Page "Pseudoscience" Paragraph 6

In the mid-20th century, Karl Popper put forth the criterion of falsifiability to distinguish science from nonscience.

Falsifiability means a result can be disproved.

For example, a statement such as " God created the universe " may be true or false, but no tests can be devised that could prove it either way ; it simply lies outside the reach of science.

Popper used astrology and psychoanalysis as examples of pseudoscience and Einstein's theory of relativity as an example of science.

He subdivided nonscience into philosophical, mathematical, mythological, religious and / or metaphysical formulations on one hand, and pseudoscientific formulations on the other, though he did not provide clear criteria for the differences.