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Protoscience is a field of study that appears to conform to the initial phase of the scientific method, with information gathering and formulation of a hypothesis, but involves speculation that is either not yet experimentally falsifiable or not yet verified or accepted by a consensus of scientists. Protoscience is distinguished from other forms of speculation in that its formulation strives to remain coherent with all relevant fields of scientific research so as to achieve to falsifiability and verification as soon as possible.
History of the term The philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn first used the word in an essay first published in 1970: Examples Scientific intuition is protoscience, being the detection of new patterns — the eureka moment that allows the breakthrough in problem solving — which initiates a new line of fruitful scientific inquiry. Early philosophical disciplines that later evolved into branches of modern science are considered to be protosciences. Science itself evolved from the protoscience of the Renaissance Period that was then called "occult science" (), literally meaning "hidden knowledge". Humans were understood to acquire true knowledge directly from God through Divine revelation. However the concept of "hidden knowledge" held that there was also true knowledge that God hid and would not reveal and intended for humans to discover on their own by human reason and effort. Thus the protoscientists of their day employed every method of pattern recognition available to them. As time went on, the term "occult" (hidden) came to refer to the unverified claims (generally psychologically symbolic or simply discredited) whereas "science" (knowledge) came to refer to the verified claims (generally mechanically predictable). Footnotes See also | ||||||||
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