T h e cognitive value of a theory has nothing to do with its psycholog

-
ical influence on people's minds. Belief, commitment, understanding are
states of the human mind. But the objective, scientific value of a theory
Science and is independent of the human mind which creates it or understands it. Its
scientific value depends only on what objective support these conjectures
have in facts. As Hume said:
Pseudoscience
If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity, or school ~netapliysics,for
instance; let us ask, does it contain any abstract reasoning concerni~~g quantih
or umber? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning mat-
ter of fact and existence? No. Commit i t then to the flames. For i t call contain
nothi~~g but sophistry and illusion.'

But what is 'experimental' reasoning? If we look at the vast seventeenth-
Man's respect for knowledge is one of his most peculiar characteristics. century literature on witchcraft, it is full of reports of careful observations
Knowledge in Latin is scientiu, and science came to be the name of the and sworn evidence-even of experiments. Glanvill, the house philoso-
most respectable kind of knowledge. But what distinguishes knowledge pher of the early Royal Society, regarded witchcraft as the paradigm of
from superstition, ideology or pseudoscience? The Catholic Church ex- experimental reasoning. We have to define experimental reasoning before
communicated Copernicans, the Communist Party persecuted Mende- we start Humean book burning.
lians on the ground that their doctrines were pseudoscientific. T h e In scientific reasoning, theories are confronted with facts; and one of
demarcation between science and pseudoscience is not merely a problem the central conditions of scientific reasoning is that theories must be sup-
of armchair it is of vital social and political relevance. ported by facts. Now how exactly can facts support theory?
Many philosophers have tried to solve the of demarcation in Several different answers have been proposed. Newton himself
the following terms: a statement constitutes knowledge if sufficiently many thought that he proved his laws from facts. He was proud of not uttering
people believe it sufficiently strongly. But the history of thought shows us mere hypotheses: he only published theories proven from facts. In partic-
that many people were totally committed to abs~rd~beliefs. If the strength ular, he claimed that he deduced his laws from the 'phenomena' provided
of beliefs were a hallmark of knowledge, we should have to rank some by Kepler. But his boast was nonsense, since according to Kepler, planets
tales about demons, angels, devils, and of heaven and hell as knowledge. move in ellipses, but according to Newton's theory, planets \\tould Inove
Scientists, on the other hand, are very sceptical even of their best theories. in ellipses only if the planets did not disturb each other in their motion.
Newton's is the most powerful theory science has yet produced, but New- But they do. This is why Newton had to devise a perturbation theor\, from
to11 himself never believed that bodies attract each other at a distance. So \vhich it follo\vs that no planet moves in an ellipse.
no degree of commitment to beliefs makes them knowledge. Indeed, the One can today easily demonstrate that there can be no valid derivation
hallmark of scientific behaviour is a certain scepticism even towards one's of a law of nature from any finite number of facts; but we still keep reading
most cherished theories. Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellec- about scientific theories being proved from facts. Why this stubborn resis-
tual virtue: it is an intellectual crime. tance to elementary logic?
