Karl Popper The Enemy Of Certainty Analysis

Does being right mean being right forever? A lot of scientific knowledge from the past that we thought was right has changed. Now with better technology we have a better understanding of things making some scientific knowledge wrong. The articles "The Half-life of facts" by Samuel Arbesman, "The Food Pyramid and Why It Changed" by William Neuman, and the informational essay " The explosion What We Know about Life Forms" by Alan Cochev are proving this conclusion. Throughout the essay the reader will know how Scientific knowledge had changed over time.

In Karl Popper’s paper “Science as Falsification”, he attempted to explain what exactly separates hard science from pseudoscience. He came to the conclusion that all theories which are to be deemed scientific must be falsifiable. In other words, the theory must have the ability to be tested and proven to be true, and not just deemed to be true because it happens to be true in some instances. Popper’s logic was that the only reason to test a theory was to find a way to deem it untrue, and so theories which are unable to be tested cannot be considered as science. I believe that this was a great turning point in the history of science because there were many theories which were considered as scientific because there was no basis of proving them otherwise.

as the unique properties of scientific theories (Popper, 1962, p. 36). I will argue that Popper’s

Philosopher Karl Popper is widely known for his rejection of classical inductivism, the idea that scientific knowledge is derived only from observation, and also his support of empirical falsification, the idea that scientific theories cannot be proven correct, but they can be proven false. In other words, empirical falsification means that theories can and should be closely and thoroughly examined by decisive experiments. In Popper’s view, a claim must be falsifiable, or testable, in order for it to be scientifically true; if a hypothesis cannot be refuted, then it is not a scientific claim. Untestable ideas and theories within science are dubbed “pseudo-science” by Popper, because they have no falsification. Things like Anthropology and

The concept of revolutions in science has been debated by historians and philosophers for decades; especially the notion that there was a singular idiosyncratic Scientific Revolution. Despite this, most historians will refer to the Scientific Revolution as spanning approximately the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century. This period displayed a rise in inductive reasoning, and can also be seen as an epistemological revolution, where scientific discoveries were being based on experimental research, as opposed to the traditional philosophy and faith. The importance of the Scientific Revolution can be attributed to the coincidental multidisciplinary breakthroughs made during the Revolution, which fundamentally transformed societal views of the natural world. Finally, philosophers such as Georg Hegel and Thomas Kuhn have been able to use systematic methodology introduced in the Scientific Revolution to validate their models of progress;, more specifically, scientific progress. The Scientific Revolution was the beginning of the Modern Age, as it was the paradigm shift from the traditional, ancient world science, to the empirical and rational modern science.

Sir Karl Popper, challenging the status quo, inspiring generations to ponder on the meaning of science, the methods to find truth, is one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. Of particular importance to scientific methods of inquiry is the brawl between the development of theory and the criteria for science. In Popper’s own words, it is in this brawl that Popper decided to “grapple with the problem: When should a theory be ranked as scientific? or Is there a criterion for the scientific character or status of a theory?” (Popper 1957), p. 1).

In the beginning of Packet II, the scientific method did not actually appear until near the end of the seventeenth century. In the first packet, the history of physical science did not get to what is considered scientific method until near the end and there were many conditions of the method presented by practically all of the scientists mentioned. There also does not appear to be one exact statement that is universally accepted as the scientific method. There were many noted scientists and philosophers that defined what the views on the scientific method was during their time, and some of them were big influences on Charles Darwin and his work later on. From Newton on, something comparing the modern impression of scientific method was frequently addressed at scientists. Carl Hempel notes how Kepler’s motivations does not fit to our current understanding of science, and that it did not matter how Kepler got his ideas rather how they were tested (P2, pg.1). Karl Popper had certain views on what distinguishes science from other human tasks that was presented in the early twentieth century, and he links testability, falisifiability, and refutability. He also strongly denies that just being consistent with data is a crucial part of science, and many scientists seem to agree with Popper’s statements. Popper does not restrain science to mathematical models; neither does he demand that data or results

Instead, science and knowledge can and need to be depicted in a different light, which entails changes in the notions of objectivity, validity, reliability, and truth, rather than obliteration of these notions. It is quite telling that this was apparently clear to many scholars, already in the early twentieth century, who pioneered some of the most significant breakthroughs across humanities and sciences. For example, when William James stated in 1907, quite poetically and prophetically, that “[p]urely objective truth . . . is nowhere to be found” because “the trail of the human serpent is . . . over everything” (p. 60), this position did not imply a rejection of knowledge pursuits and of truth. Or, when Lev Vygotsky wrote that “everything described as a fact is already a theory” (1997a, p. 249) and that “pure objectivity in the educator is utter nonsense” (1997c, p. 349), he was not dismissing science and objectivity. Similarly, when Niels Bohr accepted the radical premise that “[i]t is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is” (quoted in Newton, 2009, p. 40), independently of our questions, instruments, and methodologies, this did not imply the impossibility of physics but instead, laid grounds for its most significant

(161) Popper goes on to insist that induction cannot even be attempted to justify, due to its core premise being completely invalid, and therefore unjustifiable by default. Popper believes that induction is in no way factual or a necessary thought process. He explains that the entire idea of induction is an illusion, one that we are mistaking for the actual practice of trial and error (161) Particularly regarding scientific knowledge, and the notion that knowledge requires a validity that is established by repeated empirical testing. (162) Popper denies the idea that scientific knowledge is induction, and instead explains knowledge in terms of hypotheticals, and tests for falsifiability. (162) Popper states that while these hypotheticals, or theories, cannot be supported, they can be rigorously tested to show the possibility of being proven false. The ability to refute something logically, allows for a counter-instance that ensures a logical opposite.

