How to distinguish science from pseudoscience

Science has a method to get closer to the truth. This method is established before any conclusion is reached and any conclusion will always be tentative and provisional. The method is essential and a conclusion is not pre-ordained by our set of beliefs. If the method can be bettered, it will. If the conclusions are invalidated afterwards, scientists will change their minds.

Pseudoscience chooses a set of beliefs in an arbitrary way(*) and then creates a method or an illusion of method to make predictions about the world. If those predictions are not confirmed, the examples are discarded. If confirmed, they are used as evidence of the pre-established set of beliefs. The believer will do whatever is needed to see the world in such a way as to validate those arbitrary beliefs.

(*) Examples:

Astrology: a neat system with planets and stars that move in a pre-Copernican way and links between the places of visible planets and starts and events on Earth. Feeds on the fuzzy feeling our lives should have something to do with the Cosmos.

Homeopathy: the vague idea that “equal treats equal” and that diluting things will make them more powerful starts a chain of events that will end up creating an industry with no basis on reality, apart from the nice feeling a talkative and understanding “doctor” produces in the patient.