In the late 1700s, a German doctor named Samuel Hahnemann began publishing
articles about a new treatment approach he called homeopathy.
Hahnemann’s theory had two central hypotheses.
First, the treatment for an ailment should be a dose of something
that might cause that ailment.
And second, diluted medicines are more powerful than concentrated ones.
So, a homeopathic remedy for insomnia
might include an extremely diluted solution of caffeine.
Over the following 300 years,
numerous physicians and patients turned to homeopathy,
and entire hospitals were built to focus on homeopathic treatments.
But despite all this, many studies have shown that homeopathy
has no therapeutic effect,
and homeopathic treatments often perform no better than placebos.
So why do so many practitioners and institutions
still support this practice?
The answer is that homeopathy is a pseudoscience—
a collection of theories, methods, and assumptions
that appear scientific but aren’t.
In the worst cases, pseudoscience practitioners encourage this confusion
to exploit people.
But even when they’re well-intentioned,
pseudoscience still prevents people from getting the help they need.
So how are you supposed to tell what’s science and what’s pseudoscience?
This question is known as the demarcation problem,
and there’s no easy answer.
Part of the issue is that defining science is surprisingly tricky.
There’s a common idea that all science should, in some form or another,
be related to testing against empirical evidence.
But some scientific activities are primarily theoretical,
and different disciplines approach empiricism
with varying goals, methodologies, and standards.
20th-century philosopher Karl Popper tried to solve the demarcation problem
with a simple rule.
He argued that in order for a theory to be scientific
it must be falsifiable, or able to be proven wrong.
This requires a theory to make specific predictions—
for example, if you’re theorizing that the Earth revolves around the Sun,
you should be able to predict the path of other celestial bodies in the night sky.
This could then be disproven based on whether or not
your prediction corresponds to your observations.
Popper’s falsification criterion is a great way
to identify pseudoscientific fields like astrology,
which makes overly broad predictions that adapt to any observation.
However, falsification alone doesn’t completely solve the demarcation issue.
Many things we now consider science were once untestable
due to a lack of knowledge or technology.
Fortunately, there are other factors we can use to identify pseudoscience,
including how a field responds to criticism.
Scientists should always be open to the possibility
that new observations could change what they previously thought,
and thoroughly disproven theories should be rejected in favor of new explanations.
Conversely, pseudoscientific theories are often continually modified
to explain away any contradictory results.
This kind of behavior shows a resistance
to what philosopher Helen Longino calls transformative criticism.
Pseudoscientific fields don’t seek to address their internal biases
or meaningfully engage in transparent peer review.
Another key marker of science is overall consistency.
Science relies on a network of shared information
that ongoing research develops across disciplines.
But pseudoscience often ignores or denies this shared pool of data.
For example, creationists claim that animals didn’t evolve
from a common ancestor
and that Earth is less than 20,000 years old.
But these claims contradict huge amounts of evidence
across multiple scientific disciplines,
including geology, paleontology, and biology.
While the scientific method is our most reliable tool
to analyze empirical evidence from the world around us,
it certainly doesn’t reveal everything about the human condition.
Faith-based beliefs can play an important role in our lives and cultural traditions.
But the reason it’s so important to draw a line
is that people often dress up belief systems as science
in efforts to manipulate others
or undermine legitimate scientific discoveries.
And even in cases where this might seem harmless,
legitimizing pseudoscience can impede genuine scientific progress.
In a world where it’s increasingly difficult to tell fact from fiction,
it’s essential to keep your critical thinking skills sharp.
So the next time you hear an amazing new claim,
ask yourself:
could we test this?
Are the individuals behind this theory updating their claims with new findings?
Is this consistent with our broader scientific understanding of the world?
Because looking scientific and actually being scientific
are two very different things.
