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In an article appearing in an earlier Festschrift honoring Adolf Grünbaum (Laudan 1983),² Larry Laudan argued persuasively that the attempt to distinguish science from pseudoscience by employment of one or another of the proposed demarcation criteria is now dead. What he had specifically in mind is that demarcation criteria employing verificationist and falsificationist theories of meaning have failed to accomplish the required goal.³ However, he obviously retained confidence in what he called "our intuitive distinction between the scientific and the non-scientific" (ibid., 124) and admitted that some future successful attempt to mark the difference could not be ruled out. The intuition referred to provides a rich catalog of pseudosciences, "flat Earthers, biblical creationists, proponents of laetrile or orgone boxes, Uri Geller devotees, Bermuda Triangulators, circle squarers, Lysenkoists, charioteers of the gods, perpetuum mobile builders, Big Foot searchers, Loch Nessians, faith healers, polywater dabblers, Rosicrucians, the-world-is-about-to-enders, primal screamers, water diviners, magicians, and astrologers" (ibid., 121). Evidently, these assorted pseudosciences make "crank claim[s] which make ascertainably false assertions"(ibid.). One might reasonably add: if literally construed.⁴

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-9504-9_12

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