Biology and Philosophy 11: 161-191, 1996.

© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printedin the Netherlands.

Popper, Falsifiability, and Evolutionary Biology

DAVID N. STAMOS
GraduateStudies, Philosophy
York University
North York, Ontario,
CanadaM3J IP3

Abstract. First, a brief history is provided of Popper's views on the status of evolutionary
biology as a science. The views of some prominent biologists are then canvassed on the
matter of falsifiability and its relation to evolutionary biology. Following that, I argue that
Popper's programme of falsifiability does indeed exclude evolutionary biology from within
the circumference of genuine science, that Popper's programme is fundamentally incoherent,
and that the correction of this incoherence results in a greatly expanded and much more realistic
concept of what is empirical, resulting in the inclusion of evolutionary biology. Finally, this
expanded concept of empirical is applied to two particular problems in evolutionary biology
- viz., the species problem and the debate over the theory of punctuated equilibria - and it is
argued that both of them are still mainly metaphysical.

Key words: Popper, falsifiability, evolutionary biology, species problem, punctuated equilibria

1. Introduction

In this paper I shall attempt to accomplish a number of goals. I shall first

provide a short history of Karl Popper's views on the status of evolutionary
biology as a science. (My focus throughout this paper will be confined to
evolutionary biology.) As we shall see, Popper's expressed views changed
radically with time. I shall then canvass the views of a few prominent biol-
ogists on the matter of falsifiability and its relation to evolutionary biology.
As is well known, biologists, like all natural scientists, do not particularly
like philosophers coming in and characterizing and dictating or prescribing
their activities. Following this, I shall then argue that Popper's programme
of falsifiability as found throughout his works does indeed exclude evolu-
tionary biology as genuine science, but that his programme of falsifiability is
fundamentally incoherent as it stands. I shall furthermore show that this inco-
herence is not fatal but curable, and that once this cure is effected, evolutionary
biology then falls within the circumference of genuine science. Finally, I shall
then apply this revised programme to two major and seemingly intractable
disputes within current evolutionary biology - viz., the species problem and
the debate over the theory of punctuated equilibria - and shall show that both
of them are still mainly metaphysical.
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2. A short history of Popper's views on evolutionary biology

Popper's premiere work, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, is devoted to
determining the logic of the growth of knowledge. Since, as Popper claims
in his 1959 Preface, scientific knowledge is "common sense knowledge writ
large" (p. 22), it follows, according to Popper, that "the growth of knowledge
can be studied best by studying the growth of scientific knowledge" (p. 15).
Intimately involved in this study is the problem of the demarcation between
science and non- or pseudo-science. It turns out in Popper's study that the
method of the growth of knowledge in science also serves a double duty: it
serves to demarcate between what is and what is not genuine science.
Though Popper's paradigm science in this study is physics, one naturally
expects before opening his volume to find some discussion on biology. This
expectation is only further increased by the review credits listed on the back
cover of the English edition. The leading credit, printed in bold, is by Sir Peter
Medawar, the 1960 Nobel Prize laureate for Medicine and Physiology. And yet
when we read The Logic of Scientific Discovery we find physics, physics, and
more physics. This is presumably because "in modem theoretical physics,"
in the words of Popper, "I and others see the most complete realization to
date of what I call 'empirical science' " (p. 38).
Nevertheless one would expect to find some discussion on the status of
biology. And yet there is none. The most we get is an analogy between natural
selection and the competition between scientific theories: "According to my
proposal, what characterizes the empirical method is its manner of exposing
to falsification, in every conceivable way, the system to be tested. Its aim is
not to save the lives of untenable systems but, on the contrary, to select the one
which is by comparison the fittest, by exposing them all to the fiercest struggle
for survival" (p. 42). (Cf. pp. 108, 251, 278, and 281 for similar allusions.)
Apart from this analogy, Popper's Logic contains scant reference to
biology, evolutionary or otherwise. One is left to surmise for oneself whether
Popper from his principles set forth in that book would include or exclude
evolutionary biology from the circumference of genuine and legitimate sci-
ence.
At any rate, it is important to remember that according to Popper in the
Logic, the hallmark of genuine science is the making and the testing of strictly
universal statements that are potentially falsifiable - a topic that I will reserve
for further discussion in §4 - to which Newton's law of gravity served as
an exemplar. It is also important to remember that at this time the status of
biology, evolutionary or otherwise, was not an issue among philosophers of
science. The Logical Positivists, as an important example, never questioned
its status as a genuine science, but instead stressed the unity of science and
the reduction of all higher level sciences to the language of physics.1
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In spite of the scarcity of reference in the Logic to biology, Popper acquired

and maintained a deep interest in biology, especially evolutionary biology,
from his youth onward (cf. Popper 1974:16, 1977:139, and Bartley 1987:18).
Not surprisingly, then, Popper's first discussion on the status of evolutionary
biology was written shortly after the Logic. In his essay "The Poverty of
Historicism" (1936), later a book of the same name, the main thrust of
Popper's argument is to deny that there are or could be laws governing social
change, a view he labels and discredits as historicism. Unlike the Logical
Positivists, then, whose criterion of verifiability allowed for the inclusion of
sociology within genuine science, Popper's criterion did not. But what of
biology?
To understand Popper's discussion we must follow Popper's distinction
(which does not come out all that clear) between evolutionary biology and one
of its philosophical offspring, namely evolutionism (the view that evolution
is inexorably progressing toward some higher goal). Of the latter he says
that "the recent vogue of historicism might be regarded as merely part of the
vogue of evolutionism" (p. 106). But then he immediately goes on to say
something that might seem to mean that he includes evolutionary biology as
a genuine science. He says of evolutionism that it is "a philosophy that owes
its influence largely to the somewhat sensational clash between a brilliant
scientific hypothesis concerning the history of the various species of animals
and plants on earth, and an older metaphysical theory which, incidentally,
happened to be part of an established religious belief" (p. 106).
Interestingly, Popper seems clearly here to call the Darwinian theory of
evolution "a brilliant scientific hypothesis." Moreover the philosophers whose
philosophies he includes under "evolutionism" are "Bergson, Whitehead,
Smuts, and others" (p. 106 n.1); he does not mention Darwin or Wallace or
Huxley or other noted evolutionary biologists. And in the second footnote on
the same page he states clearly that he sees "in modern Darwinism the most
successful explanation of the relevant facts."
And yet, when we read on in the text, we quickly find Popper all but
explicitly deny genuine scientific status to Darwinian (and neo-Darwinian)
evolutionary theory. He says of "the evolutionary hypothesis" that it

is not a universal law, even though certain universal laws of nature, such
as laws of heredity, segregation, and mutation, enter with it into the expla-
nation. It has, rather, the character of a particular (singular or specific)
historical statement. (It is of the same status as the historical statement:
'Charles Darwin and Francis Galton had a common grandfather'.) The
fact that the evolutionary hypothesis is not a universal law of nature
but a particular (or, more precisely, singular) historical statement about
the ancestry of a number of terrestrial plants and animals is somewhat
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obscured by the fact that the term 'hypothesis' is so often used to charac-
terize the status of universal laws of nature. But we should not forget that
we frequently use this term in a different sense. [p. 107]

This passage is interesting and important on a number of counts. First, it relates

to what we shall later see is one of the major points Popper makes in The
Logic of Scientific Discovery, namely, that a necessary (though not sufficient)
condition for some activity to constitute genuine science is that it makes or
posits universal laws. Interesting is that Popper explicitly includes under such
laws "heredity," "segregation," and "mutation." Popper evidently includes
genetics as a genuine science. Even more interesting is the universal laws he
mentions on the next page. Evolutionary processes, he says, include "all kinds
of causal laws." He mentions not only (what we should expect from reading
the Logic ) "the laws of mechanics" and "chemistry," but also "heredity
and segregation" and "natural selection." Natural selection a universal law of
nature? Popper seems clearly to think so. 2 On this count, modem evolutionary
biology from Darwin onward would seem included as a genuine science,
insofar as it seems capable of positing at least one causal law of nature.
But this conclusion on the part of the reader is quickly destroyed by Popper.
Further on he states that a universal law of nature "does not assert existence; on
the contrary: ... it asserts the impossibility of something or other" (p. 115).
Keeping this in mind, when we return to where we just left off, we find
Popper asking the question: "can there be a law of evolution?" (p. 107). And
his answer is a clear and unequivocal "No" (p. 108). Popper's reasons are, as
he says, "very simple." A statement of biological descent is of the character,
he says, of "a singular historical statement." A statement of a universal law,
on the other hand, concerns "some unvarying order." Evolutionary biologists,
of course, insofar as they make statements of evolutionary descent, make
both existential and historical statements, and therefore fail to meet the above
conditions.
But what of the theory of evolution by natural selection per se? I will
reserve discussion of Popper's negative reply for a little later, when I discuss
the tautology issue.
For the present it must be kept in mind that in Popper's view it is not only
necessary for a science to be genuine, that it make or posit universal laws of
nature but that these laws must at least be testable. He says: ". . . it is clear that
any law, . . . must be tested by new instances before it can be taken seriously
by science" (p. 109). (Popper's statement here is a little stronger than usual;
testability is his usual criterion.) The problem is that "we cannot hope to test
a universal hypothesis nor to find a natural law acceptable to science if we
are forever confined to the observation of one unique process" (p. 109).
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A related problem is the ability to make predictions. A characteristic of

