Karl Popper was a 20th century philosopher of science, best known for his work on falsifiability. He was critical of the ideas put forth by previous philosophers such as Carnap, that science works by verifying your theories through examination of the world. He said that many theories that were not scientific could be successfully verified by either making vague predictions, or through ad hoc adjustments to the theory. For example a horoscope can predict something vague like “you will have a pleasant surprise later this week”. Then you find some forgotten money in your pocket, and the horoscope was seemingly verified to be true! However since nearly anything could have verified it, since it was so vague, this does not count as science.

He was particularly critical of Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis and Marx’s theory of historical materialism, both of which were considered scientific by many at the time, but seemed to explain almost all sets of observable data. Instead he suggested that scientific theories must put forwards highly specific predictions, and the scientists must then work to falsify, rather than verify, the theory.

  • Muad'DibberMA
    link
    42 years ago

    I also really like the idea of falsifiability, but Popper seemed to not apply it at all when it came to communist countries, being blinded by western propaganda.

    In his lifetime the USSR became a world superpower despite starting out at an extremely low level of economic development, won a world war and saved the world from fascism, eliminated illiteracy, raised life expectancy, and went into space.