The following essay aims to discuss the inconsistencies between the inductivist and Popper’s points of view of science rationality of science in light of claims that the scientific method is inductive yet an inductive method is no. I think is rational to say that inductivist view of science has significant contradiction that Popper’s view solves. To support Popper’s view my argument will introduce the inductivist and falsificationsist views and I will focus in showing the issues of considered science as objective, scientific knowledge as proven and nature as uniform as well as the differences between inductivism and falsificationism to the creation of hypothesis.

The scientific revolution started in the 16th and 17th century with development of the scientific theories (Hatch, n.d.). These Scientific theories are detailed explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on knowledge that has been repeatedly duplicated through observation and experimental procedures. The understanding or the attempt to understand the human’s perspective of the world through scientific theories is the birth to the philosophy of science (Okasha, 2002). Several perspectives of scientific theories have been postulated by many on the history and philosophy of science. One of such is the Kuhn theory of science development postulated by Thomas Kuhn. His theory brought about a new perspective where

In this essay I attempt to answer the following two questions: What is Karl Popper’s view of science? Do I feel that Thomas Kuhn makes important points against it? The two articles that I make reference to are "Science: Conjectures and Refutations" by Karl Popper and "Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?" by Thomas Kuhn.

Popper and Kuhn held differing views on the nature of scientific progress. As seen in Popper’s falsification theory, he held that theories can never be proved only disproved or falsified. Once a theory is proved false we move on to the next. Kuhn, on the other, hand argued a new paradigm may solve puzzles better than the old one but you cannot describe the old science as false. Both seem to share the Kantian idea that the really real, independently existing world is completely unknowable. Kuhn further asserts that the empirical world, which is knowable, is partly constructed by our categories and concepts. The fundamental difference in their views are best stated in Kuhn’s own words, “A very different approach to this whole network of problems has been developed by Karl R. Popper who denies the existence of any verification procedures at all. Instead he emphasizes the importance of falsification, i.e., of the test that, because its outcome is negative, necessitates the rejection of an established theory. Clearly, the role thus attributed to falsification is much like the one this essay assigns to anomalous experiences, i.e., to experiences that, by evoking crisis, prepare the way for a new theory. Nevertheless, anomalous experiences may not be identified with falsifying ones.”(Kuhn, 145) As seen by this passage, the fundamental difference between Popper and Kuhn is that Popper disregards “verification” and Kuhn asserts that “falsification” only takes place once a

Karl Popper was critical of inductive methods used in science. He argued that there is a chain of justifying arguments that could never be complete, therefore an original statement that is made can never receives the justification that it needs (Popper 505-506). He was a firm believer in the concept of falsification, emphasizing that we can never be sure that a theory is true but we can be sure that a theory is false. He continues to explain that all inductive evidence is limited: we do not observe the universe at all times and in all places. Popper identifies that no matter how many observations are made which confirm a theory there is always potential for future observations to refute the claim (Popper 426). For example, if millions of white swans were observed, using inductive reasoning, we could come up with a theory that all swans are white. However, no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this information does not provide us with justification for the conclusion that all swans are white (Popper 426). Therefore induction cannot yield certainty. For scientists to continue to rely on inductive reasoning to

Assumptions in the title of this essay imply that results, theories and laws resulting from the current system of peer review multiple perspectives produce completely infallible objective truth, this is a false premise. Whilst the group of knowers known as the scientific community have collectively less bias than one lone knower trying to understand the universe, there is still collective and engrained level of institutional bias. The same problems of confirmation bias and expectation are present in a group of knowers just as they are with one single knower. According to Karl Popper (1902-1994) the best way to eliminate any expectation and confirmation bias was to falsify and disprove rather than confirm one’s hypothesis and predictions. Popper argues: no matter how convincing an argument or theory is, all that is needed to disprove it is one piece of valid counterclaiming evidence. Whilst this theory is valid on an individual level, it really becomes an effective tool in the objectivity of science on a large scale. Despite this attempt at objectifying and ‘protecting against’ error and bias it is inadequate due to inherent flaws in the scientific method. Induction, moving from the specific to the general, is the key element in scientific logic. Any theory or law ‘proved’ through this logic has some key flaws: the main flaw being that inductive logic can never be certain of any event happening or of any prediction. Richard van de Lagemaat