what constitutes a pseudoscience
remains possible. On this view, knowledge-seeking activities fall on a spectrum, with the
clearly scientific at one end and the clearly non-scientific at the other. When proponents
claim a clearly non-scientific activity to be scientific, it can be described as a pseudo-
science. One feature of a scientific theory is that it forms part of a research tradition being
actively pursued by a scientific community. If a theory lacks this form of epistemic
warrant, this is a pro tanto reason to regard it as pseudoscientific.
Keywords Science • Pseudoscience • Research traditions • Scientific communities • Social

epistemology • Velikovsky • Homeopathy • Germ-theory • Plate tectonics
1 Introduction
For much of the twentieth century, philosophers assumed that a clear distinction could be
made between science and pseudoscience, even if they disagreed about how to characterise
it. In recent decades, however, a weariness has crept into this discussion, coupled with a
sense that the task may be impossible. Already in 1983 Larry Laudan wrote about what he
called "the demise of the demarcation problem." For whatever demarcation criteria are
proposed, he argued, there are either indisputably scientific theories that do not meet them,
or theories widely regarded as pseudoscientific that do. Laudan' s conclusion was that we
should "drop terms like pseudo-science' and 'unscientific' from our vocabulary; they are
just hollow phrases which do only emotive work for us" (Laudan 1983, 125). The only
distinction we need is that between reliable and unreliable sources of knowledge.
ISI Gregory W. Dawes

