ABSTRACT
Most intuitively class more or less the same phenomena together under the umbrella of ‘pseudoscience’. Paradigm examples include astrology, Young Earth Creationism, Christian Science, feng shui, homeopathy, flat earthism, and Chinese medicine. Some terms can easily be defined in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. Karl Popper was a philosopher of science particularly concerned with a notorious puzzle: Hume’s problem of induction. According to Popper, science progresses by theories being put forward and then tested. Given the difficulties involved in providing a watertight definition of ‘pseudoscience’ in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, some may pessimistically conclude that the term is, then, just a ‘hollow phrase’ – a term used by speakers to express nothing more than their disapproval of a theory. Christian Science is pseudoscience, and indeed, like Young Earth Creationism, it apes the methods of genuine science.
