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Protoscience refers to historical philosophical disciplines, developed prior to the Age of Enlightenment, that with the development of scientific method developed into science proper (prescientific). A standard example is alchemy, which from the 18th century became chemistry, or pre-modern astrology which from the 17th century became astronomy.

By extension, "protoscience" may be used in reference to any "set of beliefs or theories that have not yet been tested adequately by the scientific method but which are otherwise consistent with existing science".^[1]

The philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn first used the word in an essay, originally published in 1970:

In any case, there are many fields — I shall call them proto-sciences — in which practice does generate testable conclusions but which nevertheless resemble philosophy and the arts rather than the established sciences in their developmental patterns. I think, for example, of fields like chemistry and electricity before the mid-eighteenth century, of the study of heredity and phylogeny before the mid-nineteenth, or of many of the social sciences today. In these fields, too, though they satisfy Sir Karl's [ Popper's] demarcation criterion, incessant criticism and continual striving for a fresh start are primary forces, and need to be. No more than in philosophy and the arts, however, do they result in clear-cut progress.

I conclude, in short, that the proto-sciences, like the arts and philosophy, lack some element which, in the mature sciences, permits the more obvious forms of progress. It is not, however, anything that a methodological prescription can provide. Unlike my present critics, Lakatos at this point included, I claim no therapy to assist the transformation of a proto-science to a science, nor do I suppose anything of this sort is to be had.

– Thomas Kuhn, Criticism and the growth of knowledge^[2]

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.

• Isaac Newton is said to have conceived of the acceleration of gravity after seeing an apple fall. This moment of insight into acceleration initiated a phase of protoscience until a hypothesis could be formulated with careful measurements and calculations that allowed experimental falsifiability, (repeatability) and verification.
• Charles Darwin conceived of his concept of evolution when on his journey in the ship Beagle to the Galápagos Islands he noticed that finches differed from one island to another. He strongly suspected that the different species of finches must have descended from a single species that was their common ancestor. The protoscientific hypothesis continued to prove useful when other forms of animals, including apes and humans, could be explained as sharing common descent. Only recently, with other scientific fields—especially DNA analysis which verified many of his speculations—did the concept move from protoscience to science with the Theory of Evolution accepted by the consensus of the scientific community today.

Pre-modern sciences

• Babylonian astronomy
• Hellenistic astronomy
• Indian astronomy
• Vedanta
• Alchemy
• Renaissance magic

Conjectures in mainstream academica

• Grand unification theory is a theory in physics that unifies the strong interaction and electroweak interaction.
• Theory of everything (TOE) is a theory of theoretical physics and mathematics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena. Initially, the term was used with an ironic connotation to refer to various overgeneralized theories. Over time, the term stuck in popularizations of quantum physics to describe a theory that would unify the theories of the four fundamental interactions of nature.
  • M-theory is a solution proposed for the unknown theory of everything which would combine all five superstring theories and 11-dimensional supergravity together. According to Dr. Edward Witten, who proposed the theory, mathematical tools which have yet to be invented are needed in order to fully understand it.

• History of science
  • History of science in early cultures
  • Science in the Middle Ages
  • History of science in the Renaissance
• Philosophy of science
• Methodical culturalism
• Falsifiability
• Conjecture
• Hypothesis
• Pathological science
• Fringe science
• Natural magic
• Pseudoscience
• List of pseudoscientific theories
• Obsolete scientific theories

Citations and notes

1. ^ Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7) Lexico Publishing Group, LLC
2. ^ Speekenbrink, Maarten (2003-10-28). "De Ongegronde Eis tot Consensus in de Psychologische" (PDF). Retrieved on 2006-08-02.

General information

• H Holcomb, Moving Beyond Just-So Stories: Evolutionary Psychology as Protoscience. Skeptic Magazine, 1996.
• D Hartmann, Protoscience and Reconstruction. Journal of General Philosophy of Science, 1996.
• R Tuomela, Science, Protoscience and Pseudoscience. Rational Changes in Science.
• JA Campbell, On artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence Review, 1986.
• G Kennedy, Psychoanalysis: Protoscience and Metapsychology. 1959.
• AC Maffei, Psychoanalysis: Protoscience Or Science?. 1969.
• N Psarros, The Constructive Approach to the Philosophy of Chemistry. Epistemologia, 1995.

Look up Protoscience in
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• Protoscience Wikicity
• Questions to help distinguish a pseudoscience from a protoscience