genuine laws of science is that they enable one to make predictions. When
events contradict the predictions, we have in Popper's view a falsification
of the original law. And indeed it is the possibility of this contradiction that
in Popper's view makes a posited law of nature genuinely scientific. In the
case of the statements made by evolutionary biologists regarding certain
species, not only are these statements not universal laws, says Popper, but
they are also incapable of generating predictions. "Nor can the observation,"
he says, "of one unique process help us to foresee its future development.
The most careful observation of one developing caterpillar will not help us
to predict its transformation into a butterfly" (p. 109). 3 Of course, with this
claim practically every evolutionary biologist from Darwin onward will agree
(cf. Mayr 1988:72). Natural selection will not allow one to predict the future
evolution of a species. To think otherwise, claims Popper, is to commit the
historicist fallacy akin in sociology.
Popper's claim here, then, in sum, seems to be that the statements evolu-
tionary biologists make about the descent of particular species are not
universal and falsifiable, so that such activities are not genuinely scientific.
But a question immediately arises. In making historical, existential statements
of this kind, are these not in some sense at least falsifiable? Popper's answer
is yes. On Popper's view a singular historical statement, like all specific
existential statements, is in principle falsifiable. It is thus not what he calls
metaphysical, but it is still not genuinely scientific. As we have seen he makes
this clear in The Poverty of Historicism (pp. 106-108), having developed it
from The Logic of Scientific Discovery. (I will postpone further discussion on
this matter for when I return to the Logic in §4.)
On Popper's view, then, here expressed, when evolutionary biologists
tell us, for instance, that Homo sapiens evolved roughly 200,000 years ago
from Homo erectus which in turn evolved roughly 1,500,000 years ago from
Homo habilis,they are not, curiously, doing either genuine science or meta-
physics.
We turn now to Popper's two books which are collections of his various
articles, namely Conjectures and Refutations (1963) and Objective Knowl-
edge (1972). In the former, as in the Logic, we find almost no reference to
biology, evolutionary or otherwise, except for a very brief reiteration of his
theme that "There exists no law of evolution" and that "The idea of a law
which determines the direction and the character of evolution is a typical
nineteenth-century mistake, ... " (p. 340).
In Objective Knowledge, however, we find an important discussion on
evolutionary biology, which should not surprise us given the theme of the
book as expressed in its subtitle: An Evolutionary Approach. What is espe-
166

cially interesting is that, even as late as 1972 (or more properly 1979, the year
of the last revision), Popper still held the view that the nature of evolutionary
biology is principally "an historicalone" (p. 270). He explicitly tells us that
Darwin's theory is not on par with Newton's because "Newton formulated
a set of universal laws" whereas "Darwin's theory of evolution proposed
no such laws" (p. 267). (Note that this is clearly inconsistent with what he
said about natural selection in The Poverty of Historicism.) Instead, "What
Darwin showed us was that the mechanism of natural selection can, in prin-
ciple, simulate the actions of the Creator, ... that in principle any particular
teleological explanation may, one day, be reduced to, or further explained by,
a causal explanation" (p. 267). Moreover, the "in principle" is stressed by the
fact that, according to Popper, "Neither Darwin nor any Darwinian has so
far given an actual causal explanation of the adaptive evolution of any single
organism or any single organ. All that has been shown - and this is very much
- is that such explanations might exist (that is to say, they are not logically
impossible)" (p. 267).
Darwin's theory, of course, did much more than that! In explaining
phenomena such as adaptive radiations, vestigial organs, and character
reversions, it provided a perfectly plausible physical explanation for what
made little or no sense from the viewpoint of creationism.
At any rate, Popper's theme is further explored in an interesting way in his
intellectual autobiography (1974), specifically in §37 titled "Darwinism as a
Metaphysical Research Programme." Here we find Popper explicitly making
the claim that "Darwinism is not a scientific theory, but metaphysical" (p. 172).
More specifically, he tells us that "I have come to the conclusion that Darwin-
ism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysicalresearchprogramme
- a possible framework for testable scientific theories" (p. 168). A little more
specifically Popper tells us in §33 what he means by a "metaphysical research
programme." He says metaphysical research programmes are "metaphysical
ideas of the greatest importance" which are "criticizable, though not testable"
(p. 151). (We should also note here that Popper explicitly says that what he
means by "Darwinism" is what is today called "neo-Darwinism" or "The
Modem Synthesis" (p. 170).)
Interesting examples of metaphysical research programmes are given by
Popper (minus the label) back in The Logic of Scientific Discovery. According
to Popper not all metaphysical ideas are harmful to genuine science. He says
that "it is a fact that purely metaphysical ideas - and therefore philosophical
ideas - have been of the greatest importance for cosmology," and that "meta-
physical ideas have shown the way" (p. 19). One of his classic examples is
ancient atomism, the theory of elementary particles that grew through the
ages from a metaphysical idea to the modem scientific idea. Its usefulness
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as metaphysics was that it "helped to bring order into man's picture of the
world" (p. 278). Indeed Popper goes so far as to say that "I am inclined to
think that scientific discovery is impossible without faith in ideas which are
of a purely speculative kind, and sometimes even quite hazy; ... " (p. 38).
When Popper says Darwinism is a metaphysical research programme and
is "a possible framework for testable theories," he elaborates in this section
(37), quite interestingly, what he means. First, "It is metaphysical because
it is not testable" (p. 171). According to Popper (p. 171), Darwinian theory,
although it suggests the proliferation of variety, it does not predictit and thus
would not be refuted if, for example, only three species of life were ever to
be found on Mars. In not strictly predicting it, it neither explains it. However,
what Darwinian theory does explicitly predict, according to Popper, is that
when evolution does occur it must be gradual.Indeed this seems to Popper
"its only prediction," which as such leaves much to be desired. It is not "the
type of explanation," he says, "which we demand in physics. While we can
explain a particular eclipse by predicting it, we cannot predict or explain any
particular evolutionary change (except perhaps certain changes in the gene
population within one species); all we can say is that if it is not a small change,
there must have been some intermediate step - an important suggestion for
research: a research programme" (pp. 172-173).
In response to his interpretation of Darwinism as a metaphysical research
programme, and in order to better explain the proliferation of variety and com-
plexity, Popper proffers in his autobiography (pp. 173-180) his own theory,
which as early as 1961 he called "Genetic Dualism" (Popper 1972:272-280).
Designed to explain "orthogenetic trends" (1974:173) "without making any
concession to the Lamarckian doctrine of the inheritance of acquired charac-
teristics" (p. 180), Popper conjectures that in addition to genes that control
anatomy, there are also genes that control behavior (which he further sub-
divides into genes that control preferences and genes that control skills).
Thus, in addition to external selection pressure from the environment and
selection pressure from within an organism's species (e.g. sexual selection),
Popper adds a third type of selection pressure, a selection pressure that exists
within the organism itself, what he calls "internal selection pressure" (p. 173).
This third type of selection pressure accordingly has a role in determining
the overall fitness of an organism. If, for example, an organism is genetically
predisposed toward a certain type of preference, but is either not genetically
equipped with the necessary skill genes or the necessary anatomy genes (or
both), it will be less fit than one that is so equipped (ceteris paribus). Alter-
natively, the niche of an organism may slightly change, still in line with its
preference and anatomy genes but not its skill genes, thus rendering it less fit
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than it was before, while some of its conspecifics may now be rendered more
fit.
Although certainly an interesting theory, one wonders if its added luxury
is at all necessary over the parsimony of traditional Darwinian theory. More
unsettling is that Popper's theory would require an organism to have not
one but two (or even three) genotypes. Is population genetics ready for that?
Even more unsettling is its extreme geneticism and its implicit rejection of
exogenetic heredity (cf. Medawar and Medawar 1983:94-97, 109-110). But
the greatest difficulty with Popper's theory is that (contrary to the purposes
of its design) one has to wonder how one would go about testing it.
At any rate, in some ways even more interesting is Popper's claim in §37
of his autobiography that Darwinism is tautologous. Popper does not claim
that Darwinism is a strict tautology, as in p V -p, but something extremely
close. (I must admit that the idea of degrees of tautology, or rather of degrees
of closeness to tautology, is incomprehensible to me, and I don't think Popper
here explains at best even poorly what he means.) "I also regard Darwinism,"
he says, "as an application of what I call 'situational logic' " (p. 168). More
specifically, he says that given any situation where there is self-reproducing
life capable of variation, "Then a situation is given in which the idea of trial
and error-elimination, or of Darwinism, becomes not merely applicable, but
almost logically necessary" (p. 168). He says furthermore that this Darwinian
situational logic need not apply only to life but to situations without life.
He says that "atomic nuclei which are relatively stable (in the situation in
question) will tend to be more abundant than unstable ones; and the same
may hold for chemical compounds" (p. 169).
But the most interesting comparison of Darwinian situational logic is with
Popper's own logic of scientific discovery. Indeed he here admits (p. 167)
that the natural selection analogy which I quoted earlier from The Logic of
Scientific Discovery was a hint. More fully he says:
I think there is more to say for Darwinism than that it is just one meta-
physical research programme among others. Indeed, its close resem-
blance to situational logic may account for its great success, in spite of
the almost tautological character inherent in the Darwinian formulation
of it, and for the fact that so far no serious competitor has come forward.
Should the view of Darwinian theory as situational logic be accept-
able, then we could explain the strange similarity between my theory
of the growth of knowledge and Darwinism: both would be cases of
situational logic. [p. 169]
I suppose Popper's hesitation in claiming that Darwinism is actually and
essentially tautological stems from the fact that he has not and does not
wish to claim the same for what he claims is its close analogue, the logic of
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scientific discovery. For Popper was quite aware in The Logic of Scientific
Discovery and elsewhere that competition between scientific theories has
not and does not always (if ever, I dare say) proceed in accordance with
his principles. 4 That it often (at least) does not so proceed, means that it
cannot be strictly tautological. But even if it did so proceed, it would not
be strictly tautological. True enough, Popper characterized his programme
of falsifiability as an application of "the modus tollens of classical logic"
(p. 76). But he also claimed that in science (unlike in logic), even following
his principles, no falsification can ever be conclusive. He says on page 50: "In
point of fact, no conclusive disproof of a theory can ever be produced; ... "
And he reiterates this theme in his later footnote to that page. And later, when
discussing basic statements (which for Popper are the potential falsifiers), he
claims that the acceptance or rejection of these is a conventional matter of
our "decisions." He says this on page 108. "Thus it is decisions," he goes on
to say, "which settle the fate of theories." (Cf. also p. 274.)
I suggest, then, that it is this tension in Popper's programme, between
the logical necessity of modus tollens on the one hand, and the contingent
character of theory competition in real life science, that accounts for Popper's
characterization of situational logic, both his falsifiability programme and
Darwinism, as "almost tautological." For even if the macro (if I may use
the word) level of both activities proceed with logical necessity, at the micro
level there are always many exceptions. As we all know only too well, the
fittest do not always survive, and the poorly adapted sometimes experience
the longest of lives.
All of this, incidentally, might help to dissolve the apparent inconsistency
we noticed earlier, where in The Poverty of Historicism Popper in passing
included natural selection as a law of nature. He may indeed have thought
of it even there, as here above, as a law of logic. But if so, Popper is then
guilty of a fundamental confusion, namely between laws of logic and laws of
nature. That the two are distinct and involve quite different kinds of necessity
scarcely deserves further comment.
And yet I find it difficult to believe that Popper could have made this
fundamental confusion. We must remember that in The Logic of Scientific
Discovery Popper rejects the concept of an a priorisynthetic statement. He
calls this "the misconceived notion of a synthetic statement which is a priori
valid, i.e. an irrefutable statement about reality" (p. 254). (Cf. also p. 29.)
At any rate, the tautology charge is a charge that has insensed many
biologists (and philosophers), for others have followed Popper's lead and
gone the full way by stating that Darwinism, or evolution by natural selection,
is an outright tautology and is thereby devoid of empirical content. This
semi-vogue is easily refuted, but it is important to root out the real source
170

