text:
Talk:Protoscience

Accident
Apologies, I am having a weird font problem and may need to reboot - I was simply trying to add "cognitive science of mathematics" as a protoscience, but doing so mangled string theory and I can't fix it.

This may be a Freudian slip but I assure you it isn't intentional...

Rm protoscience
I fixed the link; I also removed "homeopathy" as an example--it's not anything like a legitimate protoscience, or even half-legit. It's total pseudoscientific nonsense, and not taken seriously as many protosciences are. I'm willing to tolerate a sympathetic and historical treatment of it on its own page, but pages about real science shouldn't be littered with frauds. --Lee Daniel Crocker

 * What's fraudulent about homeopathy (not that I believe in it)? --Anonymous

 * Ummm... homeopathy is a protoscience in that many traditional remedies of indigenous peoples are later discovered to have real provable medical properties - so it's more proper to say that a constant stream of claims have been passed through a a medical filter, and some have passed... many more than a random sampling would admit.

 * there are a lot of definitions of "homeopathy" as well... maybe this just needs to be framed a bit?

 * Based on the homeopathy article alone, I'd have to call it protoscience rather than pseudoscience. I personally strongly disbelieve it, but the article looks okay.

 * One comment is that homeopathy might work by a means other than that espoused for it, just as aspirin "worked" even when no one knew why. Our task as scientists: to discover the real means by which homeopathy works -- or prove that it doesn't work.

 * If homeopathy is proven, it will be promoted from protoscience to science. If it is disproven, but its adherents keep promoting it, then the wikipedia will demote it to pseudoscience. Even Lee Crocker would agree to this, I'm sure.

 * Homeopathy has been tested, hundreds of times, and has utterly failed every test (except for few it passed by barely measureable margins as might be expected by pure chance). We know exactly how homeopathy works: the placebo effect.  We've known it for decades.  There's no mystery here.  There's no unexplanied effects, because there are no effects at all.  It's just plain water, and everyone with even a basic medical education knows that.  Anyone who wants to support homeopathy has to willfully and dishonestly ignore these decades of failed tests and evade the placebo issue.  Real protoscience doesn't demand strong proof, but it does demand the basic personal and scientific integrity that homeopathy utterly lacks.

 * I left the "accupuncture" example in place, because that's a different story. It deserves to be called protoscience because honest, reputable scientists have shown real results from it that we have yet to explain, so even though we know the "chi" explanation is nonsense, there's still something going on here worth investigating.  But homeopathy is different.  Homeopathy is well-tested, well-understood, useless, and fraudulent.  --Lee Daniel Crocker

 * I wouldn't have any problems with Lee's comments if he didn't get into fraud and dishonesty. A person who sincerely believes weird things despite strong evidence to the contrary may be deluded, but that doesn't mean he's fraudulent. --Eclecticology

 * I imagine your small-time health food store homeopath might actually believe in it, and honestly think he's helping people. But even so, it doesn't take an M.D. or Ph.D. to know that testimonials are bad science, and the people producing and selling the stuff continue to use testimonials and pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo to make profits out of people's gullibility and vulnerability.  If calling them frauds is rude or uncouth, I'll still take my moral values over theirs any day.  Rudeness doesn't kill people.  --Lee Daniel Crocker

How to define a Protoscience?
How young does a science need be to be described as a 'protoscience'? Exobiology is at least forty years old, the same age as the study of DNA! Surely that's too old/well-established to be a protoscience? --Dan100 17:35, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

 * It is easy to define a protoscience. Take a random sample of professional scientists, and a control group, preferably in a double blind tests.  Ask them about any topic with no great level of consensus between scientists, philosophers and religious leaders.  The protoscientists are the ones that the professional scientists will talk with positive voices about in great detail for a longer length of time.  Everything they talk down on, is a pseudoscience. - --mugwumpjism 12:13am, Aug 12, 2005 (NZST)

 * Exobiology (or astrobiology) is a verifiable hypothesis that has not been verified, according to its own article. Are other similar hypotheses considered true science or protoscience?  The only ones I can think of are protoscience.  I don't think it has anything to do with how old they are...  - --Omegatron 21:56, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

 * I don't think it has to do with how old it is either, maybe this article should be rewritten to get away from a time-based definition. As I understand it, a protoscience is usually used to define the time of a historically developing field before it had developed its methodologies and modes of thought which later defined it as a discipline. For example, early psychology was an offshoot of 19th century philosophy of the mind, and looks very little like the modern variations of it (or even the variations which came 50 years later). The initial ideas were all present but the sensibility of how to set up an experiment, what could/should be tested for, what could/should be quantified, what valid hypotheses were, etc. had not developed. We can compare this with string theory now, which has not yet developed (m)any testable options, but may in the future (or may not). The "proto" in protoscience would thus refer not necessarily to chronological duration but to epistemic space: a protoscience has not yet developed the conceptual tools for becoming a full-fledged science. The demarcation between a protoscience and a pseudoscience might then be that a pseudoscience has claimed to develop said tools, but they are not recognized as valid, or something like that. The question of "establishment" is another one alltogether -- how much does investment by traditional forms of authentication designate the philosophical value of a field of inquiry? Does research on parapsychology done by the CIA/KGB make it any less pseudoscientific? If they practiced iridology at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory would it make it any less suspicious? How much is "status" determined by the spaces in which a field is advocated, communicated with, and practiced? How much is it the other way around (is iridology non-science because scientists don't study it, or do scientists not study it because it is non-science), or both? Anyway obviously these are large questions, my point is just that time and establishment may not necessarily bear down on such things. --Fastfission 02:40, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Let me just add to Fastfission: A protoscience grows up when it gets solid evidence that modifies the theory considerably; ex. evolution grew up when it moved beyond Darwin and started adding things like kin selection and genes, which Darwin had only inklings of (if that.) So exobiology seems to me to be largely where it started, with some changes based solely on advances in other fields; it hasn't really changed much. So on that basis I'd classify it as 'proto-'. --maru 18:17, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Scientific Method: Yes or No?
Paragraph one: "not yet been tested adequately by the scientific method"

Paragraph two: "its adherence to the scientific method"

Hello? Which is it? --User:Stevenkrivit 2100 PST, 24 Apr 2005

 * Doesn't seem contradictory to me: One refers to how much it has been tested, and the other graf refers to whether it would be testable. Ex: Theology is not testable, but alchemy is, and so on. One could become a protoscience (though with hindsight we can see that alchemy would not be able to- it would be disproven when it tried), and the other couldn't. --maru 18:17, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Alchemy = turn lead into gold or make an immortality syrup. You can't disprove either. Maybe one day it will be possible to do one of these.... The beliefs of Alchemy are untestable just like Theology. Just like you can't disprove that watermellons can't fly, sure they can, they just don't want to. Is that a protoscience? hmmm...

Agree. Quite often someone comes up with a thought experiment that could prove some hypothesis (or at least discriminate which of two hypotheses is closer to reality). But the experiment isn't actually conducted until years later. To me, the hypothesis becomes "scientific" as soon as the experiment is devised (see falsifiability). Protosciences are ones where people still haven't actually done the experiments, for one reason or another. --DavidCary 08:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Simply a concept that is not yet falsifiable because of limited physical abilities. (A test would needs more time, a better photo, a larger accelerator, faster processors... than we have now.) --Ollj 13:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Memetics, a protoscience?
It remains up in the air whether memetics is protoscience or a pseudo-science.

On many other pages I have argued that any memetic terminology violates the NPoV as memetics is still hotly debated as both it's accuracy and usefullness is still yet to be seen. For a perfect example of such an exchange see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Meme

For a philosophical discussion regarding meme theory see: http://www.ephilosopher.com/phpBB_14-action-viewforum-forum-4.html

In fact, even Wikipedias page of a list of alternative, speculative and disputed theories correctly places memetics alongside other controversial subjects such as Intelligent Design and Bible codes.

Therefore, as I have argued, any memetic terminology used unnecessarily on pages not directly concerned with memetics contstitute a violation of the NPoV, not to mention the idea of saying memetics is definitely a protoscience.

