On 12/16/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
"Alternate science" is science that deviates from the mainstream in significant ways. As long as there are some involved in good faith experiments which attempt to adhere to scientific principles they are scientists. If their experiments fail they go back to the drawing board to alter the hypothesis or experimental design. Repeated failure of experiments is not enough to make their efforts unscientific.
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Here we are not concerned with any particular subject by itself, but a wide range of subjects with varying degrees of support or hostility, including mutual hostility. "Alternative science" may appear sympathetic to the proponents, but not outrageously so.
The sumpathetic aspect is calling it science at all. Things labeled pseudoscience are not alternative interpretations of scientific theories, but are things which are contended to not even be science itself. Pseudoscience is defined as a non-scientific methodology which calls itself a scientific methodology. The POV problem with it is not the definition, but the assignment of fields to it. Similarly with Soviet spies, the problem is not that the idea of the category is inherently flawed (the idea of a Soviet spy is certainly comprehensible), but in saying that one person or another actually was a Soviet spy (versus accused of spying by the U.S. intelligence community, or something like that).
In analogic form about applied POV... Pseudoscience : Soviet spying :: Scientists : U.S. intelligence services.
If we interpret "science" strictly that's true. Nevertheless, others use the word "science" to refer to any kind of disciplined approach to a subject, as in the science of Texas Hold'em.
Okay, but that's not the sense of "science" used when talking about alternative science or pseudoscience. You can't just decide arbitrarily when something is a strict or a loose sense of the term.
FF