The Paradox of Karl Popper

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/the-paradox-of-karl-popper/

by lainon • 8 years ago

147 78 8 years ago

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Popper sounds like a dude. We shouldn't confuse this apparent irascibility with dogmatism. He was passionate about his ideas: he published them and read criticism of them. He changed his mind about the testability of evolution, and other things.

Intellectual humility is not the same quality as personal meekness and geniuses have always had difficult personalities. Philosophers doubly so. How could it be otherwise? How can one create new stuff if one is too agreeable and too susceptible to groupthink?

Btw, the reason falsifiability doesn't have to be falsifiable (by experiment) is that it isn't a scientific idea; it's a philosophical one. It is potentially 'falsifiable' by criticism, however.

The best modern Popper proponent is David Deutsch. See his books The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity. They're both packed with interesting ideas and arguments. He says that Popper did indeed solve the problem of induction. And here's a recent paper of his on the logic of experimental testing: https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.02048

raverbashing4• 8 years ago

it's a philosophical one. It is potentially 'falsifiable' by criticism, however

Agreed. I think the main issue is not with the idea itself of the scientific method, rather than the practical implications and its limitations.

- The main idea is a qualitative one. It doesn't consider all the statistical can of worms about reproducibility.

- Real world experiments rarely reproduce perfectly/exactly. The more the experiment involves more variables (or unknown variables) you can detect an effect but its magnitude might vary.

- Not everything can be reproduced, not everything can be measured perfectly, hence the "study of knowledge" needs to be able to handle those cases, and not just bury their head in the sand and go "la la la this is not scientific let's ignore it"

nonbel3• 8 years ago

Scientists were reproducing each others work before statistics was a thing. Whatever "statistical can of worms" there is regarding it sounds like a problem with the statistics being used rather than science.

akvadrako• 8 years ago

Are you really talking about Popper's ideas or just a simplified popular understanding of 'falsifiable'?

Popper never said ideas needed to be based on reproducible evidence. He also emphasised explanations over just predictability.

jhbadger• 8 years ago

What would be a case of actual knowledge that isn't scientific and not amenable to falsification though? Even humanities like history use evidence and make conclusions that can be falsified in the light of new information.

wuzamarine2• 8 years ago

Falsifiability violates the Law of Non Contradiction, and Math is the ruling queen of Science.

keithpeter• 8 years ago

Possibly of interest. Miller was teaching at Warwick university some decades ago.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1983/04/28/the-karl-popper-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Miller_(philosopher)

amelius• 8 years ago

Relevant quote:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

-- George Bernard Shaw

kashyapc• 8 years ago

Speaking of David Deutsch, the fine man needs more visibility. To get a taste of his thoughts, might want to listen to the podcast[1], Surviving the Cosmos, between Deutsch and Sam Harris. (They did a second podcast together as well, but I somehow have a stronger memory of the first one.)

[1] https://samharris.org/podcasts/surviving-the-cosmos/

jazzkingrt• 8 years ago

This is amazing thank you.

rexpop• 8 years ago

geniuses have always had difficult personalities

Not sure that's true.

trukterious2• 8 years ago

There were exceptions. For instance, David Hume is reputed to have been an affable fellow.

But we nearly all of us underestimate how much creativity and energy is expended in trying to be normal (or to appear normal, which is much the same thing).

blueprint3• 8 years ago

TIL proving something is not true is not proving the negative to be true. Not.

escherplex2• 8 years ago

For the fun of it, try an embedded factoid: 'blueprint' is happy to have committed some atrocity X (without negating X)

blueprint3• 8 years ago

Huh? Do you know what happy means

jimhefferon• 8 years ago

pseudo-scientific theories, like astrology and Freudian psychoanalysis

Kind of a bold take from SciAm.

Buldak• 8 years ago

I gather Popper criticized those theories himself, so you could read this as simply a description of his arguments, rather than an endorsement.

TangoTrotFox• 8 years ago

No, it's not. You're inappropriately cutting off the sentence: "He is best-known for the principle of falsification, a means of distinguishing pseudo-scientific theories, like astrology and Freudian psychoanalysis, from genuine ones, like quantum mechanics and general relativity."

Falsification is critical to 'real' science, as otherwise the value of what is said rests solely on how it is said rather than what is said. For instance I could say that there's an invisible massless gremlin resting on your shoulder, but you can't tell it's there as it only interacts with other invisible massless gremlins and gravity. Obviously nobody would believe this, because it sounds absurd. But that's not why you shouldn't believe it. The reason you shouldn't believe it is believe it is because it's not falsifiable. You're left trying to prove that there is no invisible massless gremlin on your shoulder, which is something you cannot do.

