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The Paradox of Karl Popper

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: The Paradox of Karl Popper

#71

Post by stareatgoats »

soldeace wrote: post #63
stareatgoats wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popper is immensely influential in science, well worth a closer study. Agree there are some similarities with Socrates but as far as I know there was no drive to have Popper drink poison (a tribute to the imprint of that ancient Athenian on modern society maybe). Except perhaps in communist countries, the expressed antithesis of Popper's "open society".

> Except perhaps in communist countries, the expressed antithesis of Popper's "open society". I see your point, and I agree, but lest we address the wrong concept, the term you're looking for is 'dictatorial'. Capitalism, just like Communism, produced bloody repressive regimes that were no ground to 'open societies' (e.g. almost every South American country from the 60's to 80's). History teaches us that we should ke…

OK, my bad. The expressed antithesis of Popper's open society was dictatorship, not communism. There is little doubt that Popper saw communism (and even marxism) as expressions of that antithesis (i.e. by necessity leading to dictatorship), based on his own hard-earned experiences (and by no means questioned by Marxist-Leninists). But agree, capitalism is by convention the counterpart to communism in that habitually dichotomous concept of possible economic models, but does not guarantee freedom from dictatorship as you correctly point out.

Re: The Paradox of Karl Popper

#72

Post by foldr »

gboudrias wrote: post #60
stareatgoats wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popper is immensely influential in science, well worth a closer study. Agree there are some similarities with Socrates but as far as I know there was no drive to have Popper drink poison (a tribute to the imprint of that ancient Athenian on modern society maybe). Except perhaps in communist countries, the expressed antithesis of Popper's "open society".

> Popper is immensely influential in science, well worth a closer study Yep, pretty much invented the falsification principle. Imagine a time when scientists often tried to prove things true. That was science before Popper. This makes him the greatest contributor to science that I know of since Francis Bacon.

>Imagine a time when scientists often tried to prove things true

The philosophers of science that Popper was criticizing didn't think that scientists should try to prove that theories were true. They thought that scientists should try to show that theories were likely to be true given the available evidence. Popper was a radical skeptic regarding epistemic probability, and thought that it was impossible to probabilistically confirm scientific theories.

Re: The Paradox of Karl Popper

#73

Post by yters »

lisper wrote: post #67
yters wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It just turns out that in the universe we live in, concise theories consistent with the data have a lot of predictive power. No one know why our universe is this way. That's just how it turns out to be." How is this not inductivism?

What do you think inductivism is?

My understanding is inductivism is deriving general rules from specific observations. The idea that short descriptions are better because "that is how it works" seems to be this sort of thing. From our observation of specific short descriptions working we've derived the general rule that short descriptions work better.

Re: The Paradox of Karl Popper

#74

Post by lisper »

yters wrote: post #73
lisper wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think inductivism is?

My understanding is inductivism is deriving general rules from specific observations. The idea that short descriptions are better because "that is how it works" seems to be this sort of thing. From our observation of specific short descriptions working we've derived the general rule that short descriptions work better.

> inductivism is deriving general rules from specific observations

OK, on that view, yes, they are the same. But inductivism is generally understood to be more specific than that. It is generally understood to be a particular way of deriving general rules from specific observations, namely, by simply generalizing the data into patterns without any regard for causal mechanisms. So, for example, if you see (say) 100 crows and they are all black, induction tells you to conclude that all crows are black without ever asking why crows are black.

Re: The Paradox of Karl Popper

#75

Post by gboudrias »

foldr wrote: post #72
gboudrias wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Popper is immensely influential in science, well worth a closer study Yep, pretty much invented the falsification principle. Imagine a time when scientists often tried to prove things true. That was science before Popper. This makes him the greatest contributor to science that I know of since Francis Bacon.

>Imagine a time when scientists often tried to prove things true The philosophers of science that Popper was criticizing didn't think that scientists should try to prove that theories were true. They thought that scientists should try to show that theories were likely to be true given the available evidence. Popper was a radical skeptic regarding epistemic probability, and thought that it was impossible to probabilis…

Well, yes, fair enough. But the main point is that scientific progress was greatly accelerated thereafter. In that sense there is a before and after him, and anyone who would choose to be anti-Popper (nowadays) is generally an epistemic relativist who doesn't believe in the idea of progress, or sometimes even the scientific enterprise, at all.

