Excellent video. Popper was one of the best philosophers of the 20th century. His contributions to philosophy and science are incredible. Makes me wish there was a Nobel Prize for Philosophy.
Thank you so much for the reading. Being dyslexic, I find it hard to concentrate on texts. Always preferred audios, so this has really helped. Thanks again mate
One of the most important individuals for the evolution of science. Since I first read Popper's work, I've gained a whole new perspective of science and truth. Great reading Conc
@klutterkicker It's a valid criticism, but I just don't have time to re-record, re-edit and produce this video a second time. I did my best in editing to clean it up. My microphone is failing, so my brief attempt at re-recorded patches ended up with more glitches. It'll get better.
I love the fact that all science is subjective that everything has a supposition that nothing is correct and that the science is about creating new and better methods and asking new an more potent questions.
That is good. This honestly makes me reconsider parts of my world view. I don't think there are many essays/videos who have as strong of an impact on me as this one.
15:16 is where stuff starts to get pretty chaotic. I took a philosophy of science course around the year of 2010. Unfortunately, I had other studies to focus on. However, I am coming back to Karl Popper after many years. And there is a lot of concern around whether or not modern science is a garbage illusion of predetermined actions. I've hypothesized that free-will would be necessary for any real science or knowledge to exist.
@Fenyxfire I suppose it really doesn't, or didn't until a bit later when people started making mathematical models of what real life traits (flight speed of birds for example) would have to be, if we propose a certain trait is evolved to maximize a certain fitness component (quickest travel time vs. most energy efficient travel speed etc.). At that point it becomes testable and falsifyable (if flight speed isn't as predicted, the fitness component isn't the one being selected for).
@itsjustameme ... So you could pick something like the large hadron collider or the very large telescope. And then analyze what ideas were needed to make it and get it to work, and how many of these are old ones, new ones, or significantly modified old ones. And how that relates to the amount of smart people working specifically for that one project. A pattern should emerge, then make the prediction that the pattern will also appear when looking at sth else, like SpaceShipOne.
Earnst Cassirer Esays on Man deals with the limitations of each study in a similar way to Popper's thinking. Glad someone is posting Popper's work. Thanks much
Thanks for the upload, Concordance, but I think it should be noted that many of Popper's ideas have been thoroughly discredited by his colleagues. He claimed that induction did not work and that there was no way to confirm a scientific theory (only to "corroborate" it). If this were the case, then there would be no way of choosing between using a bridge design that had been tested for 50 years and a bridge design that had not been tested at all...
It would be great if this video could be redone with the things and events Karl Popper is going into depth about. That would make this an excellent video. However, I really enjoy this audiocast of the Karl Popper work.
@Spinobreaker Seems a little vague. How is exploding a weakness? What is the exact relationship between weakness and power? How do you measure the two? Without some precision how are you going to make accurate predictions? Without accurate predictions what is the use of your theory?
@sicoticosandro Remember that his framework doesn't address the "accuracy" of the theories, only whether or not they are scientific. Some of Marx's predictions take the risk of being "incompatible with observation", which makes them scientific, and others do not. That's the only criteria for demarcation, according to Popper: falsifiable predictions.
@biznor3 "If this were the case, then there would be no way of choosing between using a bridge design that had been tested for 50 years and a bridge design that had not been tested at all..." You obviously don't understand. From Popper's perspective there is a distinction between the two. It's just that there is no guarantee (and can never be any guarantee) that the bridge that has been tested for 50 years won't collapse tomorrow.
@Yony42 how do you test fitness traits of extinct species? you dont least that's sort of illustrative of what mayr seems to be saying but im just not sure if i were at home i would pull quotes from the book i will when i get there
In the light of this video I would like to hear your opinion on the meme theory. While near if not completely impossible to prove it's explanatory power is amazing and I feel that learning about the theory has opened my eyes to a lot of explanations about how the world works. But the framework of it as it is defined means that just about anything can be explained or explained away using the theory. What's your take on it?
You sound like Christian Bale when playing Patrick Bateman. Good read. The CriticalG has also read this, but I think your reading is clearer and more relaxed.
Recommended: "A Pocket Popper" (Fontana Pocket Readers) Edited by David Miller. Blurb: "David Miller once Popper's research assistant, has chosen thirty excerpts from Popper's non-technical writings. Together they illustrate the breadth, profundity and originality of Sir Karl's contribution to human learning" [Pub 1983]
@itsjustameme How would i test it? Just like evolution has been tested before we were able to directly observe it in the lab, in bacteria or fruit flies. By studying reality and analyze if everything fits the pattern that should be there if meme theory is true. I suggest studying different technological breakthroughs, and look at how many of these ideas are re-applied old ideas and how many of the ideas are new or have been changed significantly.
There is a short video in which Feynman explains the scientific method. Is his explanation based on Popper's work? To me, as someone who is not an expert, it seems to be.
I really enjoyed this. Although it seems pretty evident to people used to the scientific method, it can be worryingly overlooked. There is one thing though. Just because a theory does match 100% of the evidence doesn't mean it is unfalsifiable. As long as evidence could be found that would refute it. This is something people mistake about evolution - they mistake it for unfalsifiable, only because the evidence for it is so overwhelming.
@TheSkyIsSideways I wondered if you were confusing the two. Andrew Wiles is certainly a fascinating figure, but it's unclear to me why you think he'd make a fitting subject for one of C0nc0rdance's videos.
I've heard that Karl Popper's ideas do away with the problem of induction but I haven't been able to wrap my brain around why yet. Can anyone help me out?
@AlwaysSunni Great! This sounds like a great challenge. Find an astrologist willing to play along. Get them to make a blinded prediction about a person given a certain birth date. Make sure it's a factual, objective prediction that is "risky"... couldn't easily be predicted by other models of human behavior and incompatible with other explanations. Present them with the failure and see what they do. Do they discard the theory? It's not unlike the Randi $1M Challenge.
heres a conept, i think u might find interesting. Its very simple, and i created it when i was working on a story i wrote in high school. "The greatest weekness to every power is the power itself" ie a stars power comes from fusing elements, but eventually itll explode as a result... ok oversimplification yes, but the point is still valid. Ive been trying to find something since then that broke that rule and im yet to find anything... I was wondering what ur thoughts on this concept are?
If a friend helps you ten times. 11th time he refuses. You forget the ten times he helped. And you were never friends. According to his 'Science as falsification' - When applied to human behaviour.
@AlwaysSunni 1) The experiment must rise to the level of validity sufficient to overturn theory. If it does, then you *do* have to do something about the theory. 2) If such a theory isn't discarded its usually only because there is not yet something to replace it. Anomalies demand characterization. The real issue with anomalies is knowing *why* they are anomalous, and Popper's whole point is that you have include within that the possibility that the underlying theory is false.
