Perplexity AI 2025 on Vitalism - A Violation of Scientific Processes (v.1.4).

here, my musing upon Perplexity AI's response regarding the epistemic status of vitalism and science this 2025:

001. when Perplexity AI is asked "Why does vitalism violate scientific process?" this 2025-05, we're told in the summary:

[and I'll repeat for accessibility] "Summary Table: Vitalism vs. Scientific Process. Aspect Vitalism. Scientific Process. Testability. Not testable or falsifiable. Requires testable, falsifiable hypotheses. Empirical Evidence. Lacks empirical support. Demands empirical validation. Explanatory Power. Invokes metaphysical, non-material forces Relies on physical/chemical mechanisms. Role in Research. Does not lead to productive scientific inquiry. Drives discovery and refinement. In summary, vitalism violates scientific processes because it relies on untestable, metaphysical claims that cannot be empirically validated or falsified, and it has been rendered obsolete by advances in biology that provide naturalistic explanations for life’s phenomena."

I think that's a pretty excellent summation!

002. years ago and to this day:

23 years ago, 2002 actually, I labeled naturopathy "cultic mystical weirdness" and later "an unethical sectarian pseudoscience."  I'd, of course, attended ND school for four years wherein the "science" status of what was decades-ago science-ejected was instead said to be "in fact" including naturopathy's "life force [...] vis medicatrix naturae."  It may be an odd occurrence, but, 20 years later I'd author an M.S. Health Sciences capstone that further distinguished the kind of contrast I then and Perplexity AI now adheres to. 

in the sense of institutionalized pseudoscience, one term I developed this 2025, within the 2025 Naturocrit logo actually, is "sectarian capture" -- when science is posed as the process or domain, but, it is severely warped by narrow, extra-scientific restrictions or fixations.  That leads, eventually, to deceit and such. Deceit and sectarian capture stands opposed to factuality and freedom within my visualized paradigm.

003. a funny little thing about Perplexity AI's employed references:

one of the references indicated is the PubMed indexed and fully publicly available article "Coulter, I., Snider, P., & Neil, A. (2019). Vitalism - a worldview revisited: A critique of vitalism and its implications for integrative medicine. Integrative Medicine (Encinitas, Calif.), 18(3), 60–73" by the Foundations of Naturopathic Medicine Institute. The FNMI is still, to this day, wrapping vitalism in a science veneer [as well as supernaturalism]. 

the authors ask, in that 2019 article, "is there a powerful future where science, empirical practice and vitalism work together?" at the END of their article.

ah, the naturopathillogical: this is similar to insisting 2 + 2 = 7 [which is factually wrong] and yet insisting also that 2 + 2 = 4 [which is factually right], and then demanding that both are good, compatible, and together POWERFUL.

003. the company that vitalism keeps in terms of what science has discarded. Again, by way of Perplexity AI 2025, in response to the task "can you create a 20 item list of ideas in biology and chemistry that have been discarded", there's the following science-discarded ideas including vitalism:

003.a. in terms of biology:

so that's: miasma theory, spontaneous generation, Lamarckism, vitalism, material impression, preformationalism, recapitulation theory, telegony, tooth worm theory, scientific racism, Lysenkoism, out of Asia theory, germ line theory of antibody diversity.

003.b. in terms of chemistry: 

 so that's: phlogiston theory, alchemy, mechanochemistry (early era), Barbier reaction (original), hybrid atomic orbitals model, valence shell electron pair repulsion model, tooth worm. 

004. in terms of time [defunct 80-100 years ago, ISYN]:

 

so that's, as a summary: "'mainstream science has rejected vitalism since at least the 1930s, for a plethora of good reasons that have only become stronger with time.' In summary, while the seeds of vitalism's demise were sown in the 19th century, it was definitively debunked as a scientific theory in the 1930s to 1950s as biology matured and no evidence for a 'vital force' was found."

005. in terms of error:

005.a. for the task "Is including vitalism [life force, qi, vital energy etc.] within the category of science an error?", we're told by Perplexity AI 2025:

so that's: "Including vitalism — the belief in a 'life force,' 'qi,' or 'vital energy' — within the category of science is widely regarded as an error by the contemporary scientific community. Science, as defined by the Science Council, is the pursuit and application of knowledge about the natural and social world using a systematic methodology based on evidence, including objective observation, experimentation, critical analysis, and verification. For a theory or belief to be considered scientific, it must be testable, falsifiable, and supported by empirical evidence. Vitalism posits that living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they possess some non-physical element or vital force that cannot be explained by physical or chemical processes alone. Historically, vitalist hypotheses were proposed and even tested, but empirical evidence failed to support them. As a result, vitalism has been rejected by mainstream biology and is now considered either a superseded scientific theory or a pseudoscience.

Key reasons vitalism is not considered science:

• Core claims are metaphysical: Vitalism invokes principles or forces that are not measurable or observable and cannot be tested or falsified using scientific methods. 
• Lack of empirical support: Historical experiments designed to demonstrate the necessity of a vital force for life processes failed to provide evidence for such a force.
• Modern biology explains life mechanistically: Advances in chemistry and molecular biology have shown that biological phenomena can be explained by physical and chemical processes, undermining the need for a separate 'vital force'.

Because vitalism does not adhere to the systematic, evidence-based methodology that defines science, and because its claims are not empirically testable or falsifiable, including vitalism within the category of science is considered an error by the scientific community."

005.b. for the task "What type of error is it when the metaphysical is falsely posed as science-based?", Perplexity AI 2025 tells us:

so that's: "When something metaphysical is falsely presented as science-based, the primary error is a category mistake (also called a category error). A category mistake occurs when concepts or entities belonging to one category are incorrectly treated as if they belong to another—for example, treating metaphysical claims (which are not empirical or falsifiable) as if they were scientific hypotheses (which are subject to empirical testing and falsification). Additionally, this kind of misrepresentation is often referred to as pseudoscience: a set of beliefs or claims that are not scientific but are presented as if they are, typically by mimicking the language, methods, or authority of science. Pseudoscience involves two key features: the claim or activity is not scientific, [and] its proponents attempt to create the impression that it is scientific. In summary: Category mistake: Treating metaphysical claims as if they are scientific claims, when they belong to fundamentally different domains. Pseudoscience: When non-scientific (including metaphysical) ideas are falsely posed as science-based, deliberately or otherwise";