of the error. The error stems from Darwin's eventual agreement (mainly at
the behest of Wallace) to replace the label "natural selection," because of
its teleological overtones, with Spencer's more neutral label "survival of
the fittest." The temptation now is to define fitness in terms of survival and
survival in terms of fitness. Who are the fittest? Those that survive. Who
survives? Those that are fittest. Indeed we still often hear fitness defined
today as "differential reproductive success," but this merely keeps alive the
tautology charge. To eliminate it, therefore, we need only to decouple the
concept of fitness from that of survival. As Stephen Jay Gould (1977) put it,
the key point is that "certain morphological, physiological, and behavioral
traits should be superior a priorias designs for living in new environments.
These traits confer fitness by an engineer's criterion of good design, not by
the empirical fact of their survival and spread" (p. 42). And that, of course,
as Gould points out, was how Darwin himself understood fitness, in spite of
his acceptance of Spencer's phrase.
Moving along in time, we reach the point at which Popper begins to
recant his earlier published views on evolutionary biology. This begins, to
my knowledge, in Popper's 1977 essay "Natural Selection and the Emergence
of Mind." In this essay Popper states unequivocally that "I have changed my
mind about the testability and the logical status of the theory of natural selec-
tion; ... My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding
of the status of natural selection" (p. 144).
The first step comes when he says that "The Mendelian underpinning of
modem Darwinism has been well tested, and so has the theory of evolution
which says that all terrestrial life has evolved from a few primitive unicellular
organisms, possibly even from one single organism. However, Darwin's own
most important contribution to the theory of evolution, his theory of natural
selection, is difficult to test" (p. 143).
Following this is a discussion of the tautology issue. Popper, in reference
to his "almost tautological" characterization of natural selection, admits to
being "among the culprits" (p. 144). But he claims that he was influenced
in this by certain biologists themselves, and he mentions specifically Ronald
Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, and George Gaylord Simpson.
As to the new status of natural selection, Popper tells us that "I still believe
that natural selection works in this way as a research programme [i.e. 'It raises
detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an
acceptable solution of these problems']" (p. 144).
The first thing to notice here is that the word "metaphysical" is missing.
The essence of Popper's new view, with which Darwin himself would
partly have agreed, is that natural selection cannot account for either all
morphological characteristics of organisms (the example Popper uses is the
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tail of a peacock) or all behavioral programmes (the example he uses is the

