GuyOnInternet
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Natural Philosophy broke off and eventually completely distanced itself from Philosophy in the 17th century, renaming itself Science. The result was the Baconian Revolution in Science. Science advanced because Scientists got away from the Philosophers and used empiricism rather than “wouldn’t-you-thinkism”. Around 1900, some people got the idea to create Philosophy of Science. They meant well. They were Logical Empiricists, mostly from a Math or Physics background. They were trying to rescue Philosophy. They knew Philosophy had nothing to offer Science, except they thought Science could rescue Philosophy by making it more like Science. They told scientists not to listen to any Philosophers, including themselves and set to work attempting to save Philosophy from itself. Eventually, the entire project mutated and turned on its head when philosophers like Karl Popper came along. Karl Popper is not an enemy of irrationalism, he is a huge source of it.
Everyone has always acknowledged that all knowledge is technically tentative and we will never really, really, really know for sure, except some things have been experimentally tested and passed so many tests that we tentatively regard them as fact until they are disproven, except things do not start being treated as fact. Some theories are a lot more likely to be true than others.
Most people think that Popper was saying that we will never be absolutely certain. That is not what he said. He said no theory ever becomes even more likely to be true. He argues this by claiming that every scientific theory is a universal negative such as there are no black swans anywhere in the universe. You can never search the entire universe, so you can never prove the claim to be true. You can, however, prove the claim that there are black swans to be true by DISCOVERING black swans. We should remember that science is all about a giant collection of discoveries and inventions and technological innovation. Most theories, not universal laws, theories are neither universal negatives nor universal positives. The theory that the earth is shaped like a sphere, the theory that the planets orbits the sun, the theory that your heart pumps blood through your body for example are not of the nature all As are B or there are no Xes. This is very important to remember because the black swans gimmick does not apply to scientific theories that are not universal negatives.
Here is what Popper said:
“We must regard all laws and theories as guesses.” (Objective Knowledge, 9)
All scientific theories are guesses? Harvey’s Theory of Blood Circulation is a guess? Scientists are only guessing when they say your heart pumps blood through your body, which was not known until the 17th century. You should treat that claim as a guess? Don’t give me bullshit about context on a quote like that.
“I never assume that by force of ‘verified’ conclusions, theories can be established as ‘true’, or even as merely ‘probable’.” (Logic of Scientific Discovery, 10)
The theory that the earth is shaped like a sphere is not even probable?
“Of two hypotheses, the one that is logically stronger, or more informative, or better testable, and thus the one which can be better corroborated, is always less probable — on any given evidence — than the other.”
Harvey’s Theory of Blood Circulation is extremely testable, whereas astrology and Freudian psychoanalysis are not. Therefore, there is no evidence for or against astrology or psychoanalysis. This does not mean that Harvey’s Theory of Blood Circulation is “less probable” than astrology or psychobabble. Popper talks about “evidence” in favor of astrology and Freudian psychobabble and how they are “verifiable”. Any “evidence” astrologers or psychobabblers present is meaningless and none of it counts. Popper says that even though they are pseudoscientific, astrology and Freudian psychobabble are more likely to be true than the theory that your heart pumps blood through your body. This is nonsense.
Popper wrote at length while bending over backwards and twisting into linguistic pretzels in order to avoid phrases such as “likely to be true” and “too open to interpretation”.
If Popper was right, the so-called “naiive Positivists” would be the most likely to believe in stupid crap like astrology, fortune tellers, and make-believe social “science”, which is an oxymoron. In fact, Logical Empiricists are the least likely to believe in things like astrology and psychobabble. This is because everything that can’t be observed and measured is meaningless. Everyone knows that deep down, except only Empiricists are honest enough to accept it.
Popper based everything on a non-existant “problem of induction” he got from Hume. Let’s look at this supposed “problem” in more detail. The reason people don’t jump off of cliffs is not because they read Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and they’re worried about matter warping space. It is because they are reasoning inductively whether they want to admit it or not. If they say otherwise, they are lying. According to their silly “problem of induction” people in ancient times had no good reason to believe they would fall to their death if they jumped off a cliff. The argument goes like this. No matter how many times you drop a rock and it falls to the ground, unless you have “logically deduced” why it is falling, literally no matter how many times you drop a rock and watch it fall, in no way shape or form does it even increase the likelihood that the next rock you drop will fall to the ground. According to the “problem”of induction, no matter many times the sun rises every day, it does not even increase the likelihood that it will rise tomorrow. This is stupid.
The potential for something to be disproven is necessary, except not sufficient. In addition to, not instead of, not getting your theory disproven, you also have to make a convincing argument that it is likely to be at least approximately true. The only purpose of science is to serve as a foundation for future technological advancements. Planes fly, cars drive, technology works and all humans reason inductively. In contrast, Philosophy of Science is all talk. In the words of Richard Feynman, “Philosophy of Science is as useful to scientists as Ornithology is to birds.”
Here are more quotes from scientists.
Paul Dirac
“[philosophy is] just a way of talking about discoveries that have already been made.”
Justus von Liebig
“The progress of mankind is due exclusively to the progress of natural sciences, not to morals, religion or philosophy.”
Lawrence Krauss
“Of course, philosophy is the field that hasn’t progressed in two thousand years.”
Stephen Hawking
“Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.”
Lewis Wolpert
“Philosophers have contributed nothing. And if we go back to the suggestion that it was philosophers who brought about the Scientific Revolution and the Renaissance – it’s simply false! Galileo was not a philosopher. He was a scientist.”
Here are two videos that are very instructional.
Here is a philosopher bashing philosophy and endorsing empiricism.
Bertrand Russel :
“Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.”
