Protoscience

In philosophy of science, a protoscience is any new area of scientific endeavor in the process of becoming established. Sometimes scientific skeptics refer to these endeavors as pathological sciences. 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.

Related Topics:
Philosophy of science - Scientific endeavor - Scientific skeptic - Pathological science

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While protoscience is often speculative, it is to be distinguished from pseudoscience by its adherence to the scientific method and standard practices of good science, most notably a willingness to be disproven by new evidence (if and when it appears), or supplanted by a more-predictive theory.

Related Topics:
Pseudoscience - Scientific method

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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, leaving those who refused to adopt the scientific method to practice pseudoscience. Several sciences started as branches of philosophy, such as mathematics, physics and biology (see philosophy of nature); more arguably, due to the problem of defining science, economics, psychology and sociology.

Related Topics:
Astrology - Alchemy - Scientific method - Astronomy - Chemistry - Philosophy - Mathematics - Physics - Biology - Philosophy of nature - Economics - Psychology - Sociology

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Most typically a protoscientific field is one where the hypothesis presented is in accordance with the known evidence at that time, and a body of associated predictions have been made, but the predictions have not yet been tested (or cannot be tested, due to current technological limitations).

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Some protosciences go on to become an accepted part of mainstream science. Others fail to become established, or become pseudoscientific, as their followers persist in the face of lack of scientific evidence for their views.

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