Editing Philosophy of science (section)

===Defining science===
{{Main|Demarcation problem}}
[[File:Allan Ramsay - David Hume, 1711 - 1776. Historian and philosopher - PG 3521 - National Galleries of Scotland.jpg|thumb|upright|In formulating 'the problem of induction', David Hume devised one of the most pervasive puzzles in the philosophy of science. ]]
[[File:Karl Popper.jpg|thumb|Karl Popper in the 1980s. Popper is credited with formulating 'the demarcation problem', which considers the question of how we distinguish between science and pseudoscience. |upright]]
Distinguishing between science and [[non-science]] is referred to as the demarcation problem. For example, should [[psychoanalysis]], [[creation science]], and [[historical materialism]] be considered pseudosciences? [[Karl Popper]] called this the central question in the philosophy of science.<ref name="Thornton2006">{{cite web|url = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/|title = Karl Popper|access-date = 2007-12-01|last = Thornton|first = Stephen|year = 2006|website = Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070627013103/http://plato.stanford.edu//entries///popper/|archive-date = 2007-06-27|url-status = live}}</ref> However, no unified account of the problem has won acceptance among philosophers, and some regard the problem as unsolvable or uninteresting.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#NonSciPosSci |title=Science and Pseudo-science |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905091332/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#NonSciPosSci |archive-date=2015-09-05 |date=2008 |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref><ref name="Laudan1983">{{cite book | last = Laudan | first = Larry | editor-first1 = Adolf |editor-last1=Grünbaum |editor-first2=Robert Sonné |editor-last2=Cohen |editor-first3=Larry |editor-last3=Laudan | title = Physics, Philosophy, and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum | year = 1983 | publisher = Springer | isbn = 978-90-277-1533-3 | chapter = The Demise of the Demarcation Problem}}</ref> [[Martin Gardner]] has argued for the use of a [[Potter Stewart standard]] ("I know it when I see it") for recognizing pseudoscience.<ref>{{cite book|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=SqOPw9Yq-MEC&q=pseudoscience+potter+stewart&pg=PA13|pages = 12–13|title = The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe|first = Michael D.|last = Gordin|publisher = University of Chicago Press|year = 2012|isbn = 978-0-226-30442-7}}</ref>

Early attempts by the [[logical positivists]] grounded science in observation while non-science was non-observational and hence meaningless.<ref name="Uebel2006">{{cite web|url = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vienna-circle/|title = Vienna Circle|access-date = 2007-12-01|last = Uebel|first = Thomas|year = 2006|website = Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070626224948/http://plato.stanford.edu//entries///vienna-circle/|archive-date = 2007-06-26|url-status = live}}</ref> Popper argued that the central property of science is [[falsifiability]]. That is, every genuinely scientific claim is capable of being proven false, at least in principle.<ref name="Popper1959">{{cite book | last = Popper | first = Karl | author-link = Karl Popper | title = The logic of scientific discovery | year = 2004|edition=reprint| publisher = Routledge Classics | location = London & New York | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yq6xeupNStMC&q=the+logic+of+scientific+discovery | isbn=978-0-415-27844-7 | postscript=First published 1959 by Hutchinson & Co.}}</ref>

An area of study or speculation that masquerades as science in an attempt to claim a legitimacy that it would not otherwise be able to achieve is referred to as [[pseudoscience]], [[fringe science]], or [[junk science]].<ref>{{cite dictionary |title=Pseudoscientific&nbsp;– pretending to be scientific, falsely represented as being scientific |dictionary=Oxford American Dictionary |publisher=[[Oxford English Dictionary]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Hansson |first=Sven Ove |date=1996 |title=Defining Pseudoscience |journal=Philosophia Naturalis |volume=33 |pages=169–176}}, as cited in {{cite encyclopedia |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#NonSciPosSci |title= Science and Pseudo-science |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905091332/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#NonSciPosSci |archive-date=2015-09-05 |date= 2008 |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}. The Stanford article states: "Many writers on pseudoscience have emphasized that pseudoscience is non-science posing as science. The foremost modern classic on the subject (Gardner 1957) bears the title [[Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science]]. According to Brian Baigrie (1988, 438), "[w]hat is objectionable about these beliefs is that they masquerade as genuinely scientific ones." These and many other authors assume that to be pseudoscientific, an activity or a teaching has to satisfy the following two criteria (Hansson 1996): (1) it is not scientific, and (2) its major proponents try to create the impression that it is scientific".</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hewitt |first1=Paul G. |last2=Suchocki |first2=John |last3=Hewitt |first3=Leslie A. |title=Conceptual Physical Science |publisher= Addison Wesley |edition=3rd |date=2003 |isbn=0-321-05173-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bennett |first=Jeffrey O. |title=The Cosmic Perspective |edition=3rd |publisher=Addison Wesley |date=2003 |isbn=0-8053-8738-2}}</ref><ref>Gauch HG Jr. ''Scientific Method in Practice'' (2003).</ref><ref>A 2006 [[National Science Foundation]] report on Science and engineering indicators quoted [[Michael Shermer]]'s (1997) definition of pseudoscience: '"claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility"(p. 33). In contrast, science is "a set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed and inferred phenomena, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation" (p. 17)'. {{Cite book|last=Shermer |first=Michael |year=1997|title=Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time|location=New York|publisher=W.H. Freeman and Company|isbn=978-0-7167-3090-3}} as cited by {{Cite book|title=Science and engineering indicators 2006|chapter=Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding|chapter-url=https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind06/c7/c7s2.htm|year=2006 |author1 = National Science Foundation|author2 = Division of Science Resources Statistics|author-link1=National Science Foundation}}</ref><ref>"A pretended or spurious science; a collection of related beliefs about the world mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method or as having the status that scientific truths now have," from the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', second edition 1989.</ref> Physicist [[Richard Feynman]] coined the term "[[cargo cult science]]" for cases in which researchers believe they are doing science because their activities have the outward appearance of it but actually lack the "kind of utter honesty" that allows their results to be rigorously evaluated.<ref name='cargocultscience'>{{cite web |url=http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf |title=Cargo Cult Science |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131201231202/http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf |archive-date=2013-12-01 |author-link=Richard Feynman |last=Feynman |first=Richard |access-date=2015-10-25}}</ref>