phil 8 paper

7/28/2019 Phil 8 Paper

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On Popperian decisions and their effect on science.

The main problem that attracted Poppers attention was the problem of

demarcation as he tried to explain how we differentiate between science and pseudo-

science. His works state that we differentiate between them as science makes novels

and risky claims about the world that are capable of being tested and pseudo-science

does not takes that risk and therefore its predictions are as vague as possible making

them impossible to falsify.

The way science make progress is by a two-step process:

1. Conjecture: a scientist makes a claim about the world which has to prohibit certaineffects to happen; by doing this a claim is a risky one, when one hypothesis prohibits

more effects to happen it is taking more risks. As one takes more risks in stating a

hypothesis we can say it is a good conjecture1.

2. Refutation: We then try to prove false our theory by deriving a logical consequencefrom our theory and making a test that proves false our hypothesis. If we dont

observe what the hypothesis told us would happen, we have falsified the theory, if

we observe the phenomena, we can only say that we havent proved false the

hypothesis.

1A good conjecture is a bold one, one that takes a lot of risks by making novel predictions. Godfrey-

Smith, Peter, Theory and Reality, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 61.


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Then, Popper would tell us to continue trying to falsify the theory since a good scientist

behavior is to keep a critical view against our theories.

This paper is an attempt to show how Poppers theory is self-refuting at the time Popper

states that for practical purposes is better to make decisions about trusting data and

observational evidence contradicting his position on never trusting an hypothesis, and

therefore our ability to use other hypothesis for collecting evidence.

As pointed by Godfrey-Smith and Dr. Smith, it is necessary to take into account Holism

about testability when critical testing our hypothesis given that we have other theories

and hypothesis involved in our test when trying to get data and observations.

In science it is almost impossible to prove everything involved in an attempted refutation

because we have to test as well the observations we have in order to falsify the original

hypothesis and there is always the possibility that other scientists could say to us that

the hypothesis in which we based our way to collect the data was wrong.

If we decide to take into account holism about testability in our research we would need

to prove each of our hypothesis regarding every side aspect that is involved in our

analysis of the phenomena. Popper then would tell that for practical purposes we cannot

make test about every single observation and the additional hypothesis we use in our

experiment and have to make decisions about the reliability of our observations. But

then a problem rises when making the decision: Are we not contradicting Poppers view

of critical testing of every hypothesis? Would it be different if we suppose we have a


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corroborated hypothesis to use for data collecting to falsify hypothesis rather than a new

hypothesis?

Here we have a problem for Popper: why he has an [implicit, thought not strong] bias for

accepting observations and data to falsify a theory and not has the same critical ideas

for observations that supports the hypothesis?

Unfortunately what we observe in science is totally different from what Poppers

normative theory states. Usually scientists dont have critical attitudes towards their own

hypothesis and do not take into account holism about testability for the data they collect

for their experiments since they accept other necessary hypothesis for their purposes.

Special case is Economics, in which there is a consensus about data collecting and

division of labour is usually common between economists since the same data could be

interpreted and explained different using hypothesis that differ in various grades from

each other, and gathering economic data is a very difficult and time-consuming task

except for very rare cases.

Then we have to ask Poppers theory and his followers what would be the way to avoid

this problem that trembles down all Poppers theory. It is all about decisions in the end.

Still we can think of another question that can turn our view of Popper in a different way:

What do we have to take into account to make decisions about accepting or discarding

observations and data? Shall we give a greater importance to our values of scientific


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behavior? Or our social context is important? Does corroboration of other theories that

have something in common with the theory need to have a share in our decision?

Then in a strict sense for science to make progress we have to make critical decisions

regarding data and observation collection every time we have an attempted refutation at

hand, abandoning Poppers critical view toward our own theories. We could even

wonder, as for Popper considered that his theory was one of good scientific behavior, if

a scientist while making an empirical test would ask himself if it is the right decision to

use that observations or not.

Therefore, once we take into account holism about testability Poppers theory becomes

weaker as his responses to that criticisms is that we face these problems and have to

make decisions in order to continue our attempted refutation. Other problem rises when

we have to decide, as Godfrey-Smith stated, between two hypotheses, one that has not

been refuted and one that has never been tested. It has been pointed out that Popper

called the first one a corroborated hypothesis that we can use instead of the later. But

still he did not tell us why he have to decide for the corroborated one, he only told us

about decisions, and what if for constraints in the world during an experiment we have

to decide between these hypothesis and do not have the opportunity to repeat the

experiment for a period of time; would not Popper have to think about this constraint if

the outcome of the experiment is crucial for science? This is an extreme case,

nevertheless it pictures in a broad sense the importance of decision making processes


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for Popper and the impossibility for him to make a clear statement about the best way to

proceed.

However, we cannot discard Poppers theory that easily because he showed us good

scientific behaviors as well as an inspiring quest to differentiate science from pseudo-

science that was one of his first goals as he stated the problem of demarcation.

In the end, Poppers aim was a noble one. Differentiate science from pseudo-science by

the riskiness of their claims and the predictions they make, is different from other views

that differentiate them for the method they use or the elements in which they stand for

making predictions. In addition, Poppers view of scientific progress light us because of

the critical attitude towards our ideas and theories, a necessary characteristic in

scientists that try to make qualitative claims about the world.

phil 8 paper

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