Philosophy of Science
There has been some decrease in interest in the demarcation problem in recent years. Part of the problem is that many suspect that it is an intractable problem, since so many previous attempts have come up short. For example, many obvious examples of pseudoscience have been shown to be falsifiable, or verifiable, or revisable. Therefore many of the previously proposed demarcation criteria have not been judged as particularly reliable.
Thagard has proposed another set of principles to try to overcome these difficulties. According to Thagard's method, a theory is not scientific if:
- It has been less progressive than alternative theories over a long period of time, and faces many unsolved problems; but
- The community of practitioners makes little attempt to develop the theory towards solutions of the problems, shows no concern for attempts to evaluate the theory in relation to others, and is selective in considering confirmations and disconfirmations.
Read more about this topic: Paul Thagard
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