Re: For New T.O. Readers - Karl Popper

Mr tiktaalik <rob_murfin@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi

I know that the "falsifiability" issue as a key argument vs
creationism/ID has been long debated, for the newer readers of Talk
Origins, I think this gives a useful summary of what is or is not "a
theory"

"Now the impressive thing about this case is the risk involved in a
prediction of this kind. If observation shows that the predicted
effect is definitely absent, then the theory is simply refuted.
These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions
which I may now reformulate as follows.

1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly
every theory - if we look for confirmations.

2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky
predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in
question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with
the theory - an event which would have refuted the theory.

3. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain
things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.

4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-
scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people
often think) but a vice.

5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to
refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of
testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to
refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.

6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result
of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be
presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory.
(I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence.")

7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still
upheld by their admirers - for example by introducing ad hoc some
auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a
way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible,
but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of
destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later
described such a rescuing operation as a "conventionalist twist" or a
"conventionalist stratagem.")

One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific
status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or
testability. Where does Inteligent Design creationism fit in to
this?.... Nowhere.

Why recycle this old junk?
Have you missed all discussions in the philosophy of science since?

Jan

.

Relevant Pages

  • For New T.O. Readers - Karl Popper
    ... I know that the "falsifiability" issue as a key argument vs ... It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly ... testability: some theories are more testable, ... refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: For New T.O. Readers - Karl Popper
    ... I know that the "falsifiability" issue as a key argument vs ... testability: some theories are more testable, ... refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks. ... but since no one observed species changing into another ...
    (talk.origins)