298 Thurs and Numbers
Brazil, China, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland,
Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Peru, Po-
land, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Venezuela,
and elsewhere. Many of the societies in these lands published their own
magazines or newsletters. Concern often paralleled the eruption of some
activity regarded as pseudoscientifi c, such as the Falun Gong in China and
the Indian government’s plan to introduce “Vedic astrology” as a legiti-
mate course of study in Indian universities.^62
Beyond equating the pseudoscientifi c and popular, late- twentieth-
century invocations of pseudoscience continued along the lines set down
during the 1800s and early 1900s. The transgression of proper methodol-
ogy remained a primary means of identifi cation. Sagan claimed in 1972
that the reason some people turned toward UFOs or astrology was “pre-
cisely that they are often beyond the pale of established science, that
they often outrage conservative scientists, and that they seem to deny the
scientifi c method.”^63
New methodological authorities also appeared. In the 1930s the Vi-
ennese philosopher Karl Popper began writing about “falsifi ability” as a
criterion “to distinguish between science and pseudo- science.” He knew “very
well,” he later said, “that science often errs, and that pseudo- science may
happen to stumble on the truth,” but he nevertheless thought it crucial
to separate the two.^64 Michael Ruse’s invocation of falsifi ability to distin-
guish between science and religion in a high- profi le creation- evolution
trial in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the early 1980s prompted Larry Laudan,
another well- known philosopher of science, to charge his colleague with
“unconscionable behavior” for failing to disclose the vehement disagree-
ments among experts regarding scientifi c boundaries in general and Pop-
per’s lines in particular. By emphasizing the nonfalsifi ability of creation-
ism in order to deny its scientifi c credentials, argued Laudan, Ruse and
the judge had neglected the “strongest argument against Creationism,”
namely, that its claims had already been falsifi ed. Laudan dismissed the
demarcation question itself as a “pseudo- problem” and a “red herring.”
Ruse, in rebuttal, rejected Laudan’s strategy as “simply not strong enough
for legal purposes.” Merely showing creation science to be “bad science”
would have been insuffi cient in this case, because the constitution does
not ban the teaching of bad science in public schools.^65
Just as they had during the late 1800s, differences between science and
religion loomed large in characterizations of pseudoscience, although in
precisely the opposite way than they had before. Rather than signaling
the overaggressive separation of scientifi c and religious concerns, Ameri-
cans during the second half of the twentieth century more often linked