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Topic: Falsificationism

Related Topics

Falsifiability

Demarcation problem

Philosophy of science

Paul Feyerabend

Karl Popper

Modus tollens

Cygnus atratus

Imre Lakatos

Moritz Schlick

Language learning

Modus ponens

Denying the antecedent

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Jesus of Nazareth

List of topics in logic

	The Karl Popper Web
		In one majestic and systematic attack, psychologism, naturalism, inductionism, and logical positivism are swept away and replaced by a set of methodological rules called Falsificationism.
		Falsificationism is the idea that science advances by unjustified, exaggerated guesses followed by unstinting criticism.
		Popper was in fact fascinated by probability and even produced his own axiomatisation of the probability calculus.
	www.eeng.dcu.ie /~tkpw (1451 words)

	[No title]
		According to falsificationism, untestable metaphysical theses may influence scientific research in the context of discovery, and may even lead to metaphysical research programmes; they cannot, however, be a part of scientific knowledge itself.
		Pursuing physics in accordance with dressed falsificationism protects the implicit metaphysical thesis of simplicity from criticism within science itself, just because this thesis is metaphysical (and therefore not a part of science) and implicit (and therefore not available for sustained, explicit critical scrutiny).
		Falsificationism, with its fixed aim and fixed methods, is quite unable to do justice to this positive feedback, meta-methodological feature of science, this capacity of science to learn about learning as it proceeds.
	philsci-archive.pitt.edu /archive/00000251/00/MaxwellA.txt (13511 words)

	The Karl Popper Problem - The New York Review of Books
		But he succumbs, alas, to the same conclusion as most of Popper's other critics, that "if you adopt his [Popper's] description of the aim of science as the truth, it is pointless to pursue his method of conjectures and refutations, for he denies they can arrive at any rational claim to the truth" (p.
		Lieberson's complaint against falsificationism is the familiar one that it provides us with no good reasons for thinking that its methods will help us to attain the truth, or even to approach it.
		It is therefore not easy to see what criticism it is of falsificationism that "it fails to do something that it has no plan or purpose to do: to justify its own success" ("Conjectural Knowledge," p.
	www.nybooks.com /articles/6236 (1471 words)

	Falsificationism
		Falsificationism is a rival account of the processes involved in scientific research to inductivism.
		Falsificationism suggests that science proceeds in the opposite direction, beginning with scientific theories or “conjectures”, and then conducting experiments and eliminating those theories that are falsified by results.
		Falsificationism exploits an important logical point: falsifying instances are more significant than confirming instances.
	www.philosophyofscience.info /falsificationism.html (177 words)

	Ephilosopher :: Logic and Formal Reasoning :: Does falsificationism make logic impossible? (Site not responding. Last check: )
		So falsificationism doesn't create any kind of real bar to formulating arguments that are both valid and sound.
		At most, falsificationism only requires a caveat: if the argument is valid, I can be as sure of the conclusion as I am of the premises.
		If falsificationism entailed that logic was impossible (which is your argument, not mine!), this would be a reductio ad absurdum against the very concept of falsificationism; the fact that empirical facts are not appealed to is irrelevant because this is a conceptual point.
	www.ephilosopher.com /modules.php?op=modload&name=phpBB_14&file=index&action=viewtopic&topic=5613&start=15 (1885 words)

	Falsifiability - Psychology Wiki
		Naïve falsificationism is an unsuccessful attempt to prescribe a rationally unavoidable method for science.
		Falsificationism proper, on the other hand, is a prescription of a way in which scientists ought to behave as a matter of choice.
		His own falsificationism, thus, is not only an alternative to verificationism, it is also an acknowledgment of the conceptual distinction that previous theories had ignored.
	psychology.wikia.com /wiki/Falsifiable (3602 words)

	Department of Economics, McMaster University
		Falsificationism is associated with the philosopher Karl Popper.
		The key idea in Falsificationism is that empirical evidence can refute (falsify) a theory or hypothesis, but cannot confirm a theory.
		For example, Falsificationism (discussed above) is a normative philosophy of science that has between criticized in part for its failure as a positive theory.
	socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca /ec3f3/crossley/Lecture1.htm (1121 words)

	Imre Lakatos "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programs," 1970
		Kuhn understands only one of these, "naive falsificationism" (I prefer the term "naive methodological falsificationism"); I think that his criticism of it is correct, and I shall even strengthen it.
		But, of course, if falsification depends on the emergence of better theories, on the invention of theories which anticipate new facts, then falsification is not simply a relation between a theory and the empirical basis, but a multiple relation between competing theories, the original "empirical basis," and the empirical growth resulting from the competition.
		In the distorting mirror of naive falsificationism, new theories which replace old refuted ones, are themselves born unrefuted.
	www.stephenjaygould.org /ctrl/lakatos_prediction.html (2284 words)

