Semi-Science
Semi (prefix from Latin 'semi', meaning "half") and Science (from Latin 'scientia', meaning "knowledge").
Semi-Science is an attribute given by scientists to claims of certain people or groups. This attribute indicates that the underlying facts are not (yet) properly proven according to scientific rules, or that thet are based on half-truths.
CPER's principle
CPER uses this term to denote the fact that science has the following limitations:
- There are many phenomena that science cannot explain properly because of limited technical means.
- Scientists have not investigated everything there is to investigate yet.
- There is little integration of knowledge from different scientific areas related to cross-domain patterns or phenomena.
- Universities focus more on in-depth research, rather than on expository education.
- Universities are limited in their financial resources, so they choose to invest in research on popular or urgent themes.
- To become famous or to get subsidies, current scientists investigate mainly unexplored new areas. This way, much relatively 'old' knowledge (but useful for people at home) is not perpetuated in a global popular knowledge system. Useful facts or solutions disappear into the background of daily concerns of society. (Four family generations later, a scientist re-invents the wheel again.)
This means that certain theorems can not be refuted, and should not be ignored by the scientific community, as long as science does not contain 'all answers to everything'.
CPER's vocabulary
CPER applies the term 'semi-science' to emphasize those statements that may become scientifically proven in the future, by research done under supervision of a university. Thus, these semi-scientific statements, formulations, explanations or descriptions of phenomena are -for now- 'hypotheses': they are set candidacy for proper academic examination, and -who knows- may get included into the accepted repertoire of proven scientific knowledge, some day.