Bacons Four Idols

The English statesman and scholar Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was one of the earliest
thinkers to truly understand the nature of the mind and how humanity truly
progresses in collective knowledge.
Bacon’s first great contribution was to lessen the focus on traditional
scholarship: the constant mining of the old Greek and Roman philosophers and the
old religious texts, the idea that most of our knowledge had already been “found”
and needed to be rediscovered.
To Bacon, this was an unstable artifice on which to build our understanding of the
world. Better that we start reasoning from first principles, building up our
knowledge of the world through inductive reasoning. E.O. Wilson summarizes Bacon’s
contribution in a chapter on the Enlightenment in his excellent book Consilience.
By reflecting on all possible methods of investigation available to his
imagination, he concluded that the best among them is induction, which is the
gathering of large numbers of facts and the detection of patterns. In order to
obtain maximum objectivity, we must entertain only a minimum of preconceptions.
Bacon proclaimed a pyramid of disciplines, with natural history forming the base,
physics above and subsuming it, and metaphysics at the peak, explaining everything
below–though perhaps in powers and forms beyond the grasp of man.
In this way, Wilson crowns Bacon as the Father of Induction — the first to truly
grasp the power of careful inductive reasoning to generate insights. Bacon broke
down the old, rigid ways of classifying knowledge in favor of building a new
understanding from the ground up, using experiments to prove or disprove a theory.
In this way, he realized much of what was being taught in his time, including
metaphysics, alchemy, magic, astrology, and other disciplines, would eventually
crumble under scrutiny. (A feeling we share about our current age.)
Insights of the Mind
Most importantly, hundreds of years before the advent of modern psychology, Bacon
understood clearly that the human mind doesn’t always reason correctly, and that
any approach to scientific knowledge must start with that understanding. Over 400
years before there was a Charlie Munger or a Daniel Kahneman, Bacon clearly
understood the first-conclusion bias and the confirmation bias.
In his Novum Organum, Bacon described these errors in the same manner we understand
them today:
The mind, hastily and without choice, imbibes and treasures up the first notices of
things, from whence all the rest proceed, errors must forever prevail, and remain
uncorrected.
[…]
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the
received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support
and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to
be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by
some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious
predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.
He called the wide variety of errors in mental processing the Idols of the Mind.
There were four idols: Idols of the Tribe, Idols of the Cave, Idols of the
Marketplace, and Idols of the Theater.
Idols of the Tribe
The Idols of the Tribe made the false assumption that our most natural and basic
sense of thing was the correct one. He called our natural impressions a “false
mirror” which distorted the true nature of things.
The Idols of the Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the
tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the
measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the
mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the
measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which,
receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling
its own nature with it.
A person's education: Education falls into the "nurture" side of the "nature-
nurture" equation, and is a large influence on an individual's perception of the
world around them. Unfortunately, the false realities of the educators, books, etc.
can get passed on to the student, thus coloring their clear understanding. For
example, if a particular history teacher had a dislike of, say, communism, the
student might well get false impressions of how that system works and its
implications for society.
The books a person reads: Books work similarly to education, and perhaps are in
fact a somewhat less intense version of education. Again, the points of view in
books will tend to distort an understanding and thus a person can be greatly
influenced by their reading material. For example, if a person were to read a book
portraying a particular subject (say, religion in schools) in a negative manner,
the person's understanding and reaction to the issue could be completely clouded.
The people a person admires: All people have their own idols and false
understandings, and if a person holds another in too high esteem, there is the
potential for them to pick up their "herd's" false perceptions. (For example, you
might admire someone for some reason, but find yourself picking up a bad habit of
theirs.)
A person's experiences: A person's experiences can also distort their
understanding, especially if they attempt to draw too many conclusions from them.
For example, if you were robbed by a certain race or type of person, you might
(even subconsciously associate that type of person with the experience and come to
the conclusion that that type of person is bad.
Our need to seek more and more regularity in the world than there really is: This
is a tendency people have which may well arise from convenience of thought: we tend
to think that things ought to be simple. Science has been under this delusion for
some time, assuming there was a simple explanation for most physical phenomena
(such as weather). Relativity, QM, and Chaos theory are only recently changing this
view. (It is know known that many such phenomena cannot be predicted.)
