From Alex Berezow at American Council on Science and Health:
In other words, only one out of 70 papers fully met Popper’s criteria of falsification. This suggests that while Popper’s idea of falsification is a good one, it is far too difficult for scientists to implement regularly in practice. Science plods along just fine without adhering to Popper’s overly burdensome guidelines.
Though he would surely dispute Dr. Hansson’s conclusion that falsification has been falsified, hopefully Popper would have at least found it amusingly ironic.More.
Berezow is (perhaps ironically) missing the point here, of course. Falsification is a standard, adherence to which need not be perfect. But it provides a basis for discussion of claims.
Among the people to whom that matters are taxpayers in societies that support science.
If I (O’Leary for News) pay taxes to support “science,” does that mean I am obliged to pay for witchcraft studies or theories that the White House is hiding space aliens? Vs. the Canadarm of the space shuttles or destroying polio? If so, I would sure want to know why.
Note: Polio can be destroyed the way smallpox was because all vectors are human.
See also: The war on falsifiability
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