@PaperSoapy That's OK I could have been clearer myself about what the problem I had with your statement was. You're right though that (in general) the most vocal atheists *tend* to claim to be more reasonable despite *some* showing a distinct lack of reason. But your problem is with those individuals and we should be prepared to call them out on it despite them being 'on our side'.
Anyone still know/have the link to the video lecture explaining probability of observations? Examples used were lightballs in the sky, with them being caused by say meteors, airplanes, and aliens. Later applied to religions also, with the likelyhood of people 'rising' from the dead being actually dead, or just suspended etc. For the life of me I cant find this video again and I need it badly! If you remember, you'd brighten my day!
Thank you for this video. Two men are responsible for my sorry layman ass knowing how to spot pseudoscience at a glance - Richard Feynman and Karl Popper. Feynman is very famous, but hardly anyone has heard of Popper, and this needs to be addressed - as a philosopher of science, he made no great scientific discoveries, but his influence on the whole of science is enormous. He expressed complex ideas in plain language, the hallmark of someone who wants to be understood. Thanks again.
Oh Hume's problem of induction you mean. So I take it that you were not satisfied by Kant's answer? ;) To be honest with you though, I think that Popper's definition of science does solve the problem, since for him science is all about deducing models and then attempting to falsify them.
@AlwaysSunni I think those are problems of underdetermination. Yes, they problems for Popper too, but they're problems no matter what methodology you use.
ive been reading ernst mayr's work regarding the autonomy of biology and he seems to be elucidating something of a refutation of some of popper's stuff especially concerning falsification Have you encountered it? because he seems to be saying that evolutionary biology specifically as a historically oriented comparative science doesnt quite fit into popper's philosophy and i am a bit confused *sigh*
@Fenyxfire Well that's my point, I think evolutionary biology can probably not be classed as 'scientific' according to Popper, I'm memerly pointing our that recent advents which seek to *predict* rather than just describe do conform to falsifiability. At that point, you can create falsifiable hypotheses about evolutionary forces principles. I'm not certain what exactly mayer is talking about though and I'd be happy to know exactly what his point is. I'm just saying I probably agree.
thank you for doing what you do, i absolutely love your videos. I watch the 'relativity of wrong video at least once a week. I have nothing but respect and admiration for your total and unwavering dedication towards the truth and unbiased presentation of the facts. Thanks..please don't go.
I gotta say, as someone who used to be a marxist, Popper is absolutely right about the way any event can be made to fit the theory. I'm not say all marxists think that way, but I certainly did, and I bet most do.
Thanks again for making these. The end of that speech was crazy dense. Also, are there recordings of the original authors making these speeches? Maybe you could mix their readings with yours in a video. ^^
@PaperSoapy Do you have any recommendations for books to further my understanding of critical thinking? I've long thought I should read about logic, fallacies and such, but I dunno where to begin. You present yourself as fairly knowledgable, so I reckon you have some insights?
@chrisbigred1 Yes, you can! That's part of its beauty. You need only establish that something can be shown true to a greater level of certainty in an objective sense than something that is falsifiable, while not being deductively true (i.e., mathematical or logical tautologies don't count). This would demonstrate that there was a standard higher than falsification and in fact falsify the claimed supremacy of falsification. Your move. :)
@kurtilein3 Ooh, Feynman! I've watched several videos of him on youtube, and he's a really fun listen :) I've also heard of Michael Shermer... isn't he the founder of Skeptic's Magazine or something like that? At any rate, going into my book-list. Thanks!
@AlwaysSunni What he calls unscientific is a theory that predicts everything using ad hoc explanations to remain "valid" or getting reinterpreted for the same reason, when it should be properly fixed or trashed instead. Ad Hoc is a logical fallacy. The result is an "explanation" which is not very coherent, does not really "explain" anything at all, and which has no testable consequences - even though to someone already inclined to believe it, it certainly looks valid.
@itsjustameme (cont) Your airbus example reminds me of that guy who says that peanutbutter disproves evolution because every once in a while new life forms should spontaneously arise in such a jar. Can you point to a fundamental difference between that and your argument? While psychoanalysis seems intuitively right the problem with it is that it's unfalsifiable. Anything can be explained or explained away with it. And the same goes for the meme theory.
here is the problem I am having with this line of reasoning. I agree Freud and others where not scientific, but what I did not get is are you trying to say all psychology is not scientific. If so why? It seems to me (admiring my psychologists bias) that neuropsychology and cognitive psychology have become sciences.
Ha. I don't know. I guess he realized that we don't say 'green apple, green apple, all apples are green.' But the other problem is 'how do we know the laws of nature won't magically change'.
What about the other extreme, when a real science is taken to be pseudoscience? (like genetics was in USSR.) What could be done to prevent a real science from being mocked as "fake"?
Amazing, its like a chess variation, we theorise about the algorithm and then use logic to subject the algorithm to falsification and determine its efficacy.
Agreed. Aplhazero is throwing out inductive handicaps out the window and humiliating our algorithms. Perhaps metatruth is beyond our physical limitations and evolution is in order
@CitizenOccidens But in the case of IQ-comparisons there needs to be a causal factor. You could as well compare the average IQ's of people that drive blue cars with people that drive red cars, and get a significant difference. Remember, that when the Human Genome Project finished their complete mapping of the human genome they found that there is no "clear genetic basis to racial groups". I think the belief that there is a basis is the racism Popper is referring to in this text.
I think Popper is mistaken here, though, he is onto an important point. The criteria that should be chosen is the specificity of a fact as it relates to a theory. When a fact only fits specifically for a certain theory, it is also the case that it does not fit in other theories and thus we get the falsifiability. We run into problems, however, if we reverse this and suggest falsifiability is the criteria. The most obvious example would be things which are necessarily true (i.e. unfalsifiable).
Thanks for your comment. I am wondering if you could distinguish what Popper calls the _riskyness_ of a prediction from what you are referring to as specificity. I believe what you are talking about as specificity would be relevant to the power of a theory, whereas this piece is addressing the demarcation of a theory as scientific. These matters are clearly intertwined as a theory requires a some minimum level of power to be scientific. Here is the text which the video is based on if that helps at all: www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html This reading is an excerpt from his book _Conjectures and Refutations_ which was about empirical science; hence the reference to things that are necessarily true would not be applicable. The importance of falsifiability becomes clearer in the larger context of the book. Briefly, it is a response to the position that empirical scientific theories must be verifiable. The Popperian position counters, correctly I believe, that scientific theories are essentially make a universal statement about the world that _All X are Y,_ and as you can never observe every instance of _X_ to see if _Y_ follows, we can only conjecture _All X are Y_ and try to refute the statement. My understanding anyway. Cheers Mate
***** He's talking about theories. If you just want to make a distinction defining "scientific" theories as falsifiable, but other theories are just as valid, then that's fine. I just don't see the point when we can apply the same criterion of specificity of evidence to both types of theories. It seems to me Popper was trying to distinguish between defective theories and effective ones; not just make an arbitrary distinction. I mean, let's get to the meat of the reason atheist here use falsification. If I propose God exists, then an atheist wants me to propose a certain test where, in that case, God does not exist. Because God exists in all possible worlds, there is no case we can test for where God does not exist. That doesn't make God a bad theory equivalent to fairies. It just means God isn't in the arbitrary category of "scientific" theories.