gregory .dawes @otago.ac.nz
1 Department of Philosophy, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
Ô Springer
284 G. W. Dawes
A recent book on the work of Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979), expresses a similarly
sceptical attitude. Its author, Michael Gordin, argues that the only feature characterising
the various practices described as pseudoscientific is that they are disliked by scientists. As
he writes,
we are faced with a variant of the classic story of three blind men encountering an
elephant. One holds the tail, and thinks it is a piece of string; another grabs a leg, and
thinks he is holding a tree; the third holds the trunk, and believes he grasps a snake.
Only, in the case of pseudoscience, they really are holding a piece of string, a tree
trunk, and a snake. There is no elephant. (Gordin 2012, 2)
His conclusion resembles Laudan' s, that "pseudoscience" is nothing more than "an empty
category, a term of abuse" (Gordin 2012, 206).
Despite such scepticism, the "science and pseudoscience" distinction refuses to die. Not
only do the labels continue to be used, but it is difficult to abandon the idea that they have
epistemic significance. Because the sciences seem to offer a reliable way of forming
beliefs, the distinction also has practical importance. Without such a distinction we would
find it difficult to make public policy decisions regarding some important matters (Mahner
2013, 35-36). These include the forms of healthcare that should receive public funding, the
subjects that should be taught in medical schools (MacLennan and Morrison 2012), the
kind of expert testimony that should be admitted in court (Hansson 2017, Sect. 1), and
whether intelligent design theory should be taught alongside evolution in public schools. A
particularly important field in which we need this distinction has to do with climate change.
Alongside the mainstream community of climate scientists, there is a small but vocal
community of sceptics, who produce evidence that at least appears to be scientific
(Oreskes and Conway 2010, 187). Should the work of climate-change sceptics be regarded
as science, or a politically motivated pseudoscience?
2 Science, Non-Science, Pseudoscience
Although we need to make such judgements, what the critics have shown is that doing so is
no simple matter. I accept Laudan' s claim that we will be unable to find a single
demarcation criterion, a "necessary and sufficient condition for something to count as
'science'" (Laudan 1983, 123). Nor will we be able to find a set of criteria that jointly
constitute necessary and sufficient conditions for regarding an activity as scientific. But we
can still develop what I shall call a multifactorial account: one that lists factors to be taken
into account when making judgements about the scientific status of theories, without
claiming that any of these is decisive (Mahner 2007, 521-22). To return for a moment to
Gordin' s parable, it is true that each blind man is mistaken in believing the whole animal to
resemble the part with which he is in contact. But it does not follow that there is no
elephant.
2.1 Science and Non-Science
Underlying this view is a recognition that the term "science" does not pick out a clearly
defined set of activities. The term is better regarded as a "cluster-concept," relating diverse
forms of knowledge-seeking activity and the theories to which they give rise. There are
two ways of thinking about cluster-concepts. The Wittgensteinian family-resemblance
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Identifying Pseudoscience: A Social Process Criterion 285
view holds that particular sciences are linked by "threads" made of features that are
common to two or more instances, although there may be no thread that links them all
(Pigliucci 2013, 21-22). My preferred understanding of science is a little different. It
begins with an established science (such as particle physics), whose status is uncontested,
lists its features, and then judges other activities to be scientific to the extent that they share
these features.1 But whatever conception of a cluster-concept one chooses, it will have
implications for our understanding of science.
In particular, it will make it impossible to make clear distinctions between science and
other forms of knowledge-seeking activity. The latter will also have some features char-
acteristic of science. This does not mean there are no differences, that all such activities
can be regarded as equivalent. On the contrary: there are differences, but they are dif-
ferences of degree rather than of kind. Take, for instance, the forms of scientific reasoning
that are discussed by philosophers: induction, deduction, and the assessment of evidence.
We all employ such reasoning in everyday life, as well as within particular fields of inquiry
such as journalism or law. So the use of such reasoning is not limited to the sciences. What
is characteristic of the sciences is that they employ such reasoning in a more systematic
and self-conscious fashion (Hoyningen-Huene 2013, 18).
This means that our knowledge-seeking activities can be thought of as forming a
spectrum. At one end will be the clearly non-scientific (such as journalism) and at the other
end will be practices that are undeniably scientific (such as particle physics). Moving along
the spectrum we will find practices such as historical writing, legal reasoning, "soft"
sciences (such as sociology) and quasi- or proto- sciences (such as string theory).2 In
distributing activities in this way, philosophers have customarily paid attention to two
kinds of features: the evidential and the structural. The first of these has to do with the
reasoning that connects a theory with the relevant evidence. Our knowledge-seeking
activities may be more or less systematic in their attention to the evidence and to com-
peting explanations of it. The second refers to the fact that theories have certain internal
characteristics. They differ, for instance, in their degree of empirical content: the number
of possible states of affairs they exclude (Popper 2002, 96, 103). To these two kinds of
features, the present paper is adding a third, namely a social feature. This has to do with the
extent to which a theory has undergone the kind of collective scrutiny characteristic of
scientific communities.
2.2 Non-Science and Pseudoscience
What about pseudoscience? There is a difference between an activity that is merely non-
scientific and one that is pseudoscientific. As the "pseudo" in the term suggests, a pseu-
doscience is an activity that is being falsely presented as science, either explicitly or by
mimicking the forms of a science. This cannot be a sufficient condition for describing an