Re: The Paradox of Karl Popper

#76

Post by foldr »

gboudrias wrote: post #75
foldr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Imagine a time when scientists often tried to prove things true The philosophers of science that Popper was criticizing didn't think that scientists should try to prove that theories were true. They thought that scientists should try to show that theories were likely to be true given the available evidence. Popper was a radical skeptic regarding epistemic probability, and thought that it was impossible to probabilis…

Well, yes, fair enough. But the main point is that scientific progress was greatly accelerated thereafter. In that sense there is a before and after him, and anyone who would choose to be anti-Popper (nowadays) is generally an epistemic relativist who doesn't believe in the idea of progress, or sometimes even the scientific enterprise, at all.

Most philosophers of science think that Popper was fundamentally wrong about induction and demarcation, but few of them are epistemic relativists.

Re: The Paradox of Karl Popper

#77

Post by yters »

lisper wrote: post #74
yters wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is inductivism is deriving general rules from specific observations. The idea that short descriptions are better because "that is how it works" seems to be this sort of thing. From our observation of specific short descriptions working we've derived the general rule that short descriptions work better.

> inductivism is deriving general rules from specific observations OK, on that view, yes, they are the same. But inductivism is generally understood to be more specific than that. It is generally understood to be a particular way of deriving general rules from specific observations, namely, by simply generalizing the data into patterns without any regard for causal mechanisms. So, for example, if you see (say) 100 cr…

It's the same sort of problem of induction that Hume pointed out in his original argument. Nothing substantially changes if we substitute "short explanations are better" for "sun rises in the morning".

The basic problem remains, though we've consolidated many problems of induction into one.

Re: The Paradox of Karl Popper

#78

Post by lisper »

yters wrote: post #77
lisper wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inductivism is deriving general rules from specific observations OK, on that view, yes, they are the same. But inductivism is generally understood to be more specific than that. It is generally understood to be a particular way of deriving general rules from specific observations, namely, by simply generalizing the data into patterns without any regard for causal mechanisms. So, for example, if you see (say) 100 cr…

It's the same sort of problem of induction that Hume pointed out in his original argument. Nothing substantially changes if we substitute "short explanations are better" for "sun rises in the morning". The basic problem remains, though we've consolidated many problems of induction into one.

> Nothing substantially changes if we substitute "short explanations are better" for "sun rises in the morning".

No, that's not true. The operative word is "explanation", not "short". Explanation changes everything. It is not enough to say, "The sun has risen every day in the past, therefore it will continue to rise in the future." You have to explain why the sun has risen every day in the past (i.e. the earth is round, it rotates about its axis, yada yada yada). Conciseness is not as much a requirement as it is a consequence of the more primary requirement of being a good explanation and consistent with all available data. In actual practice, these requirements generally eliminate all theories but one. It just turns out that those theories tend to be concise.

Re: The Paradox of Karl Popper

#79

Post by gboudrias »

foldr wrote: post #76
gboudrias wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, fair enough. But the main point is that scientific progress was greatly accelerated thereafter. In that sense there is a before and after him, and anyone who would choose to be anti-Popper (nowadays) is generally an epistemic relativist who doesn't believe in the idea of progress, or sometimes even the scientific enterprise, at all.

Most philosophers of science think that Popper was fundamentally wrong about induction and demarcation, but few of them are epistemic relativists.

After some research, I understand that falsification is not seen as a sufficient criteria for demarcation as Popper probably saw it. But do you not agree that the idea of falsification as a bare minimum was revolutionary? That was the main point of my original comment.

Apologies to anyone I might have offended by accidentally bundling them with relativists.

Re: The Paradox of Karl Popper

#80

Post by wuzamarine »

Popper is a paradox because his falsifiability violates the math Law of Non Contradiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics#Mathematics_as_sci... Philosophy has no place in Science. The Scientific Method is based on 'principles' and theorems/math based not philosophies. Karl is the real inventor of modern pseudoscience (lipstick on a pig). The final cog in The Scientific Method -> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97153/#ch2.s3 ^^hasn't changed since it sparked the entire Industrial Revolution and still 100% effective as is. .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction
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