SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE: THE CASE OF CREATIONISM |
| |
Authors: | R. G. A. Dolby |
| |
Affiliation: | Senior lecturer in the Unit for History, Philosophy and Social Relations of Science at University of Kent at Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NR, England. |
| |
Abstract: | Abstract. The paper reviews criteria which have been used to distinguish science from nonscience and from pseudo–science, and it examines the extent to which they can usefully be applied to "creation science." These criteria do not force a clear decision, especially as creation science resembles important eighteenth–century forms of orthodox science. Nevertheless, the proponents of creation science may be accused of pious fraud in failing to concede in their political battles that their "science" is tentative and tendentious and will continue to be so while it remains archaic and poorly integrated into the rest of science. |
| |
Keywords: | creationism demarcation criteria science and pseudo-science |
|
|