Thus a statement may be pseudoscientific e\,en if it is eminently 'plau- There is a very plausible explanation. Scientists want to make their
sible' a n d everybody believes in it, and it may be scientifically valuable theories respectable, deserving of the title 'science', that is, genuine knou~l-
even if it is unbelievable and nobody believes in it. A theory may even be edge. Now the most relevant knoudedge in the seventeenth century, when
of supreme scientific value even if no one understands it, let alone believes science was born, concerned God, the Devil, Heaven and Hell. If one got
it. one's conjectures about matters of divinity wrong, the consequence of
one's mistake was eternal damnation. Theological knowledge cannot be

FROMImre Lakatos, Philosofihical Papers, vol. 1 (Ca~nbridge:Cambridge Univer- " These famous lines are from the final paragraph of David Hume's AII Enyuiq~
resented as a
sity Press, 1977), 1-7. Written in early 1973, this was originally Concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1748 (under the title Phil-
1 ' - 1-
-L--- L---An--& ks, &La nnmn Ilni\,ercitv (40 [line 1973). osobhicul Essavs Cntlrernin~H i ~ m n nllnd~r.ctnndinu\

cither invent some rescue hypotI~csisto explain \!. caped theology. Ampere. Science is not simply trial and error. entific theology and.Lc l Q G Q \ 262-A7 stitute only the 'hard core' of the Newtonian Droeramme. recalcitrant instances.. A theory is 'scientific' if one is prepared to gramme.as In the last few !. make them gi1.e up Marxism. it is not scientific. such a 'potential black swan. no tlistinc- ential of our time. and it may Popper and Kuhn failed to solve.Q. in the early n i ~ ~ e . if observed. probability to good theories the na'i\. given uny amot111tof evide~ice tive standard of honesty. depending on heresy in the scientific comlnunity. .hat 'inductive logicians'. \\. ment.. is the hallmark of science? D o we have to capitulate and would be never to say anything that is not at least 11i~Illyprobal>le. but rather scientific method from non-scientific ~netliod.. arrived at this conclusion after disco\.c n: ~ I ~ -.. If they refuse to by the standards they took over straight from theology: i t had to be proven do so.ton had deciphered God's demarcating science from pseudoscience? No.. be pseudoscientific even if all the available evidence is in its favour.tonia~ltheory. felt he had to call his book on his speculations concerning skins. but this new type of knowledge had to be judged ifi facts \vhich.. But if Kuhn is right. scientific theories are not only equally (In. if it is lo\!. But such accounts are fabricated long after the theory had One answer to this question \vas provided in the twentieth c e n t u ~by been aba~~tloned. Unequivocally Deduced from Experiment. ~ 1 1 a concei\. 1 claim tliat the typical descriptive unit of great scie~~tific is.. in 1934. of course. as sinfill pseudoscientific dogma or become genuine knowledge.e been advocating a ~netliodologyof scien- needed and Popper proposed a rather stunning one. Popper's falsifiability criterion the solution to the problem of Before Einstein 111ostscientists thought that Ne\r. and direct their attention to other Note that scientists even that the necessary instruments had not been constructed! talk about anomalies. the scientific or non-scientific character of a theory can be determined achieve~nentsis not a n isolated hypothesis but rather a research pro- independently of the facts. Science had to achie1. no theological knowledge. is scientific if the Marxists are prepared to spec- only be about Nature.ersion? Tom Kuhn. he is bound to find it immoral to specifi he had to prove each sentence he uttered from facts.ould abandon Neu.. nores the remarkablc tenacity of scientific theories.hat the!. Histon of sci- If all scientific theories are equally unpro\lable. then thcre is with high probability. a series of conjectures and specify in advance a crucial experiment (or obsenlation) which can falsify refutations. New- tonian science. argued tliat the mathematical probabilih. what distinguishes ence. Had Popper ever asked a Newtonian scientist under \\. if they cannot explain the anonial!. Is.e logic set out to define the probabilities of experimental conditions lie \f. then.R. then. But if so. agree that a scientific revolution is just an irratio~ialchange in commit- abilisnl has an attractive feature: instead of simply providing a black-and. But at the end of the volume lie then call a mere anomaly or. It is al\vavs interesting to ask a beyond doubt." If Popper is right. Tlil~sa proposition may petrify into of scientific honesh. scientific progress from intellectual degeneration? provable but also equally improbable. They do not abandon a theory merely because facts contradict it. But what criteria can he then offer to demarcate is zero. casually confesses that some of the experiments were never performed and ignore it. 