Wikipedia's theoretically objective articles shouldn't be tainted by this ideological slant which favors one side of a controversial issue. Maprovonsha172 12:50, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Incidentally, that link doesn't even go to a discussion of memes. And you *may* have a point w/r/t to terminology, but that is irrelevant here. --maru 18:04, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Another thing: Protoscience is a term sometimes used to describe a hypothesis which has not yet been tested adequately by the scientific method, but which is otherwise consistent with existing science or which, where inconsistent, offers reasonable account of the inconsistency. Memetics is indeed consistent with known science, and offers explanations that fills gaps.  Seems like an excellent protoscience candidate to me. --maru 18:19, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

No, memetics is not a protoscience. It's not falsifiable, and it's not even empirically testable. A key characteristic of a proto-science (as appose to a pseudo-science) is it's "willingness to be disproven by new evidence (if and when it appears), or supplanted by a more-predictive theory." (Protoscience) Memetics is so malleable and vague any anecdotal justification can be shoehorned into to defending the theory. It's not justified scientifically, or logically. And anyway, how are we to believe an article entitled protoscience which includes acupuntcure!?! (see http://www.skepdic.com/acupunc.html) I'm deleting memetics again because it isn't a protoscience.Maprovonsha172 22:49, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Maprovonsha, you yourself said at the top of this discussion "It remains up in the air whether memetics is protoscience or a pseudo-science." Now you're unilaterally declaring it's not. So which is it? Is it up in the air or isn't it? You're contradicting yourself. Reverted, again. --FCYTravis 04:49, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Bizarre, why would anyone think there is a science (or protoscience) called memetics? Memetics is an excited cafe topic between high IQ people who have jobs at Kinko's or just sold their own startup. It's one more breathless cultural contribution. It's financial mathematics applies to water waves in a bag of psychohistory. It's a meme, a meme... 84.227.250.171 (talk) 10:12, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Converting Lead to Gold was a metaphor
''Fields such as astrology and alchemy prior to the invention of the scientific method can also be regarded as protosciences. With the advent of the scientific method, they rapidly produced the scientific fields of astronomy and chemistry respectively,''

This is based on a widely held misconception that alchemists were people trying to add wing of bat to lead to boil up gold to make their riches. This sort of person is often surprised to learn that Isaac Newton was an alchemist, and that alchemists were probably closer to the scientists of a time bygone.

Just wondering...
Would intelligent design be considered as having anything to do with protoscience? Blueaster 00:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

 * Most would classify it as a pseudoscience. --Maru (talk) 04:21, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

 * Actually, most would classify it as a philosophy or theology, as it does not fit into the philosophical framework of a science (it doesn't make any verifiable claims, for instance). I would not classify it as a pseudoscience because it does make claims that could be true - the fact is, the universe might have been designed by a higher order of being; but there's nothing testable about that assertion, so it doesn't rise to the level of a scientific hypothesis (let alone theory). (unsigned)

 * On the contrary, ID does make testable predictions. Problem is, by those predictions, we either shouldn't believe in ID because of lakc of evidence, or it is disproven- an intelligent designer implies extremely high quality of design, and an intelligent designer to begin with. The quality is amply disproven by all sorts of organisms (look at the blind spot in human eyes, or how pathetically we age, for examples), and we have evidence of no designer, so.... --maru  (talk)  contribs 02:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Actually a lot of your examples are false (blind spot in the eye). So I think that to follow your (flawed) logic, you have indeed proven to yourself that there is a designer. Lehasa (talk) 20:50, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This is not a forum, especially not a forum for spreading fringe propaganda. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:28, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

 * ID was classified as philosophy and, to an extent, theology, and the Intelligent design article cites a few examples where this word combination was used in the past. It was one among many phrases used variously to connote the concepts of an underlying creative wisdom or ordering power in the universe..  Once the word was co-opted by the Discover Institute and affiliates, it became famous and controversial in the last decade because of widely publicized attempts in the United States to cast it as a scientific theory and demand that it be used in a mandatory statement to students in science classes in certain school districts.  (see Teleological argument) ...Kenosis 14:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

definitions?
This article seems to be trying to define "protoscience" as a couple of mutually-exclusive things, without really differentiating between them: Is this a correct interpretation? If so, is one a more commonly accepted definition than the other, or are they equally valid?
 * Fields of study which are not themselves scientific, but which later evolve into forms of science (i.e. historical astrology and alchemy)
 * Fields of study which appear to conform to the scientific method but have not been (or can not currently be) sufficiently tested or refined into confirmed scientific principles (i.e. string theory, etc).

My other question is what exactly constitutes an "area of endeavor"? Does this apply only to large things (potentially whole new branches of science such as memetics), or does it also apply to individual hypotheses within well-established fields (such as proposed new quantum physics theories)? The mixing and matching of examples makes it a little unclear as to where the line (if any) is drawn between "protoscience" vs. "the natural process of an established science" (which arguably always requires proposing new ideas and testing them as a matter of course). -- Foogod 01:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

 * ... "area of endeavor" ...
 * Can it not apply only to large things or apply to minotiry hypotheses within well-established fields both equally?
 * Is there one line for different proto-scientific fields of study? Psychology vs physics vs meta-physics vs geology ve [etc ...] ... it varies ...
 * J. D. Redding 19:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree with Foogod's first point;
 * if astrology and alchemy existed "at a time before invention of the scientific method", then they cannot be "rooted in established scientific principles", which is given earlier in the intro as part of the definition of a protoscience.
 * Bitbut (talk) 22:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Delete the article
Protoscience is not a word in the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed) nor the Websters (project guttenberg edition). It appears to be a word favoured by wikipedians defending pseudosciences and unpopular theories. Did Khun ever use the word? I propose we delete the article unless we can provide some evidence. --Mccready 10:51, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Well, Kuhn never appears to have actually used the specific word "protoscience"- I read through a bit of his Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the Essential Tension, and a few other works of his, as well as checking the indices, and I found nothing. That said, I disagree with your deletion thesis. It's a good article and topic. --maru  (talk)  contribs 17:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Most of the pages brought up by a google search are Wikipedia or wiki related. If the topic doesn't actually exist outside Wikipedia then we shouldn't keep it. I advice a search for references to verify common usage outside Wikipedia. Jefffire 17:37, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Did you make sure to filter out the Wikipedia related hits with "-wikipedia"? --maru  (talk)  contribs 17:45, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Good thinking, but even then I can't find much that I would call a reliable source. Deeply vexing, Mccready may be right. Jefffire 19:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

 * That's funny; I get 15,000 hits for protoscience with a "-wikipedia -wiki" filter, some of which are clearly fringe, but a substantial number of which are from quite established mainstream scientific journals, university sites, and encyclopedias (including Brittanica, though embedded in an article rather than being an article of its own).

 * For a random example, it appears from this review that a book by Catherine Wilson, The Invisible World: Early Modern Philosophy and the Invention of the Microscope, published by Princeton University Press, uses the term. It appears that the term is certainly in current and active use, whatever its origin (and I'm quite curious about the latter).Hgilbert 23:19, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I myself think it comes from the American Skeptics movements like The Skeptics Society- I think I may've first seen it in something of Martin Gardner's, but I don't remember what, and I don't have any of his stuff handy anyway. Some Googling may be in order. --maru  (talk)  contribs 23:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Not rally a reliable source though. It doesn't appear that the word is in common usage nor does it appear to be a commonly discussed topic. The article may be irretrievably OR is that is the case. Jefffire 23:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Though fairly rare, it seems to be a respectable usage. The Encyclopedia Brittanica online has an article called Pre-critical Science under the History of Science. I quote from this article:
 * Science, in its mature form, developed only in the West. But it is instructive to survey the protoscience that appeared in other areas, especially in light of the fact that until quite recently this knowledge was often, as in China, far superior to Western science.

