# Poppers Scientific Method The traditional view of scientific method had the following stages in the following order, each giving rise to the next [1 - pg. 55]: 1. Observation and Experiment 2. Inductive Generalization 3. Hypothesis 4. Attempted verification of hypothesis 5. Proof or Disproof 6. Knowledge. Popper replaced this with: 1. Problem (usually rebuff to existing theory or expectation) 2. Proposed solution, in other words a new theory 3. Deduction of testable propositions from the new theory 4. Tests, i.e. attempted refutations by, among other things (but only among other things), observation and experiment 5. Preference established between competing theories. ### Try to refute theories, but defend them Popper therefore proposes, as an article of method, that we **do not systematically evade refutation**, whether by introducing ad hoc hypotheses, or ad hoc definitions, or by always refusing to accept the reliability of inconvenient experimental results, or by any other such device; and that we **formulate our theories as unambiguously** as we can, so as to expose them as clearly as possible to refutation. On the other hand he also says we should not abandon our theories lightly, for this would involve too uncritical an attitude towards tests, and would mean that the theories themselves were not tested as rigorously as they should be. [1 - pg. 19] ### How does knowledge grow? Growth of our knowledge proceeds from problems and our attempts to solve them. [1 - pg. 22] ### What is and what is not science? What we are interested in, then, are statements with a high informative content, this consisting of all the nontautological propositions which can be deduced from them. But the higher the informative content the lower the probability, according to the probability calculus; for the more information a statement contains, the greater the number of ways in which it may turn out to be false. Just as any fool can produce statements of a very high probability which tell us practically nothing, so any fool can produce statements with a very high informative content if he is not bothered about whether they are false. What we want are statements of a high informative content, and therefore low probability, which nevertheless come close to the truth. And it is precisely such statements that scientists are interested in. [1 - pg. 34] ### We need Bold Theorizing He knows that our ignorance grows with our knowledge, and that we shall therefore always have more questions than answers. He knows that interesting truth consists of quite staggeringly unlikely propositions, not to be even conjectured without a rare boldness of imagination. And he knows that such adventurous hypotheses are far more likely to be wrong than right, and can not be even provisionally accepted until we have made a serious attempt to find out what might be wrong with them. He knows that if, on the other hand, we reach for the most probable explanation every time we come up against a problem it will always be that ad hoc explanation which goes least beyond existing evidence, and therefore gets us least far. **Bolder theorizing**, though it will get us further if proved right, is more likely to be proved wrong. But that is not to be feared. 'The wrong view of science betrays itself in the craving to be right.' [1 - p.g. 36] ### Seek Critical Comment For all of us, in all our activities, the notions that Wl' can do better only by finding out what can be improved and then improving it; and therefore that shortcomings are to be actively sought out, not concealed or passed over; and that critical comment from others, far t rom being resented, is an invaluable aid to be insisted on and welcomed, are liberating to a remarkable degree. ### Error Correction We must seek frequent error correction, never letting small errors accumulate into large ones. However, we also want to let ideas be tried and not simply compromise. If we compromise then we end up testing an idea that no one was ever advocating for in the first place. ### We can get more from false statements than true ones But we may even get more of this from a false statement than from a true one. Suppose it is now one minute to noon: then the statement: 'It is twelve o'clock precisely' is false. Yet for almost every purpose I can think of this false statement has more relevant and useful truth content than the true statement 'The time is now between ten in the morning and four in the afternoon'. Likewise in science: for most purposes a clearcut statement which is slightly out is more serviceable than one which is true but vague. I am not, obviously, suggesting that we should rest content with false statements. ### A genuinely scientific theory places itself permanently at risk A scientific theory is not one which explains everything that can possibly happen: on the contrary, it rules out most of what could possibly happen, and is therefore itself ruled out if what it rules out happens. So a genuinely scientific theory places itself permanently at risk. > Falsifiability is the criterion of demarmtion between science and non-science. The central point is that if all possible states of affairs fit in with a theory then no actual state of affairs, no observations, no experimental results, can be claimed as supporting evidence for it. There is no observable difference between its being true and its being false. So it conveys no scientific information. Only if some imaginable observation would refute it is it testable. And only if it is testable is it scientific. --- No conceivable observations could contradict them. They would explain whatever occurred (though differently). And Popper saw that their ability to explain everything, which so convinced and excited their adherents, was precisely what was most wrong with them. --- Popper often pointed out that the secret of the enormous psychological appeal of these various theories lay in their ability to explain everything. To know in advance that whatever happens you will be able to understand it gives you not only a sense of intellectual mastery but, even more important, an emotional sense of secure orientation in the world. Acceptance of one of these theories had, he observed, 'the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, opening your eyes to a hidden truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirming instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of till' theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth. --- Date: 20230528 Links to: Tags: References: 1. Philosophy and the Real World - An Introduction to Karl Popper - Bryan Magee