Popper Essay 3

As it is known by now, I am strictly against positivism. Mainly because I did not believe that
science itself could be verified. Hence, I stood against metaphysics in general because I did
not believe it could be verified. In my opinion, the concept of metaphysics is a set of theories
that cannot be verified. Some of these theories are not even observable. Scientific theories
that include concepts that are not open for observation have provable consequences, there
they should not be considered as metaphysical. In Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory
of Knowledge, I briefly talked about metaphysics according to the demarcation criterion. I
opposed the positivists' version on demarcation criterion, which is based on verification
principle. Frankly, I resented the Marxism theories, along with Freudian psycho-analysis
theories, and individual psychology by Adler. I felt like they bore a resemblance to astrology
rather than the science of physics. I have been reproached for my falsification theory. But I
simply regard it as truth; theories are made to be proven false. This is why I don’t consider
these theories as either scientific or theoretical, but I am sure they are indisputable, and
therefore, nonscientific. For the purpose of demarcating these pseudo-sciences, I much rather
postulate that the criterion of a theory is its falsifiability, testability, and refutability, not how
negligible their possibility of being proved by science is.

I think a concept that falls under metaphysics is the ether theory, since it was not an
observable science, therefore no deductions can be made. This theory is not testable or
verifiable, it is just a thought. This thought does not make ether meaningless, however, it also
does not justify the idea. The ether theory might have seemed questionable to some scientists.
It asserts a certain amount of believability but nothing more. In actuality, the ether hypothesis
had provided some explanations for some phenomena which had otherwise remained
unexplained. Yet even the best explanations could not eliminate the fact that it had been
invented just for that. No one was able to ever make the ether visible. This hypothesis was
created to explain the phenomena of visible light. It was like inventing an entirely new
substance that dodged observation just to explain physical phenomena, sort of like winging it,
it seemed unscientific. Empirical theories must be open to empirical criticism. We can
believe they are correct if they were not refuted by any experiment, but we can never
verify them. The problem of the ether theory is not only in verifying the existence of ether
but also the refutability of the theory.

It is safe to say that the luminous ether was a topic that was argued for a long period of time.
In the 4th century, Aristotle started this long discussion with a description. He described
ether
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as an element which is placed above the air and weighs less than air. He also added that air
was lighter than water and water is lighter than earth, and each element returns to their place
whenever they are displaced. This statement explains why air rises, and why water and earth
fall. I personally see Aristotle as a positivist which opposes me. He allows change as an
improvement, whereas I consider all changes as degeneration. Centuries later, Robert Boyle
proposed a hypothesis, which stated that ether contained subtle particles and those particles
explained the absence of vacuum and also mechanical interactions between elements. To be
frank, I like Boyle’s approach because of his chemist nature. He is open to experiment and
welcomes other scientists to prove his work right or wrong. Boyle was partly against
Aristotle’s four-element concept because he thought this statement was an improvement
based on an unproved concept. Christiaan Huygens made a connection between ether and the
wave theory of light, which was big at that time. He stated that light was made of waves and
that light radiates ether. Isaac Newton seemingly agreed with this connection and claimed
that an ether medium was responsible for diffraction. It is interesting to see two scientists
with different approaches towards light agree on the concept of ether. Newton is a very
reliable scientist so him agreeing on the existence of ether may cause some scientists to
believe in the existence of ether. Up to now, ether has caught more attention from different
scientists. Afterwards, Thomas Young and Augustin-Jean Fresnel assumed that light was like
sound waves that it consists of longitudinal waves and the ether was a fluid, but it was just an
assumption since the particle theory explained the polarization so it was favorable, what
Young and Fresnel then did is take my falsification theory, they abandoned their previous
assumptions and started working on transverse waves rather than longitudinal, for their
system to work the ether should have enough rigidity for the forces to oppose the distortion
created by waves. I find it brave to abandon your initial assumptions and suggestions to come
up with new ideas to make your model work.

In the 19th century, scientists considered ether as a medium that transmits light waves. As it
can be seen, Huygens and Newton certainly took part in this influence. Even though scientists
can use what they know and add up to it, I think it is a blind and biased approach towards
ether theory. Because by the time the 19th century began, it was already assumed that ether
does exist. After Young and Fresnel, who sided with the existence of ether, James Bradley
with his famous stellar aberration joined alongside them. He argued that an ether medium is
not disturbed by the waves moving through it. Another argument that supported ether was the
polarization which suggested that the matter drags ether along in its surroundings and/or in its
 Popper Essay 3

interior. He tried to support the latter argument with a demonstration ether dragging near the
earth. He observed that starlight coming towards was bent in a direction opposite to
predictions from ether theory. Bradley’s experiment, in my opinion, is a good example of
how a theory can be falsified. Despite his intentions, he got to experience the falsification
process in some way. Armand Fizeau used Fresnel’s formula to measure light fringes of a
moving body of water. He did not see any effect due to the Earth’s motion, which is a strong
evidence against ether dragging. Martinus Hoek attempted to improve Fizeau’s theory
with an interferometer experiment. He also does not see any effect and is unable to
explain why his and Fizeau’s experiments did not match. George Biddell Airy also had a
hard time recognizing any effects whatsoever. Airy tried Bradley’s experiment using a
telescope filled with water, and ended up with the thought of ether not being dragged by any
mass.

Albert Abraham Michelson experimented with ether drag, but he measured tiny distances
instead of enormous bodies with an interferometer. Despite his approach, Michelson failed to
find any ether drag that slowed down the light. The very first explanation about this
experiment was that there was ether which resulted the waves in accumulating, also the speed
of the accumulated waves was relative to the ether, in other meanings, according to
Michelson’s theory you are able to calculate the speed of the earth’s movement through the
ether by measuring the light’s speed that goes in different directions. After acknowledging
his errors in calculations, detected by Hendrick Antoon Lorentz, Michelson reached out to
Edward Morley and formed one of the most famous experiments in the history of physics
with Morley. Michelson’s initial approach was falsified, proving that it was scientific. In the
famous Michelson-Morley experiment, scientists observed a drift that was too small to
support any theories about ether. They thought it might have been an experimental error.
Both Michelson and Morley had a series of experiments and no matter what direction they
measured they had always measured the same speed, it had seemed like the earth was not
moving through the ether at all that there were so many attempts to explain this, they even
supposed that the earth was disfigured as it moved through ether. Since they could not
explain this situation properly, they came up with the null result. Null result was later
explained by George Fitzgerald by stating that it occurred because of the changes in the
directions that travel through ether.

On the whole a good paper. However You make the assumption as I noted that the ether theory was not
a scientific theory. It was. Eventually it had to be replaced.
8/10
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16/20