protoscience

Plural: protosciences

Noun

• An unscientific or pseudoscientific field of study which later becomes or spawns a science (e.g., astrology led to astronomy, alchemy led to chemistry, and, most generally, natural philosophy led to science).
• A field of study at the initial phase of the scientific method, involving information gathering and hypothesis formulation, but is not yet falsifiable, or if it is, its predictions have not yet been observed.

Synonyms

ur-science

Related Words

prescience, prescient, prescientific, protoscientific