peacock's display of his tail), but that it can account for most of these. He
thus concedes:
It seems to me preferable to admit that not everything that evolves is
useful, though it is astonishing how many things are; ... In other words,
it seems to me that like so many theories in biology, evolution by natural
selection is not strictly universal, though it seems to hold for a vast
number of important cases ....
The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far
from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to
be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with
so many biological theories; and considering the random character of
the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of
exceptions is not surprising. Thus not all phenomena of evolution are
explained by natural selection alone. Yet in every particular case it is a
challenging research programme to show how far natural selection can
possibly be held responsible for the evolution of a particular organ or
behavioural programme. [p. 145]
How far of a change does this change in view represent from the views (albeit
explicitly not about evolutionary biology) to be found in The Logic of Scien-
tific Discovery? In a number of ways it marks a radical change, specifically in
its implicit acceptance of singular existential statements within the circumfer-
ence of genuine science, an issue I will discuss in §4. Also, what Popper says
here about natural selection as a research programme contrasts remarkably -
not heuristically but in terms of the metaphysical versus scientific character-
izations (heuristically the resemblance is remarkable) - with what he says in
the Logic about causality:
The belief in causality is metaphysical. It is nothing but a typical
metaphysical hypostatization of a well justified methodological rule - the
scientist's decision never to abandon his search for laws. The metaphysical
belief in causality seems thus more fertile in its various manifestations
than any indeterminist metaphysics of the kind advocated by Heisenberg.
Indeed we can see that Heisenberg's comments have had a crippling effect
on research. Connections which are not far to seek may easily be over-
looked if it is continually repeated that the search for any such connection
is 'meaningless'. [p. 248; cf. p. 61]
One wonders now whether from 1977 onward Popper would consider the
causal principle (or causal law), "the assertion that any event whatsoever
can be causally explained - that it can be deductively predicted" (p. 61),
genuinely scientific and testable and not metaphysical. I tend to think so, if
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only for the reason that in this 1977 essay he says of himself that "I am an
indeterminist" (p. 147), which would seem to suggest that he has succumbed
to the consensus of the majority of quantum physicists and now thinks the
causal principle refuted.
At any rate, what is still lacking in this 1977 "recantation" is an unequiv-
ocally explicit statement stating that evolutionary biology, involving all or at
least the vast majority of its characteristic statements, is genuinely scientific
rather than merely a research programme, metaphysical or otherwise, and that
it is much more than a mere logical possibility that most of organic evolution
proceeded according to natural selection. The issue is an important one and
not, as many undergraduates are apt to dismiss it (and not just undergradu-
ates), merely verbal or semantic. The practical consequences are great and
widespread. The forces of scientific illiteracy, namely Christian creationism,
have often quoted, in and outside of the courtroom, the authority of Pop-
per as to the metaphysical and not scientific character of Darwinism, which
only adds to scientific illiteracy in the classroom. Moreover the allocation
of research grants and professional careers, not to mention valuable research
itself, rests largely upon the assurance that evolutionary biology is indeed
genuine science and not metaphysics. How many grants and careers would
be lost if the latter would become the accepted view! What must never be
forgotten is that science ultimately depends for its livelihood upon politics,
which in turn in a democracy is a function of public perception.
It is of some importance, then, to find in Popper's published views a fully
explicit recantation. The most we find, interestingly, is nothing more than but
a little letter printed in the August 21, 1980 edition of New Scientist (vol. 87),
in which, in reply to a July 21 article in the same volume by the paleontologist
Beverly Halstead, Popper writes:
... it does appear from your article ... that some people think that
I have denied scientific character to the historical sciences, such as
paleontology, or the history of the evolution of life on Earth; or to say,
the history of literature, or of technology, or of science.
This is a mistake, and I here wish to affirm that these and other his-
torical sciences have in my opinion scientific character: their hypotheses
can in many cases be tested.
It appears as if some people would think that the historical sci-
ences are untestable because they describe unique events. However, the
description of unique events can very often be tested by deriving from
them testable predictions or retrodictions. [p. 611]
This short letter, of course, hardly satisfies, for not only does it leave many
important questions unanswered - such as what Popper now thinks about the
role of universal laws of nature in the demarcation between science and non-
 173

science, and about the status of natural selection per se - but it is apparently
motivated by little more than a strong desire to disassociate his name and his
philosophy from the use made of them (as made much of by Halstead in his
article) by Christian creationists. Barring the required published explanation,
we must revert to and take Popper to task for his widely published views.

3. Some eminent evolutionary biologists on the criterion of

falsifiability

In spite of the history and fame of Popper's attack, it is interesting to note how
many top evolutionary biologists subscribed to, instead of reacted against the
basic falsifiability criterion of genuine science. In spite of Popper, they all,
either implicitly or explicitly, seem to have thought falsifiability the sufficient
condition for genuine science and that evolutionary biology satisfies this
criterion.
Before looking at a few examples of these, we may note that Darwin
himself was sensitive to the matter of testability and falsification. In his
Origin (1859) he says, for instance, that "If it could be demonstrated that
any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by
numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break
down" (p. 189).
Darwin, of course, never read Popper. But it is interesting to observe
prominent evolutionary biologists of today follow the spirit of Darwin and,
in spite of Popper's earlier negative views on evolutionary biology, support
the criterion of falsifiability. There must be something at least intuitively
appealing in this idea.
We find, for instance, Ernst Mayr (1988), himself one of the greatest of
evolutionary biologists since Darwin, on the topic of extraterrestrials make the
following claim: "The total set of prerequisites for the origin and maintenance
of life drastically reduces the number of planets that would have been suitable
for the origin of life. There is, indeed, the possibility that the combination
and sequence of conditions that permitted the origin of life on earth was not
duplicated on a single other planet in the universe. I do not make such a claim,
and it would not be science if I did, since it would be impossible ever to refute
it" (p. 68).
We find Niles Eldredge (1985), paleontologist extraordinaire and co-
originator along with Stephen Jay Gould of the controversial evolutionary
theory called punctuated equilibria, make the following claim: "The crucial
point here is that the very notion of evolution - the idea that all organisms are
related, descended from a common ancestor sometime in the dim past (more
than 3.5 billion years ago, the age of the oldest fossils so far found) is testable.
174

The very hallmark of science, distinguishing science from other systems of

thought about nature, is that whatever we choose to say about the material
universe, we are constrained to put it in terms that we can evaluate simply
using the evidence of our senses" (p. 45). Interestingly, speaking specifically
about Popper and his The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Eldredge tells us that
"His impact has been salutary" (p. 45). After providing a brief synopsis of
Popper's view on conjectures and refutations, falsifiability, and corroboration,
Eldredge specifically says that "they ['Popperians in biology'] have done us
all a service by making us sharpen up our scientific act" (p. 47).
I have already mentioned Sir Peter Medawar, and it is interesting to find
in his 1983 book Aristotle to Zoos, in his entry "Hypothesis and Theory"
(pp. 148-151), the same sort of synopsis and endorsement mentioned above
in Eldredge. Indeed elsewhere in his book we find a Popper-like rejection of
inductivism (p. 43) and a specifically Popperian endorsement of the value of
metaphysical ideas in science (p. 47).
Finally, we may note a comment made by the famous zoologist Richard
Dawkins (1986), which, incidentally, provides us with perhaps the best
example of "retrodiction" mentioned earlier by Popper: "We should be very
surprised, for example, to find fossil humans appearing in the record before
mammals are supposed to have evolved! If a single, well-verified mammal
skull were to turn up in 500 million year-old rocks, our whole modem theory of
evolution would be utterly destroyed. Incidentally, this is a sufficient answer
to the canard, put about by creationists and their journalists fellow travellers,
that the whole theory of evolution is an 'unfalsifiable' tautology" (p. 225).
What is it that all of these biologists here have in common? An implicit
if not explicit appreciation and endorsement of falsifiability as the sufficient
criterion of science and the claim that modern evolutionary theory meets
this criterion? To be sure, but they also share in common a major oversight,
namely that according to Popper genuine science makes strictly universal
propositions and that the making of singular existential propositions (like my
earlier Homo sapiens,Homo erectus, Homo habilisexample) is insufficient to
include that activity within the circumference of genuine science. Too many
biologists (and philosophers) are guilty of this oversight. Their typically
second-hand understanding of Popper's programme of demarcation has it
that mere falsifiability is the sufficient condition for genuine science. But as
we have seen and shall see again in the following section, this is a gross
misunderstanding, and their tacit subscription to Popper has the effect of
removing right from under their noses evolutionary biology from within the
circumference of genuine science. Their errors need to be corrected, but most
importantly Popper's. In the next section I will demonstrate that what Popper
has to say about singular existential propositions renders his programme of
 175

falsifiability incoherent, and, moreover, that once this defect is remedied,

modem evolutionary biology returns to its rightful place within genuine
science.

4. The fundamental incoherence in Popper's falsifiability

programme

Returning to The Logic Of Scientific Discovery, we ask: What kind of

statements, on Popper's programme, does genuine science make? The misin-
formed, misread reply is: in principle falsifiable statements. This reply, it turns
out, involves too much, and Popper's own answer is much more restricted.
But before examining Popper's answer, we should explore the various candi-
dates and determine what Popper has to say about them - an often difficult
and frustrating exercise, since Popper himself is sometimes far from clear on
their nature and status.
The first distinction we should note is between singular and universal
statements. It is evident that what Popper means by a singular statement is
a statement stating what he calls an initial condition. Indeed he makes this
connection at the bottom of page 59. Two examples he gives are "The weight
characteristic for this thread is 1 lb." and "The weight put on this thread
was 2 lbs." (p. 60). But we should also add to this that Popper means by a
singular statement "statements which relate only to certain finite regions of
space and time" (p. 63). For example, "Here is a black raven" (p. 85). Singular
statements also are used to refer to occurrences, as in "A glass of water has
just been upset here" (p. 89; cf. p. 90 n.2).
The next distinction we should notice is between what Popper calls strictly
universalstatements and numerically universal statements. Numerically uni-
versal statements are, according to Popper, not genuine universal statements.
Instead he says they are "equivalent to certain singular statements, or to
conjunctions of singular statements, and they will be classed as singular
statements here" (p. 62). One example he gives is the following statement:
"Of all human beings now living on the earth it is true that their height never
exceeds a certain amount (say 8 ft.)" (p. 62). The reason why this is not a true
universal statement, according to Popper, is because it refers to a finite class
of individuals which are spatiotemporally restricted and which can equally
be referred to "by a conjunction of singular statements" (p. 62).
On the other hand, a strictly universal statement refers to a class of objects
which are spatiotemporally unrestricted and which cannot equally be referred
to by a conjunction of singular statements. They are spatiotemporally unre-
stricted because they claim "to be true for any place and any time" (p. 62).
Moreover, they cannot be replaced by a conjunction of singular statements
176

