David Gerard wrote:
There's lots of pseudoscience that isn't alternative medicine. That a group claims a given label is demeaning doesn't mean it doesn't and shouldn't apply.
But it *clearly* is demeaning---it's not a neutral, descriptive label such as "alternative medicine" that is simply a category of stuff with no value judgment about it. "Pseudoscience" is not a label anyone would use for any reason except to attack a particular theory. It's actually quite common in scientific circles to hear it lobbed as a pejorative, usually qualified with something like "so-and-so's work is verging on pseudoscience". It's certainly not appropriate as a neutral description in any context along the lines of "this theory is [[pseudoscience]]", which is what the category label is, in effect (although a claim like "this theory is considered [[pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] by the mainstream scientific community" is of course fine, if true).
-Mark