 * The British Medical Association journal Quality and Safety in Health Care had an article in the June 2002 issue titled Incident reporting: science or protoscience?Hgilbert 01:38, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Seems at best we have a dictionary defn and therefore should be deleted. Seems no one has shown any discussion in philosophy of science (so I'll amend that bit for now). There is also the problem referred to above about the mutually exclusive defn's. For info, the usage in the article Quality and Safety in Health Care said ''We believe that, at this stage, the science of reporting is more of a protoscience than a science. Its data are uncorroborated and its methodology still unsystematic. Not enough researchers work in this area, so the field lacks the give and take that would filter out subjectivity.'' We could make the same statement, ironically, about protoscience - not enough people working in this area :-) Mccready 03:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Dictionary definition is better than nothing, but since it is a rarely used term there may be quite a fair bit of OR in the article. I'm leaning towards keeping the article but with a heafty review. Jefffire 08:42, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * No it isn't, see our policy on WP:NOTADICTIONARY. Here we are 16 years later and that status has not been left behind. I agree entirely with, this article should be put up for deletion at WP:AFD. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:35, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree. The non-dictionary parts are unsourced, so, the article can go. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:32, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I PROD-ed it but another editor reckons the cites are up to scratch and deleted the prod. So we need to clean up the cites and see what's left before going for a full-blown AfD. I have made a start on that. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 05:32, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

By the way, a search in Google-Scholar shows 146 uses of the word "protoscience" and 389 of "proto-science" or "proto science" in recent academic work, the overwhelming majority respectable mainstream journals (including usages in the philosophy of science). These are not overwhelming numbers given today's standards (2,000,000 hits!), but substantial enough that the word seems to have been taken up into mainstream vocabulary. Still...where did it originate???Hgilbert 14:28, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

 * To put that into perspective, Scholar gives 4320000 hits for evolution, 15500000 for science and 1610000 for Electron. Jefffire 14:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Kuhn did use the word
Kuhn is cited as using the word in an essay published in 1974. Retrieved on May 19, 2006 from this page (pdf): ; HTML version from Google

 * ‘I claim no therapy to assist the transformation of a proto-science to a science, nor do I suppose anything of this sort is to be had. If certain social scientists take from me the view that they can improve the status of their field by first legislating agreement on fundamentals and then turning to puzzle-solving, they are misconstruing my point’ (Kuhn, 1974, p. 245)

 * ref: Kuhn, T. S. (1974). Reflections on my critics. In I. Lakatos & A. Musgrave (Eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (pp. 231-278). London: Cambridge University Press

With no reason to believe that the above is fabricated, I would vote to keep the article and improve it with better references, e.g. from Bound Objects Of Knowledge (BOOKs). :-) thx, -Jim Butler 04:43, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * P.S. Despite voting to keep, it looks to me like a lot of the tagging of this and that thing as "protoscience" is original research. Jim Butler 04:45, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Well, I went to my library and looked up that citation. Turns out it is correct, but the original is actually even better than that! Before the therapy bit:
 * "In any case, there are many fields - I shall call them proto-sciences - in which practice does generate testable conclusions but which nevertheless resemble philosophy and the arts rather than the establish sciences in their developmental patterns. I think, for example, of fields like chemistry and electricity before the mid-eighteenth century, of the study of heredity and phylogeny before the mid-nineteenth, or of many of the social sciences today. In these fields, too, though they staisfy Sir Kral's demarcation criterion, incessant critism and continual striving for a fresh start are primary forces, and need to be. No more than in philosophy and the arts, however, do they result in clear-cut progress.
 * "I conclude, in short, that the proto-sciences, like the arts and philosophy, lack some element which, in the mature sciences, permits the more obvious forms of progress. It is not, however, anything that a methodological prescription can provide. Unlike my present critics, Lakatos at this point included, I claim no therapy...."

 * This not merely complements and verifies the previous quotes, but this may actually be the original coinage of the term! When Kuhn writes "I shall call them proto-sciences", that sounds like he is inventing it then and there, and not borrowing it from anywhere. --maru  (talk)  contribs 17:59, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the original citation. This does look like the original source!Hgilbert 21:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Well done with the ref Jim. I lent my Kuhn to my little sister and haven't seen it for a while. Despite the ref though I think we are still left with a dictionary definition. Jefffire, I don't like to wipe out the article either. But considering [wikipedia is not a dictionary] is there anything here that shouldn't be merged elsewhere? Mccready 12:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Mass edits should have been discussed here upon implementing. The 3RR rule is a two way street, and the burden is on the mass editor to show cause.  Now that they are being discussed, let's see where this goes.
 * I don't know what the one particular editor was thinking about with a threatened deletion of an article whose title is a standard term in both science generally and philosophy of science, but to be frank, it was indicative of bullyish behavior and arbitrary kneejerk decisionmaking at the outset. To add, arriving out of the blue at an article and threatening sanctions based on one revert is, at an absolute minimum, so misleading as to constitute an outright falsehood, highly inappropriate, inherently disrespectful, a plain violation of WP:AGF.  That said, the insertion of the citation-needed, unsourced-article and NPOV tags is agreed to be wholly appropriate and merited given the prior state of the content.  I trust that the article will be improved for the debate.  Good day....Kenosis 17:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to remind everyone about WP:Civility. Let's keep cool heads now. Jefffire 17:18, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Appreciate it Jeffire. Unfortunately, the right to respond to threats based on false representations of another editor's actions trumps WP;Civility.  Talk to ya'll after I cool off...Kenosis 17:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm also talking to Mccready as well. However, nothing trumps WP:Civility. Jefffire 17:42, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Can't we just compromise by leaving a verify tag on the article until we've substantiated the bulk of this article? --maru  (talk)  contribs 19:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I think that would be ideal. Jefffire 00:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry you are upset Kenosis and interpreted my motive the way you did. My intention was a simple reminder. I look forward to cooperative editing with you. Mccready 04:50, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
 * RE: "..look forward to cooperative editing..." Me too.  The article is already somewhat improved from before.  The discussion on this page currently appears to be more interactive and more focused than before on further clarification and improvement. Take care for now...Kenosis 15:27, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Two months later and I still disagree with dictionary definition the dicdef tag, and suspect not much has changed among other editors, though some may be on summer break and not watching page. Useful to compare with pseudoscience imo. I changed the datestamp because it looked like it had been there for the 5-day limit, when in fact it spent much (most?) of that time reverted by other editors.  In the meantime, editors should opposed to the tag should leave it, but weigh in here on why you disagree with it. thx, Jim Butler(talk) 16:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Even if protoscience doesn't exist in standard dictionaries, does it really matter? New words evolve by a means of empathy: For one reason or another they catch on through common appeal. The argument should be whether or not the subject matter has any merit. If it does, but there is not as yet enough evidence for us to refer to it as true science, then to my way of thinking protoscience is as good a term as any. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.36.206.202 (talk • contribs).
 * Yes, but WP isn't the place to create new terms, even if they do have merit, or may have merit in the future, or may be discarded. ;-) I'm OR-tagging the article; we need more sources than just Kuhn. thx, Jim Butler(talk) 22:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

List items that contain unverified claims
List items please J. D. Redding 19:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

List items that may contain original research
List items please J. D. Redding 19:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

"Theory" of Evolution
Wasn't Darwin's theory actually called The Theory of Natural Selection, with Evolution MUCH more commonly used to refer to observed instances of speciation? 71.233.230.223 16:32, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Recent edits
I can't help but feel that the recent edits have somewhat distorted the definition of protoscience based on the editor's POV. The references at the end suggest the term was correctly used before the edits. And now the historical emphasis has no citation. HomeJames 16:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

More examples of modern protoscience
There is just a few examples of modern protoscience on this article. Is there more protosciences out there? I have heard that some study of will of the wisps (light sources that are sometimes visible at swamps, for example) is protoscience, because the phenomena has a natural explanation, but the explanation is not fully understood. Is this true? Tuohirulla puhu 08:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Quotes & links
This article appears to be nothing more than a pair of quotes and a mass of links. Unless some substantive, sourced, non-copy-pasted content can be found, then article should probably be merged/redirected/deleted. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:06, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Ref-spam
Given that the only part of the article that isn't either a quote or a bare-link is the single lead sentence: "Protoscience refers to historical philosophical disciplines which existed prior to the development of scientific method, which allowed them to develop into science proper (see prescientific). A standard example is that of alchemy which later became chemistry, or that of astrology which later became astronomy."

