Deutch and Popper

Ian Murray seamus2001 at attbi.com
Wed Jan 2 09:55:21 PST 2002


----- Original Message ----- From: "Miles Jackson" <cqmv at pdx.edu>


>
>
> On Wed, 2 Jan 2002, Daniel Davies wrote:
>
> > It absolutely amazes me that Popperians like Deutch have no
problems at all
> > talking about the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics
and other
> > things which appear on the face of them to be utterly
unfalsifiable, but
> > have a scunner against astrology, which provides me with twelve
falsifiable
> > predictions free every day with my newspaper.
> >
>
> Yep. But just like any practical scientist, Popperians ignore or
> explain away examples that contradict their favorite theory. And
this
> is not meant to diss scientists: holding onto a theory in the face
> of "unruly" data is in fact a crucial characteristic of science
> (PKF's stuff on Galileo is great on this). Anybody who thinks that
> scientists digilently throw out an elegant theory just because some
> data contradicts it needs to put down the Popper and actually talk
to
> some practicing scientists.
>
> Miles

============

Talk Popperian, walk Quine-Duhem.....

Ian



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