The basic principle of human culture is Sturgeon's Law - 90% of everything is crap. I am increasingly coming to see this as something like the Heisenberg principle, not simply an observation but a predictive - almost determinative - rule, or even, yes, law.
90% of articles in normal science (for the sake of a quiet life I'm prepared to exempt theoretical physics and mathematics from that generalisation) are crap. The distinction between 'science' and "'pseudoscience'" (I've added another pair of air quotes there) is therefore at the margin, between realms that are (say) 90% (medicine) and 99.99% (creationism) crap, with immense overlaps.
Skepticism as it is now practiced relies heavily on being told in advance the areas one can safely be skeptical about.
Which is also an argument for adding junkfoodscience to my blog list. She's particularly good at knocking copy on normal science. Even though this does lead her into the GW denier camp.
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