	Falsificationism
		He or she is thus a conventionalist in that certain propositions are taken as basic and used to build a foundation of scientific theories upon.
		Dogmatic falsificationism was a dead-end and hence some bold choices need to be made.
		It is difficult to critique methodological falsificationism for the simple reason that it is unfalsifiable.
	www.galilean-library.org /falsificationism.html (2231 words)

	Intelligent Design the Future: Icons of Evolution: A Response to Critics--Part 9
		Falsificationism, it may be recalled, is the idea proposed by philosopher Karl Popper.” (Emphasis in the original) (Pigliucci, pp.
		For Popper, falsificationism is the hallmark of science.
		Naïve falsificationism, however, looks for isolated anomalies where an otherwise successful theory seems inconsistent with the evidence.
	www.idthefuture.com /2005/12/icons_of_evolution_a_response_6.html (1242 words)

	Naive Vs Sophisticated Falsificationism
		Contrary to naive falsificationism, no experiment, experimental report, observation statement or well-corroborated low-level falsifying hypothesis alone can lead to falsification.
		With this the distinctively negative character of naive falsificationism vanishes; criticism becomes more difficult, and also positive, constructive.
		If falsification depends on the emergence of better theories, on the invention of theories which anticipate new facts, then falsification is not simply a relation between a theory and the empirical basis, but a multiple relation between competing theories, the original "empirical basis," and the empirical growth resulting from the competition.
	clublet.com /why?NaiveVsSophisticatedFalsificationism (414 words)

	Imre Lakatos "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programs," 1970
		My concern is rather that Kuhn, having recognized the failure both of justificationism and falsificationism in providing rational accounts of scientific growth, seems now to fall back on irrationalism.
		For the naive falsificationist any theory which can be interpreted as experimentally falsifiable, is "acceptable" or "scientific." For the sophisticated falsificationist a theory is "acceptable" or "scientific" only if it has corroborated excess empirical content over its predecessor (or rival), that is, only if it leads to the discovery of novel facts.
		Thus the crucial element in falsificationism is whether the new theory offers any novel, excess information compared with its predecessor and whether some of this excess information is corroborated.
	nsmserver2.fullerton.edu /departments/chemistry/evolution_creation/web/Lakatos.htm (2284 words)

	Lecture objectives
		Describe the argument for the view that hypotheses are not tested in isolation and discuss the consequences for falsificationism.
		Compare the relative success of inductivism and falsificationism as candidates for the definition and justification of scientific method.
		Compare the relative success of inductivism and falsificationism and with respect to the descriptions of scientific progress that they entail and with reference to the historical record.
	www.phys.port.ac.uk /what/lecture.htm (639 words)

	CSSHS Archives - Review of Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge
		The hallmark of dogmatic falsificationism is then the recognition that all theories are equally conjectural.
		Recall that dogmatic falsificationism requires that a scientific theory, to be scientific and not "metaphysical," must specify conditions under which it would be disproved.
		Lakatos is not satisfied with this conclusion, and he attempts to construct a sophisticated methodological falsificationism that escapes skepticism and irrationalism.
	www.creationism.org /csshs/v01n2p12.htm (2746 words)

	Ephilosopher :: Logic and Formal Reasoning :: Does falsificationism make logic impossible? (Site not responding. Last check: )
		A sound argument requires its premises to be true.
		Falsificationism says nothing (I suppose, aside from truisms and analytic statements) can ever be known to be true -- the best it can be is "not yet disproved".
		Falsificationism does not say that propositions cannot be known to be true.
	www.ephilosopher.com /phpBB_14-action-viewtopic-topic-5613.html (1282 words)

	[No title]
		The concept of degrees of falsifiability is problematic: For each universal generalization (statement of the form “All A’s are B’s), there is potentially an infinite number of falsifying data.
		The history of science is not consistent with falsificationism.
		Scientists often tolerate the occurrence of apparently falsifying observations or experimental outcomes for significant periods of time without abandoning the “falsified” hypotheses—even when no satisfactory modifications are available.
	www.hu.mtu.edu /~tlockha/h3700falsificationism3.f04.doc (208 words)

	On Philosophy Falsificationism and Verificationism «
		If we look at verificationism from the perspective of probability theory it recommends the exact same kind of investigations as falsificationism, showing that it might be a decent way of approaching a scientific investigation after all.
		Besides encouraging us to look for evidence that is likely to falsify the theory (which proponents of falsificationism have shown to be a good idea on numerous grounds) it also provides a way to show several other intuitive ideas about science to be true.
		For example verificationism as interpreted here shows that you can never prove that a hypothesis to be true beyond the possibility of doubt (the probability of the hypothesis is always less than one no matter how much evidence you have), and that you cannot disprove a hypothesis unless it predicts that some events are impossible.
	onphilosophy.wordpress.com /2006/07/30/falsificationism-and-verificationism (495 words)