Our tendency to seek out evidence of that which we already believe to be true: This
arises perhaps from affection we begin to give to ideas we have found and carried
with us for some time; we become attached to them and collect evidence that
supports them while throwing out that which contradicts them. Of course, this will
lead us to false conclusions if we have accidentally embraced a false "truth."
Science faces this problem all the time: in the attempts to find scientific
evidence for, say, psychic phenomena, scientists often tend to find data that fits
whatever conclusions they were expecting, whether or not it was the most accurate
analysis of data. This is especially problematic in the analysis of "soft" data,
such as the results of psychological experiments.
Our tendency to see personal truths as universal: This boils down to opinion.
Clearly, your opinion (just one of your little false realities) is far from
universal, and yet most people consider them to be so and will often argue them
vehemently with little thought to their real value. For example, in the area of
personal taste around music, I hear it said often that "musical group X sucks" or
"yeah, band y has two good songs." Often, these opinions are treated as reality
without any realization of their very personal, opinion-based nature.
Our belief in empirical data: The problem with empirical data is it is reliant upon
the senses. And the senses are inherently unreliable, being very much a relative
measure of things. This can give impressions that are incorrect. In addition people
believe that if they can't sense something, it isn't there. ("I'll believe it when
I see it.") This has slowed the discovery over time of such things as germs,
electromagnetic phenomena, etc. Clearly, initial absence of empirical data has no
bearing on its existence.
Our tendency to let emotions rule reason: Simply put, the human's difficulty in
separating emotions from observations and understanding can give us false
impressions of the truth based on our feelings at the time. For example, the man
who gets cut off by someone in traffic, loses it, chases after the offending driver
and vehicle, cuts them off, stops his vehicle and yells at the person (I'm not
making this up) clearly has let emotion cloud their better judgment and
understanding.
Idols of the Cave
The Idols of the Cave were the problems of individuals, their passions and
enthusiasms, their devotions and ideologies, all of which led to misunderstandings
of the true nature of things.
The Idols of the Cave are the idols of the individual man. For everyone (besides
the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which
refracts and discolors the light of nature, owing either to his own proper and
peculiar nature; or to his education and conversation with others; or to the
reading of books, and the authority of those whom he esteems and admires; or to the
differences of impressions, accordingly as they take place in a mind preoccupied
and predisposed or in a mind indifferent and settled; or the like. So that the
spirit of man (according as it is meted out to different individuals) is in fact a
thing variable and full of perturbation, and governed as it were by chance. Whence
it was well observed by Heraclitus that men look for sciences in their own lesser
worlds, and not in the greater or common world.
People see things in light of their own special knowledge and opinions: People tend
to look at things through the eyes of their favorite science or theology, and this
can cause distortion of the truth. For example, a chemist who is asked about a
certain phenomenon (say, the nature of electromagnetic radiation) might delve into
a particle-based explanation of it while neglecting a more broad view, thus
distorting the understanding of the both the person he is talking to, and himself
as well, very likely.
Some of us are governed by similarities, others by differences: Both of these
extremes are easily mired in excess, tending to miss the other half. The tendency
to classify things by their common features or their distinctions can cause the
observer to miss all other aspects of the things he is studying, even though they
might be more important. For example, an individual who meets someone they've never
met before might notice that some mannerism of the person reminds them of their
mother. They might be so distracted by this fact that they completely fail to get
to know the other person.
Those who love the past and those who love the possibilities of the future obscure
the knowledge of the present: "The past is but a memory, the future is but a dream;
the only truth is now, the moment." Philosophers who concentrate too much on the
past or the future miss the importance of the now, the present, the experience,
which is the most important part. For example, those who attempt to know the
"truth" by analyzing the past may understand much of what shaped where we are
today, but they may well completely miss the thoughts of the day, the existence of
reality as it is now, or even their own thoughts on things, thus obstructing their
knowledge.
Some of us see only the details and others see only the global: Failure to examine
things on more than one level of "zoom" can cause serious gaps in our understanding
of any subject of study. For instance, were mechanical physicists to ignore
particle physics, they would have a thoroughly incomplete understanding of what's
going on
Idols of the Marketplace
You might call the Idols of the Marketplace a problem of political discourse: The
use of words to mislead. (Nearly a half a century later, Garrett Hardin would argue
similarly that good thinkers need a literary filter to suss out sense from
nonsense.)
