In Science
Mainstream science is scientific inquiry in an established field of study that does not depart significantly from orthodox theories. In the philosophy of science, mainstream science is an area of scientific endeavor that has left the process of becoming established. New areas of scientific endeavor still in the process of becoming established are generally labelled protoscience or fringe science. A definition of mainstream in terms of protoscience and fringe science can be understood from the following table:
| Systematized as scientific definition | ||||
| Treated with scientific method | ||||
| Tries to be science or just looks like science | ||||
| Superstitions | Pseudoscience | Fringe science | Protoscience | （Mainstream）science |
By its standard practices of applying good scientific methods, mainstream is distinguished from pseudoscience as a demarcation problem and specific types of inquiry are debunked as junk science, cargo cult science and scientific misconduct etc.
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