i think there, it seems to me we can make some empirical claims like, no, people would actually, really rather live in a democracy. I'm perfectly willing to believe that's a plausible hypothesis. And then you would have to look at the fact that there are many places where voting has been happening for a while, and then people vote for anti democratic mechanisms to be put into place. So this is, again, you've pointed to this before, thi a social science hypothesis is very hard to a nail down. But we do have a lot of tools, and we are getting better at figuring out how to test some of the ideas we have. But it's unlikely to be
Everyone has heard of the term “pseudoscience”, typically used to describe something that looks like science, but is somehow false, misleading, or unproven. Many would be able to agree on a list of things that fall under its umbrella — astrology, phrenology, UFOlogy, creationism, and eugenics might come to mind. But defining what makes these fields “pseudo” is a far more complex issue. Given the virulence of contemporary disputes over the denial of climate change and anti-vaccination movements — both of which display allegations of “pseudoscience” on all sides — there is a clear need to better understand issues of scientific demarcation. Shermer and Gordin explore the philosophical and historical attempts to address this problem of demarcation.