Protoscience

In the philosophy of science, the term protoscience is used to describe a new area of scientific endeavor in the process of consolidation. Scientific skeptics sometimes refer to protosciences as pathological sciences.^{[citation needed]} The term protoscience is sometimes used to describe a hypothesis that has not yet been adequately proven by the scientific method, but is otherwise consistent with existing science or, where it is not, overtly states it pending new facts or research.

Protosciences can be disciplines or fields of knowledge in a stage prior to being considered science; The hypotheses presented may or may not agree with the evidence known at the time, because the predictions associated with them have not yet been empirically verified or cannot be so due to technological limitations. Examples in this sense would be the theory of general relativity, which began as a protoscience and is now considered a science, or string theory, today considered a protoscience^{[citation required]} awaiting experimental verification.

In the historical sense, disciplines such as astrology or alchemy that gave way to astronomy and chemistry with the appearance of the scientific method are considered protosciences. However, the refusal of its practitioners to accept this method means that today they are considered pseudosciences.

History of the term protoscience

The philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn was the first to use this word in an essay, first published in 1970:

In any case, there are many fields – I will call them protosciences – in which practice produces contrasting conclusions but which, however, look like philosophy and arts in their development model. I think, for example, in fields such as chemistry and electricity before the middle of the 18th century, in the study of heritage and phylogeny before the mid-19th century, or in many of the social sciences today. Also in these fields, although they satisfy the demarcation criterion of Sir Karl, the incessant criticism and the continued effort to achieve a new beginning are primary forces, and they need to be. However, as it happens in philosophy and arts, this does not result in sharp progress... In short, my conclusion is that protosciences, like arts and philosophy, lack some element that, in mature sciences, allows the most obvious forms of progress.

Kuhn 2000, 168.

While protoscience is often speculative, it is to be distinguished from pseudoscience by its adherence to the scientific method and the established practices of good science, and most notably in its willingness to be refuted by new evidence (if it should appear). or supplanted by a more predictive theory.

Fields such as astrology and alchemy, which predate the invention of the scientific method, can also be considered proto-sciences. With the advent of the scientific method, they quickly produced the scientific fields of astronomy and chemistry respectively, leaving those who refused to adopt the scientific method in the practice of a pseudoscience.

More typically, a protoscientific field is one where the hypothesis presented is in agreement with the evidence available at the time and where a corpus of associated predictions has been produced, but these have not yet been (or cannot be, due to current technological limitations).

Some protosciences progress to being an accepted part of established science. Others fail in this consolidation, or become pseudoscientific when their followers persist despite a lack of scientific evidence to support their views.

Several sciences began as branches of philosophy: mathematics, natural philosophy, economics, psychology, sociology, and so on.

Examples of protosciences

The most famous modern example of protoscience might be the theory of continental drift as originally proposed by Alfred Wegener (which eventually became an accepted scientific model when the mechanisms of plate tectonics were understood). Other examples include:

• The various string theories of physics, or the cognitive science of mathematics. The string theory is usually called pseudoscientific because it does not prove what it tries despite fulfilling the scientific method in its entirety and based on complex mathematical equations. What makes it impossible to demonstrate is that it clashes against the conception of reality by the dimensions it postulates as probably existing.
• Astrobiology, the protoscientific study of forms of alien life, including speculation on the properties of life forms based on elements other than carbon. Exobiology has been severely criticized for not having a serious object of study.