… I would question why the article requires seven general references. I am therefore placing Refspam in its headers. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 09:10, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

About the term
A few years back someone surmised that Kuhn may have coined the term. Now with Google Books it's easy to put that to rest. The term was often spelled 'proto-science'. For example from Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse in 1915 (as far back as I got) : "'The use of writing is thus the best rough and ready mark to distinguish civilized peoples as a class. With its aid the first Asiatic civilizations in Babylonia, Egypt and Ancient China built up the first elements of systematic knowledge.... If we used a name, we may call this the stage of proto-science — of systematic knowledge in its germinal elements.'" Another, 1922 article  in AAAS The Scientific monthly uses, roughly, the phrase 'the proto-science of savages' twice in two pages. That kind of attitude sheds no light on the subject, and no respect either. This article would need to be put together by someone broadly familiar with the period Hobhouse describes. As someone has already noted, there was a LOT more to alchemy than chemical manipulations ... and I'll add, there was a LOT more to (observational) astrology than the cotton-candy in the newspaper. This article is a FAIL until that someone comes along. Twang (talk) 23:52, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I worked suggestion of Ludwigs2, modified by Bronton, into seconde lead paragraph
Inclusion of cultural,  traditional, or Ancient practices as protosciences was discussed on the pseudoscience talk page here

Wrong first para
Describing proto-science as
 * a fringe science that has limited acceptance in the mainstream scientific community

seems to be a POV view and to be factually wrong when examined in detail. In real reality proto-science is tolerated by mainstream scientific community despite not fulfilling scientific quality, because the scientific community think is reasonable to believe it might develop into a regular science. The source provided is only supporting the citation, not that proto-science is "fringe science", which is "bad science" frowned upon, unlikely to deliver real science results.

Remove the first para in the intro. The following paragraphs is enough. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 15:08, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes Rursus, it’s easy to agree if you have a Scandinavian usage behind. There a concept like “fringe science” has only recently entered in the everyday language, where protoscience has denoted the budding process applying the scientific method. Here it has even become a WP-tag for bad science. So, IP 128.59.169.46 blanking a relevant contribution and the following sock-puppet allegations seem to have hit the wrong target. Är du bra på sånt? [Are you knowledgeable at things like that?] Jag är helt säker på att den IPn plus minst tre ytterligare användts av en långtidsblockerad [I'm pretty sure that that IP plus three others have been used by a long term blocked person], tidigare bla med eget namn mycket wp-aktiv astrofysik-forskarstuderande [earlier using his(her) own name, and a very active astrophysics research student], för att under juni städa bort protovetenskapliga bidrag till ett flertal artiklar inom området non-standard cosmologies. [who during june have cleaned away proto-scientific contributions to considerable part of the articles about non-standard cosmologies] Man borde påtala ofoget, men jag är alltför sporadiskt här för att ha skaffat den färdigheten, tyvärr. :) [one ought to warn against the misuse, but I'm too sporadically here to have acquired that skill, sorry to say :)] Mr Gearloose (talk) 13:52, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

 * Translation added by me into the Swedish text for all editors to partake. (English WP english text, please!) Please, Mr Gearloose, if you happenstance know which long term blocked user, and any other IP:s that you might know, we would appreciate if you mentioned it here, so that any editor may partake as their time allow them. I'll be back later, when I've got a little pause in my private studies... Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 08:47, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

 * OK, but it seems to be a tricky matter to do it without invoking serious "outing" as can be seen from this unresolved blocking, probably caused by the same intention from a not yet granted request here. His name appears under the nick jps when he initiated an afd and elsewhere and it seems he is still finding other IPs, latest edit here. Mr Gearloose (talk) 10:49, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Confounded concepts: protoscience & fringe
The difference between these two concepts is unclear. If there is no better differentiation posisble, then I suggest merge the two articles. John Pons (talk) 04:01, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The figure is nice and colourful, but ultimately does not add much value in distinguishing protoscience & fringe.
 * The examples, e.g. GUT, TOE and M-Theory could just as well be considered fringe theories.

 * Given that the 'Definition' section (i) fails to properly distinguish these terms & (ii) does not appear to be verifiable even for what it does claim, you may well be right. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:30, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

 * I like the table a lot, but the table and the articles for "protoscience" and "fringe science" don't really make it clear what the difference is between the two terms. I'd like to see the two terms distinguished better in the articles. If they are indistinguishable from each other, then I would support merging the two articles. I've been trying to figure out the difference between the two terms, but I'm having troubles finding information on "protoscience" and how (or whether) it's different from "fringe science." I'd be grateful if anyone can clarify the difference.Dustinlull (talk) 04:16, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This article is pretty much a disaster, there are only two inline citations in the whole article. It has highly dubius statements like "Some protosciences go on to become an accepted part of mainstream science, e.g., astrology and alchemy". This article also appears to confuse hypothesis which are awaiting information with protoscience, the definition of which is unclear. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:27, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

 * I've removed some of the OR. I've also marked a number of issues with the lede. Pretty much the entire article is original research. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:44, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

redirect to pseudoscience
It appears the article pseudoscience actually covers the term protoscience in better detail than this topic, I propose this article just be redirected to pseudoscience. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:22, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Given that the article seems to lack any relevant sources whatsoever, that seems entirely reasonable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:59, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I was bold and performed the redirect. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:39, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

This new version looks a lot like the old version and seems to have no reason to live. If reliable independent sources are not to be added then it should be redirected again. IRWolfie- (talk) 00:26, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

THere should be an article on protoscience, but it's a history of science article not a woowoo concepts article
Protoscience is a legitimate term used in the history of science that refers to investigations in the early stages of the development of the scientific method - stuff like parts of ancient Greek philosophy, alchemy, and such like. Supporters of "fringe" concepts might like to label their modern concepts as protoscience and hope that they will develop into a new science, but this is wishful thinking. Note the difference between "woo-woo" concepts and developing new areas of research; for example molecular genetics has really only been possible since the discovery of DNA and its function - yet no-one would describe the early advances in molecular genetics as being protoscientific because they were clearly part of a wider ongoing research programme into biochemistry and genetics. Basically, the article as it stands is completely nuts. We have a well developed scientific method already, so there should be no modern protoscience. I am not a dog (talk) 22:48, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If you have specific parts of the article in mind you can be WP:BOLD and make the edits. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:26, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Examples
I've removed the examples list, if a new article is being built it is better to start without uncited or poorly sourced claims in it. Specifically if protoscience is used within the Philosophy of science we should be adding examples based on mentions either in 1. the scientific literature, 2. sources within the philosophy of science. All entries should be covered in a significant manner in reliable sources to establish some sort of due weight. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:41, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

wordiq
Please do not use wordiq as a source, it gets its content from wikipedia, cheers. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:54, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Rejected, you can easily replace the source when you have time. No need to delete obvious statements.

 * Your argument of laziness is dully noted however. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 02:30, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Do not use wordiq; it is self evidently unreliable. IRWolfie- (talk) 02:52, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

deletion of "boundaries between protoscience, science, and pseudoscience"
This section is the same section as on pseudoscience. If it is good enough to describe the difference in that context it is good enough here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Protoscience&diff=470115414&oldid=470113304

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience#Boundaries_between_protoscience.2C_science.2C_and_pseudoscience

84.106.26.81 (talk) 02:33, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

 * The section makes no explicit reference to protoscience. Also, why would you dublicate a section that exists in another article? IRWolfie- (talk) 02:50, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

 * bublikate? WHAT?84.106.26.81 (talk) 12:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

What difference?
"The difference with fringe science is that Fringe science is often considered highly speculative or even strongly refuted, while some protosciences are widely accepted." = We really don't have any firm idea what the difference is.

Also, as we are attempting to draw out this difference from sources that do not appear to directly compare the two, this "difference" would appear to be WP:Synthesis (and the fact that we have no source for a direct comparison is probably also why the claim is so vague).

