Thread: Science vs Pseudoscience

stubear ftw +1.

I would like to add repeatability (maybe I missed it?). If something is a hard fact (gravity for instance) it is consistent and always true. If I drop an apple, it will fall at an acceleration of -gMm/r^2 where g is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the earth, m is the mass of the apple, r is the distance between the two centroids.
I feel though that it is necessary to include normalization in these things because processes may necessarily be chaotic and therefor highly sensitive to initial conditions.

In laymans terms- Science is practiced by scientists, testing one variable, ceteris paribus, in a control manner and generating models. Pseudoscience is practiced by philosophers, observing phenomena and theorizing models.

Astronomy- using physics and data to model the universe. Highly repeatable. Landed men on the moon etc.
Astrology- using anecdotal observations of the stars and theories to accomplish the same task- before the "evolution"/split into astronomy led to many misconceptions (false "ends of the earth" dates, geocentricism, flat earth, etc....)