The Problem with Pseudoscience
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Published online: August 9, 2017 Science & Society The problem with pseudoscience Pseudoscience is not the antithesis of professional science but thrives in science’s shadow Michael D Gordin t is quite difficult to picture a pseudosci- European languages, a great number of Before science became a profession—with entist—really picture him or her over the disparate doctrines have been categorized as formalized training, credentialing, publishing I course of a day, a year, or a whole career. sharing a core quality—pseudoscientificity, venues, careers—the category of pseudo- What kind or research does he or she actu- if you will—when in fact they do not. It is science did not exist. As soon as profes- ally do, what differentiates him or her from based on this diversity that I refer to such sionalization blossomed, tagging competing a carpenter, or a historian, or a working beliefs and theories as “fringe” rather than theories as pseudoscientific became an scientist? In short, what do such people as “pseudo”: Their defining characteristic is important tool for scientists to define what think they are up to? the distance from the center of the main- they understood science to be. In fact, despite ...................................................... stream scientific consensus in whichever many decades of strenuous effort by philoso- direction, not some essential property they phers and historians, a precise definition of “...it is a significant point for share. “science” remains elusive. It should be noted reflection that all individuals Scholars have by and large tended to however that the absence of such definitional who have been called ignore fringe science as regrettable side- clarity has not seriously inhibited the ability shows to the main narrative of the history of of scientists to deepen our understanding of “pseudoscientists” have science, but there is a good deal to be nature tremendously. considered themselves to be learned by applying the same tools of analy- “scientists”, with no prefix.” sis that have been used to understand main- What is science? ...................................................... stream science. This is not, I stress, to imply that there is no difference between hollow- Of course, many people believe that an accu- The answer might surprise you. When Earth theories and geophysics; on the rate test of whether something is properly they find time after the obligation of contrary, the differences are the point of the scientific exists: philosopher Karl Popper’s supporting themselves, they read papers in analysis. Focusing on the historical and doctrine of “falsifiability”, whereby “the specific areas, propose theories, gather data, conceptual relationship between the fringe criterion of the scientific status of a theory is write articles, and, maybe, publish them. and the core of the various sciences as that its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability” What they imagine they are doing is, in a blurry border has fluctuated over the centu- [1]. Popper unveiled this theory in a lecture word, “science”. They might be wrong about ries provides powerful analytical leverage in 1953, and since the 1980s—when it was that—many of us hold incorrect judgments for understanding where contemporary anti- cited as a demarcation criterion between about the true nature of our activities—but science movements come from and how creationism and biology in the US Supreme surely it is a significant point for reflection mainstream scientists might address them. Court decision McLean v. Arkansas Board of that all individuals who have been called ...................................................... Education—it has become enormously popu- “pseudoscientists” have considered them- lar as a talking-point and in school curricula. selves to be “scientists”, with no prefix. “As soon as professionalization Nonetheless, it fails both logically and empir- blossomed, tagging competing ically as an accurate standard for demarcat- What is pseudoscience? theories as pseudoscientific ing scientific claims from disreputable imposters [2]. First, we have no guidance “Pseudoscience” is a bad category for analy- became an important tool for about when this goal has been accurately sis. It exists entirely as a negative attribution scientists to define what they achieved: Did our experiment falsify the rele- that scientists and non-scientists hurl at understood science to be” vant claim, or did we just perform the experi- others but never apply to themselves. Not ...................................................... ment poorly? More importantly, Popper’s only do they apply the term exclusively as a criterion does not segment doctrines the way discrediting slur, they do so inconsistently. The central claim of this essay is that the we would expect. Many fringe doctrines Over the past two-and-a-quarter centuries concept of “pseudoscience” was called into (psychical research, Bigfoot theories, AIDS- since the term popped into the Western being as the shadow of professional science. HIV denial) make pinpoint falsifiable Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. E-mail: [email protected] DOI 10.15252/embr.201744870 | Published online 9 August 2017 1482 EMBO reports Vol 18 |No9 | 2017 ª 2017 The Author Published online: August 9, 2017 Michael D Gordin The problem with pseudoscience EMBO reports predictions exactly as Popper demands, and many researchers we would now classify as As one sees from each case, the boundary many mainstream sciences that analyze geneticists, or the ether theories which dom- between the mainstream and the fringe is unrepeatable past events (cosmology, evolu- inated 19th-century physics and are still well relatively porous and there is a lot move- tionary biology, geology) do not. The diffi- represented in fringe publications. ment across it—although, to be sure, once a culty comes with relying on a single bright Another group, for lack of a better term, doctrine is thrust into the fringe, it is quite line that focuses on semantic form alone. As are the ideological fringe sciences. Most difficult for it to get out again. Some ideas, philosophers have since pointed out, no prominently associated with Hitler’s National such as acupuncture or inheritance of single dimension of analysis suffices [3]. Socialism or Stalin’s Soviet Union, these acquired characteristics, do on occasion ...................................................... doctrines, such as the anti-relativity, anti- reappear in highly attenuated form, but this quantum, and anti-Semitic Deutsche Physik is rare. Typically, the long list of vestigial “...opposition to climate or anti-Mendelian Michurinism trumpeted by doctrines grows apace. The point is not only science or tobacco regulation in Trofim Lysenko from the 1930s to the 1960s, to demonstrate that the heterogeneity of the some cases deploys the explicit are commonly considered distortions of fringe defies simple classification and rational thinking in the service of a political dismissal, but also to suggest that focusing articulation of free-market ideology. Other fringe doctrines, less obvi- on the content of the theories is not the most fundamentalism as an ously fraught, carry strong markers of politi- productive way to understand the durability ideological position” cal, religious, or racist identification and are of fringe science. The more appropriate ...................................................... intended by their advocates to harmonize vantage point is professionalization itself. natural science with ideology. By way of Approaching fringe doctrines from the example, opposition to climate science or Worlds in collision point of view of their advocates—that is, as tobacco regulation in some cases deploys the efforts to engage in science as they under- explicit articulation of free-market fundamen- Various fringe doctrines share family resem- stand it—reveals how much these varied talism as an ideological position. blances, but each family member is often movements concentrate on hostility to or A third of these overlapping groups is the more distinct from counterparts in different imitation of those very features that make mentalist fringe. Especially abundant, these families than from aspects of the specific science “professional”. This strongly doctrines focus on allegedly unrecognized or mainstream scientific theories it critiques. suggests that scientists might confront the underappreciated powers of mind, and Fringe ideas share in common that they are fringe more effectively if they built from the include a complex family tree that descends all, to greater or lesser degree, ostracized profession outward, rather than attempting from late 18th-century Mesmerism to late from the genteel company of professional to lop off one Hydra’s head after another 19th-century Spiritualism (table-rapping, science. A complicated but persistent from behind defensive walls. se´ances, and so on), to the research in extra- engagement with science as a profession sensory perception (ESP) that has sporadi- characterizes the most persistent and promi- Classification of fringe sciences cally appeared in psychology journals since nent fringe doctrines of the past half-century. the 1930s. The complexity of the brain and ...................................................... Any attempt to build a taxonomy of the the relative youth of neuroscience have many doctrines that have been labeled as provided ample space for unorthodox think- “Sometimes attempts to “pseudoscientific” reveals the