There are also Idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each
other, which I call Idols of the Market Place, on account of the commerce and
consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate, and words are
imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and
unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the
definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard
and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force
and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away
into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies.
Words are misused or misunderstood: This is a large problem in the communication of
ideas, which is quite important. Two people having a conversation might be using
the same word but thinking of different meanings, and would obviously not be
getting the same meaning. Or, a person might use the wrong word, thinking one thing
but saying another. For example, using the word "Sophistic" instead of
"Sophisticated" will give the listener two very different impressions of whatever
is being described.
Words have a true and a vulgar meaning: In a word, slang. Same as above, more or
less. Common meaning might differ from true meaning, and in fact common meaning can
corrupt true meaning. For example, the word "duff" has a general meaning in common
conversation, which has long obscured its true meaning, which is "decaying matter
on the floor of a forest." (Seriously.) In any case, confusion can ultimately arise
from these differences.
Words cannot be defined because we need words to define them: Definitely a circular
reasoning problem. Many people come to use words simply by hearing them used, and
fail to define them. Worse, any definitions must use more words, which in turn must
be defined causing a complete lack of exact understanding of the meaning of the
words.
For example, looking up the word "intelligent," one gets the definition "having
quick mental capabilities." This requires looking up all of these words, which are
in turn defined by more words, ad infinitum; one never gets to a non-word
definition.
Names of things which do not exist confuse our understanding: Things which are
supposed to be true with no evidence, simply from speculation. Such an idea was
that of ether, the medium that light was supposed to move in. However, no such
medium seems to exist, and the idea threw scientists off for some time.
Names of things which exist but which are defined or have contradictory meanings:
(don't use "humid")
Very simply, words which have more than one meaning, of which the English language
is full. Even a simple word like "clever" can mean either "smart" or "tricky,"
which have very different meanings.
How do the following work well in demonstration but less well in reality separate
from their control?

Idols of the Theater

The final idol, of the Theater, is how Bacon referred to long-received wisdom, the
ancient systems of philosophy, the arbitrary divisions of knowledge and
classification systems held onto like dogma. Without emptying one’s mind of the old
ways, no new progress could be made. This would be an important lasting value of
the Baconian view of science. Truth must be reasoned from first principles.
Lastly, there are Idols which have immigrated into men’s minds from the various
dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call
Idols of the Theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are but so
many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and
scenic fashion. Nor is it only of the systems now in vogue, or only of the ancient
sects and philosophies, that I speak; for many more plays of the same kind may yet
be composed and in like artificial manner set forth; seeing that errors the most
widely different have nevertheless causes for the most part alike. Neither again do
I mean this only of entire systems, but also of many principles and axioms in
science, which by tradition, credulity, and negligence have come to be received.
The Lasting Importance of Narrative
Even with his rationalistic view of the world, a rigorous devotion to truth, Bacon
realized that unless you used creative storytelling and engaged a learner’s mind,
it would be impossible to communicate real truths about the world. He knew the
power narrative had to instruct. E.O. Wilson writes in Consilience:
Reality still had to be embraced directly and reported without flinching. But it is
also best delivered the same way it was discovered, retaining a comparable
vividness and play of the emotions. Nature and her secrets must be as stimulating
to the imagination as are poetry and fables. To that end, Bacon advised us to use
aphorisms, illustrations, stories, fables, analogies–anything that conveys truth
from the discoverer to his readers as clearly as a picture. The mind, he argued, is
not like a wax tablet. On a tablet you cannot write the new till you rub out the
old, on the mind you cannot rub out the old except by writing in the new.”
Religion: Religion is in a way domesticated philosophy, relying on scripture for
its philosophical teachings. The idols of much religion is the reliance on these
writings (too narrow a foundation) to the point that the philosophy is not itself
examined very closely. For example, religion is supposed to espouse virtues such as
forgiveness and not murdering, but on the other hand some of the worst atrocities
of all time have been committed in
the name of religion, with little thought to the moral issues of what is being
done. (Holy wars are an especially good example of this.)