Predictiveness is of course also critical, but predictions that cannot be falsified are irrelevant. For instance 100 wrong astrology predictions in a row does not falsify astrology. It just means 100 predictions ended up being not true for some individual or another. But because we can happily ignore the times when predictions of astrology are wrong means you ought also be happy to ignore all of the times that it's right - as it's saying nothing where accuracy matters.

melling• 8 years ago

Nassim Taleb, the author of Fooled by Randomness and the Black Swan, is a fan of Popper.

mulligan• 8 years ago

Popper abhorred philosophers who argue that scientists adhere to theories for cultural and political rather than rational reasons.

coldtea3• 8 years ago

Well, he might abhorred them, but he was empirically wrong in tons of cases on the matter.

PKop• 8 years ago

An excerpt of his thoughts on this subject, very interesting to contemplate the political implications of this:

"The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority" [0]

[0] https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

"...Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: “ Would you agree to deny the freedom of speech to every political party that has in its charter the banning the freedom of speech?” Let’s go one step further, “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?”

pvitz• 8 years ago

And so is also Popper's student George Soros.

yters11• 8 years ago

I never understood how falsificationism is supposed to workaround the shortcoming of inductivism.

Say I have coin that I predict will always flip heads. The first flip is tails. Hypothesis falsified! But, that still tells me nothing about the future if the coin is fair.

For falsification to work, we have to assume a priori there is not a uniform distribution over events. In which case, we can do something like Solmonoff induction anyways.

So, it looks like falsification is only useful if induction is also useful. In which case, falsification is not a workaround for induction's problems.

lisper9• 8 years ago

Falsification is only a small part of the story. The other part, the much more important part, is explanatory power. David Deutsch does an excellent job of explaining this in his book The Fabric of Reality, mainly in chapter 7. Highly recommended.

Induction, BTW, is completely invalid as a mode of reasoning (speaking here of logical induction, not mathematical induction). You can flip a coin 10,000 times and have it come up heads every time and still not be able to validly conclude that it will come up heads every time (there are a lot of ancillary assumptions that go into the deductive inference, none of which are justified). On the other hand, you can examine the coin, see that there are heads on both sides, and immediately conclude (soundly) that it will come up heads every time because you can provide an explanation: one of the two sides must come up, and they are both heads!

yters11• 8 years ago

That's just pushing the problem up a level.

Adding an explanation is proposing a model for the coin's behavior. Regardless of the model proposed, and whether it is confirmed or refuted, if the coin is fair you learn nothing.

On the other hand, if the coin is not fair, Solomonoff induction works.

Nasrudith• 8 years ago

Theoretically couldn't one obtain the exact result desired from a physical die or coin by rolling or flipping it with the proper degree of precision?

Probability is nearly always heuristic technically due to lacking perfect knowledge. Quantum effects appear to involve some true randomness.

cokernel• 8 years ago

Yes. Diaconis, Holmes, and Montgomery demonstrate (but do not provide a full specification for) a coin-flipping machine which will yield heads 100%* of the time (as long as it starts on heads).

"Dynamical bias in the coin toss". https://statweb.stanford.edu/~susan/papers/headswithJ.pdf

* Or at least every time the experiment is performed.

coldtea3• 8 years ago

It's not supposed to workaround induction's problems.

yters11• 8 years ago

Induction is the problem, so if falsification does not solve the problem it does not contribute anything.

AndrewKemendo• 8 years ago

Say I have coin that I predict will always flip heads. The first flip is tails. Hypothesis falsified!

Your cycle of scientific inquiry is complete in this case. The test demonstrated that the coin will not always flip heads, and therefore the hypothesis was disproved.

But, that still tells me nothing about the future if the coin is fair.

This is now a new, albeit related, inquiry that can build upon the results of the first test.

So your proposition is constructed in error unfortunately and falsification doesn't claim to address the problem of induction.

yters11• 8 years ago

When I Google "karl popper problem of induction" the Wiki article says:

Karl Popper, a philosopher of science, sought to solve the problem of induction. He argued that science does not use induction, and induction is in fact a myth. Instead, knowledge is created by conjecture and criticism. The main role of observations and experiments in science, he argued, is in attempts to criticize and refute existing theories.

13415• 8 years ago

As far as I remember, that was the worst article about a philosopher that I've ever read. The author is resentful and pretentious from the start to the end and tries his best to portray Popper as a kind of silly person.

If you haven't read the article yet, my advice is not to read it.

scarejunba• 8 years ago

Thank you. Actionable comment. A+

frabert• 8 years ago

I absolutely don't agree and have not found the author trying to shed that light on Popper. Quite the opposite in fact, I felt it was just the description of a rightly self-confident and exuberant philosopher.

ecocentrik2• 8 years ago

tries his best to portray Popper as a kind of silly person.

The author seems to have pulled the bulk of the article from 25 year old notes. He doesn't hide his own youthful naïveté at assuming that a taxi driver would know directions to the home of a philosopher. He also preserves what I'd imagine are embarrassing moments like Popper's reaction to his "big question". What you consider silly, might just be an issue of narrative style.

