O
 

 

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‡ Born in Vienna, 1902.
‡ Interacted with logical positivists, but was never a member
of the Vienna Circle.
‡ Before the World War II, emigrated to New Zealand.
‡ After the war became Professor at the London School of
Economics.
‡ Main works:
Ñ



 


, 1945
Ñ
 

  
, 1959 (1934)



 


, 1963





, 1972
‡ Died in 1994.

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‡ The main problem of logical positivists was to justify

science on their own terms. Here is their predicament:
1. Scientific statements are based on observation.
2. The content of scientific statements goes beyond what
has been observed in the past.
3. If the content of a statement goes beyond what has been
observed in the past, mere observation cannot show that
this statement is true. (Hume¶s inductive skepticism)
4. Scientific statements are not based on observation. (From
2 and 3)
‡ It seems that the set consisting of statements 1, 2 and 3
is inconsistent. Or is it?
‡ Popper accepted 1, 2 and 3, but he rejected 4!

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‡ Take the relation between a given scientific statement ³All
swans are white´ and relevant observations. However
many observations of white swans, it will never be enough
to 
that ³All swans are white´ is true. And even
worse, if Hume is right, no number of observations of white
swans will ever be enough to 
that ³All swans are
white´ is true.
‡ How then can Popper claim that the statements like ³All
swans are white´ 
based on observation?
‡ His answer: indeed, observations can never verify
scientific statements (show that they are true), but they
can falsify them (show that they are false)!

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‡ There is a logical asymmetry between theoretical

statements (T) and observation statements (O).
1. There is no road from observation to theory:
O1, O2, O3 ĺ T (Wrong! Fallacy!)
2. There  a road from theory to observation:
TĺO
~O
~T
‡ We can derive a prediction from a theory, something that
should be observed if the theory is true (T ĺ O). If we do
not observe it (~O), then it follows by


logic that
the theory 
be false (~T).
‡ We cannot prove theories but we can 


them.

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‡ Popper¶s main idea: Scientists are actually not trying to
prove their theories. They are trying to expose their
theories to falsification.
‡ Great scientific theories are those that were very risky, that
made bold predictions, and that were in a big danger of
being refuted.
‡ The example that impressed Popper most was Einstein¶s
theory of relativity. Einstein predicted that light will bend
when passing near the sun.
‡ Moreover, Einstein gave directions about how his theory
could be tested. He clearly described what should be
observed during the sun¶s eclipse, and suggested that his
theory is 
if the observation was not like that.

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‡ Einstein¶s theory was 
refuted, although it could easily
have been. This is what makes it a great science.
‡ Science is distinguished from non-science by the fact that
it does not avoid the risk of refutation. It is falsifiable.
‡ Pseudo-science (theory falsely presented as science) is
characterized by
‡ Falsifiable theories "prohibit" or "exclude" some situations,
and it is precisely because of this that they say something
interesting. Being unfalsifiable is a bad thing because if a
theory doesn't exclude some states of affairs then it
doesn't say so much about the world, and it is empty,
boring or trivial.

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‡ Pseudoscience, according to Popper, is 
meaningless. It
is just   
. Pseudoscientific statements run no risk
of being shown to be false. They are true, no matter what is
observed. This is precisely what makes them useless.
‡ Example: Alfred Adler¶s theory of the inferiority complex.
‡ Popper: Once, in 1919, I reported to Adler a case which to
me did not seem particularly Adlerian, but which he found
no difficulty in analyzing in terms of his theory of inferiority
feelings, although he had not even seen the child. Slightly
shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. "Because of
my thousandfold experience," he replied; whereupon I could
not help saying: "And with this new case, I suppose, your
experience has become thousand-and-one-fold."

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‡ If the prediction is 
(we observe the event opposite of
what the theory predicted) the theory is refuted. This negative
result is not useless because we have now eliminated one
wrong theory.
‡ If the prediction is

, the theory has passed the test but it
should not be concluded that it is true. It should be tested
again and again, by always deriving some new predictions to
see if they will be observed.
‡ The progress of science consists in trial and error, and any
theory that is not yet refuted should be regarded as a
hypothesis that may also soon be falsified. A theory that has
passed many tests is ³corroborated´, which tells us only
something about its past (and nothing about it chances of
passing the tests in the future).

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‡ There are degrees of falsifiability. Theories that are more
falsifiable are better.
‡ For example, "All metals expand when heated" is more
falsifiable than "Copper and iron expand when heated"
because it is easier to falsify the first than the second. Any
piece of iron or copper that does not expand when heated
falsifies both hypothesis, but the first hypothesis can also be
falsified with other non-expanding metals.
‡ More falsifiable theories are better because they say more
about the world (they are more informative).
‡ On the other hand, if we have two theories that are equally
falsifiable and only one of them is falsified, the unfalsified
theory is better because it passed the test while the other did
not.

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