Stop striving for a goal of universal eradication of the fringe that is frankly impossible

From Separating the Pseudo From Science by Michael D. Gordin. An essay exploring the intersection between argument, scientific method, knowledge, truth and the importance of variety/variation.

I have come to think of pseudoscience as science's shadow. A shadow is cast by something; it has no substance of its own. The same is true for these doctrines on the fringe. If scientists use some criterion such as peer review to demarcate, so will the fringe (creationists have peer-reviewed journals, as did Velikovskians). The brighter the light of science—that is, the greater its cultural prestige and authority—the sharper the shadow, and the more the fringe flourishes.

Fringe theories proliferate because the status of science is high and science is seen as something worth emulating. Since World War II, science has been consistently prestigious, and heterodox doctrines have proliferated, but the pattern holds in the past as well. Late Enlightenment France and Victorian Britain were high points of scientists' status, and clusters of such movements (mesmerism, spiritualism, phrenology) cropped up at these moments as well. Paradoxically, pseudoscience is a sign of health, not disease.

Shadows are also an inevitable consequence of light. Carl Sagan and other anti-Velikovskians believed that greater scientific literacy could "cure" the ill of pseudoscience. Don't get me wrong—scientific literacy is a wonderful thing, and I am committed to expanding it. But it won't eradicate the fringe, and it won't prevent the proliferation of doctrines the scientific community decries as pseudoscience.

Nevertheless, something needs to be done. Demarcation may be an activity without rules, a historically fluctuating marker of the worries of the scientific community, but it is also absolutely vital. Not everything can or should be taught in science courses in school. Not every research proposal can or should receive funds. When individuals spread falsehood and misinformation, they must be exposed.

We can sensibly build science policy only upon the consensus of the scientific community. This is not a bright line, but it is the only line we have. As a result, we need to be careful about demarcation, to notice how we do it and why we do it, and stop striving for a goal of universal eradication of the fringe that is frankly impossible. We need to learn what we are talking about when we talk about pseudoscience.