This is exactly the sort of blatantly bad writing that got the article redirected in the first place. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 08:53, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Maybe you should pay more attention when users remove sources? It is a common sense statement to help the reader distinguish between the different labels.

 * "The difference with fringe science is that Fringe science is often considered highly speculative or even strongly refuted."

Was originally sourced on this:

 * Your argument is that you are unaware many fringe fields are considered discredited? aka argument from ignorance? 84.106.26.81 (talk) 13:09, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Maybe you should (i) read my argument, (ii) read the policy I cited: WP:Synthesis, & (iii) get a clue. Your strawman argument has nothing whatsoever to do with the argument I made. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Parapsychology
I claim WP:REDFLAG on this claim, and suggest that we need a considerably better source than a newsletter from the Center for Frontier Sciences for it. Parapsychology is a grab-bag of serious research, anecdotal claims and outright bunkum. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:13, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's poorly sourced and also not consistent with the definition of protoscience which is given in the lede as; a protoscience is a new science trying to establish its legitimacy. Parapsychology is not new but actually quite old. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:21, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

 * It isn't considered pathological so it is still in prototype stage. The source merely indicates professional affiliation which is something you can check.84.106.26.81 (talk) 12:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * (i) You have presented no evidence that Parapsychology "isn't considered pathological". (ii) You have presented no evidence that something 'not considered pathological' must be a protoscience. (iii) Even if you had, your claim is WP:OR so inadmissible. (iv) Please reread WP:REDFLAG -- this is not an 'extraordinary source'. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:32, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I deleted it. Selery (talk) 15:56, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

'Historic Examples'
HrafnTalkStalk(P) 07:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * First I'd like to support the elimination of Geology. To baldly call a field a historical example of a protoscience, when it came into existence in a period when science itself was still in the process of forming (and when the claim could be made that all science was protoscience) is unhelpful.
 * I'd also like to query the inclusion of Astrology & Alchemy -- neither follow the "standard practices of good science". If the claim is made that they developed before these practices were put in place, then we're left with a definition of protoscience that is too vague to have any use. (Also, such a claim would be a special pleading.)
 * I suspect a distinction may need to be made (and be sourced) between 'protoscience' as a stage in the development of science itself, and a protoscientific field -- being a nascent field that is attempting to establish itself through rigorous application of the (already-developed) scientific method.

Who are you talking to? 84.106.26.81 (talk) 08:09, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Anybody who has this article on their watchlist. It's how we build WP:CONSENSUS on potentially controversial changes. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 08:13, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * What article? The article was deleted. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 08:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

HrafnTalkStalk(P) 08:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) It was never "deleted" -- contrast WP:REDIRECT with WP:DELETION
 * 2) You yourself appear to be the editor who restored it from redirect (something that an ordinary editor cannot do to a deleted article) and thereby started this this whole discussion up again.

So you are not here to help write the article?84.106.26.81 (talk) 11:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That is not a logical conclusion to take from either my statements here, or my actions. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 11:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Oh but it is when you consider the amount of users involved and look at the actual constructive contributions you've made together. I see unproductive users who are primarily here to complain about things that are common sense. Correction "Elimination" is the word you used. With a very poor argument that is down right silly.

 * Perhaps you could elaborate how spending my time on the elimination of Geology should be considered a valid attempt to improve the rotting fleshand raise the zombie?

 * Please don't get the wrong idea, I'm trying really hard not to laugh hysterically and take you seriously.

 * 84.106.26.81 (talk) 12:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Given that you no more adequately substantiate your claims here than your (WP:Original research, WP:Synthesis and un-WP:Verifiable) claims on mainspace, I really don't care if you're laughing crying, or howling at the moon. Feel free to come back when you have sources or policy on your side -- until then I'm not really interested. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:16, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm just answering your "I just don't like it" to the best of my abilities. I don't see how it is unfair to ask you to elaborate how spending my time on the elimination of Geology should be considered a valid attempt to improve the rotting fleshand raise the zombie.

Like here for example: "not meeting the stated definition of meeting the "standard practices of good science"

 * Alchemy is the protoscience of Chemistry.
 * Astrology is the protoscience of Astronomy.

Who would seriously ask for a source here? Right, only a .... or wait... 84.106.26.81 (talk) 14:09, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Who? Anybody who had noticed the blindingly obvious point that neither Astrology nor Alchemy follow the "standard practices of good science", so that neither can be a protoscience of anything. But wait you don't even need to work that out for yourself, because I made this point in the first post in this thread . Who would seriously miss this point? Have a ....

WP:TROUT. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 14:32, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Ok, you win. Sorry about questioning your motives. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 15:48, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I hadn't seen this section. I made an edit that probably addresses this problem. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Protoscience: label or field?
Is protoscience: We have clearly contradictory definitions. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 08:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) A label applied to nascent scientific fields (Kuhn)?
 * 2) Or alternately the field within the philsophy of science of studying (and presumably developing) "normative criteria for the use of experimental technology in science." (Brakel)?

This is where you describe both. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 11:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * No. In such a situation, we tend to disambiguate, and cover each definition in a different article. A consequence of WP:NOTDICTIONARY is that we write articles on a topic (with a single definition), not on a word (with potentially multiple definitions). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 12:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I see no contradiction. Please elaborate. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 12:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Shorten that to you "don't see", and I might agree with you. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:35, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * I'm seeing it now. SYNTH seems a lot more strict than I thought it was. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 15:55, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:DICTDEF
A Wikipedia article that is mostly a list of definitions is not a good thing. One that is solely a single definition is even worse. <span style="font-family:Antiqua, serif;">HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Given the way you are nitpicking every bit of the article I thought you should be given a fair chance to write the entire thing from scratch. This while using sources everyone likes of course. You better not mention historical examples like Geology and we want no pseudoscience crap in the article.

 * Good luck!

 * 84.106.26.81 (talk) 13:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * Read WP:POINT and get a clue. <span style="font-family:Antiqua, serif;">HrafnTalkStalk(P) 14:02, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 * You threw a lot of badly sourced and dubius material on the article, including information sourced from sites which themselves were sourced from wikipedia. The onus was on you to reliably source the content you added; You could have created a user account and worked on the article in a userspace but instead you decided to move the article back off a redirect. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:02, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Raimo Tuomela
Raimo Tuomela's essay 'Science, Protoscience, and Pseudoscience', in, may prove informative. It gives a very rigorous, and also more restrictive, definition of protoscience. It also lists social sciences as an extant example of protoscience. <span style="font-family:Antiqua, serif;">HrafnTalkStalk(P) 15:09, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Article is badly structured
From the article:

''In the philosophy of science, there are several definitions of protoscience. Protoscience is sometimes distinguished from pseudoscience by a willingness to be disproven by new evidence, or to be replaced by a more predictive theory.[citation needed] Compare fringe science, which is considered highly speculative or even strongly refuted.[1] Some protosciences go on to become an accepted part of mainstream science.[2]

Philosopher of chemistry Jaap Brakel defines protoscience as "the study of normative criteria for the use of experimental technology in science."[3]

1. The first paragraph does not tell us the definition of protoscience. Instead, it tells us that there are several definitions, and proceeds to compare the missing definition to other concepts.

2. The definition by Brakel is a distraction. A protoscience is a field of inquiry with a specific subject matter, such as psychology, chemistry, or whatever. It is not the study of normative criteria.

(In Bartel's defense, his remark might be a valid comment about protoscience in the context of his book -- I can't tell -- but it doesn't play well as a primary characterization in an encyclopedia article.)

I find the Popper and Kuhn quotes illuminating. But again, they are not definitions, but commentary and evaluation. You have to work backward to infer the definition. A Wikipedia editor should do this or find a quote that does it. But I can see that there is a huge talk debate on this short article... 84.227.250.171 (talk) 10:03, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

 * I agree, but this is one of many problems in this article, and I will work on a rewrite. For example, in every established science, scientists introduce unproven hypotheses as the first step in the scientific method.  Einstein's theory of relativity is a perfect example of what occurs in every established science and absolutely never was a protoscience as this article states.