Political systems (democracy, communism, etc.): Political systems are created on
the assumption that people will act and work in certain ways (communism especially
is prone to this). In actuality, however, idols of various kinds and limitations in
the plans themselves may keep the political systems from functioning as they had
been expected to in theory. For example, democracy is supposed to have the "people"
making all the decisions, but in a large society, indirect representation is the
only feasible route to go, distancing the people from the political processes and
draining much power out of the premise of the system.
Education: The basic idea here is that education, the transferal of knowledge, can
too easily be corrupted by stagnant ideas, or by the prejudices (idols) of the
teacher.
Political parties: Political parties also base their "philosophies" on too narrow a
base of knowledge and understanding, drawing on popular thought and opinion rather
than true philosophy or science. For example, a certain political party (think
elephants) tends to base much of its thought both on public opinion (which is a
crock) and on religion (see "religion" above). Many of its more prominent members
(think bananas and lizards) seem to base most of their viewpoints on the above
stated reasons, leaving original thought out of the equation altogether. BOTH
political parties are guilty of this (in different directions), and it drains much
of the validity of the positions of both parties.

Karl Popper (1902-1994) was one of the most influential philosophers of science of
the 20th century. He made significant contributions to debates concerning general
scientific methodology and theory choice, the demarcation of science from non-
science, the nature of probability and quantum mechanics, and the methodology of
the social sciences. His work is notable for its wide influence both within the
philosophy of science, within science itself, and within a broader social context.
Popper’s early work attempts to solve the problem of demarcation and offer a clear
criterion that distinguishes scientific theories from metaphysical or mythological
claims. Popper’s falsificationist methodology holds that scientific theories are
characterized by entailing predictions that future observations might reveal to be
false. When theories are falsified by such observations, scientists can respond by
revising the theory, or by rejecting the theory in favor of a rival or by
maintaining the theory as is and changing an auxiliary hypothesis. In either case,
however, this process must aim at the production of new, falsifiable predictions.
While Popper recognizes that scientists can and do hold onto theories in the face
of failed predictions when there are no predictively superior rivals to turn to. He
holds that scientific practice is characterized by its continual effort to test
theories against experience and make revisions based on the outcomes of these
tests. By contrast, theories that are permanently immunized from falsification by
the introduction of untestable ad hoc hypotheses can no longer be classified as
scientific. Among other things, Popper argues that his falsificationist proposal
allows for a solution of the problem of induction, since inductive reasoning plays
no role in his account of theory choice.
Along with his general proposals regarding falsification and scientific
methodology, Popper is notable for his work on probability and quantum mechanics
and on the methodology of the social sciences. Popper defends a propensity theory
of probability, according to which probabilities are interpreted as objective,
mind-independent properties of experimental setups. Popper then uses this theory to
provide a realist interpretation of quantum mechanics, though its applicability
goes beyond this specific case. With respect to the social sciences, Popper argued
against the historicist attempt to formulate universal laws covering the whole of
human history and instead argued in favor of methodological individualism and
situational logic.
Falsification and the Criterion of Demarcation
Much of Popper’s early work in the philosophy of science focuses on what he calls
the problem of demarcation, or the problem of distinguishing scientific (or
empirical) theories from non-scientific theories. In particular, Popper aims to
capture the logical or methodological differences between scientific disciplines,
such as physics, and non-scientific disciplines, such as myth-making, philosophical
metaphysics, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Marxist social criticism.
Popper’s proposals concerning demarcation can be usefully seen as a response to the
verifiability criterion of demarcation proposed by logical empiricists, such as
Carnap and Schlick. According to this criterion, a statement is cognitively
meaningful if and only if it is, in principle, possible to verify. This criterion
is intended to, among other things, capture the idea that the claims of empirical
science are meaningful in a way that the claims of traditional philosophical
metaphysics are not. For example, this criterion entails that claims about the
locations of mid-sized objects are meaningful, since one can, in principle, verify
them by going to the appropriate location. By contrast, claims about the
fundamental nature of causation are not meaningful.