activity as a pseudoscience. If it were, instances of scientific fraud (such as fabricating
evidence) would be an indicator that the activity in question was pseudoscientific. This
1 For lists of such features, see, for example, the work of Mario Bunge (1991 , 46) and Martin Mahner (2013,
38-39). (Bunge regards these features as jointly necessary, while Mahner favours a "family-resemblance"
approach.)
2 My spectrum resembles Pigliucci' s (2013, 18), but differs from it insofar as it does not label activities at
the non-scientific end of the spectrum "pseudoscience," for such activities are pseudoscientific only when
they mimic science (see Sect. 1 .2).
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286 G. W. Dawes
seems wrong: fraudulent practices can occur within fields that are indisputably sciences
(Hansson 2017, Sect. 3.3). But it can be a necessary condition.
To be falsely presented as a science, an activity must have two features. It must lack
some of the characteristics of a science, understood in the cluster-concept sense already
described. It is because it lacks such characteristics that it is being falsely presented as
science. But a pseudoscience must have another feature: it must appear to be a science , that
is to say, a systematic body of beliefs and practices. It may be less systematic than a true
science (Hoyningen-Huene 2013, 203-7), or systematic along fewer dimensions. But it
must present itself as a set of claims that are related to one another and to the practices
thought to ground them. The claimed relations may be of various kinds - purely logical or
more broadly evidential (Hoyningen-Huene 2013, 118-19) - and outsiders may question
their validity. But they must be thought to have epistemic significance. Without some
claimed relations of this kind, the activity in question would not even resemble a science.
For the rest of this paper I shall continue to speak about the scientific status of "the-
ories," understanding that term to include any proposition or sets of propositions offered in
explanation of a class of phenomena. My reason for using this term is that it is often
theories whose scientific status we wish to assess. But it follows from what I have just been
arguing that theories will qualify as scientific (or pseudoscientific) only to the extent that
they form part of a system of beliefs and practice. The distinction between a science and a
pseudoscience will apply, in the first instance, to such systems. It will apply to particular
propositions only insofar as they play a role within the systems in question.
A pseudoscience, then, is a systematic form of knowledge-seeking activity that is being
falsely presented as a science. There are two categories of such knowledge-seeking
activity. The first is that of activities that are simply misguided, no matter how they are
undertaken. Astrology, for instance, seems to have no evidence in its favour. But not all
instances of such misguided activity will count as pseudoscientific. Take, for instance, a
person who casually reads the horoscopes in her local newspaper. Such a person should not
be thought of as practising a pseudoscience, since a casual reading of second-hand sources
does not even resemble a scientific inquiry. But if those who create the horoscopes present
astrology as a systematic body of doctrine based on evidence, then their activity could be
thought of as pseudoscientific.
Alongside non-scientific knowledge-seeking activities that are simply misguided, there
is a second class of activities that can be reliable, when conducted in an informal fashion.
But even these activities may count as pseudoscientific when they claim the degree of
precision and systematicity characteristic of a science. One can, for instance, undertake an
informal (descriptive or historical) study of fashion. But when Roland Barthes (1967) tried
to turn this into a science - a système de la mode - on the assumption that the elements of
clothing are related in the same way as the elements of a language, one could at least
suggest that this was a pseudoscience.
Here, too, however, no sharp distinctions will be possible. The activities being presented
as science will be more or less scientific in character, depending on their place on the
spectrum. We may decide that a systematic form of knowledge-seeking activity has suf-
ficient scientific features to be thought of as truly scientific or, that by virtue of lacking
such features it should be characterized as a pseudoscience. But there will be borderline
cases in which we are uncertain where to draw the line. The work of Barthes and his fellow
structuralists is a case in point. Was "semiology" even a proto-science? Could it ever have
become a science? I suspect not, but this is question on which reasonable people could
disagree.
<0 Springer
2.3 Expanding the Criteria
The present paper seeks to expand the range of criteria by which we locate our knowledge-
seeking activities. Existing criteria focus on the nature of scientific reasoning and the
structure of scientific theories . It is not that those existing criteria are mistaken. Far from it.
The degree to which a theory is falsifiable, for instance, will continue to be an important
criterion of the scientific. But there is a further criterion we need to take into account,
which has to do with the nature of scientific communities.
To some extent this is already recognized, for many complaints about the unfalsifiability
of theories are, in fact, complaints about the community that is defending them. "Creation
science" (for instance) is eminently falsifiable. We have excellent reason to believe that
God did not create the world in six days, roughly 6000 years ago. The problem with
creation science is not that it lacks lacks empirical content. It is that the community of
creation "scientists" refuses to accept the evidence that falsifies it. If their theory appears
unfalsifiable, it is because they have equipped it with defence mechanisms that "explain
away" the relevant evidence (Boudry and Braeckman 2011, 155).
It follows that one of the factors that can contribute to our judgements regarding science
and pseudoscience is that the theory in question has been endorsed by the right kind of
community. Such an endorsement is not merely of sociological interest. It also has epis-
temic significance: the procedures of scientific communities constitute a particular kind of
warrant. They constitute a particular form of mechanism that (more or less reliably) gives
rise to knowledge. Conversely, the fact that a theory continues to be defended as a science
while lacking this kind of warrant will be reason to suspect it is a pseudoscience.
3 The Social Character of Science
What I am advocating, in short, is a science as social process approach to the demarcation

