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) Paul R. Thagard, Why Astrology is a Pseudoscience - PhilPapers

Why Astrology is a Pseudoscience


Authors
Paul Thagard
University of Waterloo
Abstract
Using astrology as a case study, this paper attempts to establish a criterion for demarcating science from pseudoscience. Numerous reasons for considering astrology to be a pseudoscience are evaluated and rejected; verifiability and falsifiability are briefly discussed. A theory is said to be pseudoscientific if and only if (1) it has been less progressive than alternative theories over a long period of time, and faces many unsolved problems, but (2) 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. This criterion has the interesting consequence that a theory can be scientific at one time but pseudoscientific at another.
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Citations of this work BETA

Cutting the Gordian Knot of Demarcation.Sven Ove Hansson - 2009 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 23 (3):237-243.
A Pragmatic Approach to the Demarcation Problem.David B. Resnik - 2000 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 31 (2):249-267.
What Is Complexity Science, Really?Steven E. Phelan - 2001 - Emergence: Complexity and Organization 3 (1):120-136.
Causation Without Influence.Tomasz Bigaj - 2012 - Erkenntnis 76 (1):1-22.

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Cutting the Gordian Knot of Demarcation.Sven Ove Hansson - 2009 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 23 (3):237-243.
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