4 ms·

Good job Popper's falsifiability is flawed then; else evolution is not science.

• ramblerman 8y ago
  > It does appear that some people think that I denied scientific character to the historical sciences, such as palaeontology, or the history of the evolution of life on Earth. This is a mistake, and I here wish to affirm that these and other historical sciences have in my opinion scientific character; their hypotheses can in many cases be tested. [Popper, 1981] Certain things like 'carbon dating' are certainly scientific, and can be falsified. Evolution itself is the best historical explanation we have, but hard to set up an experiment to disprove. I personally think 'falsifiability" is particularly useful in separating a soft 'fact' like Freud's theory of the id, and the Oedipus Complex from something like say, the theory of gravity.
  • rwnspace 8y ago
    Agreed, it is useful, certainly. But it's not to be wielded without subtlety: notably in your quote the use of 'imo' and 'in many cases'. Anyway, apologies for the terseness. My gripe is just when it is used as a magic omnibullet in discussions about 'what is science?'.