problem. This rests on the insight that the modern sciences are successful not merely
because they employ particularly reliable forms of reasoning or trustworthy experimental
methods. The success of the sciences also depends on the existence of a particular kind of
community, with distinctive norms and procedures. These procedures are collective as well
as individual: the success of the sciences cannot be understood by positing an individual
thinker face to face with the world, however sophisticated her thinking and however
careful her experiments.
3.1 Science as Process
This idea is scarcely new. Almost 50 years ago the physicist John Ziman argued that
scientific research is a social activity. Technology, Art and Religion are perhaps
possible for Robinson Crusoe, but Law and Science are not. To understand the nature
of Science, we must look at the way in which scientists behave toward one another,
how they are organized and how information passes between them. (Ziman 1968, 10)
But while the idea is not new, it has become central to the work of a number of
contemporary philosophers. These include David Hull (1988), Helen Longino (1990),
Philip Kitcher (1993), and Miriam Solomon (1994, 2001). While they may disagree
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288 G. W. Dawes
regarding the particular mechanisms involved and the manner in which they operate
(Solomon 2001, 54-55), they are all convinced that a particular kind of social organization
is essential to the success of science.
A helpful example is provided by David Hull's book, Science as Process. Hull defends
two theses: a selectionist thesis and a social mechanism thesis. The selectionist thesis holds
that scientific progress involves the same kind of selection process that is responsible for
biological evolution (Hull 1988, 282, 287). In the case of science, however, this is a
process of conceptual rather than genetic selection (Hull 1988, 20, 23, 441). Ideas are
"selected and passed on because they 'fit' the facts revealed by experiments and/or are
better adapted to the social and conceptual environment of the relevant scientific com-
munity" (Grantham 2000, 445-46). Hull's second insight - his social mechanism thesis -
is that "the social structure of science is not 'external' to science. The reward structure of
science and the dynamics of cooperation and cooperation are the engines that drive con-
ceptual change" (Grantham 2000, 448). While these two theses are interrelated - the social
mechanisms he describes contribute to the process of selection (Boudry et al. 2015,
1 179) - they can be discussed separately. It is the social mechanism thesis on which I wish
to focus here.
Hull's social mechanism thesis highlights the collective processes that are responsible
for the success of science. The first is that of granting credit, particularly to those who can
claim priority in proposing an idea. A scientist gains credit not only by publication, but by
the number of times her publications are cited and used by others. Gaining credit for
priority might encourage secrecy, but in fact credit can be gained only by making public
one's data and by citing the works of others (which in turn extends their credit). The
importance of gaining credit might also encourage fraud. But since scientific communities
are severe on those who offer fraudulent results, such fraud is comparatively rare.
The second mechanism is that of collective checking, a process by which others attempt
to replicate and verify published results. This results in a degree of objectivity. What is
important here is not merely that scientific theories can be inter-subjectively tested (Popper
2002, 22), but that they have survived a process of testing. The key feature, in other words,
is not the nature of the theory , but the character of the process. That process is a collective
one, which can compensate (at least in part) for the failings of individual scientists. As Hull
writes,
the objectivity that matters so much in science is not primarily a characteristic of

