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FALSIES_AGAIN


                                             July 12, 2016
                                             May  14, 2018
                                          
The true faith of falsification was promoted
recently in the reddit "philosophy" group,
by a Mohamed Shaban:                      
                                          
  "Falsification is the cornerstone of the scientific method.
  Scientific progress is achieved by the falsification of
  hypotheses, rather than by the establishment of truth."
                                          
                                          
I made the point that there really        
wasn't any consensus among                FALSIES
scientists or philosophers on the         
value of the idea of "falsification".     
                                          
This time I tried quoting the wikipedia article on
Falsifiability:                           
                                          
    "In their book 'Fashionable Nonsense' published in the UK as
    Intellectual Impostures) the physicists Alan Sokal and Jean
    Bricmont criticized falsifiability on the grounds that it
    does not accurately describe the way science really works.
    They argue that theories are used because of their successes,
    not because of the failures of other theories. ... Sokal and
    Bricmont write, 'When a theory successfully withstands an
    attempt at falsification, a scientist will, quite naturally,
    consider the theory to be partially confirmed and will accord
    it a greater likelihood or a higher subjective probability."
                                          
    "But Popper will have none of this: throughout his life he
    was a stubborn opponent of any idea of 'confirmation' of a
    theory, or even of its 'probability'. ... [but] the history
    of science teaches us that scientific theories come to be
    accepted above all because of their successes.' "
                                          
                                          
                                   (Nov 29, 2018)
       
               Some other issues          
               with falsifiability:       
                                          
               [link]    
                                          
                                          
                                          
                                          

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy                    
is worth a look also, of course:                (But while the SEP is   
                                                usually better than        
 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/      wikipedia, not this  
                                                time, I think.)      
                                                         
                                                
                                                
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