08.09.10

Popper, failure of falsificationism, Darwinism as metaphysical research program (reposts)

Posted in General at 12:37 pm by nemo

I am reposting two posts as one on Popper, falsificationism, and Darwinism.

Pigliucci on Coyne, again
I find it hard to grasp how philosophers of science, so-called, can think they are able to pull rank on other scientists. Granted scientists tend to be very intelligent idiots, with no study time in philosophy, but most philosophers of science are trained to be as stupid as most scientists.
Karl Popper is a man I admire, and his views deserve study, but his scientific admirers seem to forget that he is one of the pearls on the string/necklance that includes the postmodern debunking of science. The point is not visible at first, but a look at Steve Fuller’s book on Popper might bring the point home. To me, however, that is not a negative, nor my point here.

Rather the issue for me is that Popper simply didn’t produce a very good philosophy of science. Falsificationism is a poor standard, and needs careful study in the light of the tradition it seems to draw from, i.e. Hume and his various concerns.
But the issue in science is not really falsificationism, that tricky principle that once left me in consternation when some disciple Popperians seemed to think in discussion that a falsified theory was science, forgetting the implication (for the Three Stoodges) that only falsified statements were proven falsifiable, and therefore all scientific statements are false.
I had a good laugh, but the question is not actually funny.
How about something simple, the old fashioned approach: science is made up of demonstrable propositions that can achieve a degree of verification via empirical demonstration. There are a lot of problems here, of course, but the basic approach indicated is actually how we do science, more or less.
Falsification doesn’t really shine on relativity theory, which is good science because it is a good deductive core that is verifiable via empirical experiments. Etc…
The question of Marxist theories and Freud is unfair on Popper’s part, and an indication that the playing field isn’t quite level here. The type of theory indicated by relativity, that is, physics, has a special character, because as in all cases of physics it comes with a mathematical helper image which allows its proponents to stop real creative thought, and follow the hints given by the mathematical mainline or image.
To declare subjects that must exist on a thinker’s innate ability and insight, with no mathematical helper, is unfair, and leads to confusion, a confusion of categories.
The simple sad fact is that science in the real sense works with physics, and starts falling out of range very quickly, biology being the first problem case, as evolution theories make clear. So it is bad science to try and demand that all subjects follow a science regime. It won’t work.
To be fair, Marx and Freud, who I have critiqued at length on other grounds, claimed science when they might only have claimed truth of some kind. As science they are indeed problematic, in any sense.
On the other hand Popper’s critique of Marx was ideology in action, as he accused Marx, not of pseudo-science, but of historicism, in a very obscure definition of that classic term, by which he meant that historical discussions required, not science, but a treatment of freedom. And that claims of scientific laws were problematical on the grounds also cited by Isaiah Berlin under the rubric of historical inevitability. So, technically, Popper was arguably unfair to Marx.

Whatever the case, it is true that Marx, kicked out of science, has a lot to say that is important, in a vein that could only be called ‘post-Hegelian wasteland’, which is a limbo of science, philosophy, dialectic, and gosh knows what else. We can’t reject that field because that’s where we live, so short of leaping our of our skins we are condemned to razzledazzle in the brands of post-Hegelian wasteland. That field is pretty drear, but actually better than the truly toxic field of scientism/Darwinism where the standards of science have created a whole new species of idiot.
A better way out of the post-Hegelian wasteland (see the movie of Alice in Wonderland for a probably close or related depiction of that wasteland) might be to travel backwards in time to the era of Kant, when the issues of science, its methodology and limits came briefly into a state of clarity, thence to degenerate faster than hot fries going cold into, well, the post-Hegelian wasteland where bad philosophies of science begin to take hold.
In a word, the best compromise in the collapses, multiple, of philosophies of science are Kantian ones. I should note that Popper essentially springs from that field, having been a student of Schopenhauer, all too often the source of one tank of gas for new philosophers.

In general, the issues of Freud and Marx are not settled by Popper or falsificationism. I recomment signing up at the Popper stronghold, the Critical Cafe (yahoo groups), to see the trap here: classical economics in all its ideological majesty of bullshit theory is rescued as science by free market fanatics and fans of Popper, who take his critique of Marx as validation for their pseudo-science. After stabs in the back like that the question of Popper’s falsificationism suddenly cease to seem state of the art.
——————–Second post, completing this discussion:
http://darwiniana.com/2010/08/06/popper-on-science-and-the-failure-of-falsificationism/

I meant to conclude this post from today with the reminder that Popper, before he ate his words, considered Darwinism marginal at best, as science: he called it a metaphysical research program. It is hard to see why scientists make Popper their premiere philosopher of science for that reason.
But Popper’s point is fundamental: we cannot quite brind the theory of natural selection to its proper verification. Its failure to ‘falsify’ is obvious from the history, and perhaps the reason it is so stubbornly enduring: it can’t be falsified. Actually, the problem is different: we don’t quite observe natural selection over the millennia it would have to act, and it is up in the air whether our assertions are right on that score.

This issue has a cover up to go with it, viz. Popper changed his mind. Poppycock. He chickened out, and saved his skin by changing his story.

Karl Popper, the guy who invented falsificationism, famously thought that Einstein’s theory of relativity is an excellent example of science because it is eminently falsifiable. But he also rejected both Marxist theories of history and Freudian psychoanalysis as non-scientific because they were much too flexible: any historical event could somehow be interpreted as the result of class struggles, just as pretty much any human behavior can be “explained” through one type or another of sexual repression.

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