Notice how Bertrand Russell used the word verify to mean test experimentally. You count the teeth and objectively let the chips fall where they may.
Many scientists such as Neil de Grasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, and Lawrence Krauss have spoken publicly about the uselessness of Philosophy of Science. People should heedtheir warning.
The best authors I have found on epistemology are Francis Bacon, John Stuart Mill, Rudolf Carnap, Bertrand Russell, Moritz Schlick, and David Stove.
Everyone has always acknowledged that all knowledge is technically tentative and we will never really, really, really know for sure, except some things have been experimentally tested and passed so many tests that we tentatively regard them as fact until they are disproven, except things do not start being treated as fact. Some theories are a lot more likely to be true than others.
Most people think that Popper was saying that we will never be absolutely certain. That is not what he said. He said no theory ever becomes even more likely to be true. He argues this by claiming that every scientific theory is a universal negative such as there are no black swans anywhere in the universe. You can never search the entire universe, so you can never prove the claim to be true. You can, however, prove the claim that there are black swans to be true by DISCOVERING black swans. We should remember that science is all about a giant collection of discoveries and inventions and technological innovation. Most theories, not universal laws, theories are neither universal negatives nor universal positives. The theory that the earth is shaped like a sphere, the theory that the planets orbits the sun, the theory that your heart pumps blood through your body for example are not of the nature all As are B or there are no Xes. This is very important to remember because the black swans gimmick does not apply to scientific theories that are not universal negatives.
Here is what Popper said:
“We must regard all laws and theories as guesses.” (Objective Knowledge, 9)
All scientific theories are guesses? Harvey’s Theory of Blood Circulation is a guess? Scientists are only guessing when they say your heart pumps blood through your body, which was not known until the 17th century. You should treat that claim as a guess? Don’t give me bullshit about context on a quote like that.
“I never assume that by force of ‘verified’ conclusions, theories can be established as ‘true’, or even as merely ‘probable’.” (Logic of Scientific Discovery, 10)
The theory that the earth is shaped like a sphere is not even probable?
“Of two hypotheses, the one that is logically stronger, or more informative, or better testable, and thus the one which can be better corroborated, is always less probable — on any given evidence — than the other.”
Harvey’s Theory of Blood Circulation is extremely testable, whereas astrology and Freudian psychoanalysis are not. Therefore, there is no evidence for or against astrology or psychoanalysis. This does not mean that Harvey’s Theory of Blood Circulation is “less probable” than astrology or psychobabble. Popper talks about “evidence” in favor of astrology and Freudian psychobabble and how they are “verifiable”. Any “evidence” astrologers or psychobabblers present is meaningless and none of it counts. Popper says that even though they are pseudoscientific, astrology and Freudian psychobabble are more likely to be true than the theory that your heart pumps blood through your body. This is nonsense.
Popper wrote at length while bending over backwards and twisting into linguistic pretzels in order to avoid phrases such as “likely to be true” and “too open to interpretation”.
If Popper was right, the so-called “naiive Positivists” would be the most likely to believe in stupid crap like astrology, fortune tellers, and make-believe social “science”, which is an oxymoron. In fact, Logical Empiricists are the least likely to believe in things like astrology and psychobabble. This is because everything that can’t be observed and measured is meaningless. Everyone knows that deep down, except only Empiricists are honest enough to accept it.
Popper based everything on a non-existant “problem of induction” he got from Hume. Let’s look at this supposed “problem” in more detail. The reason people don’t jump off of cliffs is not because they read Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and they’re worried about matter warping space. It is because they are reasoning inductively whether they want to admit it or not. If they say otherwise, they are lying. According to their silly “problem of induction” people in ancient times had no good reason to believe they would fall to their death if they jumped off a cliff. The argument goes like this. No matter how many times you drop a rock and it falls to the ground, unless you have “logically deduced” why it is falling, literally no matter how many times you drop a rock and watch it fall, in no way shape or form does it even increase the likelihood that the next rock you drop will fall to the ground. According to the “problem”of induction, no matter many times the sun rises every day, it does not even increase the likelihood that it will rise tomorrow. This is stupid.
The potential for something to be disproven is necessary, except not sufficient. In addition to, not instead of, not getting your theory disproven, you also have to make a convincing argument that it is likely to be at least approximately true. The only purpose of science is to serve as a foundation for future technological advancements. Planes fly, cars drive, technology works and all humans reason inductively. In contrast, Philosophy of Science is all talk. In the words of Richard Feynman, “Philosophy of Science is as useful to scientists as Ornithology is to birds.”
Here are more quotes from scientists.
Paul Dirac
“[philosophy is] just a way of talking about discoveries that have already been made.”
Justus von Liebig
“The progress of mankind is due exclusively to the progress of natural sciences, not to morals, religion or philosophy.”
Lawrence Krauss
“Of course, philosophy is the field that hasn’t progressed in two thousand years.”
Stephen Hawking
“Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.”
Lewis Wolpert
“Philosophers have contributed nothing. And if we go back to the suggestion that it was philosophers who brought about the Scientific Revolution and the Renaissance – it’s simply false! Galileo was not a philosopher. He was a scientist.”
Here are two videos that are very instructional.
Here is a philosopher bashing philosophy and endorsing empiricism.
Bertrand Russel :
“Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.”
Notice how Bertrand Russell used the word verify to mean test experimentally. You count the teeth and objectively let the chips fall where they may.
Many scientists such as Neil de Grasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, and Lawrence Krauss have spoken publicly about the uselessness of Philosophy of Science. People should heedtheir warning.
The best authors I have found on epistemology are Francis Bacon, John Stuart Mill, Rudolf Carnap, Bertrand Russell, Moritz Schlick, and David Stove.
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