Volume 4, Issue 4: From method to attitude: science and pseudoscience

 From method to attitude: science and pseudoscience

 

Lee McIntyre: The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience. MIT Press, 2019. pp. 296. Hardcover ISBN 9780262039833

 

 

If something aspires for general interest and practical usage nowadays, the question of science, pseudoscience, and their relations are surely in frontline. When Lee McIntyre published his book (that was followed already by others, one of which will be reviewed here shortly) about The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience, he could not think how its (even existential) relevance will grow day by day within a year. The global pandemic gave birth to new forms of science-denial, conspiracy theories, fraud, negligence, and mimicry of science – all of them presented new challenges, and old problems in new settings.

            Demarcating science from pseudoscience was one of the major and enduring is
sues of philosophy of science in the twentieth century, at least since Karl Popper’s early book on falsification. At least this is the general story, and this is not the place for any correction about how the Vienna Circle and its followers were (not?) interested in pseudoscience and placing a strict demarcation line there. What matters – and this was grasped and described nicely by McIntyre – is that philosophers and scientists very often opted for Popper’s considerations to draw a final, sharp, and all-deciding demarcation line between what counts as scientific and what not. This “problem of demarcation” haunted many for decades, it became a major obstacle in understanding how the pseudoscientific in fact work, develop, and engage so many people, often even with a scientific certificate. This book aims to correct this field by pointing to certain solutions and possibilities of remedy to keep calm and understand our struggles under the relevant lights.

            While McIntyre is a follower of Popper in many senses and fields, he clearly rejects his master’s flirt with the demarcation criterion that was proposed by many as a necessary and sufficient condition of being scientific. In the first half of the book, McIntyre shows in some depth all the problems that one is facing when making the criterion either too tight or too loose. We are either excluding what should be counted as science or we are opening the gate for many activities that shall be rejected as pseudoscientific. The author rightly points out (p. 27) that what most people are interested in is not the science/non-science distinction: literature, philosophy and poetry are not pseudosciences, but obviously not sciences as well (though philosophy and theories of literature often aspire for such ranks). So, after distinguishing science from nonscience, we still have to distinguish pseudoscience from unscientific activities, and what really matters to most of is the category of pseudoscience. Things are somewhat complicated here, but McIntyre’s style is very engaging, and it makes it quite easy to follow through the chapters. 

            If the demarcation problem as a form of giving a necessary and sufficient criterion of what counts as science fails, then we shall look for the solution elsewhere. The original and usual place for such a criterion was the almighty “method” of science, which turned out to be a bogus as it cannot function as that umbrella notion as many conceived it. McIntyre thus suggest another business for drawing some lines, and his chosen ideal is the “scientific attitude.” We are not given a full-blown story about what attitudes are, how they evolve, what is within their range and what not, but we are faced with a promising starting-point for further research and consideration. The idea can be summed up in two commitments:

 

(1) We care about empirical evidence.

(2) We are willing to change our theories in light of new evidence.

 

Scientists are distinguished from their pseudo-counterparts not by their methodological and logical abstract practices, but by what they care about. Empirical evidence is one such issue (sometimes you use it to verify, sometimes to falsify, but you always go back for more), taking that evidence seriously is another. New evidence could take you to the skies, but also to the depth – literally and figuratively as well. But until you are considering it seriously, you are having a scientific attitude, and thus doing science.

            There are many issues, some of which are treated loosely by McIntyre, and some other that should be considered by others later. First, one could object that many practices, that we declare to be par excellence pseudoscientific endeavors, are collecting what they consider to be empirical evidence, and change theirtheories accordingly. In fact, most of the pseudosciences are developing and adapting their theories over time, collecting data to prove their points. While they reject many considerations of the sciences and thus one would say that they are failing to act according to (1), scientists are also rejecting many results of others. Thus, writes McIntyre, “one need not provide that anything with the scientific attitude is science; one need only show that anything without the scientific attitude is not” (p. 65). That is an important point. We shall get back to it in a minute. Secondly, it is not at all evident what is empirical evidence and how to act in its light. If empirical evidence would speak for itself, no one would have a problem to demarcate science, or even to pursue science. But evidence and data are out there to be interpreted, and as many would argue, they have to be constructed first for later interpretation. As such, both (1) and (2) allows some flexibility, and thus some place is already created for the skepticism-induced pseudoscientists.

            To fix the second problem somewhat, McIntyre suggests that it is not the individual scientist with whom we shall care, but “the larger scientific community” who share the scientific attitude as “a guiding ethos” (p. 49). This move resonates well with the general atmosphere of contemporary philosophy that also moves towards social epistemology and similar approaches, taking into consideration communities and other social strata beyond the individual’s perspective. If there is a large enough community, then its general criticism and discussions will decide about evidence and its connotations. You are never left alone with your evidence.

            In fact, the move towards the community helps McIntyre in his business several times. He takes many of those moments, when someone tries to turn the tools and commitments of science against science: people using statistics misleadingly, or being skeptical just for the sake of criticizing a well-established communal consensus and make room for an alternative pseudoscientific position, or mentions repeatedly that scientists are also able to be fraudulent, have political and social biases with a strong financial interest and conflict. Although these are all true, and it would be worthless to deny them — McIntyre rightly discusses many such issues – it is also true that in the long-run (and sometimes even during the heydays of the problematic issues) science always corrects itself. Posers are getting debunked, impostors are thrown out from the community, mistakes are being repaired and the results are being used in new lights. That is the scientific attitude, developed so nicely and importantly by the author.

            The book is very easy to read and follow, brings you a useful introduction to philosophy of science and its perennial struggle with pseudoscience. McIntyre knows how to write understandably, provides a lot of examples, and his book is based on one major, significant and almost never-discussed insight: in order to get around science, one has to discuss and investigate the pseudosciences. The way to understand and demarcate is just the other way around: philosophers and scientists were perhaps too arrogant and worried about their public estimation that they never cared to take the pseudosciences seriously and as a major building block of social practice. McIntyre made an important step to change this attitude too.

 

Adam Tamas Tuboly

Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre for the Humanities, ELRN

Supported by the MTA Lendulet Values and Science Research Groug