So according to the concept of falsifiability a hypothesis must be testable. Falsifiability entails that in order for scientific statements or hypotheses to “convey information about the empirical world” they have to be “capable of clashing with experience” (Popper 2002b, 313-314). Popper’s view was that a scientific claim was only valid if it can be falsified he maintains that “the possibility of refuting theories by observations is the basis of all empirical tests.” (Popper 2002, 192). Conversely, a single experience or observation that refutes the theory’s claim would conclusively falsify it. Due to the logical problems inherent in the inductive method, it is impossible to confirm a hypothesis or a theory using limited experience.
ANOTHER WORD FOR SATISFACTORY VERIFICATION
Popper’s idea of demarcation was premised on the logical asymmetry between verification or confirmation and falsification. Popper asserts that science should not focus on piling up observational evidence to support its hypotheses, because no amount of observational evidence would prove a theory to be true rather science should look for evidence against its hypothetical claims (Rosenberg 2012, 207). He maintains that falsifiability “should be taken as the criterion of demarcation” (Popper 2002, 345 Popper 2002b, 18). Popper retorts to this criticism by arguing that induction does not “provide a suitable ‘criterion of demarcation’” (Popper 2002b, 11). Popper understands that in rejecting induction, his critics would argue that he removed “the barriers which separate science from metaphysical speculation” (Popper 2002b, 11). Popper’s falsification is sometimes called “deductivism”, a term he also used to describe his approach (Sankey 2010, 253-254 Popper 2002b, 7). Popper argues that this model represents the practicalities of the scientific method more accurately, and that it provides us with a deductive argument, which gives us with certain knowledge. If we do find data that the hypothesis cannot explain, we therefore falsify our hypothesis, and we ought to give up the hypothesis for another one that comprehensively explains that new data. The essence of this model is to not justify the hypothesis with instances of empirical data that support it rather it is to find empirical data that proves the hypothesis wrong. The second is falsification, which entails that the hypothesis is tested by trying to find empirical data it cannot explain. The first is based on falsifiability, which is the formulation of a testable hypothesis that explains the empirical data. Popper’s method may be considered as an “anti-inductivist version of the hypothetico-deductive method” (Sankey 2010, 253).
After all, it could be that nature is not uniform at all (Hume 2002, 304-305). To justify induction with this assumption would be tantamount to justifying induction with induction. Hume argues that this reasoning is circular because the assumption is based on the thing that we are seeking to justify. Popper reflects Hume’s position by asserting that to logically justify induction “we should have to employ inductive inferences” (Popper 2002b, 5). However, the only way to justify this assumption would be to use induction. Inductive arguments are based on an assumption that nature is uniform, or as Hume asserts, “the future will resemble the past” (Hume 2002, 305). Hume does not restrict his argument to the uncertainty of induction he claims that induction is not justified in any way. “it is far from obvious, from a logical point of view, that we are justified in inferring universal statements from singular ones, no matter how numerous for any conclusion drawn in this way may always turn out to be false: no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, it does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.” (Popper 2002b, 4) He agrees with Hume that to use a limited set of experiences to conclude for an unobserved experience would not give rise to certainty (Hume 2002, 298-310). Popper is not convinced by the scientific status quo, which argued that science was based on induction (Popper 2002b, 3-7). Echoing the intellectual concerns of other philosophers, Sir Karl Popper was initially motivated to draw a line of demarcation between science and pseudo-science (Popper 2002, 344).
0 kommentar(er)
