Is that the same philosopher (Kuhn) who died some centuries ago and
were the debaters present? Wow! and Einstein thought that *Quantum
Mechanics* was spooky.
>Therre is a far more important objection to Popperian falsificationism,
>however, that was raised by Imre Lakatos (and others). That is that all
>scientific theories have falsifying evidence, but working scientists
>ignore or set aside that falsifying evidence if they think the theory is
>true or if it gives them a fruitful research program. Thus, Lakatos moved
>to speaking of scientific research programs and trying to distinguish
>between good and degenerating ones. That seems to me to be the right way
>to go.
I rather liked the objectivity, simplicity and rigor of Popper's
prescription and felt that he was verbalizing what respectable scientists
and engineers have long been doing intuitively. It was described on the site
I mentioned as:
Popper's proposed Scientific Procedure:
(1) conceive theory (can't prescribe how..a creative act)
(2) deduce effects of theory
(3) do experiments
(4) if experiment agrees with theory, go to (2)
otherwise, theory is falsified (ie wrong!)
Example: I could have a theory about the sequence 1,2,3,5,7.... It
might be that it is the sequence of prime numbers. When the next number is
an 11, I would be more confident. When the next was a 15, the theory fails
and an *ethical* scientist would consider looking for another theory (Such
as: the sequence follows increments of 1,1,2,2,4,4,...) instead of trying to
milk more $$$ from the sponsor.
Walt
=================================================
Walt Hicks <whicks@ma.ultranet.com>
"The insights of philosophers have occasionally
benefited physicists, but generally in a negative
fashion -- by protecting them from the
preconceptions of other philosophers".
Steven Weinberg -- "Dreams of a Final Theory"
=================================================