***** "My god exists in all possible worlds" is structured as an untestable claim. It takes zero risk of being falsified. The statement "prayers to my god can regrow this amputated limb" is very testable and risky. How about: "This holy statue can be demonstrated to be weeping real blood"? "Divine action can be demonstrated to be the best explanation for this apparent imprint of a Jewish messiah on my toast/tortilla chip/stain on my mattress" "Christians can be demonstrated to be less likely to commit crimes per capita when compared with non-theists" I would propose that falsification is generally most useful in fields where predictions about the observed world are to be made. For example, I can test the hypothesis that "seismographic activity will correlate to earthquakes" or "patients who dream of losing their teeth will have underlying fears of impotency" or even "between 40 and 50% of people will vote against this bill". Most theologians have abandoned the idea of testable claims... because they were always falsified on further inspection. All that is left are non-physical, untestable claims. I was once swayed by Stephen Jay Gould's NOMA idea, but then I realized that primitive Christian theology made a number of claims that over time were discarded. That is, it isn't that Judeo-christians have always believed in a non-physical, immaterial god... it's that all the interesting material claims are no longer plausible and therefore abandoned. See: Noah's Ark, Tower of Babel, Abraham and the burning bush, etc.
C0nc0rdance _"an untestable claim"_ Perhaps not in your sense of testable, but in the sense of being able to determine the truth of the claim, God's existence is certainly testable. For example, Aquinas' first way uses the existence of motion to prove the existence of God and his third way uses the existence of contingent of things to prove the existence of God. Of course, you may disagree with these arguments, but it is in principle possible prove the existence of necessary truths. For less controversial examples consider proving a triangle has angles which sum to 180 degrees, or that 1+1=2. There is no way to falsify these claims because there is no case where they could be wrong. That doesn't mean we should reject these necessary truths. On another note, in the case of necessary truths, one could falsify my claim by finding a contradiction in the terms. For example, if someone was to say a triangle has angles which sum to 140 degrees, I could show them that this leads to a contradiction and thus is false. This is true of everything, however, (including magical fairies) so I don't think this is the kind of falsification Popper has in mind. Just, fyi, from the beginning of Christianity, the understanding of God has been as Immaterial: "Look for Him who is above all time, eternal and invisible" - St. Ignatius of Antioch (35 CE - 107 CE) This idea came from philosophy more than anything. Most people in those days still worshiped the greco-roman gods, so it wasn't like they got tired of those pesky atheists disproving God's existence. It comes from the philosophy around God being the creator of the universe.
***** You are thinking of something different from what possible worlds mean to philosophers. It means exactly that you cannot imagine circumstances in which that claim is false. (source: I took an introduction to logic course in college).
@kurtilein3 I'm not sure I completely agree. The meme theory does indeed seem self authenticating. But it is so encompassing that it is quite hard to falsify. Your airbus example I find is silly - the scenario is quite unlikely to happen and this should be quite obvious even to someone who does not know the theory. If you watched the video a good test of a theory should be a bit risky in order to be convincing. There's no chance of it ever happening - so it's no proof that it doesn't. (cont)
@Bunji2k6 Read good science books, they are awesome for critical thinking. Or read books by skeptics that apply critical thinking. I think in this case, practise trumps theory. Examples: Michael Shermer - why people believe strange things Simon Singh - the big bang Bill Bryson - a short history of nearly everything And, a really fun one, showing how a most brilliant mind works in everyday life: Richaed Feynman - surely youre joking Mr. Feynman
I don't get the word usage. On the one hand falsifiable means to be proven false. On the other falsifiability means to not be able to be proven false. Why is that.
synon9m falsifiability does not mean that it's able to be proven false. It claims that scientific theories are the ones that can conflict with some possible outcome. Even if we find a conflict, that does not prove the theory is false.
Drew thank you. If I may, I thought "falsification", according to Popper, simply meant that when a scientific principle has been successfully and repeatedly tested, it is not necessarily true. Instead it was merely not proved false, yet. Emphasis on yet. So in science, why does something HAVE to conflict with a possible outcome in order for it to be science? In other words, isn't most science just plodding along, working with what we have, what we can observe, deduce, etc until one day it's proven otherwise? BTW I am not trying to pick a fight or argue, I am just confused by this term.
synon9m The main problem with understanding what Popper was trying say comes from the expectations of what a demarcation is meant to achieve. A demarcation does not set out what kinds of knowledge are legitimate and illegitimate, which was what the core failure of positivism. A demarcation is merely meant to point out if a theory can in some way be logically connected with an observation report, in such a way that we can learn something. If an observation report cannot be logically linked to the theory, then a test that prompts that observation report is irrelevant to the theory. But there are 3 status an observation report can have with respect to a theory. 1, the observation report follows logically from the theory 2. The observation report contradicts the theory and 3. It neither follows from it nor is inconsistent with it. The first one tells us nothing new, cuz the theory already told us that information. The third one tells us nothing just by default. So really the only thing we can learn in a test is that we have a conflict between observation and theory: either the theory is false or the test report is false or both. We don't learn anything positive. This means that testing a theory is only really fruitful, if that theory rules out possible observation reports I.e it rules out possible ways the world can logically be. This means further that if a theory allows all possible logical outcomes, then it doesn't say anything about the physical world.
So if we look at a linearized, pragmatic scheme for the scientific method; 1. Define a question 2. Gather information and resources (observe) 3. Form an explanatory hypothesis 4. Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner 5. Analyze the data 6. Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis 7. Publish results 8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists) What you're saying is; according to Popper, we need another step? Or are you saying none of the above could be science because there's a built in confirmation bias in experiments. In other words, if the above is not scientific, what do I need to add to that list to make it science.
synon9m With regards to your schema you have 2 and 3 the wrong way round. Define a question, then generate hypotheses, then deduce predictions, then test those prediction. My schema would go as follows. 1. Find a problem This relates to your step 1 2. Generate potential solutions and engage with other people's solutions. This is your step 3. 3. Eliminate solutions through critical arguments, and if possible, through empirical testing. This includes your steps 2, 4, 5 , 6, 7 and 8. which includes making people aware of your attempts at solutions and how yo have critically engaged with them, so that people can criticise your solutions. 4. New problem The problem with the above schema is that it implies that there is a neat demarcation between the steps, but there isn't. You can generate potential solutions while criticising already incumbent ones, and you can discover new sub-problems to a main problem, while criticising solutions to it. You can also shear away, through criticisms, things that you were thought were problem but are not. As you go through the process the problems become and more detailed and high-resolution and inevitably harder to solve. Furthermore, there is a major difficulty, brushed over by bayesian, with how statistical knowledge is handled. This problem still has not been solved. Bayesianism is faulty in its explanation of this. How can you define a question without first having a problem? Moreover, why would you gather evidence before you have a theory?