individual scientists, but of scientific communities. Scientists rarely refute their own
pet hypotheses, especially after they have appeared in print, but that is all right. Their
fellow scientists will be happy to expose these hypotheses to severe testing. (Hull
1988, 4)
Science, in other words, "does not require that scientists be unbiased"; it requires only
"that different scientists have different biases" (Hull 1988, 22).
3.2 The Role of Social Factors
One could certainly contest aspects of Hull's presentation. Paul Griffiths, for instance,
while broadly sympathetic to his position, has offered a critical assessment of his argu-
ments (Griffiths 2000). But my citing of Hull's work has been merely illustrative. My
assumption is merely that some such view can be defended: that the success of science is at
least partly a result of the norms and procedures of scientific communities, however one
spells these out.
^ Springer
If that idea remains controversial, it may be because of a long-standing philosophical

prejudice. This recognizes the existence of social factors in the history of science, but
assumes that these must be either epistemically neutral or a source of error. Robert Nola
and Howard Sankey, for instance, have argued that the progress of science cannot be
explained by reference to the non-cognitive goals of scientists, that is to say, their personal,
professional and political interests (Nola and Sankey 2000, 7). But this is a mistake.
Scientists' personal and professional interests can contribute to the cognitive goals of
science. What enables them to do so is a particular set of institutional procedures. Given
such procedures, a scientist's pursuit of his own interests can advance the goals of science
(Hull 1988, 357).
This view of science should not be confused with a social constructivist conception, of
the kind offered by David Bloor (1976). I agree with Nola and Sankey in rejecting the
latter. Firstly, there is no anti-realism built into this account, no implication that science
does not, in fact, produce true beliefs about the world (Henson 1988, 192). Secondly, it
sees the progress of science as related to "internal" as well as "external" factors (Hull
1988, 387). The social processes that underlie scientific knowledge include, for example,
arguments about the available evidence and what it warrants. Thirdly, the view on which I
am relying does not deny that there exist reliable forms of reasoning or that the use of such
forms of reasoning is one of the features of science. It merely insists that the use of such
forms of reasoning is not sufficient to explain the success of the sciences. The sciences
have another feature, which is the kind of community to which they give rise and upon
which they rely. This feature is not merely of sociological interest. It is (or should be) of
interest to philosophers, since it is one of the factors that contributes to the growth of
knowledge.
4 A Social Process Criterion
I am assuming, then, that it is of the very nature of science to be a collective activity,

