Science and Pseudoscience

Abstract

Man's respect for knowledge is one of his most pecu liar characteristics. Knowledge in Latin is scientia, and science came to be the name of the most respe ctable kind of knowledge. But what distinguishes knowledge from superstition, ideology r pseudoscience? The Catholic Church excommunicated Copernicans, the Communist Party per secuted Mendelians on the ground that their doctrines were pseudoscientific. But then the problem of the demarcation between science and pseudoscience is not merely a problem of armcha ir p ilosophy: it is of vital social and political relevance.