I hate to be negative here, but you need to put more care into editing your voice-over. You occasionally clip out parts of your speech, and I just noticed it many times in this vid. I assume you're not editing out any speech, so if the problem is making a mistake, just go back a sentence or two and later find the longest pause to splice the two trials together.
@itsjustameme i disagree, i think meme theory encompasses aspects of reality, but it by far does not encompass anything people would consider possible without meme theory. From meme theory you can derive that no advanced technology just pops into existence, it always has simpler predecessors, because there is a limit on human creativity somewhere. There is no chance of that ever happening because meme theory is true, but still, its falsifiable by counter-example.
Yes - confirmation bias - have seen this a lot, especially when people say so and so predicted this or that. You get it with Ron Paul supporters. Not saying that Ron Paul supporters claim scientific status, but there's a lack of questioning and thinking through a subject.
@AlwaysSunni Good thinking, but I would suggest that astrology was never scientific according to Popper's rules. Astrology can never be disproved, or falsified. It makes no predictions which could be incompatible with observation, and never has. I think madenskm is pointing out that right or wrong don't determine what is science... it's the riskiness of prediction that matters. Newtonian physics is falsified, but still scientific because it's capable of being tested.
Science relies on philosophy as much as philosophy relies on science, not that either like admitting it, and this is proof. Personally, I reject the "scientificity" of historical materialism and psychoanalysis as absurd, but I embrace them as frameworks for understanding. They are philosophical ideas, not empirical investigations. Popper himself here says they offer an important step (well, Freud at least); they need further improvement of course to be truly useful.
Good criticisms can be found here. The reality is that hypothesis testing by falsification is only one of many approaches in experimental research (though I would argue the best). blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/falsification-and-its-discontents/
@polymath7 [I'm Chief Professor of Science at UOP. (That's University Of Princeton, heard of it?)] As a matter of fact, I HAVE! Though I've never heard it referred to vulgarly as UoP, but always Princeton University. Indeed, I'm having quite a time finding a single source that calls Princeton "UoP" or "University of Princeton." And which school of science are you the head of? Natural Science? Zoology? Computer Science? I mean, you don't head every single discipline, do you?
Poppers claims about falsifiability are not a science. It's a philosophy. Therefore it does not need to be falsifiable. Popper addresses this a few times in a few of his books. I have sources if anyone cares.
I'm trying to use the theories of Popper to disprove creationism, once and for all. Maybe some of you can help. The statement "There is no god" is a much better statement than "There is a god", because it can easily be falsified. The statement "There is a god" has not been falsified for the very reason that it CANNOT be falsified. One of the reasons it cannot be falsified is that creationists often fail to define their deity making the statement impossible to falsify
That's ironic b/c Popper's talk here is a clear refutation to the extreme dogmatism of evolution. Regardless of whether evolution is true, the goal post is eternally moved and falsification is only pronounced after identifying the evidence. Evolutionists do not see any problems with the evidence gathered or their initial premises insomuch as it affects the underlying belief of the evolution story. Forget speciation, that is not what's being asserted as proof. Being inherently non-operational in origin, it sustains ZERO criticisms from the acolytes even though it is the weakest form of science. Popper may be unwittingly extolling the elephant in the room.
NinjaPatriot Actually, Popper did concern himself with the prickly question of the falsifiability of natural selection. Let's take his final conclusion: "Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as 'almost tautological', and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems. I still believe that natural selection works in this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and the logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection." www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211_1.html
Oh come on, I'm not trying to make this a religious discussion. I'm talking about taxonomy and phylogeny as something very falsifiable. I don't care about natural selection. Natural selection is something we see when we plate E Coli on a bacteriocidal medium. Some survive, some don't.
Cladistics is an objective sorting apparatus, but it does not imply causality; evolution. They are sorting organisms by characters, but in no way does that suggest a commonality of descent. The reason is because pure cladistics is not used. There are many sub species groups, especially the North American and Australian field mice, that are almost identical in the phenotype, but not in the genotype, so cladistics contradicts the evolution. and therefore they say there can be no real direct link between the two and so they don't rely on cladistics for this. this imparts subjectivity into it and renders it a poor gauge of descent, and is only used for orgamisms where evolutionary ancestry is not known. But think about that for a minute. If Homology doesn't work, as it doesn't work in the Bacterial Flagellum and Archeal Flagellum; both being incredibly similar in both structure and function, yet being wildly dissimilar in base proteins, information and subsystems, how can we rely on homology for anything else? It's an argument from ignorance. It's god of the gaps philosophy, ironically the same thing creationists get accused of. This also applies to the bulk of the fossil record; in seeing not transition in organismal forms, but between the forms.
@PaperSoapy You claimed atheists were unreasonable and I am claiming that anyone can be unreasonable and not believing there is a god is irrelevant. If it is relevant then I want to understand how. If you are simply claiming that "most people claim to be reasoned, but can't see through their own logical fallacies." then fine, I agree that this is common.
Excellent video. Popper was one of the best philosophers of the 20th century. His contributions to philosophy and science are incredible. Makes me wish there was a Nobel Prize for Philosophy.
Thank you so much for the reading. Being dyslexic, I find it hard to concentrate on texts. Always preferred audios, so this has really helped. Thanks again mate
One of the most important individuals for the evolution of science. Since I first read Popper's work, I've gained a whole new perspective of science and truth. Great reading Conc
Thank you for creating this video, I doubt I would otherwise find myself hearing or alternatively reading this essay of Popper's.
@klutterkicker
It's a valid criticism, but I just don't have time to re-record, re-edit and produce this video a second time. I did my best in editing to clean it up. My microphone is failing, so my brief attempt at re-recorded patches ended up with more glitches.
It'll get better.
I love the fact that all science is subjective that everything has a supposition that nothing is correct and that the science is about creating new and better methods and asking new an more potent questions.
That is good.
This honestly makes me reconsider parts of my world view.
I don't think there are many essays/videos who have as strong of
an impact on me as this one.
I recently received his book "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" as a gift, and am fascinated by it. Great video explaining his major points.
15:16 is where stuff starts to get pretty chaotic. I took a philosophy of science course around the year of 2010. Unfortunately, I had other studies to focus on. However, I am coming back to Karl Popper after many years. And there is a lot of concern around whether or not modern science is a garbage illusion of predetermined actions. I've hypothesized that free-will would be necessary for any real science or knowledge to exist.