undertaken by a particular kind of community with distinctive norms and procedures. If it
is this is correct - if the activity of a curious Robinson Crusoe would not count as "sci-
ence" - then we need to broaden our criteria of the pseudoscientific to take it into account.
A first step in this direction was taken in 1978 by Paul Thagard, with a definition of
pseudoscience that builds on the work of Imre Lakatos. "A theory or discipline which
purports to be scientific is pseudoscientific," he writes, if and only if
(1) it has been less progressive than alternative theories over a long period of time,
and faces many unsolved problems; but (2) the community of practitioners makes
little attempt to develop the theory towards solutions of the problems, shows no
concern for attempts to evaluate the theory in relation to others, and is selective in
considering confirmations and disconfirmations. (Thagard 1978, 227-28)
Whatever one makes of this definition (Mahner 2007, 519), what is noteworthy about it is
that characteristic (2) is a characteristic not of a theory, but of the community that holds it.3
Similar suggestions have been made by Mario Bunge (1991, 246), Massimo Pigliucci
3 Thagard later modified this view (1988, 168), but continued to acknowledge that it is not enough to
examine the characteristics of theories; we need to look at the behaviour of the community that employs
them. Indeed he went further, to discuss the communal nature of science and what he called "group
rationality" (1988, 187).
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290 G. W. Dawes
(2013, 18), Martin Mahner (2007, 523, 525), and (most explicitly) Noretta Koertge (2013,
177). All of these authors have highlighted the social dimension of science and suggested
that this should play a role in determining what counts as pseudoscience. My aim here is to
develop this insight into an explicit criterion and to discuss its use and significance.
Here, then, is my proposal. One feature to be taken into account when deciding if a
theory is scientific is whether it forms part of a research tradition that is being actively
pursued by a scientific community. Conversely, a reason to regard a theory as pseudo-
scientific is that it purports to be scientific but has been refused admission to , or excluded
from , a research tradition of this kind. The latter is not, in itself, a decisive reason for
regarding a theory as pseudoscientific. It is what moral philosophers call a pro tanto
reason, which "has genuine weight, but... may be outweighed by other considerations"
(Kagan 1989, 17).
4.1 Scientific Communities
"This is all very well," the reader may object, "but we are no further ahead. All you have
done is substitute one problem for another. It may be that one mark of a scientific theory is
that it forms part of a research tradition being actively pursued by a scientific community.
But how can we decide if a community is scientific? Even if we can do that, how can we
decide if a theory forms part of a research tradition within such a community?"
These are good questions. Take, first of all, the identification of scientific communities.
The problem here is that just as there are theories that appear to be scientific but are not, so
there exist communities whose procedures merely imitate those of science. Any group can,
for instance, set up a journal and institute a process of peer review. But that process may
involve only insiders, "belief buddies," as Koertge describes them. Such people are firmly
committed to the central doctrines of the group. While they "help collect supporting
evidence and arguments," they are "very reluctant to encourage criticism" (Koertge 2013,
179).
We find this occurring in the aftermath to the publication of Velikovsky's Worlds in
Collision (1950). While Velikovsky's ideas were almost universally rejected by the sci-
entific community, his followers formed communities of their own, at least one of which,
the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies, still exists. They also set up journals, which were
peer-reviewed, although almost exclusively by fellow Velikovskians (Gordin 2012, 181).
A perhaps more influential example is provided by practitioners of homeopathy, who also
form a community with peer-reviewed journals, at least one of which {Homeopathy) is
published by a well known academic publisher (Elsevier).4 If we consider homeopathy a
pseudoscience, we shall need to ask what distinguishes this community of researchers from
a properly scientific one.
So yes, my proposal does create a new demarcation problem. But it is not identical with
the old one. As noted earlier, traditional demarcation criteria focused on features of sci-
entific theories or on forms of scientific reasoning. My demarcation criterion focuses on
epistemically-relevant features of intellectual communities. It is, however, relatively easy
to identify such features. We can do so by finding paradigmatic cases of scientific com-
munities (Laudan 1983, 1 17), such as the community of physicists or that of biologists, and
analysing their norms and procedures, to discover which of these contribute to the gaining
4 In 2015 Thomson Reuters removed this journal from its Journal Citation Reports because of its 71% self-
citation rate (see https://archive.is/RFzYo), an indicator of pseudoscientific status that is consistent with
what I am arguing here.
£) Springer
of knowledge. These will include the procedures that Hull identified: those of granting
credit and collective checking. But they will also include distinctive norms: patterns of
behaviour seen as desirable or obligatory (Pettit 1990, 725).
The best known account of the norms of scientific communities is that offered by Robert
Merton. Merton' s first scientific norm is universalism : the fact that the "race, nationality,
religion, class, and personal qualities" of a scientist are treated as irrelevant in the
assessment of her scientific work (Merton 1973, 272). The second is what Merton calls
communism (or, if you prefer, "communality"): the idea that the results of science are
considered to belong to all (Merton 1973, 273). The third norm is disinterestedness.
Individual scientists may be far from disinterested, Merton argues, but the procedures of
the community ensure that their partiality will not distort the science (Merton 1973, 276).
Merton' s last norm is perhaps the most important: it is what he calls organized scepticism
(Merton 1973, 277). Within a scientific community no ideas are exempt from critical
scrutiny.
More recently, Helen Longino has also set out four features of what she calls an
"idealized epistemic community" (Longino 1994, 145), a category that includes, but is not
limited to, the scientific. Firstly, she writes, such a community will have "publicly rec-
ognized forums for the criticism of evidence, of methods, and of assumptions and rea-
soning" (Longino 1994, 144). Secondly, it is not enough that the community merely
"tolerates dissent" (Longino 1994, 144); it must also show evidence that its theories
change over time in response to criticism. Thirdly, there must be "publicly recognized
standards by reference to which theories, hypotheses, and observational practices are
evaluated" (Longino 1994, 144), standards that are themselves open to criticism. Finally,
the community must be characterized by "equality of intellectual authority," although this
does not exclude the recognition of differing degrees of expertise (Longino 1994, 144-45).
A community would count as scientific to the extent that its procedures embody these
ideals.
Critics of scientific communities point out that they often fail to live up to these
standards. Their processes of peer review are far from perfect (Smith 2006, 179-80), they
grant credit for discoveries unevenly (and often unjustly) (Merton 1968, 56-59), and the
priorities of those who fund research can hinder creative thinking (Braun 1998, 808). But a
practice can be normative for a community, even if its members occasionally fail to follow
it. Its normative status is revealed by the fact that failures are disapproved of and are seen