While Popper shares the belief that there is a qualitative difference between
science and philosophical metaphysics, he rejects the verifiability criterion for
several reasons. First, it counts existential statements (like “unicorns exist”) as
scientific, even though there is no way of definitively showing that they are
false. After all, the mere fact that one has failed to see a unicorn in a
particular place does not establish that unicorns could not be observed in some
other place. Second, it inappropriately counts universal statements (like “all
swans are white”) as meaningless simply because they can never be conclusively
verified. These sorts of universal claims, though, are common within science, and
certain observations (like the observation of a black swan) can clearly show them
to be false. Finally, the verifiability criterion is by its own light not
meaningful, since it cannot be verified.
Partially in response to worries such as these, the logical empiricists’ later work
abandons the verifiability criterion of meaning and instead emphasizes the
importance of the empirical confirmation of scientific theories. Popper, however,
argues that verification and confirmation played no role in formulating a
satisfactory criterion of demarcation. Instead, Popper proposes that scientific
theories are characterized by being bold in two related ways. First, scientific
theories regularly disagree with accepted views of the world based on common sense
or previous theoretical commitments. To an uneducated observer, for example, it may
seem obvious that Earth is stationary, while the sun moves rapidly around it.
However, Copernicus posited that Earth in fact revolved around the sun. In a
similar way, it does not seem as though a tree and a human share a common ancestor,
but this is what Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection claims. As
Popper notes, however, this sort of boldness is not unique to scientific theories,
since most mythological and metaphysical theories also make bold, counterintuitive
claims about the nature of reality. For example, the accounts of world creation
provided by various religions would count as bold in this sense, but this does not
mean that they thereby count as scientific theories.
With this in mind, he goes on argue that scientific theories are distinguished from
non-scientific theories by a second sort of boldness: they make testable claims
that future observations might reveal to be false. This boldness thus amounts to a
willingness to take a risk of being wrong. On Popper’s view, scientists
investigating a theory make repeated, honest attempts to falsify the theory,
whereas adherents of pseudoscientific or metaphysical theories routinely take
measures to make the observed reality fit the predictions of the theory. Popper
describes his proposal as follows:@
Thus my proposal was, and is, that it is this second boldness, together with the
readiness to look for tests and refutations, which distinguished “empirical”
science from non-science, and especially from pre-scientific myths and metaphysics.
(1974, pp. 980-981)
In other places, Popper calls attention to the fact that scientific theories are
characterized by possessing potential falsifiers—that is, that they make claims
about the world that might be discovered to be false. If these claims are, in fact,
found to be false, then the theory as a whole is said to be falsified. Non-
scientific theories, by contrast, do not have any such potential falsifiers—there
is literally no possible observation that could serve to falsify these theories.
Popper’s falsificationist proposal differs from the verifiability criterion in
several important ways. First, Popper does not hold that non-scientific claims are
meaningless. Instead, he argues that such unfalsifiable claims can often serve
important roles in both scientific and philosophical contexts, even if we are
incapable of ascertaining their truth or falsity. Second, while Popper is a realist
who holds that scientific theories aim at the truth (see Section 4), he does not
think that empirical evidence can ever provide us grounds for believing that a
theory is either true or likely to be true. In this sense, Popper is a fallibilist
who holds that while the particular unfalsified theory we have adopted might be
true, we could never know this to be the case. For these same reasons, Popper holds
that it is impossible to provide justification for one’s belief that a particular
scientific theory is true. Finally, where others see science progressing by
confirming the truth of various particular claims, Popper describes science as
progressing on an evolutionary model, with observations selecting against unfit
theories by falsifying them.

Popper on Physics and Psychoanalysis

In order to see how falsificationism works in practice, it will help to consider
one of Popper’s most memorable examples: the contrast between Einstein’s theory of
general relativity and the theories of psychoanalysis defended by Sigmund Freud and
Alfred Adler. We might roughly summarize the theories as follows:
General relativity (GR): Einstein’s theory of special relativity posits that the
observed speed of light in a vacuum will be the same for all observers, regardless
of which direction or at what velocity these observers are themselves moving. GR
allows this theory to be applied to cases where acceleration or gravity plays a
role, specifically by treating gravity as a sort of distortion or bend in space-
time created by massive objects.