'All swans are white' may be falsified by the discovery of one it. no explicit demarcation between science and pseudoscience. tonian scientists \vould have bee11 exactly as nonplussed as are some matical probability of a theory is high. one of the most influ. b!arxism becomes a pseudoscience. not refutations. science froin pseudoscience? killed theories. some N e w different theories according to the available total evidence.fallible: it must be beyond doubt. Knowledge can Marxism. A theory may be tific research programmes. This was the criterion a state of affairs which can falsify it.. scientific or pseudoscientific.e are prepared to state obsenlable conditions \vhich \voulcl relute It was only the downfall of Newtonian theory in this century which it.e t l ~ every certainty which had es. that it is a religious con\. T VA-I.ering continuous scalc from poor theories with lo\\. and it is pseudoscientific if one refuses to specih.Iiether \f. for instance. For Popper's criterion ig- ultimate laws by proving them from the facts.hic11 solves some of the problems which both scientific even if there is not a shred of evidence in its favour. T l ~ a t First.ears 1 ha\. These four 1m..orthy of the name. Theories unproven from facts were regarded . \{. A new demarcation criterion \\. it provides a ican pl~ilosopl~er of sciencc. made scientists realize that their standards of honesty had been utopia^^. Now the Enlightenment thought that falsifier'. for a Poppcrian. the!.:. tion beh\.ccn scientific progress and intellectual decay.ahle t evcnt would make him abandon his klarxism. is not simply a set of four coniectures-the * Popper's argument for this claim can be found in Appendix *vii of The Logic of three laws of mechanics and the law of gravitation. A scientist. Karl Popper.ch of Popper's falsificationisni. electromagnetism: 1\4utl1einatical Theory of Electrodvi~unlic Phenomena T l ~ e vnormall!. there is no objec- of all theories. Thus the hallmark of scientific honest) What. \\. it qualifies as scientific. But such trivial trial and error does not rank as science.. we do not demarcate scie~~tific theories from pseudo- we were fallible and ignorant about matters theological. a rlistinguislied Amer- \vhite distinction behveen science and pseudoscience. Inducti\. Marxist. or even zero. But this hard . But. therefore. scientific ones. Prob. If the niathe. There is no sci.s con- c . Scientists have thick teenth century. was not allo\ved to gucss: If he is committed to Marxism. Marxists. is full of accounts of how crucial experiments allegetlly scientific knowledge from ignorance.

in fact. have o n e characteristic in common. This was incredible.tlle "refutatio~~s" were tilt the balance. even more importantly. 1t predicted that Contrary to Popper. Thus. H e niav even invent a hitherto unknown been ol>sen. there were. has ~ ~ n s o l v epro]>- d novel facts. behveen two stars in the night a n d if one measures the dista~lcebehireen Now. God warning that H e ~ z i l lstrike and bring disaster. others moved in ordinary ellipses.Mass. and Kaufmann's results were due to experimental error.: Addison.of the sky. Lakatos is usillg the ivord refuted r. refuted Einstein's relativity theory in the working class by devising a theor). calculated on the basis of ob- gramme also has a 'heuristic'. It is no success lines. which. returned exactly as Halley predicted. see Arth~lrI. This is the ra- . Einstein's relativity theory. a refutation is anv apparently ivell-founded resuIt that seems grammes grow in a permanent ocean of anomalies. while others are alreadv refuted. when dropped.T h u s the early pre- Principia. N o w according to Newtonian theory.ards the earth. scientists tend to join the progressive programme. they even explainctl very year it was published. Marxism. as else\vhere in this reading. T h e y all predict novel facts. in a progressive flexible protective belt and each with its elaborate problem-solving ma. lunar motion refuted Ne\vton.ation before Einstein's programme. I n 1686. of imperialism.. them during the day (when they are visible during a n eclipse of the sun). are Ilorn refuted only in order to accommodate known facts. And. that is. the difference cannot b e that some are still un. some of them moved in hy. at any stage of its development. stunning predictions: a few of them are