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> under scrutiny much of his thinking doesn't actually match up with how science is done (now or historically) Can you elaborate on this?

by dotsam 3y ago

claudiawerner 3y ago
There are citations both for and against falsificationism at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[0]; quoting: "Popper’s demarcation criterion has been criticized both for excluding legitimate science (Hansson 2006) and for giving some pseudosciences the status of being scientific (Agassi 1991; Mahner 2007, 518–519). Strictly speaking, his criterion excludes the possibility that there can be a pseudoscientific claim that is refutable. According to Larry Laudan (1983, 121), it “has the untoward consequence of countenancing as ‘scientific’ every crank claim which makes ascertainably false assertions”" From the citation on Hansson, the abstract[1] reads: "...Furthermore, an empirical study of falsification in science is reported, based on the 70 scientific contributions that were published as articles in Nature in 2000. Only one of these articles conformed to the falsificationist recipe for successful science, namely the falsification of a hypothesis that is more accessible to falsification than to verification." [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#Fals https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#Fals [1] https://philpapers.org/rec/HANFF https://philpapers.org/rec/HANFF
- jessenichols 3y ago
  Popper's criterion in a vacuum could seem to be exclusionary, but his philosophy of science involves his underrated idea of evolutionary epistemology. That all theories, seemingly pseudoscientific and the rest, compete to explain something, testable or not. Explanation is the most fundamental aspect, the rival statements compete to solve some problem in terms of how and why. Read Popper's Ch. 1. Conjectural Knowledge: My Solution of the Problem of Induction https://roamresearch.com/#/app/infinitedays/page/tGbhrzsPK https://roamresearch.com/#/app/infinitedays/page/tGbhrzsPK
tech_ken 3y ago
It's kind of like how the modern standards of mathematical "proof" don't extend backwards very well. Nobody would say that Euler wasn't one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, but much of his work was very unrigorous despite being accepted by the math community long before it was formally verified. Similarly there is lots of science that was settled way before it actually made falsifiable predictions which were confirmed through experiment. The classic example is Newtonian physics, which was contradicted by several observations that were only reconciled by Einstein. Another example would be like Boyle's models of gas and liquid. These models all hold approximately, and are very useful (hence their acceptance), but wouldn't really pass the criterion of falsifiability. Kuhn frames it as "anything goes", which is supposed to be what the horrified scientist utters to themself as they peruse the historical record of their field. Scientists tend to go with "whatever works best" (and whatever secures more funding), rather than following a strictly falsificationist paradigm. More and better context here: https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/the-idea-that-a-scientific-theory-can-be-falsified-is-a-myth https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/the-idea-that-a-sci...

> under scrutiny much of his thinking doesn't actually match up with how science is done (now or historically) Can you elaborate on this?

by dotsam 3y ago

> under scrutiny much of his thinking doesn't actually match up with how science is done (now or historically) Can you elaborate on this?

claudiawerner 3y ago

There are citations both for and against falsificationism at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[0]; quoting: "Popper’s demarcation criterion has been criticized both for excluding legitimate science (Hansson 2006) and for giving some pseudosciences the status of being scientific (Agassi 1991; Mahner 2007, 518–519). Strictly speaking, his criterion excludes the possibility that there can be a pseudoscientific claim that is refutable. According to Larry Laudan (1983, 121), it “has the untoward consequence of countenancing as ‘scientific’ every crank claim which makes ascertainably false assertions”" From the citation on Hansson, the abstract[1] reads: "...Furthermore, an empirical study of falsification in science is reported, based on the 70 scientific contributions that were published as articles in Nature in 2000. Only one of these articles conformed to the falsificationist recipe for successful science, namely the falsification of a hypothesis that is more accessible to falsification than to verification." [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#Fals https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/#Fals [1] https://philpapers.org/rec/HANFF https://philpapers.org/rec/HANFF

jessenichols 3y ago
Popper's criterion in a vacuum could seem to be exclusionary, but his philosophy of science involves his underrated idea of evolutionary epistemology. That all theories, seemingly pseudoscientific and the rest, compete to explain something, testable or not. Explanation is the most fundamental aspect, the rival statements compete to solve some problem in terms of how and why. Read Popper's Ch. 1. Conjectural Knowledge: My Solution of the Problem of Induction https://roamresearch.com/#/app/infinitedays/page/tGbhrzsPK https://roamresearch.com/#/app/infinitedays/page/tGbhrzsPK

tech_ken 3y ago

It's kind of like how the modern standards of mathematical "proof" don't extend backwards very well. Nobody would say that Euler wasn't one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, but much of his work was very unrigorous despite being accepted by the math community long before it was formally verified. Similarly there is lots of science that was settled way before it actually made falsifiable predictions which were confirmed through experiment. The classic example is Newtonian physics, which was contradicted by several observations that were only reconciled by Einstein. Another example would be like Boyle's models of gas and liquid. These models all hold approximately, and are very useful (hence their acceptance), but wouldn't really pass the criterion of falsifiability. Kuhn frames it as "anything goes", which is supposed to be what the horrified scientist utters to themself as they peruse the historical record of their field. Scientists tend to go with "whatever works best" (and whatever secures more funding), rather than following a strictly falsificationist paradigm. More and better context here: https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/the-idea-that-a-scientific-theory-can-be-falsified-is-a-myth https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/the-idea-that-a-sci...