because they are of the form of what he calls "an all-statement,i.e. a universal
assertion about an unlimited number of individuals" (p. 63). Returning to
Popper's thread example, an example of what he calls a strictly universal
statement is "Whenever a thread is loaded with a weight exceeding that which
characterizes the tensile strength of the thread, then it will break" (p. 60). That
this is truly an all-statement is clear, since it logically paraphrases into the
statement "All threads loaded with a weight exceeding its tensile strength
will break" (my paraphrase).
At this point, we may note Popper's concept of a law of nature. In Popper's
view a law of nature is not and cannot be a numerically universal statement
but is and can only be a strictly universal statement. This is not and cannot
be, however, simply because one is falsifiable and the other not. Popper does
not make this clear, but it is not only strictly universal statements which are
falsifiable; numerically universal statements are falsifiable as well, as is clear
if we think about Popper's example above. Moreover, we cannot say that
numerically universal statements merely describe (as a sort of shorthand)
while strictly universal statements prohibit and that this is why the latter
count as natural laws. Of course, Popper does indeed say that natural laws
are prohibitions and that this is why strictly universal statements are laws (cf.
p. 69). But what Popper does not make clear is that numerically universal
statements also prohibit. If they did not, they would not be falsifiable. And
they are clearly falsifiable. So that cannot be the criterion.
It turns out that a strictly universal statement, in Popper's view, can count
as a natural law, whereas a numerically universal statement cannot, because
the former sometimes (and at that implicitly) makes a statement about natural
necessity whereas the latter never does. This comes out in Popper's New
Appendix X, in his moa example which he uses in reply to William Kneale's
criticisms. Indeed this example serves to show that not all strictly universal
(synthetic) statements can count as laws of nature. Supposing, Popper says,
that we use the name "moa" not as a proper name but as a universal name
for a type of bird that happened to only have been instantiated for a while
on earth and is no longer instantiated (and never again will be), given that
none of the instantiated moas lived longer than fifty years, and given that they
could have easily lived up to roughly sixty under more favorable conditions,
it follows that the statement "All moas die before reaching the age of fifty"
(p. 427) is not only true but is a strictly universal statement. However, Popper
claims that this true, strictly universal statement is not a genuine law of nature
because "according to our assumptions, it would be possiblefor a moa to live
longer, and it is only due to accidental or contingent conditions - such as the
co-presence of a certain virus - that in fact no moa did live longer" (pp. 427-
428). Consequently, "I think that it is quite possible and perhaps even useful
 177

to speak of 'natural necessity' or of 'physical necessity', in order to describe

this character of natural laws, and of their logical consequences" (p. 428).
Now, it is clear that statements of natural or physical necessity are not
contained in numerically universal statements, even though they are not only
descriptive but also prohibitive, and this because they can be replaced by
a mere conjunction of singular statements. They therefore cannot serve as
statements of natural law.
Returning to the main text, it follows from the above analysis that the
following point no longer applies: "In any case, the question whether the laws
of science are strictly or numerically universal cannot be settled by argument.
It is one of those questions which can be settled only by an agreement or
a convention" (p. 63). Given Popper's analysis in his New Appendix X,
the difficulty concerning natural laws no longer resides in deciding between
numerically universal statements and strictly universal statement - that can
be decided by argument, as shown above. Now the difficulty concerning
natural laws resides in deciding between which strictly universal statements
are statements of natural law and which are not. And interesting, Popper in
his New Appendix X claims that it is possible to decide this in "a negative
way":
We can never know, of course, whether a supposed law is a genuine law or
whether it only looks like a law but depends, in fact, upon certain special
initial conditions prevailing in our region of the universe (Cf. section 79.)
We cannot, therefore, ever find out of any given non-logical statement
that it is in fact naturally necessary: the conjecture that it is remains a
conjecture forever (not merely because we cannot search our whole world
in order to ensure that no counter instance exists, but for the even stronger
reason that we cannot search all worlds that differ from ours with respect
to initial conditions.) But although our proposed definition excludes the
possibility of obtaining a positive criterion of natural necessity, we can
in practice apply our definition of natural necessity in a negative way: by
finding initial conditions under which the supposed law turns out to be
invalid, we can show that it was not necessary; that is to say, not a law
of nature. Thus, the proposed definition fits our methodology very well
indeed. [p. 433]
We should also note here that Popper excludes from natural laws metaphys-
ical and tautological statements. Interestingly, both involve strictly universal
statements. "All that exists are atoms and void" is spatiotemporally unre-
stricted as well as "All bodies are bodies." What excludes such statements
from being statements of natural law on Popper's view is that they both are, in
principle, not falsifiable. "The classes of potential falsifiers," he says, "of all
tautological and metaphysical statements are empty" (p. 116). Being unfal-
178

sifiable, they are without empirical content (cf. p. 113). And being without
empirical content, they can hardly be natural laws.
Returning to our original programme of discerning types of statements,
we turn now to a related distinction made by Popper, that between universal
concepts and individualconcepts. According to Popper universal concepts are
principally distinguished from individual concepts in that they (universal con-
cepts) "can be defined without the use of proper names" (p. 64). Employing
Popper's examples, "dictator," "planet," and "H 2 0" are "universal concepts
or universal names," while "Napoleon," "the earth," and "the Atlantic" are
"singular or individual concepts or names" (p. 64). More specifically, the
referents of universal concepts are spatiotemporally unrestricted, in that they
can occur anywhere and any time, while the referents of individual concepts
are spatiotemporally restricted. "The individual names," he says, "that occur
in the singular statements of science often appear in the guise of spatio-
temporal co-ordinates. This is easily understood if we consider that the appli-
cation of a spatiotemporal system of co-ordinates always involves reference
to individual names" (p. 64). We might also note here that according to Popper
both universal and individual concepts can be expressed not only with explicit
names but also with "general expressions" and "ostensive gestures" of some
kind (p. 65).
The significance and importance of this distinction for Popper's concept
of genuine science I will reserve for just a little later on. For the present I will
take note of Popper's fascinating remark that there is an ambiguity in ordinary
language concerning biological entities, both species taxa and higher taxa.
The ambiguity, claims Popper, is whether they are used as universal concepts
or individual concepts:
The use of the word 'mammals' as an example of a universal name might
possibly cause misunderstanding. For words like 'mammal', 'dog', etc.,
are in their ordinary use not free from ambiguity. Whether these words
are to be regarded as individual class names or as universal class names
depends on our intentions: it depends upon whether we wish to speak of a
race of animals living on our planet (an individual concept), or of a kind
of physical bodies with properties which can be described in universal
terms. [p. 65]
When Popper here uses the words "individual class names," his use is some-
what misleading. What he clearly has in mind is not really the idea of classes at
all but rather individual, historical entities with proper names. This certainly
appears to have become a very popular idea in biology today, with individual
species taxa as individuals and higher taxa as historical entities. That Popper
had this idea is evident in his moa example in his New Appendix X, in which
only for the sake of argument he decides "to use the name 'moa' as a universal
 179

name (rather than as a proper name; cf. section 14) of a certain biological
structure; .. ." (p. 427). (It is even more evident from his caterpillar statement
and his Darwin-and-Galton statement I quoted earlier from The Poverty of
Historicism.)Individuals with proper names, of course, are not classes, any-
more than you or I are classes. They are spatially restricted entities, with a
certain degree of cohesion, delimited temporally by roughly a beginning and
an end. As such, the concept of essentialism does not apply (Hull 1978). On
the other hand, the concept of essentialism does apply to universal concepts,
as with the universal concept gold (Rosenberg 1985). Popper, however, rejects
essentialism in either application, "For it entails the doctrine of the existence
of ultimate explanations; . .. " (p. 431). In this, however, not only is Popper
contradicted by the current literature (regarding concepts like gold), but the
alleged entailment does not follow: one may discover some of the necessary
(essential) properties of a particular natural kind without knowing, and with-
out ever knowing, all of the necessary properties which are jointly sufficient
for that natural kind. For instance, there may still be essential properties of
gold which have yet to be discovered. On this view, essentialism becomes
a reasonable methodological research programme (much like the search for
causal connections) and its rejection "unscientific."
To continue, there is one further type of statement we must discuss, and
that is what Popper calls basic statements. "What I call," he says, "a 'basic
statement' or a 'basic proposition' is a statement which can serve as a premise
in an empirical falsification; in brief, a statement of a singular fact" (p. 43).
More specifically a basic statement on Popper's view is a statement which
for some theory or other serves as what he calls a potential falsifier, the q
in modus tollens:
I propose the following definition. A theory is to be called 'empirical' or
'falsifiable' if it divides the class of all possible basic statements unam-
biguously into the following two non-empty subclasses. First, the class of
all those basic statements with which it is inconsistent (or which it rules
out, or prohibits): we call this the class of the potentialfalsifiersof the
theory; and secondly, the class of those basic statements which it does not
contradict (or which it 'permits'). We can put this more briefly by saying:
a theory is falsifiable if the class of its potential falsifiers is not empty.
[p. 86]
Now, a natural question arises: Is there any difference between basic
statements and what Popper elsewhere calls singular statements? It seems that
in some places Popper makes no distinction whatsoever. He says, for instance,
that "If we accept as true one singular statement which, as it were, infringes
the prohibition by asserting the existence of a thing (or the occurrence of an
event) ruled out by the law, then the law is refuted" (p. 69). Here singular
180