enough to moon. however. Prague 1968. with the help of sophisticated mathematical techniques. if a at a s ell-defined point.It predicted that there will refuted.' But all the research programmes I admire \vhy the first socialist revolution occurred in industrially back\\~ardRussia. Hallev's comet his coriiectures concerning atmospheric refraction. plainetl all their failures: they explained the rising living stantlards of the nlann. and hundreds of other conjectures which dicted the existence and exact rnotion of small planets which had never are all part of the programme. Similarly. it was common knowledge that it could not properly explain dictions of Marxism were bold ant1 stunning but they failed. a powerful problem-solving machin. 1t predicted that the first socialist revolution \\jould erating one? take place in the industrially most developed socieh. the research pro. and one is progressing while the other is degener- Wesley. research programmes. the Newtonian scientist checks years later. in this sense. It predicted the absolute impoverishment a scientific or progressive programme from a pseudoscientific or degen. But so-called 'refi~tations'are not the hallmark of empirical failure. t u m mechanics. But how can one distinguish mous unsuccessful predictions. Einstein and Kaufmann's experiments on beta rays . as Popper has preached. a distinguished ph!lsicist. '411 theories.erifi- of Kepler's held that comets were celestial bodies moving along straight cations: Popper is right that there are millions of them.24 1 CH. fall to\\. Newtonian scientists pre- tion of light in magnetic storms. hvo current theories concerning T h e Newtonian programme led to novel facts. we are dealing with later shown to be spurious: the moon's motion is 11ot actually illconsistent \\it11 miserable degenerating research programmes. research programme. Newton's theor). unexpected. for instance. facts They 'explained' Berlin 1953. W h e n Newton published his be no conflict of interests between socialist cot~ntries. But their a ~ ~ x i l i a hypotheses ry were previous or rival programmes. Miller. how d o scientific revolutions come about? If we have two rival account of Kaufmann's experiments and Einstein's reaction to them. Hallej~. no matter how often this is repeated. 1 SCIENCE AND PSEUDOSCIENCE core is tenaciously protected from refutation by a vast 'protective belt' of perbolas or parabolas never to return. of gra\. \\hen both Newton and Halley \\:ere long dead. 1981). are all research programmes. he calculated to the minute \vhen it \\souid be seen again anomalies and even turns them into positive evidence. socialist societies would be free of re\~olutions. In the hvo cases he ~nentions-Newton and the dramatic. Butlapest 1956. of gravitation. Nobody had thought to make with a characteristic hard core stubbornly defended. of the working class. A little known theory T o sum LIP. or have indeed been contradictetl by plained' the Russian-Chinese conflict. auxiliary hypotheses. O r let us take Einstein's programme. Kauf. when Newton published his theory all cooked LIP after the event to protect hlarxian t h e o y from the facts. senling a brief stretch of a comet's path that it would return in seventy- ery.itation. Newton's theon'. concerning propaga. But sevenh-two planet does not move exactly as it should. They 'ex- which had been either t ~ n d r e a m tof. ating. digests hvo years' tirne. Freudianism. For a n Now. In degenerating programmes. For instance.working in Newton's programme. e\. Each of them. T h e more popi~larone regarded comets as a signal from an angry the facts and has been running fast to catch up with them. W h a t really count are to be inconsistent wit11 a theory. for instance. T h e hallmark of empirical progress is not trivial \. Has. since all pro- " Here. for Newtonian theory that stones. For Lakatos. But are they equally good? Until now 1 have been de. This pro- planet a n d calct~lateits position. each \vith its more sucli an obsen.er Ixedicted a stunning novel fact successf~~lly? Never! It has some fa- scribing what research programmes are like.ither loosely. the Marsian lagged bchind comets.etl before. mass and velocity in order to explain thc gramme made the stunning prediction that if one measures the distance anomaly. theories are fabricated lems a n d undigestetl anomalies. theory leads to the discovery of hitherto unknown chinery. Marxists ex- even t h e motion of the moon. \\there theory lags behind the facts. Albert Eit~stein'sSpecial Theory of Relativity (Readi~lg. A~larsism and die refuted. quan. each the hvo measurements \ \ i l l be different.

