Popper and Kuhn: Two Views of Science Essay

For Popper disproof is of bigger relevance than proof is and therefore science should not stop attempting to disprove theories throughout the process of falsificationism. The harder it is tried to falsify a theory or to disprove a theory the more relevance and credibility the theory attains. All knowledge is hypothetical according to Popper as we can never prove a theory, but only refute it or confirm it.

To begin understanding whether or not science progresses towards greater truths, truth must first be defined. It is the quality or state of conforming to fact or reality.1 As such a greater truth is one which better conforms to reality. Through scientific revolutions science progresses towards a taxonomy of greater truths. To accept this one must first understand that truths exist in science, that there are greater truths which replace falsified truths, and that science is continually building its way towards those greater truths through revolutions. For the purpose of this essay a scientific revolution is as Kuhn describes the shift from one accepted paradigm to a new one where a paradigm is considered a distinct set of concepts and theories. Science seeks to discover and explain the objective realities of our world and universe through these concepts and theories. Throughout history theories have been proposed, accepted, and replaced. This is the one constant of science in the long run; that it is always improving upon itself; our bank of knowledge is increasing. While there are periods of regression, today the world is definitively more scientifically advanced then it was a millennia ago. But why is it that we consider todays accepted paradigms to be true and the paradigms from antiquity false?

He argued that science in philosophy should be based on deductive reasoning and rational observations rather than weak falsification or verification that Kuhn stands for. Pooper (1963) rejected the complete dependence on believes and personal opinion as proposed by Kuhn (as cited in Schick, 2000). In fact, he believed in standardizing the scientific method to approach any conflict by challenging scientists to falsify their theories all the time. Here, Popper had stronger strategy that test theories constantly to achieve higher level of evidence. Moore (2010) stated that “ the statement of a meaningful theory for Popper was the ability to identify what would falsify it when was tested against the facts of experience.” This approach seems to be more practical by its uniform and cohesive structure to develop scientific theories. Thus, defending Pooper’s position in this paper was

Alternatively, the proclamation “the Earth is flat” is scientific because it can be proven to be false through scientific investigation. Popper came up with the term “Critical Rationalist”, an expression to describe his ideology. Critical rationalists believe that hypothesis and theories should be criticized in a rational way and should be tested in a way that they can be proven to be false.

Popper believes science should progress through falsification and demarcation as a way to distinguish real scientific theories from pseudoscience. (A. Popper) Falsification is how a scientist should look at a problem they are attempting to solve instead of using existing theories and treating them as scientific laws you should instead try and prove existing theories wrong using emperical evidence to solve the questions being asked. (A. Popper) believes Science keeps moving forward and the only way to progress is to prove existing theories wrong, replacing them with new theories. In contrast verification of theories (attempting to prove a theory right) holds little water with Popper this is because proving a theory right has already been done. All a researcher must do to prove a theory right is duplicate a previous study or experiment and this according to (A. Popper) is not science and is not the advancement of scientific knowledge. Furthermore (A. Popper 4.0 The growth of Human Knowledge) Popper believes science is falsifiable and that their are no true facts. The scientific method uses a deductive process. However this deductice process does not compare the hypothesis and conclusions with the actual theory. All observations and conclusions are theory based. Discussed previously theories according to Popper should be scrutinized using falsification.

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

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 sun could not rise and be replaced with another celestial body and the theory would still be scientific according to Carnap’s criteria. Let us consider an example from history. Consider the Phlogiston theory. This is a rather ancient, now disproven, theory arising in the 17th century that is the predecessor to the theory of combustion. The theory states that all combustible bodies contain Phlogiston. Upon burning, these bodies release Phlogiston to the air. The air can hold a finite amount of Phlogiston after which it is completely phlogisticated and no longer supports burning of a material. Carnap would consider this theory unscientific as it cannot be tested. At the time, there was no way to quantify or measure Phlogiston. No instruments existed at that time period that could have been used to measure Phlogiston which makes the theory unscientific. Who was to say what substances possess and do not possess Phlogiston since it could not be measured? On the other hand, Popper would argue that the theory is scientific as it has empirical content, it excludes non-combustible bodies from having Phlogiston.

In this paper, I will explain three theories on how to solve the demarcation problem, or the problem of distinguishing between science and non-science, and how all three of them need to be combined in order to truly solve this problem. First, I will explain each of the three different theories proposed by A.J. Ayer, Karl Popper, and Paul Thagard, these philosopher’s arguments for each of these theories, and an example of using each theory. Then, I will explain why all three of these theories need to be combined by showing examples of how each individual theory incorrectly categorizes something as scientific. Next, I will show how these three theories together can correctly distinguish science from non-science. Finally, I will explain

Karl Popper did not like the requirement that meaningful sentences be verifiable, stating the positivists’ criterion of verifiability was too strong a criterion for science, and proposed that they be replaced by a criterion of falsifiability (Karl Popper). Popper believed that falsifiability was a better criterion because it did not invite the philosophical problems inherent in verifying induction, and it allowed statements from the physical sciences which seemed scientific but which did not meet the verification criterion (Log Pos). Popper also argues that science should adopt a methodology based on falsifiability, because no number of experiments can ever prove a

Popper opines that a significant problem with the scientific method is that scientists get so caught up in evidence that supports a specific conjecture that they either 1) fail to consider

Thomas Kuhn was an American philosopher, born in 1922, whom wrote about the distinction between normal science and revolutionary science. He was seen as a destroyer of logical empiricism throughout his career. This was because his work seemed to show how interesting it was to connect philosophical questions about science, with questions about the history of science. Throughout this essay, I will connect questions of philosophy and the history of science together by explaining Kuhn’s account of the structure of normal science and scientific revolutions.

Furthermore “positive science” for Friedman indicates exactly Popper’s meaning of “objective knowledge”. At Popper’s methodology are only two solutions: the best obtainable is truth or it gets falsified. Friedman makes verification as a degree of reasonable confidence and explains as an ultimately increasing a subjective state of uncertainty. In fact it is a Popper’s “falsifiability”.

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

Laudan (1983) claimed that the problem of demarcation can be traced back to ancient Greece and Aristotle. Aristotle asserted that from general laws one can deduce scientific theories that are consequently truthful statements. Pseudoscientific theories according to Aristotle are not deductively formulated and therefore cannot be considered scientific. However this method of demarcation is flawed: pseudosciences such as astrology can be vacuously true and most are reluctant to say astrology is scientific. We can already see from this early stage that the distinctions between science and pseudoscience are murky and the formulation of demarcation can be challenging.