statements do indeed seem to be synonymous with basic statements. Again

on the very same page he says that "No singular statement (that is to say, no
'basic statement', no statement of an observed event) can contradict.. ." Again
elsewhere he says that "a singular statement (a basic statement) describes an
occurrence"(p. 88).
However, in spite of these passages, I suggest we ought not to make the
equivalence. For if we look at some of Popper's examples of singular state-
ments, it becomes obvious that some of them cannot ever serve as potential
falsifiers, and so cannot be basic statements. Returning to his thread exam-
ple, what theory could the singular statement "The weight put on this thread
was 2 lbs." possibly falsify? Indeed this rejection of equivalence between
singular statements and basic statements was later confirmed by Popper in his
1959 footnote to page 101 (note *1) in which he says that "singular statements
which can be deduced from purely universal statements cannot be basic state-
ments. ... The reason is that these instantial statements cannot play the role
of test statements (or of potential falsifiers) which is precisely the role which
basic statements are supposed to play."
We may conclude, I think, that in Popper's view all basic statements are
singular statements but not all singular statements are basic statements, which
is to say that the class of basic statements is included in the larger class of
singular statements.
We might also at this point discuss more fully the relationship between
strictly universal statements and basic statements. Popper points out that "The
negation of a strictly universal statement is always equivalent to a strictly
existential statement and vice versa" (p. 68). Using present-day quantification
logic and the square of opposition, we may express Popper's view using
modem notation. Accordingly, (x)(+x D ox), which is the form of strictly
universal propositions and which has no existential import, is contradicted
by (3x)(Ox · Ix), which is the form of existential propositions and which
reads: "There is at least one x such that .... " To make these two propositional
forms logically equivalent, we merely negate one of them. Thus, (x)(Ox D
Ox)=)-(3x)(+x Six), the right half of which reads: "It is not the case that
there is at least one x such that .... " Thus, as Popper says, "strictly universal
statements ... can be expressed in the form of negations of strictly existential
statements or, as we may say, in the form of non-existence statements (or
'there-is-not' statements)" (p. 69). Because of this logical equivalence, Popper
characterizes statements of natural law (which as we have seen are strictly
universal statements) as "proscriptions" or "prohibitions." "They do not
assert that something exists or is the case; they deny it.... And it is precisely
because they do this that they arefalsifiable" (p. 69). And we may add, what
 181

Popper does not, that it is precisely because they do this that they are not
verifiable.5
Equally important, it needs to be stressed that on Popper's view the more
a theory prohibits, the greaterits empirical content. Popper clearly does not
mean by "empirical" what perhaps the rest of us mean. According to Popper
an empirical statement or theory is not empirical in virtue of the existential
statements it entails, but rather in virtue of the existential statements it denies:
"the amount of empirical information conveyed by a theory, or its empirical
content, increases with its degree of falsifiability" (p. 113).
We are now in a position to answer our original question. What kind
of statements, according to Popper, does genuine science make? Certainly
not tautological statements, since "It is not truisms which science unveils"
(p. 431). Popper's answer turns out to be that genuine science makes (and is
demarcated by) strictly universal statements which are in principle falsifiable
and which are moreover statements of natural law. He says, for instance, "The
empirical sciences are systems of theories.... Scientific theories are universal
statements" (p. 59). Again: "Every application of science is based upon an
inference from scientific hypotheses (which are universal) to singular cases,
... " (p. 64). And again: "The theories of natural science, and especially what
we call natural laws, have the logical form of strictly universal statements; ... "
(pp. 68-69). And yet again: "To give a causal explanation of an event means
to deduce a statement which describes it, using as premises of the deduction
one or more universal laws, together with certain singular statements, the
initial conditions" (p. 59). To which we may add his 1959 footnote: "I feel
that I should say here more explicitly that the decision to search for causal
explanation is that by which the theoretician adopts his aim - or the aim of
theoretical science" (p. 61).
It should be added, most importantly, that this view was never explicitly
given up by Popper. As late as 1972 (or more properly 1979), it remains the
expressed view in Objective Knowledge (cf. Ch. 5, "The Aim of Science").
Having established this, we may now turn to what I claim is the funda-
mental incoherence in Popper's programme. The problem begins when once
we notice an inherent difficulty in Popper's writings on whether basic state-
ments (potential falsifiers) are empirical. We must, of course, always keep
in mind that for Popper the meaning of "empirical" is virtually synonymous
with "scientific" (cf. 1963:197), that any statement which is empirical is not
metaphysical and vice versa (cf. 1934:34), and that metaphysical statements
are explicitly defined as statements which are, in principle, not testable in the
sense of falsifiable (cf. 1934:266, 1963:197, and 1974:171).
On the one hand (returning to the Logic), Popper tells us that there are
"formal requirements for basic statements; they are satisfied by all singular
182

existential statements. In addition to these, a basic statement must also satisfy

a material requirement - ... This event must be an 'observable' event; that is
to say, basic statements must be testable, inter-subjectively, by 'observation'.
Since they are singular statements, this requirement can of course only refer
to observers who are suitably placed in space and time (a point which I shall
not elaborate)" (pp. 102-103). This accords with what he wrote a few pages
earlier, on the requirement of reproducibility for potential falsifiers: "non-
reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science.... We shall
take it [a scientific theory] as falsified only if we discover a reproducible
effect which refutes the theory" (p. 86). Returning now to where we just
left off, Popper continues by telling us that "any basic statement can again
in its turn be subjected to tests, ... This procedure has no natural end"
(p. 104). In order to avoid this infinite regress, the scientific community must
make what Popper calls "conventional decisions." "Every test of a theory,"
he says, "whether resulting in its corroboration or falsification, must stop
at some basic statement or other which we decide to accept. If we do not
come to any decision, and do not accept some basic statement or other,
then the test will have led nowhere" (p. 104). Where does this process stop
and a decision usually made? The answer, according to Popper, is not so-
called protocol sentences, statements about personal experiences, for after all
these are not inter-subjectively testable. Instead, "we stop at basic statements
which are easily testable" (pp. 104-105). This in turn leads Popper to say
that "From a logical point of view, the testing of a theory depends upon
basic statements whose acceptance or rejection, in its turn, depends upon our
decisions" (p. 108). And this in turn accounts for his statement earlier in the
text that "In point of fact, no conclusive disproof of a theory can ever be
produced" (p. 50).
Even on this view, however, modus tollens is still possible. Instead of -q
having a truth value (which it here cannot), Popper claims that a "conventional
decision" value (cf. p. 274) can take its place thereby effecting the operation
of the modus tollens.
At any rate, recalling that for Popper an empirical statement or theory is
not empirical in virtue of the existential statements it entails, but rather in
virtue of the existential statements it denies, it would clearly seem to follow
that all basic statements are empirical, since each of them entail the denial of
a set of existential statements. For example, the basic statement "This thread
broke," to return to his thread example, entails the denial of the existential
statements "This thread didn't break," "This thread stretched two inches,"
etc.
Now, on the other hand, we find that Popper quite often, I suggest, implies
in his text that basic statements, potential falsifiers, are not at all in prin-
 183

