Popper's Demarcation: A Theoretical Analysis

The demarcation of science and pseudoscience can be seen as part of a bigger project to determine which beliefs are epistemically warranted. The reasons for demarcation can be seen as theoretical. Theoretically demarcation can be used to draw a line between belief and knowledge however when it comes to science this issue becomes more problematic as the distinction becomes blurred. The need for demarcation may stem from the high status that society has put on it as science as it is seen as the most reliable source of knowledge and the understanding of the word. Popper tries to draw the line of when should theory be seen as scientific knowledge Popper however acknowledged that metaphysical statements may be “far from meaningless” however demonstrated no such valuation for pseudoscientific statements. Popper's demarcation judgement has been

According to popper there are three principles of demarcation A theory must be tested by looking for falsifications of its claims, a theory must be falsifiable and It is unscientific to modify a theory if the modification aims to annul a falsification of its claims. Falsification is one of the ways popper uses in the demarcation of science and pseudoscience as only bold conjectures that can be falsified are science. Questions such as “is god real?” can’t be proven all falsified so popper would argue that theology isn’t science. Falsification is the idea of looking to prove a theory false and if the theory can’t be disproven then it must be true. However, the issue with this is explanations for why something is false may be looked over, Dunhem problem within physics as it is impossible to test a hypothesis in isolation as many factors are controlled and there is always auxiliary hypothesises to the one that is being tested the bold conjecture. Thus falsifying a theory in this way can lead to inaccurate conclusion of the bold