as needing correction. This is certainly the case for scientific communities. There is, for
instance, a body of scientific literature discussing how to improve the processes by which
experimental results are reviewed (Ralph 2016). It is true that not all communities of
inquiry will follow these norms and procedures equally. But this merely shows that there
are degrees to which particular communities will count as scientific, and, as I have already
argued, any criterion of the scientific will lead to "more or less" rather than categorical
judgements.
I have spoken of these features as characteristics of scientific communities, but they are
more widely applicable. While the discipline of history, for example, may or may not be
regarded as a science, one would expect the community of historians to embody these
characteristics. Once again, however, this merely reflects the fact that there is no sharp
distinction between the scientific and the non-scientific (Hoyningen-Huene 2013, 29). My
social process criterion does not require that these features be exclusive to scientific
communities. All it requires is that the sciences are among the activities whose success
relies on the existence of a particular kind of community. If a theory purports to be
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292 G. W. Dawes
scientific but has been refused admission to, or excluded from , the research traditions of
such a community, we have a pro tanto reason to regard it as pseudoscientific.
4.2 Research Traditions
The second question my criterion raises has to do with research traditions. I have argued
that a theory counts as scientific when it forms part of a research tradition that is being
actively pursued by a particular scientific community. But what does this mean? More
importantly, how do we know when a theory has been refused admission to, or excluded
from, such a tradition?
The idea of a research tradition is notoriously vague. We can individuate research
traditions in a number of ways. We can do so, first of all, by reference to the kinds of
entities they invoke. On this view, corpuscularianism - the attempt to explain physical
phenomena by positing the existence and interaction of microscopic particles - would
count as an early modern research tradition. We can do so, secondly by reference to some
common pattern of explanation. Darwinism, for instance, can be seen a research tradition
whose identity arises from a particular pattern of explanation, invoking the power of
variation and selection. Finally, we can identify a research tradition by reference to the
kinds of questions it is attempting to answer. Civil engineering, for instance, can be thought
of as a research tradition that studies the physical principles underlying built structures.
Research traditions are pursued within scientific communities. But scientific commu-
nities are not co-extensive with research traditions, for a single community may include
more than one research tradition. With the physics community, for instance, string theory
may be thought of as a research tradition, which can be identified by the kind of entities it
posits. But it represents only one line of research on the problem of a quantum theory of
gravity.
What does it mean for a theory to be part of a research tradition? It is not enough that it
should be discussed within the current scientific literature. Homeopathy, for instance, is
occasionally discussed within mainstream medical journals. But the mere fact that it is
discussed (in order to be dismissed) does not make it scientific. Nor will it suffice that a
work advocating the view has been published in ajournai published by such a community.
In 2004, for instance, a paper advocating intelligent design theory was published in a
journal associated with the Smithsonian Institution (Meyer 2004). But it was almost
immediately disowned by the scientific society in question. In any case, there are many
articles published in peer-reviewed journals that are effectively ignored by the community
of scientists.
It seems, then, that something more than mere discussion or publication is required. A
helpful way of identifying this "something more" is provided by Laudan' s work on the
idea of scientific progress. For Laudan, the aim of science is problem solving (Laudan
1977, 111). A research tradition embodies a way of solving a particular set of problems,
either empirical or conceptual (and can be judged by its success in doing so). If this is true,
then a theory will be part of a research tradition if it is playing an active role within this
problem-solving process.5
More precisely, a theory can be part of a research tradition in one of two ways. Firstly, it
can be currently under discussion as a proposed solution to a particular problem. It may, of
While the present paper uses Laudan' s terminology of research traditions, the argument could be recast
by reference to what Lakatos (1970) called research programmes. The feature in question would then be that
of having been refused admission to, or excluded from, the relevant research programme.
^ Springer
course, be a controversial proposed solution. When David Raup and his colleagues put
forward the idea that there had been periodic mass extinctions during the history of life on
earth, this idea sparked vigorous debate, since it ran counter to a long-established tradition
of uniformitarian thinking in both geology and biology (Raup 1986, 29-34). Such debate
does not prevent a theory from being regarded as scientific; on the contrary, it could be
evidence of its scientific status. But a theory can also be part of a research tradition by
being taken for granted. Within any research tradition there will be well established
theories that form the background for further research. The tradition to which Raup and his
colleagues belonged included views regarding the history of life on earth to which both
they and their opponents could appeal in the course of their discussions. These views also
count as scientific, since they function as background beliefs against which new proposals
will be assessed.
My argument is that we will have a pro tanto reason to regard a theory as pseudosci-
entific when it has been either refused admission to, or excluded from, a scientific research
tradition that addresses the relevant problems. The "excluded from" is important, for there
are many theories that were once actively investigated by scientists, but which have now
dropped out of serious consideration. A paradigmatic instance is that of Ptolemaic
astronomy, which had ceased to be an active research tradition even before Galileo's
discoveries (Margolis 1991, 261, 264). The theory of phlogiston - that of a substance
released from bodies by combustion - was abandoned as a result of the work of Antoine
Lavoisier (1743-94). Closer to our own time, the theory of a luminiferous aether was
abandoned by physicists, following the publication in 1905 of Einstein's special theory of
relativity, which did not require such a medium.
It is more difficult to say when a theory has been refused admission to the relevant
research tradition. In order to meet this criterion, it must be the case that it has been given
some level of consideration. As I noted a moment ago, a theory can be discussed within the
scientific literature without being part of an active research tradition. Biologists may, for
instance, take time off from what they regard as their constructive scientific work in order
to refute the claims of creation science. They are, in a sense, taking it seriously, but they do
not regard it as a live option, in the sense of a solution to a current problem which they and
their colleagues could be persuaded to opt. So we can safely say that creationism has been
refused admission to the research traditions of contemporary science. If it persists in the
face of such rejection (as it does), this is a pro tanto reason to regard it as pseudoscientific.
4.3 A Temporally Indexed Criterion
An important implication of my argument is that the criterion I am discussing is not