@Fenyxfire I suppose it really doesn't, or didn't until a bit later when people started making mathematical models of what real life traits (flight speed of birds for example) would have to be, if we propose a certain trait is evolved to maximize a certain fitness component (quickest travel time vs. most energy efficient travel speed etc.). At that point it becomes testable and falsifyable (if flight speed isn't as predicted, the fitness component isn't the one being selected for).
I really hope that you'll have enough time to make more of these, I really enjoy them!
@itsjustameme
... So you could pick something like the large hadron collider or the very large telescope. And then analyze what ideas were needed to make it and get it to work, and how many of these are old ones, new ones, or significantly modified old ones. And how that relates to the amount of smart people working specifically for that one project. A pattern should emerge, then make the prediction that the pattern will also appear when looking at sth else, like SpaceShipOne.
Earnst Cassirer Esays on Man deals with the limitations of each study in a similar way to Popper's thinking. Glad someone is posting Popper's work. Thanks much
Beautifully explained, and a real contribution to the science of epistemology. Thanks for sharing this!
@tonybeir
It's linked in the Description Box... it points to stephenjaygould, which is becoming my favorite source for science essays.
Thanks for the upload, Concordance, but I think it should be noted that many of Popper's ideas have been thoroughly discredited by his colleagues. He claimed that induction did not work and that there was no way to confirm a scientific theory (only to "corroborate" it). If this were the case, then there would be no way of choosing between using a bridge design that had been tested for 50 years and a bridge design that had not been tested at all...
It would be great if this video could be redone with the things and events Karl Popper is going into depth about. That would make this an excellent video. However, I really enjoy this audiocast of the Karl Popper work.
Thank you for this! I listened to a BBC podcast on Karl Popper and wanted further clarification of falsification.
@Spinobreaker Seems a little vague. How is exploding a weakness? What is the exact relationship between weakness and power? How do you measure the two? Without some precision how are you going to make accurate predictions? Without accurate predictions what is the use of your theory?
@sicoticosandro
Remember that his framework doesn't address the "accuracy" of the theories, only whether or not they are scientific. Some of Marx's predictions take the risk of being "incompatible with observation", which makes them scientific, and others do not. That's the only criteria for demarcation, according to Popper: falsifiable predictions.
Its great how I found your channel a second time through a completely different topic... I'll watch all of your videos now!!
@biznor3 "If this were the case, then there would be no way of choosing between using a bridge design that had been tested for 50 years and a bridge design that had not been tested at all..."
You obviously don't understand. From Popper's perspective there is a distinction between the two. It's just that there is no guarantee (and can never be any guarantee) that the bridge that has been tested for 50 years won't collapse tomorrow.
@Yony42 how do you test fitness traits of extinct species? you dont
least that's sort of illustrative of what mayr seems to be saying but im just not sure
if i were at home i would pull quotes from the book
i will when i get there
Chapter 1. In my book it's called 'Conjecture and refutation' rather than 'science as falsification'.
Thank you so much for producing and posting this!
In the light of this video I would like to hear your opinion on the meme theory. While near if not completely impossible to prove it's explanatory power is amazing and I feel that learning about the theory has opened my eyes to a lot of explanations about how the world works. But the framework of it as it is defined means that just about anything can be explained or explained away using the theory.
What's your take on it?
I'm having a really hard time knowing what this video is exactly about, but I notice its something in the topic on how science works.
You sound like Christian Bale when playing Patrick Bateman. Good read. The CriticalG has also read this, but I think your reading is clearer and more relaxed.
Recommended: "A Pocket Popper" (Fontana Pocket Readers) Edited by David Miller.
Blurb: "David Miller once Popper's research assistant, has chosen thirty excerpts from Popper's non-technical writings. Together they illustrate the breadth, profundity and originality of Sir Karl's contribution to human learning" [Pub 1983]
@itsjustameme
How would i test it? Just like evolution has been tested before we were able to directly observe it in the lab, in bacteria or fruit flies. By studying reality and analyze if everything fits the pattern that should be there if meme theory is true.
I suggest studying different technological breakthroughs, and look at how many of these ideas are re-applied old ideas and how many of the ideas are new or have been changed significantly.
the audio skips for me every 20 seconds or so. for a split second.
So clean and concise, and so fundamental. I love it.
There is a short video in which Feynman explains the scientific method. Is his explanation based on Popper's work? To me, as someone who is not an expert, it seems to be.
I really enjoyed this. Although it seems pretty evident to people used to the scientific method, it can be worryingly overlooked.
There is one thing though. Just because a theory does match 100% of the evidence doesn't mean it is unfalsifiable. As long as evidence could be found that would refute it. This is something people mistake about evolution - they mistake it for unfalsifiable, only because the evidence for it is so overwhelming.
What's with the two minutes of hang time at the end?
There seems to be a 2 minute gap at the end between the closing video of the DNA and the sound for it. Very interesting video nonetheless.
@TheSkyIsSideways I wondered if you were confusing the two. Andrew Wiles is certainly a fascinating figure, but it's unclear to me why you think he'd make a fitting subject for one of C0nc0rdance's videos.
I've heard that Karl Popper's ideas do away with the problem of induction but I haven't been able to wrap my brain around why yet. Can anyone help me out?
@AlwaysSunni
Great! This sounds like a great challenge. Find an astrologist willing to play along. Get them to make a blinded prediction about a person given a certain birth date. Make sure it's a factual, objective prediction that is "risky"... couldn't easily be predicted by other models of human behavior and incompatible with other explanations.
Present them with the failure and see what they do. Do they discard the theory?
It's not unlike the Randi $1M Challenge.
heres a conept, i think u might find interesting. Its very simple, and i created it when i was working on a story i wrote in high school.
"The greatest weekness to every power is the power itself"
ie a stars power comes from fusing elements, but eventually itll explode as a result... ok oversimplification yes, but the point is still valid. Ive been trying to find something since then that broke that rule and im yet to find anything...
I was wondering what ur thoughts on this concept are?
If a friend helps you ten times. 11th time he refuses. You forget the ten times he helped. And you were never friends. According to his 'Science as falsification' - When applied to human behaviour.
@AlwaysSunni 1) The experiment must rise to the level of validity sufficient to overturn theory. If it does, then you *do* have to do something about the theory. 2) If such a theory isn't discarded its usually only because there is not yet something to replace it.
Anomalies demand characterization. The real issue with anomalies is knowing *why* they are anomalous, and Popper's whole point is that you have include within that the possibility that the underlying theory is false.
@PaperSoapy That's OK I could have been clearer myself about what the problem I had with your statement was. You're right though that (in general) the most vocal atheists *tend* to claim to be more reasonable despite *some* showing a distinct lack of reason. But your problem is with those individuals and we should be prepared to call them out on it despite them being 'on our side'.
Anyone still know/have the link to the video lecture explaining probability of observations? Examples used were lightballs in the sky, with them being caused by say meteors, airplanes, and aliens. Later applied to religions also, with the likelyhood of people 'rising' from the dead being actually dead, or just suspended etc.
