Refuted by Reputable Sources : the Demarcation of Science from Pseudoscience through the Prism of Wikipedia

Abstract: This thesis investigates how the distinction between science and pseudoscience is mediated on Wikipedia as a proxy for how this is communicated to the general public overall. Currently one of the most visited places on the web, Wikipedia is increasingly considered trustworthy, although relatively little is known about its sources. The theoretical framework of the study is built around the notion of trust in science. 469 references tied to 114 Wikipedia articles under applied, social, and physical sciences were investigated bibliometrically. Publication types, disciplines, science branches, primary publishers, ownership institutions and institution types were identified, and the interconnections between these studied. Two word frequency analyses were conducted; one on the key sentences tied the demarcation of science from pseudoscience in the Wikipedia articles, and one on the abstracts of the scholarly articles referred to there. The semi-monopoly situation in scholarly publishing was confirmed to be present in the sample, however, non-profit and professional organizations were, too, well represented. The most common publication types were scholarly journal articles and monographs. While most of the sources were tied to applied sciences (especially medicine-related fields), there was a slightly higher prevalence of sources from social sciences and humanities in the articles on applied sciences than vice versa. The results of the word frequency analyses indicate that empirical evidence and testing are pivotal to the separation of science from pseudoscience, both in the scholarly articles and on Wikipedia. Adopting the notion of science as a human practice, partly dependent on the developments in scholarly publishing, it can be argued that what is considered scientific tends to depend on a plethora of factors besides the implementation of scientific method - that is, historical, cultural, social, and economic realities. The demarcation of science form pseudoscience might then best be studied through multidisciplinary perspectives.