falsifiability

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>  >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*.
>
>regards,
>Anne
><petico at io.com>

Popper's theory goes beyond a simple argument that corrections must 
be made on the basis of reasonable doubt, rather than whims.

Popper (1) rejects, like Hume before him, induction and opposes 
verificationism; (2) holds that a single genuine counter-example 
falsifies the whole theory; and (3) maintains that one may claim a 
theory is scientific only if one is prepared to specify in advance a 
crucial experiment (or observation) which can falsify it, and it is 
pseudoscientific if one refuses to specify such a "potential 
falsifier."

The history of science contradicts (2) and (3), to say nothing of the 
impossibility of setting up, in advance, criteria that should allow 
one to distinguish, in practice, genuine counter-examples from 
spurious ones.
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
* Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>