Psychoanalysis: The theory of psychoanalysis holds that human behavior is driven at
least in part by unconscious desires and motives. For example, Freud posited the
existence of the id, an unconscious part of the human psyche that aims toward
gratifying instinctive desires, regardless of whether this is rational. However,
the desires of the id might be mediated or superseded in certain circumstances by
its interaction with both the self-interested ego and the moral superego.
As we can see, both theories make bold, counter-intuitive claims about the
fundamental nature of reality. Moreover, both theories can account for previously
observed phenomena; for example, GR allows for an accurate description of the
observed perihelion of Mercury, while psychoanalysis entails that it is possible
for people to consistently act in ways that are against their own long-term best
interest. Finally, both of these theories enjoyed significant support among their
academic peers when Popper was first writing about these issues.
Popper argues, however, that GR is scientific while psychoanalysis is not. The
reason for this has to do with the testability of Einstein’s theory. As a young
man, Popper was especially impressed by Arthur Eddington’s 1919 test of GR, which
involved observing during a solar eclipse the degree to which the light from
distant stars was shifted when passing by the sun. Importantly, the predictions of
GR regarding the magnitude shift disagreed with the then-dominant theory of
Newtonian mechanics. Eddington’s observation thus served as a crucial experiment
for deciding between the theories, since it was impossible for both theories to
give accurate predictions. Of necessity, at least one theory would be falsified by
the experiment, which would provide strong reason for scientists to accept its
unfalsified rival. On Popper’s view, the continual effort by scientists to design
and carry out these sorts of potentially falsifying experiments played a central
role in theory choice and clearly distinguished scientific theorizing from other
sorts of activities. Popper also takes care to note that insofar as GR was not a
unified field theory, there was no question of GR’s being the complete truth, as
Einstein himself repeatedly emphasized. The scientific status of GR, then, had
nothing to do with neither (1) the truth of GR as a general theory of physics (the
theory was already known to false) nor (2) the confirmation of GR by evidence (one
cannot confirm a false theory).
In contrast to such paradigmatically scientific theories as GR, Popper argues that
non-scientific theories such as Freudian psychoanalysis do not make any predictions
that might allow them to be falsified. The reason for this is that these theories
are compatible with every possible observation. On Popper’s view, psychoanalysis
simply does not provide us with adequate details to rule out any possible human
behavior. Absent of these sorts of precise predictions, the theory can be made to
fit with, and to provide a purported explanation of, any observed behavior
whatsoever.
To illustrate this point, Popper offers the example of two men, one who pushes a
child into the water with the intent of drowning it, and another who dives into the
water in order to save the child. Popper notes that psychoanalysis can explain both
of these seemingly contradictory actions. In the first case, the psychoanalyst can
claim that the action was driven by a repressed component of the (unconscious) id
and in the second case, that the action resulted from a successful sublimation of
this exact same sort of desire by the ego and superego. The point generalizes that
regardless of how a person actually behaves, psychoanalysis can be used to explain
the behavior. This, in turn, prevents us from formulating any crucial experiments
that might serve to falsify psychoanalysis. Popper writes:
The point is very clear. Neither Freud nor Adler excludes any particular person’s
acting in any particular way, whatever the outward circumstances. Whether a man
sacrificed his life to rescue a drowning child (a case of sublimation) or whether
he murdered the child by drowning (a case of repression) could not possibly be
predicted or excluded by Freud’s theory. (1974, p. 985)
Popper allows that there are often legitimate purposes for positing non-scientific
theories, and he argues that theories which start out as non-scientific can later
become scientific, as we determine methods for generating and testing specific
predictions based on these theories. Popper offers the example of Copernicus’s
theory of a sun-centered universe, which initially yielded no potentially
falsifying predictions, and so would not have counted as scientific by Popper’s
criteria. However, later astronomers determined ways of testing Copernicus’s
hypothesis, thus rendering it scientific. For Popper, then, the demarcation between
scientific and non-scientific theories is not grounded on the nature of entities
posited by theories, by the truth or usefulness of theories, or even by the degree
to which we are justified in believing in such theories. Instead, falsification
provides a methodological distinction based on the unique role that observation and
evidence play in scientific practice.