For the life of me I cant find this video again and I need it badly! If you remember, you'd brighten my day!
Thanks for apploading this man, your videos are truely useful and mind-stimulating :))
Thank you for this video. Two men are responsible for my sorry layman ass knowing how to spot pseudoscience at a glance - Richard Feynman and Karl Popper. Feynman is very famous, but hardly anyone has heard of Popper, and this needs to be addressed - as a philosopher of science, he made no great scientific discoveries, but his influence on the whole of science is enormous. He expressed complex ideas in plain language, the hallmark of someone who wants to be understood. Thanks again.
Oh Hume's problem of induction you mean. So I take it that you were not satisfied by Kant's answer? ;) To be honest with you though, I think that Popper's definition of science does solve the problem, since for him science is all about deducing models and then attempting to falsify them.
@AlwaysSunni I think those are problems of underdetermination. Yes, they problems for Popper too, but they're problems no matter what methodology you use.
ive been reading ernst mayr's work regarding the autonomy of biology and he seems to be elucidating something of a refutation of some of popper's stuff especially concerning falsification
Have you encountered it? because he seems to be saying that evolutionary biology specifically as a historically oriented comparative science doesnt quite fit into popper's philosophy
and i am a bit confused
*sigh*
@kevinscales - thats actually a very good point...
@Fenyxfire Well that's my point, I think evolutionary biology can probably not be classed as 'scientific' according to Popper, I'm memerly pointing our that recent advents which seek to *predict* rather than just describe do conform to falsifiability. At that point, you can create falsifiable hypotheses about evolutionary forces principles. I'm not certain what exactly mayer is talking about though and I'd be happy to know exactly what his point is. I'm just saying I probably agree.
thank you for doing what you do, i absolutely love your videos. I watch the 'relativity of wrong video at least once a week. I have nothing but respect and admiration for your total and unwavering dedication towards the truth and unbiased presentation of the facts. Thanks..please don't go.
I gotta say, as someone who used to be a marxist, Popper is absolutely right about the way any event can be made to fit the theory. I'm not say all marxists think that way, but I certainly did, and I bet most do.
Do you think Popper has actually solved the problem of induction? I'm a bit unsure...
Thanks again for making these. The end of that speech was crazy dense.
Also, are there recordings of the original authors making these speeches? Maybe you could mix their readings with yours in a video. ^^
I was very happy upon finding this in my subscriptions activity.
@45means45 You mean Andrew Weil? The bushy-bearded diet guru? Is he still around? I haven't heard anything about him in about ten years.
"The criterion of a scientific status of a theory is its falsifiablity." Brilliant.
@PaperSoapy Do you have any recommendations for books to further my understanding of critical thinking? I've long thought I should read about logic, fallacies and such, but I dunno where to begin. You present yourself as fairly knowledgable, so I reckon you have some insights?
@chrisbigred1 Yes, you can! That's part of its beauty.
You need only establish that something can be shown true to a greater level of certainty in an objective sense than something that is falsifiable, while not being deductively true (i.e., mathematical or logical tautologies don't count). This would demonstrate that there was a standard higher than falsification and in fact falsify the claimed supremacy of falsification.
Your move. :)
@kurtilein3 Ooh, Feynman! I've watched several videos of him on youtube, and he's a really fun listen :) I've also heard of Michael Shermer... isn't he the founder of Skeptic's Magazine or something like that? At any rate, going into my book-list. Thanks!
I cannot for the life of me understand who would dislike a video like this? Astrologers? Marxists?
@AlwaysSunni
What he calls unscientific is a theory that predicts everything using ad hoc explanations to remain "valid" or getting reinterpreted for the same reason, when it should be properly fixed or trashed instead. Ad Hoc is a logical fallacy. The result is an "explanation" which is not very coherent, does not really "explain" anything at all, and which has no testable consequences - even though to someone already inclined to believe it, it certainly looks valid.
@kurtilein3
But how would you test it?
@itsjustameme
(cont)
Your airbus example reminds me of that guy who says that peanutbutter disproves evolution because every once in a while new life forms should spontaneously arise in such a jar.
Can you point to a fundamental difference between that and your argument?
While psychoanalysis seems intuitively right the problem with it is that it's unfalsifiable. Anything can be explained or explained away with it.
And the same goes for the meme theory.
here is the problem I am having with this line of reasoning. I agree Freud and others where not scientific, but what I did not get is are you trying to say all psychology is not scientific. If so why? It seems to me (admiring my psychologists bias) that neuropsychology and cognitive psychology have become sciences.
What are your thoughts on Kuhn?
But what do you mean by the problem of induction?
what chapter is this? I cant find it to reference from the book.....maybe im being stupid
First class reading. Was Popper the greatest philosopher of the 20th Century? I think so.
Ha. I don't know. I guess he realized that we don't say 'green apple, green apple, all apples are green.' But the other problem is 'how do we know the laws of nature won't magically change'.
What about the other extreme, when a real science is taken to be pseudoscience? (like genetics was in USSR.) What could be done to prevent a real science from being mocked as "fake"?
That was great, I really enjoyed it!
thank you for posting this...fascinating
I forgot to say yesterday that thank you for posting this read of Karl Popper :)
**can you get an AS Degree in philosophy?
That was both fascinating and beautiful..
Amazing, its like a chess variation, we theorise about the algorithm and then use logic to subject the algorithm to falsification and determine its efficacy.
Basic algorithms... Patterns. What if that's all that's at the core of everything, even physical science?
I think you might be correct, look at the physical world and its amazing how much it takes the form of a fractal.
Agreed. Aplhazero is throwing out inductive handicaps out the window and humiliating our algorithms. Perhaps metatruth is beyond our physical limitations and evolution is in order
@CitizenOccidens But in the case of IQ-comparisons there needs to be a causal factor. You could as well compare the average IQ's of people that drive blue cars with people that drive red cars, and get a significant difference. Remember, that when the Human Genome Project finished their complete mapping of the human genome they found that there is no "clear genetic basis to racial groups". I think the belief that there is a basis is the racism Popper is referring to in this text.
Its very easy to find verification for any theory if we are looking for verification. We will find it.
I think Popper is mistaken here, though, he is onto an important point. The criteria that should be chosen is the specificity of a fact as it relates to a theory. When a fact only fits specifically for a certain theory, it is also the case that it does not fit in other theories and thus we get the falsifiability. We run into problems, however, if we reverse this and suggest falsifiability is the criteria. The most obvious example would be things which are necessarily true (i.e. unfalsifiable).