TMM53 (talk) 20:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Revision
Hello, This article lacks sources for a substantial amount of the content. I made a revision that contains sources for all content. I retained as much current content as feasible. I will check back in a few weeks. This is the revision: User:TMM53/Protoscience-2024-05-08

TMM53 (talk) 06:33, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

 * I revised document. If there are any disagreements, please let us work together to improve this article.  Added sources for all content; provided a single consistent definition; removed Jaap Brakel reference as I could not fully access this content and Brakel's writing is unclear; general theory of relativity occurred in physics an established science, not a protoscience; introduced the conceptual framework needed to distinguish protoscience from established science, belief field, research field and pseudoscience; introduced protoscience as a developmental stage; introduced section origin of protoscience; provided protoscience examples in physical science, psychology, medicine, and technology.
 * TMM53 (talk) 01:46, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Protoscience


text:
The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1962), by Philip K. Dick, is an alternative history novel wherein the Axis Powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the life of several characters living under Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany as they rule a partitioned United States. The titular character is the mysterious author of a novel-within-the-novel entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a subversive alternative history of the war in which the Allied Powers are victorious.

Dick's thematic inspirations include the alternative history of the American Civil War, Bring the Jubilee (1953), by Ward Moore, and the I Ching, a Chinese book of divination that features in the story and the actions of the characters. The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963, and was adapted to television for Amazon Prime Video as The Man in the High Castle in 2015.

Background
In The Man in the High Castle alternative history, Giuseppe Zangara assassinates President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, resulting in the continuation of the Great Depression and the policy of United States non-interventionism at the start of World War II in 1939. American inaction allows Nazi Germany to conquer and annex continental Europe and the Soviet Union into the Reich. The exterminations of the Jews, the Romani, the Bible Students, the Slavs, and all other peoples whom the Nazis considered subhuman ensued. The Axis powers then jointly conquered Africa, and still compete for the control of South America in 1962. Imperial Japan invaded the West Coast of the United States, while Nazi Germany invaded the East Coast; the surrender of the Allies ended World War II in 1947.

By 1962, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are the world's superpowers, fighting a geopolitical cold war over the world, and in particular over the former United States and South America. Japan extended the Co-Prosperity Pacific Alliance with the establishment of the Pacific States of America (PSA), with the politically neutral Rocky Mountain States acting as a buffer with the Nazi states to the east. Nazi North America is composed of two countries: The South, and the northeastern part of the former contiguous United States of America, which is referred to as "the U.S." in the book, both ruled by collaborationist pro-Nazi puppet regimes. Canada remains an independent country.

The aged Adolf Hitler is incapacitated by tertiary syphilis, Martin Bormann is the acting Chancellor of Germany and the inner-circle Nazis—Joseph Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Hermann Göring, Arthur Seyss-Inquart—vie to succeed Hitler as the Führer of the Greater Germanic Reich. Technologically, the Nazis have drained the Mediterranean Sea for lebensraum and farmland, developed and used the hydrogen bomb, developed rockets for traveling throughout the world and into outer space, such as the colonization missions to the Moon, and to the planets Venus and Mars.

Plot
In 1962, it has been fifteen years since Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany won World War II. In San Francisco, in the Pacific States of America, Japanese judicial racism has enslaved black people and reduced the Chinese residents to second-class citizens. Businessman Robert Childan owns an antique shop there that specializes in Americana for a Japanese clientele who fetishize cultural artifacts of the former United States. One day, Childan receives a request from Nobusuke Tagomi, a high-ranking trade official, who seeks a gift to impress a Swedish industrialist named Baynes. Childan can fulfil Tagomi's request because he is well-stocked with counterfeit antiques made by the metal works Wyndam-Matson Corporation.

Recently fired from his job at a Wyndam-Matson factory, Frank Frink (formerly Fink) is a secret Jew and war veteran who agrees to join a former co-worker to start a business making and selling jewelry. Meanwhile, in the Rocky Mountain States, Frank's ex-wife, Juliana Frink, works as a judo instructor in Canon City, Colorado and, in her private life, has entered a sexual relationship with Joe Cinnadella, an Italian truck driver and ex-soldier.

Frink blackmails the Wyndam-Matson Corporation for money to finance his jewelry business, threatening to expose their supplying counterfeit antiques to Childan. Tagomi and Baynes meet, but Baynes repeatedly delays conducting any real business because he awaits a third party from Japan. The Nazi news media announces that Chancellor of Nazi Germany Martin Bormann has died after a short illness. Childan takes some of Frink's "authentic metalwork" jewelry on consignment, to curry favor with a Japanese client, who, to Childan's surprise, says it possesses much Wu, spiritual awareness. Juliana and Joe travel by road to Denver, Colorado, but en route Joe impulsively decides that they take a side trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to meet Hawthorne Abendsen, the mysterious author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a novel of speculative fiction that presents an alternative history of World War II, wherein the Allies defeat the Axis. The Nazis banned it in the U.S., but the Japanese allow its publication and sale in the Pacific States of America. Supposedly, Abendsen lives in a guarded estate named the High Castle. Meanwhile, the Nazi news media inform the public that Joseph Goebbels is the new Chancellor of Nazi Germany.

After much delay, Baynes and Tagomi meet their Japanese contact, while the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Nazi security service, is close to arresting Baynes, who is actually Nazi defector Rudolf Wegener. Baynes warns his contact, a Japanese general, of the existence of Operation Dandelion, a plan of Goebbels for a Nazi sneak attack upon the Japanese Home Islands, with the goal of destroying the Empire of Japan. Frink is exposed as a crypto-Jew and arrested by the San Francisco police. Elsewhere, two SD agents confront Baynes and Tagomi, who uses his antique American pistol to kill both agents. In Colorado, Joe changes his appearance and mannerisms before the side trip to the High Castle in Wyoming; Juliana infers that Joe intends to assassinate Abendsen. Joe reveals himself to be a Swiss Nazi when he confirms his intention; Juliana kills Joe and goes to warn Abendsen.

Wegener flies back to Germany and learns that Reinhard Heydrich (a member of the faction against Operation Dandelion) has launched a coup d'état against Goebbels, to install himself as Chancellor of Nazi Germany. Tagomi is shocked by having killed the SD agents and goes to the antiques shop to sell the pistol back to Childan; instead, sensing the spiritual energy from one of Frink's jewelry creations, Tagomi buys the jewelry. Tagomi then undergoes an intense spiritual experience during which he momentarily perceives an alternative version of San Francisco, evidenced by the Embarcadero freeway, which he has never seen and by the fact that white people do not defer to Japanese people.

Tagomi later meets with the German consul in San Francisco and compels the Germans to free Frink, whom Tagomi has never met, by refusing to sign the order of extradition to Nazi Germany. Juliana has a spiritual experience when she arrives in Cheyenne. She discovers that Abendsen lives with his family in a normal house, having abandoned the High Castle because of a changed outlook on life; thus the possibility of being assassinated no longer worries him. After evading Juliana's questions about his literary inspiration, Abendsen says he used the I Ching, a Chinese book of divination, to guide the writing of his novel. Before leaving, Juliana infers then that Truth wrote the novel to reveal the Inner Truth that Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany did lose World War II in 1945.

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy
Several characters in The Man in the High Castle read the popular novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, by Hawthorne Abendsen, the title of which the readers presume derives from the Bible verse fragment: "The grasshopper shall be a burden". As an alternative history of the Second World War, wherein the Allies defeat the Axis Powers, the Nazi regime bans The Grasshopper Lies Heavy in the South, whereas the Pacific States of America allow the publication and sale of the Abendsen's counterfactual novel.

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy postulates that President Roosevelt survives the 1933 assassination attempt but chooses not to seek re-election in 1940. The next president, Rexford Tugwell, moves the American Pacific Fleet from Pearl Harbor, saving it from attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy, which ensures that the country is better equipped to fight the war. Having retained most of their military-industrial capabilities, the United Kingdom contributes more to the Allied war effort, which facilitates the defeat of Erwin Rommel in the North African Campaign. The British fight the Axis armies through the Caucasus to join the Soviet Union and defeat the Nazis in the Battle of Stalingrad; the Kingdom of Italy reneges its membership in the Axis and betrays the Nazis; the British Army joins the Red Army in the Battle of Berlin, the decisive defeat of Nazi Germany. At war's end in 1945, Hitler and the Nazi leaders are tried as war criminals and are put to death, with Hitler's last words being Deutsche, hier steh' ich ("Germans, here I stand"), in imitation of Martin Luther.