as we have seen in the case of the debate concerning race and to evaluate astrology Ily reference to the daily I~oroscopesfound in ne\vs- intelligence. to questions of said to b e pseudoscientific. T h e histor)l of science refutes both Popper and Kuhn: on close inspection both Pop- perian crucial experiments and Kuhnian revolutions turn out to be mytlls: what normally happens is that progressive research programmes replace degenerating ones. but the Party's right as pse~ldoscientific. exercises the right to deny freedom of speech to \\. Mich. " Paul Feperabend (1924-94) used the term episten~ological ar~urchisnl in his Against Method (Lolldon: New Left Books. 1975). while also tliscussi~lgtile ascendant sign al~clother phers: it has grave ethical and political implications. like Academician Vavilov. matters. Kuhn is n r o n g in thinking that scielitific revol~ltionsare sudden. It \vas taken off tlie index in 1820 because IIV progress alld Krlhnian nornial science. demarcation criterion. 1978). after Va. represented by tlie fa- niiliar signs of the Zodiac: Aqoarius. 223-34. Proceedirlgs of the Philosopl~)~ of Scieilce Associatiorl Vol. irrational changes ill vision. 1 shall propose a conlples criterion for distinguishing cliscip1ines vilov's murder Mendelian genetics was rehabilitated. Asquit11 and I. Astrology divides the sky into hrrelve regions. moon and the planets.it11 sun signs. anyone born between September 23 a n d October 22 is a Libran.hat it regards as pseu. T h e son sign rep- resents the part of the sky occupietl by the sun at the time of birth.iet Communist Party magazine. by refutation. to the different sorts of obiections that t i m e the C h u r c h deemed that facts had proved it and therefore it raised by a largc panel of scientists recently organized by T11c Hurrla71ist became scientific.thin~VOPT" . cates. Hackil~g. Coperni- ~ doscience. Most philosophers and historians of science agree that astrology is a pseu- T h e problem of demarcation bebyeen science and pseudoscience has grave implications also for the instit~ltionalizationof criticism. I ~ u tthere is little agreement on w l y it is a pseucloscience.eds. As opposed to Popper the methodolog of scientific research pro- gralnmes does not offer instant raiionalit?. O f course there are also Feyerabendia~lanarchists" and others in 1949 declared Mendelian genetics pse~ldoscientificand had its atlvo. arguing that tilere is no rational method in science and that the only principle consistent with scielitific progress is "a~i\. 1 (East Larising. Libra and so 011. Thesc lioroscopes deal 0 1 1 1 ~\\.. Elowever. I begin with a brief description of a s t r o l o ~ It. often assumed to be at least as important as the sun FROMP. T h e new liberal Establishment of the West also ones. \\~o~llcI be most unfair doscience. Cr~ticislnis not a Popperian Is a Pseudoscience quick kill. An- cus's theory was banned by the Catholic Churcll in 1616 because it \vas swers range from matters of verifiabilih and falsifiabilih. T h e ascendant sign. All tliese iudgments were inevitably based on some sort of papers and popular magazines.. it is not dishonest to stick to a degen- erating progralnnle and try to turn it into a progressive one. Important criticism is always colistructive: there is no refutation without a better theory.this criterion is unlike verificationist and falsificationist to decide what is science and publishable and n h a t is pseudoscience and atteniph i l l that it ilitroduces social and historical features as well as logical punishable \vas upheld. This is why the problem of demarcation between whereas a fill1 horoscope makes reference to the "influences" also of the science a n d pseudoscience is not a pseudo-problem of armchair philoso. T h e Central Committee of the So\. But while it is a matter of intellectual honesty to keep the record public. O n e lilllst treat budding pro- WhyAstrology grammes leniently: programmes may take decades before they get off t l ~ e ground a n d become empiricallv progressive. For example.: Pllilosophy of Science Associatio~~.tionale of scientific revolutions. i \vho say that no demarcation of science from psetldoscience is possible. killed in concentration camps.