Franz Conde (T1684607) |1

Franz Conde (T1684607)

A222 Exploring Philosophy
TMA 04
February 2017

Present Karl Popper’s Falsificationism and assess at least one objection to it.

There are two problems that some philosophers of science are still aiming to

answer satisfactorily: the problem of demarcation and the problem of induction.

Karl Popper's Falsificationism is an attempt to answer both.

On one hand, the problem of demarcation poses several related questions: what

is science? What unique features do scientific enterprises have in common? How

can we separate science from other, less reliable, knowledge-searching activities?

On the other hand, the problem of induction is concerned with a dilemma that

all philosophers of science inherited from Hume and is rephrased by Popper as:

‘how do we actually obtain our knowledge, if induction is invalid and rationally

unjustified?’ (Popper in Cottingham, 2008, p. 456).

Considering that the great advances of modern (post 17th century) science

have largely relied on induction, the formulation of this problem is, as Popper

points out, closely connected with the problem of demarcation (Popper in

Cottingham, 2008, p.455). Hume also suggested a connection between these two

problems when posing the problem of induction by demarcating 'relation of ideas'

from 'matters of fact', that is, separating knowledge that deductively follow from

the definition of its axioms from knowledge about the natural world that is

inductively inferred from a a limited set of sense experiences (Cottingham, 2008,

p.433).
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When presenting Falsificationism, Popper brings together these two

epistemological problems when suggesting an answer to the question of how

science actually attains knowledge. He proposes two possibilities: either knowledge

is acquired via truth-guaranteeing deductive processes, or knowledge is based on

induction. Popper suggest that the answer to the question must lie in the former

possibility: we obtain our knowledge by a deductive method, otherwise,

considering the latter possibility would be accepting that knowledge is just mere

belief and Rationalism must be abandoned (Popper in Cottingham, 2008, p.456).

Popper's commitment to this answer necessarily involves explaining how

scientists have been using (and should use) deduction to attain knowledge,

therefore he suggests that scientific theories do not start with observations, but

with bold hypotheses that predict or prohibit a certain state of affairs (Chimisso,

2011, p.102) that later are put forward for trial by the scientific community, or in

his own terms: conjectures and refutations (Popper in Cottingham, 2008, p.455).

Viewed in closer detail, the general structure of the method of Falsificationism

avoids the problem of induction by creating arguments that are deductively

structured as follow:

1. As a first premise, a bold conjecture, predicting or prohibiting a certain state

of affairs is put forward by scientists.

2. Conclusions are deducted from this first [and only] premise.

3. The argument [truth of the conclusion, or prediction] is tested with the

relevant empirical method: experiment, observation, etc.

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4. Should the test confirm the conjecture [confirm the conclusion], it is taken

as a corroboration of the conjecture, but not as a conclusive prove (to do so

would be inductive).

5. Should the test contradict the conclusion/prediction, we can deduce that

the conjecture is false, it is refuted and discarded.

For Popper, a relevant and successful example of this method was Einstein's

conjecture of how much light would be bended by a gravitational field, as predicted

by his theory of Relativity. Popper suggests that should Einstein's bold conjecture

had been shown that 'the predicted effect is definitely absent, then the theory is

simply refuted' (Popper in Cottingham, 2008, p.455). In this example, Einstein's

conjecture was corroborated when astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington 'obtained

observational proof that gravity bends light' (Ridpath, 2012).

According to Popper, the theory was presented deductively in the following

form:

Premise 1: Light from stars is bended by gravitational fields (bold, predicting

conjecture)

Conclusion: Light from stars that passes by the Sun on its way to Earth will

bend (deductive implication)

Test: An observation position of a star is made during an eclipse and

compared with the position of the same star at night, when its light does not

pass by the Sun.

As it can be noticed, the structure of the previous argument has avoided

induction and it is presented as a valid deductive argument whose soundness

depends on its premise being true. This apparent solution to the problem of
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induction also serves, according to Popper to demarcate science from pseudo-

science. The former postulate its arguments so they are falsifiable, that is, truth-

guaranteeing deductive arguments that can be tested and proven false, while the

latter postulates unrisky and malleable arguments that can be adjusted or

reinterpreted to avoid falsification, e.g. in Psychoanalysis (a pseudo-science

according to Popper) the existence of the unconscious cannot be falsified.

Falsificationism therefore, requires a critical attitude from scientists, a will to

rigorously test theories, a search not for verification but for falsification, whereas

dogmatic attitudes are the hallmark of pseudo-scientists, constantly looking for

verification rather than falsification (Popper in Cottingham, 2008, pp.457-458).

Is it so? Is Falsificationism a sufficient criterion of demarcation?

While there are several objections that have been presented to Popper's

model -Feyerabend, for example, suggests that no method should be imposed in

science (Chimisso, 2011, pp. 124-128) and Kuhn suggests that scientific enterprises

are not always operating with the critical attitude required by Falsificationism

(Chimisso, 2011, p.162)-, and despite that these objections overlap each other in

certain aspects I will focus on the difficulties faced by Falsificationism on deciding

when an observation conclusively falsifies a theory (Chimisso, 2011, p.119). 

