https://www.reddit.com/r/PhilosophyofScience/comments/ledvs8/popper_theory_of_falsification_flaws/
created by Ill-Concentrate4444 on 07/02/2021 at 03:05 UTC
12 upvotes, 2 top-level comments (showing 2)
What are some valid flaws of Karl Popper's Theory of Falsification as a concept and in practicality in terms of categorising sciences from non-sciences?
And how useful is it to science today?
Comment by Vampyricon at 07/02/2021 at 03:35 UTC
9 upvotes, 3 direct replies
What are some valid flaws of Karl Popper's Theory of Falsification as a concept
Under falsificationism, you would say that experimental observation A contradicts theory B, but ignore the fact that to arrive at observation A, you assume theories A_1, A_2, A_3, etc. To say that observation A debunks theory B every time, as falsificationism does, would be to assume the theories that go into the observation are unquestionable.
Which is clearly false, as the theory's status would be dependent on whether you use it to generate observations.
and in practicality in terms of categorising sciences from non-sciences?
I'm not sure if this counts as practicality, but you soon notice that no scientist actually uses falsificationism even as they claim to believe it. Particle physics, for example, only places stricter and stricter bounds on the free parameters of models. Scientists revise the assumptions going into the observation all the time.
Comment by ThMogget at 07/02/2021 at 03:55 UTC*
7 upvotes, 2 direct replies
It's incomplete. According to David Deutsch, only an explanation that is *hard to vary* can be falsified. We have to already have narrowed down our hypotheses by this more fundamental criteria.
The concept of explanatory power[1] involves several criteria of which falsifiability is just one, and a secondary one at that.