ciple testable and are therefore not empirical but metaphysical. He says, for
instance, "The statement, 'Here is a glass of water' cannot be verified by
any observational experience. The reason is that the universals which appear
in it cannot be correlated with any specific sense-experience" (p. 95). Ditto
for "This swan here is white" (p. 423). This, he says, is because the word
"swan" (though oddly he denies the same for the word "white") "transcends
experience - ... For by calling something a 'swan', we attribute to it properties
which go far beyond mere observation - almost as far as when we assert that
it is composed of 'corpuscles' " (p. 423).
In claiming that these singular statements cannot be verified, Popper does
not also claim that they cannot be falsified. He claims that they are indeed
in principle falsifiable: "For quite generally in assuming the truth [he is
here writing post-Tarski], or the falsity, of some test-statement, we can only
establish the falsity of the statement under test, but not its truth. The reason
is that the latter entails an infinite number of test statements" (p. 424 n.3).
To all of this we must now add what I believe to be the monkey wrench
in this whole system, namely Popper's theory-dependency-of-observation
view, which seems to me to entail that Popper's basic statements (potential
falsifiers) cannot in principle be empirical (testable). According to Popper,
all statements, whether universal or singular, strictly existential or basic,
transcend, to some degree, experience. He says in his 1972 Addendum to
the Logic that "'basic statements' are 'test statements': they are, like all
language, impregnated with theories" (p. 111). And more specifically, in his
New Appendix X he says that "Universal laws transcend experience, if only
because they are universal and thus transcend any finite number of their
observable instances; and singular statements transcend experience because
the universal terms which normally occur in them entail dispositions to behave
in a law-like manner, so that they entail universal laws (of some lower order
of universality, as a rule)" (p. 425).
Now, given this "transcendance," notice first what Popper has to say about
the verifiability of universal statements or laws: "every law transcends expe-
rience - which is merely another way of saying that it is not verifiable - ... "
(p. 424). Now notice what he immediately continues to say about singular
statements: "every predicate expressing law-like behaviour transcends expe-
rience also: this is why the statement 'this container contains water' is a
testable but non-verifiable hypothesis, transcending experience" (p. 424).
The upshot of Popper's theory-dependency-of-observation view is that
since basic statements, according to Popper, transcend experience, we must
really say (contra Popper) that basic statements are in principle neither veri-
fiable norfalsifiable. Any attempt either way entails, to use his words above,
"an infinite number of test statements." And if basic statements are in prin-
184

ciple neither verifiable nor falsifiable, they then surely cannot serve as the -q
in a modus tollens falsification. 6
In order to avoid all of these difficulties, I suggest, as a matter of practical
decision, a return to common sense - which Popper himself says he loves
anyway (cf. 1963:43). Statements such as "This container contains water,"
"Here is a glass of water," and "This swan here is white," are all of them, we
shall decide, in principle (in the normal empirical sense) both verifiable and
falsifiable. And either one of these is sufficient for them being empiricaland
not metaphysical.
This return to common sense has the added advantage that it removes
another serious difficulty inherent in Popper's programme, namely his rejec-
tion of strictly existential statements as not being empirical. We must
remember that in Popper's view even if a statement could be verifiable, it
would nevertheless not be empirical. Popper's sole criterion for a statement
to be empirical is that it must be falsifiable. Verifiability has nothing to do
with it. Thus, strictly existential statements (existential statements spatiotem-
porally unrestricted), such as "There are white ravens," are not empirical but
metaphysical: "On the basis of the criterion of demarcation here adopted I
shall therefore have to treat strictly existential statements as non-empirical
or 'metaphysical'" (p. 69). Why is "There are white ravens" not falsifi-
able? Because "We cannot search the whole world in order to establish that
something does not exist, has never existed, and will never exist" (p. 70).
Nevertheless Popper does claim that the strictly existential statement "There
are white ravens" is indeed verifiable (in a logical sense): "Whenever it is
found that something exists here or there, a strictly existential statement may
thereby be verified, or a universal one falsified" (p. 70). Though verifiable
(if only in a logical sense), it is still according to Popper not empirical. It is,
instead, metaphysical. Why? Because, as he says a little later, "the class of
its potential falsifiers is empty" (p. 90).
With an expanded concept of what is empirical as suggested above, strictly
existential statements such as "There are white ravens" are now, though
verifiable but not falsifiable, nevertheless empirical as well, since they meet
one of the two disjunctive sufficient conditions. This example, of course, may
seem trivial, until it is recognized that related statements such as "There are
positively charged electrons" 7 are now genuinely empirical (and therefore
scientific) statements, whereas before, by parity of reasoning with "There
are white ravens," we should be forced by Popper to conclude that they are
metaphysical (because unfalsifiable) and therefore unscientific.
A further advantage, more in line with the overall push of this paper,
is that we shall now include as empirical (and therefore as scientific) not
only universal statements but also singular statements, including historical
 185

statements and the statements typically found in evolutionary biology, such

as "Homo sapiens evolved roughly 200,000 years ago from Homo erectus
which in turn evolved roughly 1,500,000 years ago from Homo habilis."

5. Two problems in modern biology

I think it will be generally agreed that the above expansion of the concept of
what is empirical is much more in accord with the practice of actual science.
And with it, it hardly needs to be said, evolutionary biology and many other
higher level sciences fall clearly within the circumference of genuine science.
And yet it seems to me that some important problems in evolutionary biology
remain mainly metaphysical. In this final section I will briefly comment on
two such problems, the one very old and still ongoing, namely the species
problem, the other relatively quite new, namely the debate over the theory of
punctuated equilibria.
The species problem is the problem of determining whether biological
species are real, and, if real, the nature of their reality. It is generally agreed
that the word "species" in the biological sense is by itself ambiguous, and
may refer either to species as a category, a spatiotemporally unrestricted
class intensionally defined, or to species as taxa, the members of the species
category, and that the reality and nature of species taxa (if they are indeed real)
determines the definition of the species category (which however defined may
possibly be empty). What is less generally recognized is that the question of
the reality of species taxa is also ambiguous without a further distinction,
namely the distinction between horizontalspecies (species at a given slice of
time, where a slice is sufficiently short to bar macroevolution) and vertical
species (species over time, involving speciation and either real or pseudo-
extinction). (The two metaphors borrow from a further metaphor, namely the
now entrenched metaphor of the tree of life.) Much of the debate over the
reality and nature of biological species stems from the failure to recognize
this important distinction. If vertical species are real, then so must hori-
zontal species be real. But if vertical species are not real, that does not mean
that horizontal species are not real (any more than in the case of evolving
languages). Horizontal species may be real without being vertically real. But
clearly if horizontal species are not real, then neither are vertical species. To
affirm the unreality of biological species taxa, then, although one must affirm
both the unreality of vertical and horizontal species taxa, the issue comes
down to whether horizontal species taxa are real.
Now clearly, the thesis of Locke and others, insofar as it depended on
the thesis of the ahistorical Great Chain of Being, which included the thesis
of reproductive continuities, is not only falsifiable but falsified. The needed
186

missing links don't exist, reproductive discontinuities are the norm, and the
denial of the reality of horizontal species is not only naive but biologically
both misinformed and uninformed.
But now what of the nature of horizontal species? Again, it seems to me
that at least some of the solutions to this question are not only empirically
falsifiable but falsified. The view (virtually dead among modem biologists)
that species are abstractions in the sense of strictly essentialistic classes,
in the same sense as the chemical elements are classes, though clearly not
verifiable, is surely not only falsifiable but falsified (in the sense of precluded)
by the variety and strength of evidence which establishes modem evolutionary
theory (Rosenberg 1985: §7.2).
More contentiously, the fairly recent solution which says that species taxa
are not only concrete entities but individuals, although it greatly depends
on a stretched concept of concrete individuality, seems this time not only
verifiable in addition to being falsifiable, but falsified as well. On the species-
as-individuals view, the individuality of species is guaranteed by gene flow
of whatever degree (asexual species are precluded by definition). But many
asexual species (to provisionally use the term) are clearly "good" species
in the sense in which taxonomists use the word, which is to say that some
asexual species are more easily recognized than some sexual species and play
a clearer role in ecology and evolution, which strongly indicates that species
cohesion is often guaranteed by nonreproductive factors (Templeton 1989).
Moreover, even among sexual species, there is much evidence to conclude
that, though some species clearly fit the requirements, in many cases the
necessary gene flow is lacking, though not correspondingly the ability to
function as ecological, biological, and evolutionary units (Ehrlich and Raven
1969, Mishler and Donoghue 1982).
Although the above proposed solutions to the species problem seem
mainly empirical, other solutions seem fundamentally conceptual and there-
fore metaphysical. The abstraction view which conceives species taxa as
loosely essentialistic cluster classes, though perhaps applicable to good
species, suffers from a degree of arbitrariness in defining particular sets of
cluster characteristics. The abstraction view which conceives species taxa as
classes of inhabitants of ecological niches suffers even greater difficulties.
Not only is the concept of ecological niche controversial and notoriously
difficult to define, such that some biologists would have the concept elimi-
nated altogether (cf. Griesemer 1992), but however defined, it suffers from
an empirical/logical difficulty. Many polymorphic species are clearly multi-
niched. The larval stages of Lepidoptera, for example, occupy very different
niches from those of their corresponding adult stages. The same is true (though
less radically) for many sexually dimorphic species. Perhaps, then, we could
 187