timeless: it is relative to the state of science at the time the judgement is made. Judged by
this criterion, a theory can be properly scientific at one time but pseudoscientific at another.
The principle similia similibus curantur (similar are cured by similar), although coined by
Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), was already used within Hippocratic medicine
(Schiefsky 2005, 57; Hippocrates 1959, 182 [21.10]). It is unclear that we can speak of
medical science at the time of Hippocrates, but the Hippocratic tradition is widely regarded
as at least proto-scientific. During the period when Hippocrates' s works dominated medical
practice, the similia similibus principle shared this status. But now that the principle has
been abandoned by the scientific community, its use by homeopathists is pro tanto evi-
dence that homeopathy is a pseudoscience.
Conversely, my social process criterion may lead to the judgement that a theory was
pseudoscientific at one time, but became scientific at a later date. It is tempting to argue
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294 G. W. Dawes
that this was the case for the theory of continental drift (plate tectonics) first put forward by
Alfred Wegener (1880-1930). From the 1920s through to the 1960s it was widely rejected
by North American geologists, who regarded it as simply false.6 In fact, however, it
continued to be actively discussed within the United Kingdom (Oreskes 1999, 124-27), a
fact that would count as evidence in favour of its scientific status, even then. So a better
example may be the germ theory of disease. While it is important to not read anachro-
nistically the work of premodern thinkers (Howard-Jones 1977, 62-63), something akin to
a germ theory of disease seems to be found in the work of Girolamo Fracastoro
(1478-1553). But it failed to become part of the mainstream medical tradition until the
work of Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-65) and Louis Pasteur (1822-95). If it had been put
forward as scientific by some early modern medical writers, the fact that it had not been
adopted by the scientific community would be pro tanto evidence of its pseudoscientific
status.
Does this fact that my criterion is time-indexed count against it? After all, it implies that
at some point in time a true theory (such as the germ theory of disease) may have been
pseudoscientific. This is, however, not as much of a scandal as it may appear, for our
judgements regarding other form of epistemic justification are similarly time-indexed. It is
a commonplace among philosophers that a true belief can lack justification. It is also
widely accepted that a theory that lacks justification at time ti can receive justification at
time t2 , when (for example) new evidence becomes available. In a similar way, a theory
could, at time t', lack the status of science, while gaining this status at time t2 , when it is
taken up by a scientific community.
The criterion I am proposed is time-indexed in another sense, insofar as it relies upon
the existence of scientific communities with more or less clearly defined research tradi-
tions. As my cautious reference to Hippocratic medicine suggested, such communities are
more evident in modern times. One can speak of a community of natural philosophers even
in the medieval universities (Koertge 2013, 170), although few of these restricted them-
selves to what we would call "science." But scientific communities begin to take their
modern form only in the seventeenth century, with the founding of societies such as the
Accademia dei Lincei (1603), the Royal Society (1660), and the Académie Royale des
Sciences (1666). By the mid-eighteenth century, there existed a clear model of a "Republic
of Science," whose members
investigated nature and reported their findings to each other, ... arranged those
findings in a systematic manner and interpreted their meanings, . . . evaluated inter-
pretations proposed by others and defended their own conclusions. (Donovan 1996,
27)
Despite the fragmentation of today's sciences, something of this model persists. It follows
that the kind of judgement I am urging is more easily made with regard to modern sciences
than with regard to the sciences of the ancient and medieval worlds.
While my social process criterion grants considerable authority to scientific commu-
nities, it does not regard them as infallible. Such communities can (at least for a time)
reject true theories - such as the germ theory of disease - and endorse false ones. They can
also accept true theories without due consideration of alternatives. It may, for instance,
have been advantageous if some chemists had persisted in defending the phlogiston theory
6 Even though the scientists who rejected the theory did not regard it as pseudoscientific, we may be able to
do so, if there are those who continue to espouse it after its rejection by the relevant scientific community
(see Sect. 4).
<£) Springer
(Chang 2011, 421-23). In a similar way, the community of geologists should, perhaps,
have paid more attention to the "expansionist" theory, which held that the volume of the
earth had increased over time (Carey 1975; Solomon 1994, 338). The category of the
scientific is not co-extensive with that of the true or even with that of ideas worth pursuing.
What my view insists on is that theories that form part of active research traditions within
scientific communities enjoy a particular kind of epistemic warrant. That warrant is one of
the features that marks them off as scientific.
5 A Final Objection and Response
There exists a final objection to the view I am defending. When a particular scientific
community refuses to incorporate a theory into its ongoing research traditions, it will have
reasons for doing so. Take, for instance, Velikovsky's theory regarding cosmic catastro-
phes. One reason this theory was rejected was that its view of electromagnetic forces would
require radical revisions to established laws of physics (Menzel 1952). It seemed more
likely that Velikovsky was wrong than that so much of our existing science needed to be
revised. If we want to know if a theory being defended as scientific is in fact pseudosci-
entific, should we not examine reasons of this kind? Should we not go beyond the fact of its
rejection to understand why it was rejected?
Not necessarily. First of all, there are two types of judgement a scientific community
can make. It can judge that a theory is simply bad science, for what I earlier called
evidential reasons. It can fail to account for all the available evidence, be unable to
accommodate new evidence, or demand radical revisions in what we already believe
without a compensating payoff in explanatory power. Alternatively, scientists may judge
that a theory suffers from various structural flaws which render it unworthy of serious
consideration (Lugg 1987, 225). It is the second kind of judgement - that a theory has
structural flaws - that is likely to lead scientists to reject it as pseudoscientific.
This judgement may, of course, be correct. So yes, we should indeed examine why
scientists have rejected a theory, for their reasons may lend support to a "pseudoscience"
verdict. But while structural flaws may give us reason to regard a theory as pseudosci-
entific, they are not the only relevant consideration. Even if a theory has no structural
flaws - the theory of phlogiston, for instance, seemed respectable enough in this respect -
scientists may still reject it because it lacks evidential support or because a better theory
has been found. In these circumstances, scientists will not regard it the original theory as
pseudoscientific. They will regard it but simply as bad or superseded science. We, however,
may regard it as pseudoscientific if there are those who continue to present it as science
after such a rejection has occurred. It is pseudoscientific insofar as it lacks one of the
characteristics of science: that of having survived scrutiny by a properly scientific
community.
What this means is that my criterion is, in a sense, a quick and easy one. It does not
require us to know why scientists rejected a theory. It does not matter whether those
reasons are structural or evidential. The very fact that a theory continues to be presented as
science after having been rejected by the relevant scientific community is a pro tanto
reason to regard it as pseudoscientific. Is this a purely descriptive criterion? No, it is not. If
science is by nature a collective enterprise - if its success depends upon the existence of a
particular kind of community - this criterion also has epistemic significance. It means that
Springer
296 G. W. Dawes
the theory in question lacks a particular kind of epistemic warrant, that which is conveyed
by the norms and procedures of a properly scientific community.
6 Conclusion
My proposal has been that a social process view of science highlights a feature that gives
us reason to regard a theory as pseudoscientific. We have pro tanto reason to regard a
theory as pseudoscientific if it purports to be scientific but has been refused admission to,
or excluded from , a research tradition being actively pursued by a scientific community. Is
this a useful criterion? I admit that it requires careful qualification. It constitutes neither a
necessary nor a sufficient condition for such a judgement. It is, at best, one criterion among
many. It also offers no more than a pro tanto reason: it could be outweighed by other
considerations. But it does allow us to shift the focus of the discussion from features of
scientific theories to features of the communities that employ them. While an investigation
of the features of scientific communities is scarcely a new field of inquiry, it is one to
which philosophers could profitably devote more attention.
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Identifying Pseudoscience: A Social Process Criterion

Author(s): Gregory W. Dawes

Identifying Pseudoscience: A Social Process Criterion

Published online: 6 January 2018

Keywords Science • Pseudoscience • Research traditions • Scientific communities • Social

ISI Gregory W. Dawes

1 Department of Philosophy, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

2 Science, Non-Science, Pseudoscience

2.1 Science and Non-Science

2.2 Non-Science and Pseudoscience

2.3 Expanding the Criteria

3 The Social Character of Science

What I am advocating, in short, is a science as social process approach to the demarcation

3.1 Science as Process

the objectivity that matters so much in science is not primarily a characteristic of

3.2 The Role of Social Factors

If that idea remains controversial, it may be because of a long-standing philosophical

4 A Social Process Criterion

I am assuming, then, that it is of the very nature of science to be a collective activity,

4.1 Scientific Communities

4.2 Research Traditions

4.3 A Temporally Indexed Criterion

An important implication of my argument is that the criterion I am discussing is not

5 A Final Objection and Response

Barthes, R. (1967). Système de la mode. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

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