	Metatheory--Popper
		Methodological falsificationism differs from dogmatic falsificationism in its recognition of the place of auxiliary assumptions (subject-specific assumptions, other than the hypothesis to be tested, concerning experimental conditions and background theory) in testing theory.
		Scientific honesty, according to Popper, requires the foreswearing of conventionalist strategems and the specification in advance of a certain class of observational consequences that would indeed falsify a theory.
		For a further discussion of the application and limits of dogmatic and methodological falsificationism, see this experimental demonstration of why the earth may really be flat.
	www.personalityresearch.org /metatheory/popper.html (264 words)

	Ephilosopher :: Philosophy of Science Forum :: Problems of Falsificationism (Site not responding. Last check: )
		I want to clarify the problems of (naive?) falsificationism, to make sure I have it right (I am reading about Lakatos).
		3) If falsificationism is true, then the observation statements themselves cannot be "proven", so therefore the theory itself cannot be falsified for certain.
		For that matter, the whole burden of falsificationism is to say there is there is no final proof for any empirical hypothesis, just theories that survive testing.
	www.ephilosopher.com /phpBB_14-action-viewtopic-topic-3307.html (869 words)

	[No title]
		Illustrations of the problem of induction, followed by a brief introduction to Karl Popper’s principle of falsificationism, will be very helpful to students in understanding the logic of statistical methods.
		Illustrations of the problem of induction, followed by a brief introduction to Karl Popper’s (1965, 1968, 1983) principle of falsificationism will be very helpful to students in understanding the logic of statistical methods.
		The principle of falsificationism is a useful and good starting point in helping students to make a distinction between a scientific theory and a non-scientific one.
	cisnet.baruch.cuny.edu /friedman/papers/statvalu.doc (1156 words)

	The methodology of scientific research programmes
		Having lanced the boils of justificationism, neojustificationism, and dogmatic falsificationism, Lakatos introduces the shining knight of methodological falsificationism.
		The difference between dogmatic and methodological falsificationism is that the former treats experiment and observation as being absolutely reliable as falsifiers whereas the the latter treats them as being provisional.
		Under methodological falsificationism theories are marked as rejected, i.e., classified as unscientific; under dogmatic falsificationism they are marked as falsified.
	home.tiac.net /~cri/1999/lakatos.html (3552 words)

	John Dupré: The Disorder of Things
		The central difficulty for falsificationism comes at the very beginning, with the process of inferring empirical conclusions from a theory and attempting to falsify them.
		The problem is that such inferences will typically require vastly more by way of premises than merely the theory that is supposedly being exposed to possible falsification.
		If it is motivated by any legitimately theoretical considerations, I suspect that these amount to some kind of commitment to a universe amenable to one systematic and orderly description; a universe in the existence of which, I have argued, we have every reason to disbelieve.
	www-csli.stanford.edu /~schuetze/dupre.html (713 words)

	20th WCP: The Concept of 'Metaphysical Liberalism': On the Philosophical Source of 'Liberal Democracy'
		This lack of self-critical attitude is, for the liberalists, to be mostly avoided as the snobbish one found in our daily life.
		Practically, the attitude of falsificationism is much more valid than that of verificationism.
		The latter is also an assurance of liberalism, under which the individual thoughts are always open to the possibility of creation.
	www.bu.edu /wcp/Papers/Poli/PoliImam.htm (2911 words)

	CHAPTER4
		Also, one cannot make a case for falsificationism -- that Ptolemy's system was irrefutable, and hence not scientific, and Copernicus's refutable, and hence scientific -- nor, if one grants that the Ptolemaic system was refutable, that a crucial deciding observation emerged that falsified this system at an early stage of appraisal of the two systems.
		Second, in criticizing falsificationism, Lakatos had argued that crucial falsifying observational events are never temporally dramatic, but always the result of hindsight.
		Furthermore, this cannot be revealed via inductivism, falsificationism, or simplicism, but only by the normative internal spectacles of Lakatosian philosophy of science -- heliostasis can be seen as progressive and geostasis as degenerating for a long time.
	www.hcc.hawaii.edu /~pine/Thesis/CHAPTER4.htm (10399 words)

	Why the Earth May Really Be Flat
		Auxiliary assumptions are subject-specific assumptions concerning the initial conditions or experimental assumptions, and/or the assumptions of the theory.
		According to the more sophisticated scheme for falsification (Popper's methodological falsificationism), we start out with a hypothesis plus some auxiliary assumptions, which combined imply some observational consequence: H plus auxiliary assumptions imply C. Then we do the experiment and find some observed outcome: C*.
		If C* is incompatible with C, then we conclude that either H is false or some of the auxiliary assumptions are false (or both).
	www.personalityresearch.org /metatheory/flatearth.html (1138 words)

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