-- David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
So what term do you suggest for the thing that is currently usefully described by the word "pseudoscience"?
I dunno- "quasiscientific," maybe. Because 'pseudo' carries a prejudicial connotation of 'falseness,' while 'quasi' carries a perhaps more accurate connotation of "almost" or "partly" being something; in this case, as something being based in science.
The term "pseudoscientific," to be fair, seems like a natural one to use in cases where non-scientific claims are asserted as if there was established scientific proof. Its probably more accurate to just call certain specific outlandish claims as plain scientific 'fraud,' though my guess would be that that would probably be considered POV. 'Pseudoscience' is not much different than calling something 'fraud,' though 'fraud' seems to imply deliberate deception rather than an honest claim, written in religionese, and borne of intellectual confusion (SPOV) or 'ecstatic inspiration' (RPOV).
There are claims which are best described as being from the POV of the domain to which they belong: religion, philosophy, or metaphysics, etc. (ie. 'pseudoscience' is naturally in the domain of science). That alone should satisfy in almost any case I can think of. Whether String Theory should also be called "quasiscientific" of course stands out as an interesting fulcrum for Wikipediology.
Stevertigo
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