Thanks for your comment. I am wondering if you could distinguish what Popper calls the _riskyness_ of a prediction from what you are referring to as specificity. I believe what you are talking about as specificity would be relevant to the power of a theory, whereas this piece is addressing the demarcation of a theory as scientific. These matters are clearly intertwined as a theory requires a some minimum level of power to be scientific. Here is the text which the video is based on if that helps at all: www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html
This reading is an excerpt from his book _Conjectures and Refutations_ which was about empirical science; hence the reference to things that are necessarily true would not be applicable. The importance of falsifiability becomes clearer in the larger context of the book. Briefly, it is a response to the position that empirical scientific theories must be verifiable. The Popperian position counters, correctly I believe, that scientific theories are essentially make a universal statement about the world that _All X are Y,_ and as you can never observe every instance of _X_ to see if _Y_ follows, we can only conjecture _All X are Y_ and try to refute the statement.
My understanding anyway. Cheers Mate
***** He's talking about theories. If you just want to make a distinction defining "scientific" theories as falsifiable, but other theories are just as valid, then that's fine. I just don't see the point when we can apply the same criterion of specificity of evidence to both types of theories. It seems to me Popper was trying to distinguish between defective theories and effective ones; not just make an arbitrary distinction.
I mean, let's get to the meat of the reason atheist here use falsification. If I propose God exists, then an atheist wants me to propose a certain test where, in that case, God does not exist. Because God exists in all possible worlds, there is no case we can test for where God does not exist. That doesn't make God a bad theory equivalent to fairies. It just means God isn't in the arbitrary category of "scientific" theories.
*****
"My god exists in all possible worlds" is structured as an untestable claim. It takes zero risk of being falsified.
The statement "prayers to my god can regrow this amputated limb" is very testable and risky. How about:
"This holy statue can be demonstrated to be weeping real blood"?
"Divine action can be demonstrated to be the best explanation for this apparent imprint of a Jewish messiah on my toast/tortilla chip/stain on my mattress"
"Christians can be demonstrated to be less likely to commit crimes per capita when compared with non-theists"
I would propose that falsification is generally most useful in fields where predictions about the observed world are to be made. For example, I can test the hypothesis that "seismographic activity will correlate to earthquakes" or "patients who dream of losing their teeth will have underlying fears of impotency" or even "between 40 and 50% of people will vote against this bill".
Most theologians have abandoned the idea of testable claims... because they were always falsified on further inspection. All that is left are non-physical, untestable claims. I was once swayed by Stephen Jay Gould's NOMA idea, but then I realized that primitive Christian theology made a number of claims that over time were discarded. That is, it isn't that Judeo-christians have always believed in a non-physical, immaterial god... it's that all the interesting material claims are no longer plausible and therefore abandoned. See: Noah's Ark, Tower of Babel, Abraham and the burning bush, etc.
C0nc0rdance _"an untestable claim"_
Perhaps not in your sense of testable, but in the sense of being able to determine the truth of the claim, God's existence is certainly testable. For example, Aquinas' first way uses the existence of motion to prove the existence of God and his third way uses the existence of contingent of things to prove the existence of God.
Of course, you may disagree with these arguments, but it is in principle possible prove the existence of necessary truths. For less controversial examples consider proving a triangle has angles which sum to 180 degrees, or that 1+1=2. There is no way to falsify these claims because there is no case where they could be wrong. That doesn't mean we should reject these necessary truths.
On another note, in the case of necessary truths, one could falsify my claim by finding a contradiction in the terms. For example, if someone was to say a triangle has angles which sum to 140 degrees, I could show them that this leads to a contradiction and thus is false. This is true of everything, however, (including magical fairies) so I don't think this is the kind of falsification Popper has in mind.
Just, fyi, from the beginning of Christianity, the understanding of God has been as Immaterial:
"Look for Him who is above all time, eternal and invisible" - St. Ignatius of Antioch (35 CE - 107 CE)
This idea came from philosophy more than anything. Most people in those days still worshiped the greco-roman gods, so it wasn't like they got tired of those pesky atheists disproving God's existence. It comes from the philosophy around God being the creator of the universe.
***** You are thinking of something different from what possible worlds mean to philosophers. It means exactly that you cannot imagine circumstances in which that claim is false.
(source: I took an introduction to logic course in college).
@kurtilein3
I'm not sure I completely agree.
The meme theory does indeed seem self authenticating. But it is so encompassing that it is quite hard to falsify.
Your airbus example I find is silly - the scenario is quite unlikely to happen and this should be quite obvious even to someone who does not know the theory. If you watched the video a good test of a theory should be a bit risky in order to be convincing.
There's no chance of it ever happening - so it's no proof that it doesn't.
(cont)
@Bunji2k6
Read good science books, they are awesome for critical thinking. Or read books by skeptics that apply critical thinking. I think in this case, practise trumps theory.
Examples: Michael Shermer - why people believe strange things
Simon Singh - the big bang
Bill Bryson - a short history of nearly everything
And, a really fun one, showing how a most brilliant mind works in everyday life: Richaed Feynman - surely youre joking Mr. Feynman
I don't get the word usage. On the one hand falsifiable means to be proven false. On the other falsifiability means to not be able to be proven false. Why is that.
synon9m falsifiability does not mean that it's able to be proven false. It claims that scientific theories are the ones that can conflict with some possible outcome. Even if we find a conflict, that does not prove the theory is false.
Drew thank you. If I may, I thought "falsification", according to Popper, simply meant that when a scientific principle has been successfully and repeatedly tested, it is not necessarily true. Instead it was merely not proved false, yet. Emphasis on yet. So in science, why does something HAVE to conflict with a possible outcome in order for it to be science? In other words, isn't most science just plodding along, working with what we have, what we can observe, deduce, etc until one day it's proven otherwise? BTW I am not trying to pick a fight or argue, I am just confused by this term.
synon9m The main problem with understanding what Popper was trying say comes from the expectations of what a demarcation is meant to achieve. A demarcation does not set out what kinds of knowledge are legitimate and illegitimate, which was what the core failure of positivism. A demarcation is merely meant to point out if a theory can in some way be logically connected with an observation report, in such a way that we can learn something. If an observation report cannot be logically linked to the theory, then a test that prompts that observation report is irrelevant to the theory. But there are 3 status an observation report can have with respect to a theory. 1, the observation report follows logically from the theory 2. The observation report contradicts the theory and 3. It neither follows from it nor is inconsistent with it. The first one tells us nothing new, cuz the theory already told us that information. The third one tells us nothing just by default. So really the only thing we can learn in a test is that we have a conflict between observation and theory: either the theory is false or the test report is false or both. We don't learn anything positive. This means that testing a theory is only really fruitful, if that theory rules out possible observation reports I.e it rules out possible ways the world can logically be. This means further that if a theory allows all possible logical outcomes, then it doesn't say anything about the physical world.
