Abstract

A critical analysis of twenty-one demarcation criteria is carried out, obtaining as a result a demarcating tool that allows appropriate screening between science and pseudoscience. After an introduction that will emphasize the scientific and social relevance of the demarcation problem and the need of an adequate approach to face it, the specific problems of multicriterial attempts will be remarked, such as their lack of theoretical foundations and the presence of dispensable and contradictory items. On the basis of this first analysis, a metacriterion, the necessary general requirements for a demarcation criterion, will be established. The data analysis will show a lack of progress among demarcation criteria from 1964 to date, and will provide a demarcation criterion partially based on the items with greater support.