take a conjunctive approach, determining any given species taxon by the

niche or niches it occupies and taking confidence in the competitive exclu-
sion principle. The problem now is that we are presupposing the boundary
of the species and inferring from that boundary the niche or niches, whereas
what is wanted is the reverse if we are to avoid being arbitrary.
Although some of the possible solutions to the species problem are
apparently empirical while others are apparently metaphysical, the species
problem itself, along with its ultimate solution, although it involves much
that is empirical, seems to me fundamentally metaphysical, since it conforms
neither to the inductive nor hypothetico-deductive conceptions of science.
It is not inductive, because purely inductive procedures will invariably lead
one to a variety of species concepts, depending upon which organisms one
studies (Mishler and Donoghue 1982:123). And it is not hypothetico-
deductive, because it is a curious feature of the species problem that one
or even a number of contrary examples fail to refute a species theory.8
Turning now to the second problem I wish to discuss, the debate over
punctuated equilibria, I suggest that this theory and the debate surround-
ing it are essentially metaphysical. Darwinian evolution, as we all know, is
the theory which contends that all species evolve gradually over enormous
periods of time from previous species and principally by the mechanism of
natural selection. The evidence in favor of this theory, of course, at least for
the first half of it (with the exception of polyploidy), is overwhelming, so
much so that virtually all scientists today consider it a fact and not a theory.
One of the problems with it, however, is that the geological strata do not
directly support it. Instead of finding a smooth sequence of change in the
fossil remains of species through the geological strata, in by far most cases
we find gaps, suggesting rapid change, followed by long periods of very
little change. Although Darwin recognized various rates of evolution, he felt
compelled to stress extreme gradualism, so that he and many others after
him dismissed the above feature of the fossil record as a predictable result
due to the inherent imperfection of fossil records. More recently (from 1954
on) Ernst Mayr attempted to explain the gaps as a consequence of what he
calls peripatric speciation (Mayr 1988:415, 461). But it was not until 1972,
when the two paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould put
forward their theory of punctuated equilibria, that the debate really began.
According to Eldredge and Gould, the fossil records are actually much more
reliable than hitherto thought. On their view, most of the lifetime of a species
is characterized by stasis (stability), whereas evolutionary speciation events
occur rather rapidly (roughly between 5,000 and 50,000 years - and princi-
pally by natural selection), so that the gaps in the fossil records are indicative
of these speciation events. Eldredge and Gould also conjecture that species
188

actually genetically resist natural selection pressure up to a point, in favor of

stasis, after which, when the pressure exceeds that point, speciation becomes
involved. Richard Dawkins (1986:247) claims that this latter genetic point is
in principle testable and that it is in fact falsified by the evidence of selec-
tive breeding. I suggest, however, (and Dawkins does not address this point)
that the central conjecture of punctuated equilibria is neither verifiable nor
falsifiable and is therefore metaphysical. All evidence and predictions are in
the rocks, and it all depends upon how one decides to read the rocks. Con-
sequently the rocks neither confirm nor disconfirm the central conjecture of
punctuated equilibria. 9
Interestingly, in Eldredge and Gould's paper this empirical difficulty is
evident but insufficiently stressed. They admit that "we recognize that there
is little hard evidence to support either view" (p. 207) and that "the data of
paleontology cannot decide which picture is more adequate" (p. 208). The
chief merit of their theory, they immediately claim, is that it "is more in
accord with the process of speciation as understood by modem evolutionists"
(p. 208). But this latter statement is something of a red herring, for it is
surely significant that the evolutionist whose theory of speciation they most
relied on (namely Mayr) largely denigrated their theory and subsumed it
under Darwinism (Mayr 1988:ch. 26). The bottom line is that the central
conjecture of punctuated equilibria (as a theory of natural history) is not
only not verifiable from the paleontological evidence (and no other evidence
applies) but is also for the same reason not falsifiable. It turns out that how
one reads the rocks all depends upon one's preconceived theories, and it is
between those preconceived theories that the debate exists.l°

Notes
Cf. Otto Neurath (1932/1933): "The Vienna Circle devotes itself more and more to the
task of expressing unified science (which includes sociology as well as chemistry, biology as
well as mechanics, psychology - more properly termed 'behavioristics' - as well as optics)
in a unified language, and with the displaying of the inter-connections of the various sciences
which are so often neglected; so that one may without difficulty relate the terms of any science
to those of any other" (pp. 207-208).
2 This point is too often neglected or overlooked. Elisabeth Lloyd (1988), for example, has
recently argued that Popper (among others) failed to distinguish between "evolutionary stories
and the mechanisms involved in evolution" and that this failure was responsible for Popper's
(and others) "dismissal of evolutionary theory as a 'real' scientific theory" (p. 4). However, as
we have just seen and shall see further, I don't think this criticism is justified, at least in the
case of Popper. His errors lay elsewhere.
3 As this statement suggests, as well as his Darwin-and-Galton statement I quoted earlier, and
as we shall see more fully later in §4, particularly with his moa example in the Logic, Popper
certainly thought that biological species may be thought of as spatiotemporally restricted,
cohesive, concrete individuals. Nevertheless, to keep the record straight, it must be noted that
credit for the thesis that species are in fact (and may not be merely thought of as) concrete
 189

individuals must go to Michael Ghiselin (Ghiselin 1966), which he later elaborated upon
(Ghiselin 1974) and which was further developed by the philosopher David Hull (Hull 1978).
Except for the absence of conspecific laws, the many implications of the individuality thesis
seem to have entirely escaped Popper's notice.
4 Indeed Popper's principles, in The Logic of Scientific Discovery at any rate, seem to me,
at least, far more prescriptive than descriptive. This seems especially evident in his various
methodological rules and in his rejection of induction (cf. pp. 52-53).
5 Of course, Popper's own reason why statements of natural law cannot in principle be verified
is that their verification would require the impossible task of an infinite number of observations
(cf. p. 63).
6 My somewhat unconventional limited acceptance (or limited unacceptance) of the theory-
dependency-of-observation view is partly fueled by a particular insight of Bertrand Russell
(1940), namely, "That there must be a pure datum is, I think, a logically irrefutable consequence
of the fact that perception gives rise to new knowledge" (p. 124), as well as by something
Irving M. Copi (1954) once wrote, namely, "It seems to me that if a philosophy denies the very
possibility of scientific knowledge, then so much the worse for that philosophy" (p. 186).
We may also make a more empirical appeal. For example, how is it that New Guinea
tribesmen, living in a Stone Age culture, delimit almost precisely the same species of birds on
their island as Western naturalists (cf. Mayr 1988:317)? To reply, as some have (e.g., Mishler
and Donoghue 1982:133), that it is because both sets of observers are conspecific, misses
the point. What is so telling is not that both sets of observers are conspecific, but that they
have very different interests. And yet, not accidentally, they have produced virtually identical
results.
In short, if we are to have objective knowledge at all, it must be the case that we can receive
theory-independent data. (It must also be the case that falsification presuppose verification.)
It may still be the case that scientific theories entail logically prior theories and interests, but
this need only mean that objective results cannot be obtained without prior interests, not that
objective verifications (and falsifications) are impossible. As examples of verified scientific
theories, I would include the heliocentric solar system, plate tectonics, and speciation by
polyploidy, to name but a few.
Cf. Kneale (1974:206-207), wherein essentially the same point has been made, and which
is interestingly ignored in Popper's reply.
8 That the species problem is fundamentally conceptual and therefore metaphysical is perhaps
best highlighted by the fact that it is ultimately a matter of decision whether the extinction of
species is necessarily forever. It would be both interesting and fun to listen to and to watch the
principals of the various solutions to the species problem together in a viewing of the movie
JurassicPark.
9 Incidentally, the existence of so-called "living fossils" cannot be appealed to as favorable
evidence, since, as Raup (1991) has pointed out, "in none of the examples is the living species
the same as the fossil species" (p. 41).
'0 This paper has benefited greatly from the comments and criticisms of Professor Ian C.
Jarvie of York University in Toronto and three anonymous referees (including Tom Settle
and Michael Ghiselin) for Biology &Philosophy. The mistakes and misconceptions that have
remained are entirely my own.

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