So if we look at a linearized, pragmatic scheme for the scientific method;
1. Define a question
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
3. Form an explanatory hypothesis
4. Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner
5. Analyze the data
6. Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7. Publish results
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
What you're saying is; according to Popper, we need another step? Or are you saying none of the above could be science because there's a built in confirmation bias in experiments. In other words, if the above is not scientific, what do I need to add to that list to make it science.
synon9m
With regards to your schema you have 2 and 3 the wrong way round. Define a question, then generate hypotheses, then deduce predictions, then test those prediction. My schema would go as follows.
1. Find a problem
This relates to your step 1
2. Generate potential solutions and engage with other people's solutions.
This is your step 3.
3. Eliminate solutions through critical arguments, and if possible, through empirical testing.
This includes your steps 2, 4, 5 , 6, 7 and 8. which includes making people aware of your attempts at solutions and how yo have critically engaged with them, so that people can criticise your solutions.
4. New problem
The problem with the above schema is that it implies that there is a neat demarcation between the steps, but there isn't. You can generate potential solutions while criticising already incumbent ones, and you can discover new sub-problems to a main problem, while criticising solutions to it. You can also shear away, through criticisms, things that you were thought were problem but are not. As you go through the process the problems become and more detailed and high-resolution and inevitably harder to solve.
Furthermore, there is a major difficulty, brushed over by bayesian, with how statistical knowledge is handled. This problem still has not been solved. Bayesianism is faulty in its explanation of this.
How can you define a question without first having a problem? Moreover, why would you gather evidence before you have a theory?
I hate to be negative here, but you need to put more care into editing your voice-over. You occasionally clip out parts of your speech, and I just noticed it many times in this vid. I assume you're not editing out any speech, so if the problem is making a mistake, just go back a sentence or two and later find the longest pause to splice the two trials together.
All life is problem solving...All life is pattern spotting, it sounds much more positive that using the word "problem"
Thanks for introducing me to Popper.
Oh no! Well, thanks for letting us all know.
@itsjustameme
i disagree, i think meme theory encompasses aspects of reality, but it by far does not encompass anything people would consider possible without meme theory. From meme theory you can derive that no advanced technology just pops into existence, it always has simpler predecessors, because there is a limit on human creativity somewhere. There is no chance of that ever happening because meme theory is true, but still, its falsifiable by counter-example.
Yes - confirmation bias - have seen this a lot, especially when people say so and so predicted this or that. You get it with Ron Paul supporters. Not saying that Ron Paul supporters claim scientific status, but there's a lack of questioning and thinking through a subject.
@AlwaysSunni
Good thinking, but I would suggest that astrology was never scientific according to Popper's rules. Astrology can never be disproved, or falsified. It makes no predictions which could be incompatible with observation, and never has. I think madenskm is pointing out that right or wrong don't determine what is science... it's the riskiness of prediction that matters. Newtonian physics is falsified, but still scientific because it's capable of being tested.
Science relies on philosophy as much as philosophy relies on science, not that either like admitting it, and this is proof.
Personally, I reject the "scientificity" of historical materialism and psychoanalysis as absurd, but I embrace them as frameworks for understanding. They are philosophical ideas, not empirical investigations. Popper himself here says they offer an important step (well, Freud at least); they need further improvement of course to be truly useful.
can anyone point a problem in the falsification theory !? i need it for a paper
Good criticisms can be found here. The reality is that hypothesis testing by falsification is only one of many approaches in experimental research (though I would argue the best).
blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/falsification-and-its-discontents/
@polymath7
[I'm Chief Professor of Science at UOP. (That's University Of Princeton, heard of it?)]
As a matter of fact, I HAVE! Though I've never heard it referred to vulgarly as UoP, but always Princeton University. Indeed, I'm having quite a time finding a single source that calls Princeton "UoP" or "University of Princeton."
And which school of science are you the head of? Natural Science? Zoology? Computer Science? I mean, you don't head every single discipline, do you?
Can you address the falsifiability of Popper's theory?
Poppers claims about falsifiability are not a science. It's a philosophy. Therefore it does not need to be falsifiable. Popper addresses this a few times in a few of his books. I have sources if anyone cares.
I'm trying to use the theories of Popper to disprove creationism, once and for all. Maybe some of you can help. The statement "There is no god" is a much better statement than "There is a god", because it can easily be falsified. The statement "There is a god" has not been falsified for the very reason that it CANNOT be falsified. One of the reasons it cannot be falsified is that creationists often fail to define their deity making the statement impossible to falsify
That's ironic b/c Popper's talk here is a clear refutation to the extreme dogmatism of evolution. Regardless of whether evolution is true, the goal post is eternally moved and falsification is only pronounced after identifying the evidence. Evolutionists do not see any problems with the evidence gathered or their initial premises insomuch as it affects the underlying belief of the evolution story. Forget speciation, that is not what's being asserted as proof. Being inherently non-operational in origin, it sustains ZERO criticisms from the acolytes even though it is the weakest form of science. Popper may be unwittingly extolling the elephant in the room.
NinjaPatriot
Actually, Popper did concern himself with the prickly question of the falsifiability of natural selection. Let's take his final conclusion:
"Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as 'almost tautological', and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems.
I still believe that natural selection works in this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and the logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection."
www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211_1.html
Thank you very much C0nc0rdance
Oh come on, I'm not trying to make this a religious discussion. I'm talking about taxonomy and phylogeny as something very falsifiable. I don't care about natural selection. Natural selection is something we see when we plate E Coli on a bacteriocidal medium. Some survive, some don't.
Cladistics is an objective sorting apparatus, but it does not imply causality; evolution. They are sorting organisms by characters, but in no way does that suggest a commonality of descent. The reason is because pure cladistics is not used. There are many sub species groups, especially the North American and Australian field mice, that are almost identical in the phenotype, but not in the genotype, so cladistics contradicts the evolution. and therefore they say there can be no real direct link between the two and so they don't rely on cladistics for this. this imparts subjectivity into it and renders it a poor gauge of descent, and is only used for orgamisms where evolutionary ancestry is not known. But think about that for a minute. If Homology doesn't work, as it doesn't work in the Bacterial Flagellum and Archeal Flagellum; both being incredibly similar in both structure and function, yet being wildly dissimilar in base proteins, information and subsystems, how can we rely on homology for anything else? It's an argument from ignorance. It's god of the gaps philosophy, ironically the same thing creationists get accused of. This also applies to the bulk of the fossil record; in seeing not transition in organismal forms, but between the forms.
Quick! Someone go explain to to Stefan Molyneux IMMEDIATELY!
did you get your answer?
@PaperSoapy You claimed atheists were unreasonable and I am claiming that anyone can be unreasonable and not believing there is a god is irrelevant. If it is relevant then I want to understand how. If you are simply claiming that "most people claim to be reasoned, but can't see through their own logical fallacies." then fine, I agree that this is common.
Do look inside of yourself for the things you hate the most and project those characteristics on the people you hate.
This video is dedicated to anyone who still thinks philosophy isn't useful.