After the war, Tugwell promulgates the New Deal for the countries of the world, which finances a decade of rebuilding in China and the education of illiterate peoples in the undeveloped countries of Africa and Asia, who receive television sets by which they are taught to read and write, are instructed in digging wells and in purifying water. The New Deal financial assistance facilitates American businesses building factories in the undeveloped countries of Asia and Africa. American society is peaceful and harmonious and is at peace with the other countries of the world; the war ends the Soviet Union. Ten years after the war, still headed by Winston Churchill, the British Empire becomes militaristic, anti-American and establishes prison camps in India for Chinese subjects considered disloyal. Suspecting that the United States is sponsoring the anti-colonial subversion of British colonial rule in Asia, Churchill provokes a cold war for global hegemony; the geopolitical rivalry leads to an Anglo-American war won by the United Kingdom.

Inspirations
The novelist Philip K. Dick said that he imagined the story of The Man in the High Castle (1962) from his reading of the novel Bring the Jubilee (1953), by Ward Moore, which is an alternative history of the U.S. civil war won by the Confederacy. In the acknowledgements page of The Man in the High Castle, Dick mentions the thematic influences of the popular history The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (1960), by William L. Shirer; the biography Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (1952), by Alan Bullock; The Goebbels Diaries (1948); Foxes of the Desert (1960), by Paul Carrell; and the 1950 translation of the I Ching, by Richard Wilhelm. As a novelist, Dick used the I Ching to craft the themes, plot and story of The Man in the High Castle, whose characters also use the I Ching to inform and guide their decisions.

Dick cites the thematic influences of Japanese and Tibetan poetry upon the narrative of The Man in the High Castle; (i) The haiku in page 48 of the novel is from the first volume of the Anthology of Japanese Literature (1955), edited by Donald Keene; (ii) the waka poem in page 135 is from Zen and Japanese Culture (1955), by D. T. Suzuki and (iii) the Tibetan book of the dead, the Bardo Thodol (1960), edited by Walter Evans-Wentz and mentions the sociologic influences of the expressionist novella Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), by Nathanael West, in which an unhappy newspaper reporter pseudonymously writes the "Miss Lonelyhearts" advice column, through which he dispenses advice to emotionally forlorn readers during the Great Depression. Despite his job as Miss Lonelyhearts, the reporter seeks consolation in religion, sexual promiscuity, rural vacations and much work; no activity provides him with a sense of personal authenticity derived from his intellectual and emotional engagement with the world.

Reception
Avram Davidson praised the novel as a "superior work of fiction", citing Dick's use of the I Ching as "fascinating". Davidson concluded that "It's all here—extrapolation, suspense, action, art, philosophy, plot, [and] character". The Man in the High Castle secured for Dick the 1963 Hugo Award for Best Novel. In a review of a paperback reprint of the novel, Robert Silverberg wrote in Amazing Stories magazine, "Dick's prose crackles with excitement, his characters are vividly real, his plot is stunning".

In The Religion of Science Fiction, Frederick A. Kreuziger explores the theory of history implied by Dick's creation of the two alternative realities

"Neither of the two worlds, however, the revised version of the outcome of WWII nor the fictional account of our present world, is anywhere near similar to the world we are familiar with. But they could be! This is what the book is about. The book argues that this world, described twice, although differently each time, is exactly the world we know and are familiar with. Indeed, it is the only world we know: the world of chance, luck, fate."

In her introduction to the Folio Society edition of the novel, Ursula K. Le Guin writes that The Man in the High Castle "may be the first, big lasting contribution science fiction made to American literature."

Audiobook
An unabridged The Man in the High Castle audiobook, read by George Guidall and running approximately 9.5 hours over seven audio cassettes, was released in 1997. Another unabridged audiobook version was released in 2008 by Blackstone Audio, read by Tom Wyner (credited as Tom Weiner) and running approximately 8.5 hours over seven CDs. A third unabridged audiobook recording was released in 2014 by Brilliance Audio, read by Jeff Cummings with a running time of 9 hours 58 minutes.

Television
After a number of attempts to adapt the book to the screen, in October 2014, Amazon's film production unit began filming the pilot episode of The Man in the High Castle in Roslyn, Washington, for release through the Amazon Prime Web video streaming service. The pilot episode was released by Amazon Studios on January 15, 2015, and was Amazon's "most watched pilot ever" according to Amazon Studios' vice president, Roy Price. On February 18, 2015, Amazon green-lit the series. The show became available for streaming on November 20, 2015.

Incomplete sequel
In a 1976 interview, Dick said he planned to write a sequel novel to The Man in the High Castle: "And so there's no real ending on it. I like to regard it as an open ending. It will segue into a sequel sometime." Dick said that he had "started several times to write a sequel" but progressed little, because he was too disturbed by his original research for The Man in the High Castle and could not mentally bear "to go back and read about Nazis again". He suggested that the sequel would be a collaboration with another author:"Somebody would have to come in and help me do a sequel to it. Someone who had the stomach for the stamina to think along those lines, to get into the head; if you're going to start writing about Reinhard Heydrich, for instance, you have to get into his face. Can you imagine getting into Reinhard Heydrich's face?"

Two chapters of the proposed sequel were published in The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick, a collection of his essays and other writings. Eventually, Dick admitted that the proposed sequel became an unrelated novel, The Ganymede Takeover, co-written with Ray Nelson (known for writing the short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" filmed as They Live).

Dick's novel Radio Free Albemuth is rumored to have started as a sequel to The Man in the High Castle. Dick described the plot of this early version of Radio Free Albemuth—then titled VALISystem A—writing:"... a divine and loving ETI [extraterrestrial intelligence] ... help[s] Hawthorne Abendsen, the protagonist-author in [The Man in the High Castle], continue on in his difficult life after the Nazi secret police finally got to him ... VALISystem A, located in deep space, sees to it that nothing can prevent Abendsen from finishing his novel."

The novel eventually became a new story unrelated to The Man in the High Castle. Dick ultimately abandoned the Albemuth book, unpublished during his lifetime, though portions were salvaged and used for 1981's VALIS. Radio Free Albemuth was published in 1985, three years after Dick's death.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Man in the High Castle


text:
Talk:Pathological science

Attribution
I'm impressed that Irving Langmuir managed to co-author a paper published in 1989 despite being dead since 1957. How did he manage this astonishing feat ? Did he write his bit in 1956 and then send it to his co-author who took his time over the rest ? Or is it someone else of the same name -- in which case the beginning of the article needs changing. --Derek Ross 03:01 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)

"A New Kind of Science" and Wolfram
I saw that someone removed mention of Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" from this article. I had originally placed mention of it in the pseudoscience article, but someone suggested that it did not really belong there because ANKOS does not really have any following (adherents who believe in the path being preached by Wolfram), and a field must have some kind of following to qualify as a psuedoscience. Fields with just one adherent (the author in this case) would more properly belong to an article on "crank science" or "pathological science" or "junk science" or some other descriptive term.

All the reviews that I have read to date of ANKOS have been, frankly, scathing, though all the reviewers have been too polite (or more likely, too afraid of lawsuits) to call it pseudoscience. Yet the article on ANKOS has been rewritten recently to remove any hint of what seems to be universally critical opinion regarding the work. So someone please tell me, where is the proper place on the Wikipedia to point out that in the opinion of many, Wolfram has gone off the deep end. --Grizzly 06:40, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * "removed mention of Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science""?
 * ANKOS does not really have any following
 * "adherents"?
 * "path being preached by Wolfram"?
 * "field must have some kind of following to qualify as a psuedoscience"? Woh ... that's entirely POV ... he has some ppl [ie. a limited group] that follow him ..
 * "Fields with just one adherent"? is theredata to support that?
 * "the author in this case"? yea he's a smart guy ...
 * "properly belong to an article on "crank science""? bzzt ... =-] I think it wouldn't fit there ... mabey abit fringe (and speculative), but not psuedo ... more like protoscience ...
 * "pathological science"? he is on a mission ...
 * ""junk science""? IYO again I see ...
 * "descriptive term"? hmmm ... =-\ ...

