What is Falsification?

In this edition of TOK-TALK we will talk about Karl Poppers contributions to the philosophy of science. Sir Reimund Karl Popper is considered to be one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, and of course it is difficult, if not [...]

An episode of the TOKTalk.net podcast, hosted by ok, titled "What is Falsification?" was published on December 24, 2007.

December 24, 2007 · TOKTalk.net

Summary

http://www.toktalk.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/MP3/004-toktalk-falsification.mp3 In this edition of TOK-TALK we will talk about Karl Poppers contributions to the philosophy of science. Sir Reimund Karl Popper is considered to be one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, and of course it is difficult, if not impossible to summarize his contributions in a few minutes (or a few lines). Where should you draw the line between the sciences and the pseudosciences? What characterizes scientific theories? In this edition we will have a look at the falsification principle which offers an answer to these questions. In this edition of TOKTalk I will talk about Karl Poppers contributions to the philosophy of science. What makes a theory scientific and what is the principle of falsification? Listen to find out! Transcript: Sir Reimund Karl Popper is considered to be one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, and of course it is difficult, if not impossible to summarize his contributions in a few minutes. Maybe I’ll start out by giving you a brief biographical overview over his life. Popper was born in 1902 in Vienna, Austria and with the rise of Nazism in Germany and Austria he emmigrated to New Zealand. Later he went to Great Britain where he spent most of his life teaching at the London School of Economics. Popper contributed greatly to philosophy of science and published a notable book on this issue called “The Logic of Scientific Discovery” in 1934. He was also a political philosopher. One of his most well known books on the issue is “The Open Society and Its Enemies”, which was published in 1945. Popper died at the age of 92 in 1994. Now what were his contributions for the philosophy of science? I think that I need to start at the beginning here. Popper was living at the the time when Albert Einstein formulated his theory of relativity. He was highly fascinated by this progress of science. Einstein formulated his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 and then the General Theory of Relativity by 1915. At that time Einstein did not yet have experimental evidence for his theory. His theory made predictions, but the actual test to see if the predictions were correct was not performed yet. Einstein’s theory could be tested a few years later during the total solar eclipse of 1919. So Popper was of course excited to find out if the Einstein’s theory will be proven correct or not. If the outcome of the experiment confirms the theory, then the theory will be strengthened, if not, then Einstein’s theory will be abandoned. Well, the experiment did confirm the theory, but this is was probably not the main point. Popper knew that the scientific community would have abandoned Einstein’s theory if the outcome would not have met the predictions. This is how science works, and how it should work. If the theory fails to make the correct predictions, then you have to replace the theory. This is what you call scientific progress. You replace old theories with better ones. According to Popper scientific theories can not give you you certainty. The 1919 solar eclipse did prove Einstein’s Theory of Relativity correct, but maybe in the future another experiment will prove the theory wrong. In this case the Theory of Relativity will be falsified, and it is necessary to search for a new theory that is able to explain both the old and the new experimental results. As a matter of fact, even hundreds or thousands of proofs are not enough to ultimately prove a theory absolutely correct. You can never be certain, maybe the next experiment will prove the theory false. One single experiment is enough to falsify a theory, no matter how many times the theory has been proven correct before. Naturally one has to be a bit careful here. Some theories are very well established already. And it is quite possible that experimental errors give the appearance that a theory is wrong. So it is not wise to [...]

Episode Description