I personally think it captures the wit and home life of an energetic 90 year old philosopher. What well adjusted human being doesn't expect to have a slightly disorganization existence near the end of a very long life?

jessriedel2• 8 years ago

He doesn't hide his own youthful naïveté at assuming that a taxi driver would know directions to the home of a philosopher.

Huh? The author specifically asked for directions and was surprised when he was (unjustifiably) assured he wouldn't need them.

I personally think it captures the wit and home life of an energetic 90 year old philosopher...

13415 isn't saying the author succeeds at making Popper look silly. Rather, the author is attempting and failing to do so.

phyller• 8 years ago

Ha, I didn't know about him before. Sounds really interesting. Reminds me a lot of Socrates. I have recently been reading the classics about Socrates and was surprised to realize that

a) his main mission seemed to be to show people they didn't know as much as they thought

b) he was basically a huge troll, even if he was usually correct

c) he was such a huge troll that the Athenians actually put him to death for it via a public trial

If our culture didn't have certain moral qualms that the Athenians didn't have too much trouble brushing aside, I imagine Karl's career would have been cut a lot shorter, along with quite a few other philosophers.

stareatgoats2• 8 years ago

Popper is immensely influential in science, well worth a closer study. Agree there are some similarities with Socrates but as far as I know there was no drive to have Popper drink poison (a tribute to the imprint of that ancient Athenian on modern society maybe). Except perhaps in communist countries, the expressed antithesis of Popper's "open society".

gboudrias3• 8 years ago

Popper is immensely influential in science, well worth a closer study

Yep, pretty much invented the falsification principle. Imagine a time when scientists often tried to prove things true. That was science before Popper. This makes him the greatest contributor to science that I know of since Francis Bacon.

soldeace• 8 years ago

Except perhaps in communist countries, the expressed antithesis of Popper's "open society".

I see your point, and I agree, but lest we address the wrong concept, the term you're looking for is 'dictatorial'. Capitalism, just like Communism, produced bloody repressive regimes that were no ground to 'open societies' (e.g. almost every South American country from the 60's to 80's). History teaches us that we should keep our eyes open, for living in capitalist and oh-so-free countries today is simply no guarantee of 'open societies' tomorrow.

bikenaga• 8 years ago

The first chapter "Conjectural Knowledge" of his book "Objective Knowledge" is a discussion of his proposed solution to the problem of induction.

His theories of science (and in particular, of falsification) are explained in his book "Conjectures and Refutations". I read it years ago when I was in grad school.

Popper's writing is clear and jargon-free, so anyone who is interested in his ideas should take a look at some of the original sources.

Finally, "Wittgenstein's Poker" by David Edmonds and John Eidinow takes an argument between Wittgenstein and Popper as a starting point for exploring their lives and work.

bo1024• 8 years ago

This was a fun read, but I found the premise of the "paradox" frustrating. I get that it's kind of funny how the falsfiability guy is passionate and dogmatic about his views. But taking it seriously that this is a contradiction and asking "is falsification falsifiable" is a basic misunderstanding. It reminds me of popular misinterpretations of Godel's theorem.

The author seemed to not understand Popper's response, which was dead on of course. The type of thing that can be falsified is a scientific theory that makes empirical predictions. Falsification is a prescription for how to do science. It can be argued against from a philosophical standpoint, but it makes no predictions and cannot be proven wrong by observation. It's like asking if the 4th Commandment can be falsified -- the compiler gives a type error.

Again, enjoyable read, but this aspect was disappointing.

mactintyre• 8 years ago

Nice response; love the 4th commandment point. I found the author to be on the attack, from the beginning, with the whole taxi driver / address thing. Who cares? Plus the first driver even knew the street.

Then the author seems pathetic here: "Peering searchingly into my eyes, he asked if one of his critics had persuaded me to pose the question. Yes, I lied." Why lie? Have some guts, like Popper evidently does, and believe in what you want to ask.

Popper at this time was 90 years old, surely not putting his best foot forward. It was a poor essay overall, IMO, but I love to read anything about Popper.

8bitsrule• 8 years ago

Funny, funny stuff!

Popper glared at me. Then his expression softened, and he placed his hand on mine. “I don't want to hurt you,” he said gently, “but it is a silly question."

Very sly form of argument, that.

chicob• 8 years ago

This whole interview sounds a lot like someone finally getting the courage to get even with an elderly man by exposing some petty aspects of his homely habits while only superficially mentioning his work.

It seems the most detailed and thorough paragraph is the one devoted to the spelling of 'Popperazzi'.

wuzamarine2• 8 years ago

Popper is a paradox because his falsifiability violates the math Law of Non Contradiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics#Mathematics_as_sci... Philosophy has no place in Science. The Scientific Method is based on 'principles' and theorems/math based not philosophies. Karl is the real inventor of modern pseudoscience (lipstick on a pig). The final cog in The Scientific Method -> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97153/#ch2.s3 ^^hasn't changed since it sparked the entire Industrial Revolution and still 100% effective as is. .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction

The Paradox of Karl Popper

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