 * "All the reviews that I have read to date of ANKOS have been, frankly, scathing"? hmmm ... I'll look into that ...
 * IYO "reviewers have been too polite"? I see the POV now ...
 * "or more likely, too afraid of lawsuits" rightly so ...
 * "call it pseudoscience"? no ... because it's not ...
 * "Universally critical opinion"? I don't think that is the case ... though criticism should be acknowledged ...
 * "where is the proper place on the Wikipedia to point out that in the opinion of many, Wolfram has gone off the deep end"? In the protoscience article or in the specified article ... --Sincerely, JDR

 * It defnitely belongs in the ANKOS article. That article is currently nothing more than a summary of the book, and is strongly POV (supporting the book's arguments).  I would recommend rearrange the article so there's a section on a summary, and a section on criticisms, including rebuttals of the criticisms.  If I knew the criticisms myself I would work on it.  --zandperl 14:09, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Bad criticism
Geez-uss! What an article!

Ok, I have removed the entirety of the "Criticisms" section. Not a single example offered had ever been referred to as "pathological science". Hell, with the possible exception of Mpemba effect and Halton Arp, they all predate the invention of the term.

Oh sure, people didn't believe the examples, but that's not even remotely the same thing. If someone can offer examples of things that were called pathological science and later turned out not to be, put it in there.

For the record: '''just because people say you are full of crap doesn't mean they say you're involved in pathological science. read the &^%$%^ definitions people!!!'''  --Maury

 * You have missed the point of the examples entirely. It is not that there were called pathological because that term was only coined in the early twentieth century. The point is that critics of the concept claim that those issues satisfied Langmuire's criteria quite as soundly as do N-rays. What would help the article be NPOV would be a table of those examples showing exactly what Langmuire would have thought was pathological about them. I agree that the old article was a mess and you have done a brave job in cleaning it up but I think it is now less NPOV. --Cutler 10:13, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * None of those examples were pathological, for precisely the reasons you quote. You state that "those issues satisfied Langmuire's criteria quite as soundly as do N-rays", yet I claim that with the two exceptions I offered, none of them come even remotely close to satisfying any of the conditions.
 * To be pathological the experimenter must be working on something at the edge of detectability, and defend it with ad-hoc "answers". Would you agree that this is the crux of Langmuire's definition?
 * Let's take the most modern of the examples given in the original article, prions. Did prions fit any of the "rules" for pathological science? Was it at the limit of detectability? No. Were there claims of great accuracy? No. Were critisms met with ad-hoc answers? No. Did the ratio of supporters fade to oblivion? No.
 * Prions, in fact, are exactly typical for science. A new idea was offered that flew in the face of current thinking, and the supporters offered more and more, stronger and stronger, evidence for their position. After a while the evidence became overwhelming. There is nothing pathological about this example, no one has ever called it that, nor does this example illustrate anything out of the ordinary: this is the normal evolution of a theory -- and the same is true of Vitamin C, Alfvén waves and most of the other examples offered.
 * Let's take another, one that's perhaps a better illustration because it shows the opposite. The article suggested that Langmuir's introduction of the term was ironic, because he was a "believer" in the cubical atom. The implication is that he was subject to this problem himself. Yet once again this example fails on all counts. In fact its a perfect example of the difference between something being "wrong" and something being "pathological", Langmuir gave up on the concept as soon as it became clear that the Bohr model was a better solution to the problem.
 * Again, I'm more than willing to include examples of pathological science that turned out not to be -- in fact I think the article is missing an important part without them -- but I note again that not one of those examples was pathological. --Maury 13:29, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Let's focus on what we agree on. Am I right in thinking that you agree that the issue is around the extent to which these ideas satisfy Langmuire's criteria, rather than whether anybody actually used the term pathological? The question is then a) What were Langmuire's criteria? b) To what extent to various departures in science satisfy the criteria? Though of course, this feels all very content and PoV, rather than reporting what various people have contended? What we are trying to embark on here is a test of the usefuleness of the idea pathological science, rather than an encyclopedia article. If there are only the two of us interested in this it is not worth writing about. --Cutler 00:02, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Maury Markowitz writes: "none of them come even remotely close to satisfying any of the conditions." I amended the article to point out that cold fusion also fails to meet any of the conditions set by Langumuir, except possibly #6. Skeptics often claim that cold fusion meets these conditions, but the literature shows it does not. (This does not prove that cold fusion is real. It may even be pathological for some other reasons that Langumuir never thought of.) Nowhere in the cold fusion literature does anyone claim "great accuracy." Experimentalists do not cite fantastic theories or make ad hoc excuses. They do not claim that, "many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results." [1] This raises an interesting point: many other scientific claims do require multiple measurements. The top quark is a good example. Yet no one says it is pathological. Even people who agree that pathological science exists would probably say that the top quark would have to meet several of these criteria before it fits. Since cold fusion does not meet any of them, logically it should not be listed in this article. However, skeptics universally claim that it does meet them, so for practical purposes it should probably be listed here with a disclaimer. Also as a practical matter, if we took it out I am sure they would quickly add it back in.

 * (I do not know why the skeptics keep claiming cold fusion meets these criteria. I suppose they have not read any papers on the subject. It seems odd to make a case that anyone can see is wrong as a matter of fact. In other words, you might claim that cold fusion researchers are inept, but it is a matter of fact that they say they use ordinary instruments with ordinary accuracy, and they never say they have to make multiple measurements to resolve the signal.)

 * On balance, I think Langumuir's rule-of-thumb criteria cause more harm than good. At best they are thought provoking, but for the most part they are used by closed minded people to ignore replicated experimental evidence.          --Jed Rothwell

 * [1] Let me amend that. In some (but not all) studies of neutrons, statistical techniques are used. I am not aware of reports of excess heat, tritium or other evidence that required statistical techniques to separate signal from noise. Note that the quote about "many measurments" came from F. Franks, "Polywater," (MIT Press, 1981) in his discussion of Langumiur's criteria.

Criticisms: the list of examples
The current list of examples of stuff that allegedly has been misclassified as pathological science is not, in its present form, worth retention in the article.

Two of the five are so obscure that one can't even find out what they are in Wikipedia. One other (freezing hot water) is scientifically trivial, not involving any alleged scientific breakthrough in the first place. None of the non-trivial four is something that has won out over the pig-headed opposition of the Establishment and thus serves a clear example of how useless the PS concept is. (Certainly, we all understand that the key to "pathological science" is not whether it turned out right or wrong, but how the claimed discovery was handled by its proponents; but something that has turned out to be right still makes a much more convincing example.)

The list as given in this article does not show evidence that any of the items has been called pathological; nor are there apparent grounds for calling them so. The Wikipedia articles on two non-trivial items show criticisms, but no accusations of pathological science, or allegations that such accusations have been made. They also show no good reason, under Langmuir's rules, for applying the term.

Somebody who considers the list to be valid will want to make emendations. It ain't me, babe. --Dandrake 20:24, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

 * I'm with you. The list is rubish. Moreover Langmuir's belief in the cubical atom, apparently offered as irony, is an example of something that was NOT pathological -- when Bohr's theory showed a clearly better way to conceive the atom, everyone was happy to adbandon the earlier system. Lysenkoism isn't because no one believed it; if anyone supported it, it was to stay out of jail. J-phenomenon hits on google are primarily copies of this article. Halton Arp is a crank, not pathological. Mpemba effect, as you note, is a real event and the only debate is why it happens. None of these are pathological, nor ever been named as such. As examples of things that have been "inappropriately described as either pathological science or incorrect" the list contains either items that are not pathological (and were never described as such) or things that ARE incorrect. --Maury 02:46, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Pathological science