I've seen this claim a whole bunch of times in various reactionary invectives against social science that contradictions whatever shitty view of the world said reactionaries are pushing, including on a recent thread here. I'm going to write a short explanation of why it's a bad claim to make. Feel free to use this as a resource rather than patiently explain to trolls why they be trollin'. I mean or just show them this but like they'll read it...
The idea that investigations into the world can be divided into 'science' and 'pseudo-science' is a nice idea because it allows us to essentially distinguish between research and theories that come from rigorous, methodologically self-aware, peer-reviewed scientific work, and claims that might wear 'science' clothing but are in fact not based on what we want to call science. They masquerade as science in order to 'borrow' the legitimacy that science has, to seem like they're not bullshit superstition and hysteria. Sounds great.
The main problem with this appears to be total philosophical incoherence. It is impossible to find a universal criterion that allows us to demarcate the line between science and pseudo-science, or even science and non-science. Falsification doesn't work, as it appears to be both logically impossible and also doesn't actually describe what many scientists typically do, despite us probably wanting to call their work 'science'. This led Karl Popper to some strange views, like initially calling evolutionary theory 'metaphysics' rather than science because it can't formulated as an hypothesis that can be falsified by any particular test, then walking back this claim through some [conceptual gymnasticas](https://ncse.com/cej/6/2/what-did-karl-popper-really-say-evolution]. Oh and it admits a lot of stuff we don't want to call science, since you could state phrenological or astrological claims as falsifiable hypotheses too.
While there has been a recent, though marginal, attempt to resurrect pseudo-science as a useful philosophical notion, for the most part, philosophers and historians of science have abandoned it.
However, as there are a few falsificationists kicking around, and indeed I'm certain at least one will be commenting on this post, we can also point out that even if demarcation and pseudo-science have any worth as concepts, it would be absurd to suggest that social science is essentially or even commonly non-/pseudo-scientific.
Do social scientists state claims as testable hypotheses and make use of statistical evidence to support, challenge, or probe those claims? Look for yourself at recent high profile journal issues. Is it necessary to use stats to test hypotheses? No, there are many ways to test hypotheses with qualitative data. Is it necessary to test hypotheses for social science to be scientific? While some social scientists say 'yes', the ones who actually read the philosophy and history of science say that the 'yes' answer amounts to a 'renunciation of science from Galileo onward.'
Does this leave us with the inability to distinguish between legitimate scientific claims and bullshit ones? Not in any practical sense, so trolls need not wring their tiny hands and keen about how we're opening the door to illogical and historically disproven ideas (by holding the view that the science/pseudo-science distinction is illogical and historically disproven). First, the current community of scientists seem largely built around investigating cause-effect relationships in various domains of reality or the world, so we might be suspicious of 'science' that doesn't do this. Doesn't mean it isn't science--and a fair bit of research in sociology or anthropology doesn't do this, though the scholars producing it also might not care to be called scientists--but we can ask for a reason why not. Also, since we reasonably think that the more a claim is tested or scrutinised, the more likely it is to be fairly evaluated, we can be suspicious of people who refuse to subject their work to scientific peer review.
LO' all of a sudden we can still dismiss astrology and that dreadful anti-vax trash!
Am I missing anything? If so, collect the mic off the floor where I dropped it[1] and add. I have a dissertation to write.[1]
[1] lol as if i have ever succeeded at doing that
ここには何もないようです