--- Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote: >
>
> 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.
The actual practise of scientists is distinct from the body of knowledge they create.
As for (3): I can't exactly follow what point you're trying to make. It's quite easy to specify criteria for Newton's laws. It's not easy to do with Marxism. Which is possibly why it's a seperate field of enquiry.
And if Marxism is a science, why isn't history? And if history is a science, then surely the resulting definition of what a "science" is, is so loose and wooly that it's completely useless and we need new definitions. Non-experimental science maybe.
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