Karl Popper’s Falsificationism is untenable

In his book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Karl Popper deals with the often called "demarcation problem", which consists in the question: what criterion (or criteria) differentiates scientific and unscientific knowledge? Popper answers by providing a logical criterion for demarcating proper scientific knowledge from pseudo-science: falsificationism.

2002

Lettera Matematica International Edition, 2014

A scientific theory must be falsifiable, and scientific knowledge is always tentative, or conjectural. These are the main ideas of Popper’s Logic of Scientific Discovery. Since 1960 his writings contain some essential developments of these views and make some steps towards epistemological optimism. Although we cannot justify any claim that a scientific theory is true, the aim of science is the search of truth and we have no reason to be sceptical about the notion of getting nearer to the truth. Our knowledge can grow, and science can progress. Nevertheless, Popper’s theory of approximation to the truth is problematic and is still the subject of studies and discussions.

1972

This paper considers objections to Popper's views on scientific method. It is argued that criticism of Popper's views, developed by Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos, are not too damaging, although they do require that Popper's views be modified some¬what. It is argued that a much more serious criticism is that Popper has failed to provide us with any reason for holding that the methodological rules he advocates give us a better hope of realizing the aims of science than any other set of rules. Con¬sequently, Popper cannot adequately explain why we should value scientific theories more than other sorts of theories ; which in turn means that Popper fails to solve adequately his fundamental problem, namely the problem of demarcation. It is sug¬gested that in order to get around this difficulty we need to take the search for explana¬tions as a fundamental aim of science.

lacing a great value upon the conduction of empirical tests for validating the practicality of abstract theories and statements, Popper grounds his line of

Studii de Epistemologie și de Teorie a Valorilor , 2024

The thesis of the theoretical ladenness of observation is equally accepted by Popper and Kuhn, but the two argue different consequences. If Popper believes that the theoretical ladenness does not prevent the application of the falsificationist methodology, Kuhn, although he also accepts a similar mechanism of scientific change based on reduction ad absurdum, proposes a semantic approach and claims that the impossibility of a neutral language inevitably leads to incommensurability. My goal in this paper is to follow this argumentative path and to better fix the epistemological positions of the two regarding the possibility of comparing the theories with each other and with nature.

2020

In this essay, I argue that falsificationism does not provide an adequate demarcation between science and non-science. Such inadequacy will be elaborated by examining a modus tollens argument in favour of falsificationism and the limitations of falsificationism itself.

The delimitation between science and pseudoscience is part of the more general task of determining which beliefs are epistemologically justified. Standards for demarcation may vary by domain, but several basic principles are universally accepted. Karl Popper proposed falsifiability as an important criterion in distinguishing between science and pseudoscience. He argues that verification and confirmation can play no role in formulating a satisfactory criterion of demarcation. Instead, it proposes that scientific theories be distinguished from non-scientific theories by testable claims that future observations might reveal to be false. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.29821.61926

When I received the list of participants in this course and realized that I had been asked to speak to philosophical colleagues I thought, after some hesitation and consolation, that you would probably prefer me to speak about those problems which interests me most, and about those developments with which I am most intimately acquainted. I therefore decided to do what I have never done before: to give you a report on my own work in the philosophy of science, since the autumn 1919 when I first begin to grapple with the problem, "When should a theory be ranked as scientific?" or "Is there a criterion for the scientific character or status of a theory?" The problem which troubled me at the time was neither, "When is a theory true?" nor "When is a theory acceptable?" my problem was different. I wished to distinguish between science and pseudo-science; knowing very well that science often errs, and that pseudoscience may happen to stumble on the truth. I knew, of course, the most widely accepted answer to my problem: that science is distinguished from pseudoscience—or from "metaphysics"—by its empirical method, which is essentially inductive, proceeding from observation or experiment. But this did not satisfy me. On the contrary, I often formulated my problem as one of distinguishing between a genuinely empirical method and a non-empirical or even pseudo-empirical method — that is to say, a method which, although it appeals to observation and experiment, nevertheless does not come up to scientific standards. The latter method may be exemplified by astrology, with its stupendous mass of empirical evidence based on observation — on horoscopes and on biographies. But as it was not the example of astrology which lead me to my problem, I should perhaps briefly describe the atmosphere in which my problem arose and the examples by which it was stimulated. After the collapse of the Austrian empire there had been a revolution in Austria: the air was full of revolutionary slogans and ideas, and new and often wild theories. Among the theories which interested me Einstein's theory of relativity was no doubt by far the most important. The three others were Marx's theory of history, Freud's psychoanalysis , and Alfred Adler's so-called "individual psychology." There was a lot of popular nonsense talked about these theories, and especially about relativity (as still happens even today), but I was fortunate in those who introduced me to the study of this theory. We all—the small circle of students to which I belong—were thrilled with the result of Eddington's eclipse observations which in 1919 brought the first important confirmation of Einstein's theory of gravitation. It was a great experience for us, and one which had a lasting influence on my intellectual development. The three other theories I have mentioned were also widely discussed among students at the time. I myself happened to come into personal contact with Alfred Adler, and even to cooperate with him in his social work among the children and young people in the working-class districts of Vienna where he had established social guidance clinics. It was the summer of 1919 that I began to feel more and more dissatisfied with these three theories—the Marxist theory of history, psychoanalysis , and individual psychology; and I began to feel dubious about their claims to scientific status. My problem perhaps first took the simple form, "What is wrong with Marxism, psychoanalysis , and individual psychology? Why are they so different from physical theories, from Newton's theory, and especially from the theory of relativity?" To make this contrast clear I should explain that few of us at the time would have said that we believed in the truth of Einstein's theory of gravitation. This shows that it was not my doubting the truth of those three other theories which bothered me, but something else. Yet neither was it that I nearly felt mathematical physics to be more exact than sociological or psychological type of theory. Thus what worried me was neither the problem of truth, at that stage at least, nor the problem of exactness or measurability. It was rather that I felt that these other three theories, though posing as science, had in fact more in common with primitive myths than with science; that they resembled astrology rather than

Despite the criticism of Karl Popper's falsifiability theory for the demarcation between science and non-science, mainly pseudo-science, this criterion is still very useful, and perfectly valid after it was perfected by Popper and his followers. Moreover, even in his original version, considered by Lakatos as "dogmatic", Popper did not assert that this methodology is an absolute demarcation criterion: a single counter-example is not enough to falsify a theory; a theory can legitimately be saved from falsification by introducing an auxiliary hypothesis. Compared to Kuhn's theory of revolutions, which he himself later dissociated from it transforming it into a theory of "micro-revolutions," I consider that Popper's demarcation methodology, along with the subsequent development proposed by him, including the corroboration and the verisimilitude, though imperfect, is not only valid today, but it is still the best demarcation methodology. For argumentation, I used the main works of Popper dealing with this issue, and his main critics and supporters. After a brief presentation of Karl Popper, and an introduction to the demarcation problem and the falsification methodology, I review the main criticisms and the arguments of his supporters, emphasizing the idea that Popper has never put the sign of equality between falsification and rejection. Finally, I present my own conclusions on this issue. Keywords: Karl Popper, falsifiability, falsification, demarcation problem, pseudo-science CONTENTS Abstract Introduction 1 The demarcation problem 2 Pseudoscience 3 Falsifiability 4 Falsification and refutation 5 Extension of falsifiability 6 Criticism of falsifiability 7 Support of falsifiability 8 The current trend Conclusions Bibliography Notes DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22522.54725