Animals in the research laboratory: science or pseudoscience?

What distinguishes science from pseudoscience? Is the demarcation linked to the application of the laws of probability? Is it possible to derive any valid law of nature from a finite number of facts? Answers to such questions, and, thus, a construction of a line of demarcation between science and pseudoscience are problems of vital social and political importance. This issue is especially relevant when a consideration of the ethics of using animals in research laboratories is undertaken. The word, 'science,' derived from the Latin, scientia, has been reserved historically for the most respected kind of knowledge. St. Thomas Aquinas (Pegis, 1948) believed that the principles of any science are either in themselves self­ evident or reducible to the knowledge of a higher science. For example, the science of optics can be deduced from principles established in geometry and music from mathematics. Aquinas also maintained that science involves theories whose cognitive values are independent of their psychological influence on people's minds. Hume Bigge, 1966) stated, "Does it (scientific theory) contain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of fact and existence? If not then commit it to the flames!" In scientific research, as described by Newton and Kepler, theories are formulated and then confronted with observed facts which must be supportive or the theories become obsolescent. It is interesting to note that Newton, who proposed circular planetary motion, claimed that he deduced his scientific laws from Kepler who had predicted that planets follow elliptical paths. A.M. Ampere's pioneering work in electricity and magnetism was documented in a manuscript entitled Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena Unequivocally Deduced from Experiment. However, Ampere never performed many of the experiments he described. With Einstein's contribution of the theory of relativity, the somewhat utopian and, thus, unattainable standards demanded by the scientific community in its search for natural laws were realized. Today, one can easily demonstrate that there can be no valid derivation of a law of nature from a finite number of observable facts. All proposed scientific theories are equally unprovable (Popper, 1934). Popper argued that the mathematical probability of all theories, scientific or pseudoscientific, given any amount of evidence is zero. Thus, theories are equally unprovable and improbable. As a solution to the problem of demarcating science from pseudoscience. Popper proposed the establishment of the following falsifiability criterion. A theory is scientific if one is prepared to specify in advance a crucial experiment (or observation) which …