Firstly, Falsificationism hinges on the asymmetry between confirmation and

refutation (Chimisso, 2011, p.110), the implication is that in theory, one refutation

is enough to falsify a conjecture, while an infinite number of corroborating

observations do not confirm it. Nevertheless, While testing a conjecture, scientists

are faced with the dilemma of deciding if a particular falsifying observation is

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meaningful or worthy of trust. There are instances when a non-corroborating

observation, or even several, are not sufficient to conclusively falsify a theory and

to convince scientists to give it up. As an example, consider that the Higgs boson,

an hypothetical particle predicted by the Standard Model, took several years of

failed tests to corroborate its existence, until it was finally 'observed' in the LHC at

the CERN (Calder, 2009). Several successive failures to observe the hypothetical

particle could have been taken as falsifying results, yet scientists did not shelve the

theory because they harbored the possibility that other factors, rather than a false

conjecture, was the cause, and persisted until the particle was "observed" with a

very high degree of probability. If we try to use this apparently successful scientific

event as a demarcation guide, we must question how is this example different from

that of a stubborn astrologer refusing to accept that a prediction that fails to

materialize for a certain time, conclusively falsifies astrology.

Secondly, Falsificationism relies on the inductive argument that the natural

world is uniform (Chimisso, 2017), while in practice some phenomena are time-

bound, circumstantial or particular to individual instances. This assumption of

uniformity not only contaminates Falsificationism with induction, but perhaps

gives an oversimple account of natural events.For example, swans might mutate at

any given time and display a different color plumage, hence falsifying a theory that

might have been adequate for a number of millennia. Also, predictive conjectures

in other sciences like medicine, involve so many factors that it cannot rely on a

simple refutation of a conjecture but must work with statistics and probability. For

example, there are many cases where heavy smokers do not ever suffer from lung

cancer, yet there is a significant correlation between smoking and lung cancer. The
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conjecture that smoking causes lung cancer cannot be falsified with a single

observation, as there are many factors involved that are impossible to isolate:

perhaps the correlation consists in that people with a certain cancer-prone genetic

constitution or cancer-prone temperament are also attracted to smoke, but also, it

could be that smoking indeed causes cancer, and the many cases of old healthy

smokers might be explained with other ad hoc auxiliaries, like a cancer-resistant

genetic constitution, or a cancer-resistant temperament. The theory of smoking-

causes-cancer can be saved with ad hoc auxiliary assumptions supported by

statistical criteria without the need to discard it, apparently aiding the health of

many, at least until a revolutionary understanding of cancer shifts the current

paradigm.

Thirdly, while formulating Falsificationism, Popper pointed out that:

'Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still

upheld by their admirers -for example by introducing ad hoc some

auxiliary assumption... Such a procedure is always possible but it

rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or

at least lowering, its scientific status' (Popper in Cottingham, 2008,

p.455)

Nevertheless there are instances when it is useful to think of falsifying

observations as fine tuning tools rather than definite refutations. Consider the case

of zoologists that, after believing for centuries that all swans were white, adjusted

their belief by identifying black swans as a new species and fine tune the

hypothesis to: all European swans (Cygnus Olor) are white, while Australian swans
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(Cygnus atratus) are black. Again in this case, a falsifying observation seems to have

expanded the knowledge about swans rather than falsifying a conjecture.

How would Popper have answered these objections? There is some

evidence in his writing that Popper was aware of these objections. To start with

and perhaps paradoxically, he acknowledges the utility of dogmatic thinking.

He sees value in scientists refusing to give up on theories even upon refuting

evidence, as a tool to slow down the understanding of phenomena. If we accept

defeat too easily, Popper suggests, 'we may prevent ourselves from finding that we

were nearly very right' (Popper in Cottingham, 2008, p.457). Furthermore, he was

aware that 'the propensity to look out for regularities, and to impose laws upon

nature, leads to psychological phenomenon of dogmatic thinking' (Popper in

Cottingham, 2008, p.457), but somehow did not denounce that theories of an

irregular acting natural world are also logically immune to falsifying observations.

Ultimately, although Popper considered Falsificationism was still defendable

as a demarcation criterion and as a solution to the problem of induction, Popper

maintained an skeptical attitude in regards to ever finding conclusive knowledge:

'all laws, all theories, remain essentially tentative, or conjectural, or hypothetical,

even when we feel unable to doubt them any longer' (Popper in Chimisso, 2011, p.

117), putting into doubt the success of Falsificationism as an answer of both

epistemological problems.

In conclusion, the presumption of the asymmetry between confirmation

and refutation works only in logical terms but not in pragmatic terms, as there are

several instances were theories seem to be resilient to several falsifying

observations. Furthermore, Falsificationism relies in a model that regards natural

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behavior as uniform, which is in itself an inductive argument that undermines the

purported success of Falsificationism as an inductive-avoiding method. Additionally,

many statistics-based sciences like medicine, where not always a falsifying

observation refutes a theory, renders Falsificationism as at least an incomplete

criterion to demarcate science from other knowledge-searching enterprises.

However Popper's sometimes contradicting enunciates makes Falsificationism

difficult to demarcate in itself, as he seems to have accommodated the above

mentioned objections as not in contradiction with his philosophy of science.

WORD COUNT: 1858

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Bibliography

Calder, N. (2009). Oxford Reference “Higgs bosons”. Available at:

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192806697.001.0001/
acref-9780192806697-e-62. (Accessed 26 February 2017)

Chimisso, C. (2011) Knowledge, Milton Keynes, The Open University.

Chimisso, C. (2017) Forum message to OU Ask the Author: Book 4. Questions for
you 3: Popper. Available at:
https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=2102624#p15439648
(Accessed 27 February 2017)

Cottingham, J. (ed) (2008) Western Philosophy: an anthology, 2nd edn, Oxford,

Blackwell Publishing

Ridpath, Ian (2012) A Dictionary of Astronomy "Eddington, Arthur Stanley." Oxford

University Press. Available at:
http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199609055.001.0001/
acref-9780199609055-e-1097
(Accessed on 26 February 2017)