On Tue, 1 Jan 2002 13:04:15 -0600 (CST) "A.J. Peticolas" <petico at io.com>
writes:
> >If Popper's theory isn't itself scientific, why should we care
> >whether X is or isn't scientific according to his criteria? Upon
> >what grounds do you decide Popper's theory is unscientific and yet
> >legitimate?
> >- --
> >Yoshie
>
> Pragmatically, if we only hold falsifiable theories, we are
> always capable of making some correction in thoughts we hold
> and actions we are therefore doing. And the correction is on
> the basis of reasonable doubt and a rational basis, rather than
> an arbitrary change based on whim and "enlightenment". This
> openness to rational changes of course, it seems to me, is
> something
> we shuld care about a *lot*.
One can agree with all that without necessarily buying into Popper's conception of falsifiability. We should keep in mind that Popper regarded not only Marxism (i.e after Marx's time) and psychoanalysis as being unfalsifiable, but he had also went as far as arguing that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was also unfalsifiable- although instead of branding Darwinism as a pseudoscience, he called it a a "metaphysical research program." (He eventually recanted this postion in 1978). But this suggests to me that if he could brand Darwinism as unfalsifiable, then perhaps there was something wrong with his conception of falsifiability since working scientists (like JBS Haldane) had no problem in describing how Darwinism could be falsified.
Jim F.
>
> regards,
> Anne
> <petico at io.com>
>
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