Hacker News Reader

Comment by vivekd | Hacker News Reader

and you hit one of the main objections to the theory of falsifiability as the criterion of science. There are also other more serious ones, like the obvious fact that actual science does't seem to actually work this way. The idea is more to explain observations in a coherent way rather than to be falsifiable for example. One example is the big bang theory being proposed by a Catholic astronomer who didn't like the then prevaling idea that the universe did not have a beginning or end because it went against his religious beliefs. Or Kepler looking for planets at locations in accord with musical harmonies because he though it was consistent with the existence of a God

View on HN

> One example is the big bang theory being proposed by a Catholic astronomer who didn't like the then prevaling idea that the universe did not have a beginning or end because it went against his religious beliefs.

That’s simply not true.

Fr. LeMaitre developed the theory to explain observed red shifts of galaxies (deriving Hubble’s Law prior to Hubble.) He felt his theory (and science in general) had no connection or contradiction to his faith.

This actually came from the skeptics [0]. They were unwilling to believe a Catholic priest proposing a scientific theory too similar to his religious beliefs, about God creating the whole universe in an instant.

When the cosmic background radiation was discovered in 1964, the Big Bang was accepted by (mostly) everyone.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Development

The reason that falsifiability is a core requirement of science is because if there is no way a proposition can possibly be falsified, then there is no way to objectively assess whether or not it is true.

This is not to say that the proposition is false. It's possible that things can be unfalsifiable and true nonetheless, but those things would still exist outside the range of the scientific method (at least until/unless our understanding of reality expands enough to devise a test). That's an intentional trade-off, in order to gain greater confidence in the truth of the things we can test.

Personally, I am weary of the notion of “actual science” since science is not a well-defined term. The demarcation problem isn’t solved; and philosophers like Fayerabend in his book “Against method” suggest that science is more of an anarchic enterprise than any particular set of methods.

Take any criterion and apply it too strictly and there is some scientific discovery/progress in history which violates the rules and wouldn’t pass for “science” given any definition…

Take any given methodological approach - and you will always find counter examples in scientific history.

Almost like genius isn’t algorithmic.

sure, but I mean, it's pretty hard to call flat earthers or proponents of voodo unscientific if we have to admit that we haven't solved the demarcation problem. Also more importantly for Popper, he wanted to oppose communists' ideas of "scientific materialism."

There does seem to be this thing that good scientists are doing. Popper did seem to touch on some good aspects of it, like the willingness to be proven wrong.

I think maybe that's the part Popper got right, maybe Science is about an unbiased search for knoweldge with no other agenda other than a genuine curiousity. And maybe that's why demarcation is so hard, it's hard to tell a person's motives.

I donno, just throwing stuff out there. . . Still I mean at least we have a test that communists obviously fail which should make Popper happy.

I mean, the non-schizo proponents for flat earth does approach it with scepticism. It's just that the their required level of proof are unreasonable. Any experiment, no matter how genuinely designed, is exempt from flaws. Science works because the detractors doesn't have the energy to waste decades in the academic apparatus, unlike true curiosity.

> … he wanted to oppose communists' ideas of "scientific materialism."

> … that’s the part Popper got right, maybe science is about an unbiased search…

> …at least we have a test that communists obviously fail…

i could be misunderstanding what you’re implying and if so apologies, but Popper wasn’t some anti-communist nutbag, in fact, if he “wanted to oppose” communism, that would have been fundamentally counter to his ideal of keeping things “unbiased”

Popper was very open how much he admired Marx, he even tended to agree with Marx’ analysis of capitalism. where he disagreed was that 1) we were destined to be slaves to be servants if we 2) don’t have violent revolution.. He was quite clear that the state should absolutely be heavy handed to protect the lower classes from the wealthy’s constant tendencies to abuse the poor. Again, he agreed with much of Marx’s writing but where Marx thought it would require violent revolution, Popper believed we could use other methods such as “social engineering” to counter the rich. He was also concerned that so many people agreed about violent revolution being the only way out. He wrote about this admiration for Marx quite a bit:

> …a grandiose philosophic system, comparable or even superior to the holistic systems of Plato and Hegel. Marx was the last of the great holistic system builders.

and

> [Marx] made an honest attempt to apply rational methods to the most urgent problems of social life… His sincerity in his search for truth and his intellectual honesty distinguish him…

Popper was concerned that under unrestrained capitalism:

> ..the economically strong is free to bully one who is economically weak, and to rob him of his freedom,… Those who possess a surplus of food can force those who are starving into a ‘freely’ accepted servitude.”

Philosophy Now sums it up well, “Throughout his scrutiny of Marx, Popper treads a thin line between admiration and apprehension.” [0]

again, apologies if i misinterpreted what you were implying, just wanted to clarify that Popper wasn’t some kind of nutbag mccarthy style rabid anti-communist or whatever. he just thought we could “social engineer” our way away from psychotic nationalism and unchecked capitalism rather than requiring full blown revolution.

[0] https://philosophynow.org/issues/131/Popper_on_Marx_on_Histo...

He wrote an autobiography - he was a young man who was a communist because he believed in scientific materialism. He later recanted after some of his friends were shot and killed by the police.

Popper said he noticed that scientific materialism proposed by communists or Freud's theories was very different from the lecture he heard by Einstein - Einstein looked more like science.

Communism whatever anyone thinks about it is obviously not science. They claimed to be science at first and proposed scientific materialism as the future.

Today even communists seem to have recanted this idea instead preferring to criticize capitalism and present themselves as the only alternative. We all know today it's not science.

I don't want to debate politics only to say Communism was never science, it's politics - Popper noticed that quickly and it was one of the imputus for his ideas based in his own autobiography

He also dedicated his book the poverty of historicism to the countless men and women who lost their lives to fascism and Communism and their false belief in historical destiny

Open society and it's enemies also contains a long critique of Marx and the idea that history follows certain laws that must play out a certain way.

The problem with all ideas is always their reification. Computers may be deterministic, but humans aren't. The same software/idea produces wildly different understandings; and behaviour in differnt humans.

What always seem like great ideas in theory, innevitably has to cope with the (mis)understanding; (mis)interpretation; and (mis)application of said idea by the mass population.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com