“Karl Popper Showed Conclusively That Science Can Proceed Without Induction.” Discuss

Popper’s criticism of the scientific practice of using induction was different to critics such as Hume. He argued that the inductive method of relying on past observations is not enough, feeling that induction created dogmatism, which encouraged the pseudo-sciences to hide behind their intellectual opaqueness. His solution of using a different test which was deductive rather than inductive helped to open up a new way of approaching the sciences. However, his methods did have flaws. For example, his rules did not allow for problems with the experiments and he failed to comprehend that dogmatism exists in science and that it can actually allow for more dynamic ideas.

Deductive arguments are conclusions based on set premises. If all of the premises were true then the conclusion would be deductively valid. However, if one of the premises was wrong, the conclusion would break down and be an invalid deductive argument. For example, if John was a man (premise one) and all men are mortals, (premise two) then as a result we can assume that John is a mortal (conclusion). Similarly, in this conclusion (that John is a mortal) would break down if one of the premises (say, John is a woman) is wrong.

Inductive reasoning is different. It does not have the logical crutch that deductive reasoning can offer. It is not principally based on logic, with most ideas being based upon past observations. This method is popular in science, as scientists can use records of data to get conclusions for hypotheses, although the data may not even be one hundred percent accurate. An example of inductive reasoning may be that if John lives in Exeter (premise one) and people who live in Exeter were born in Exeter, (premise two) then we can assume that John was born in Exeter (conclusion). However, this is merely based on observation, so it can easily be wrong. For example, I (Jonny) live in Exeter but I was not born there, so the conclusion would be wrong. This is one of the greatest problems of induction, false results can be unchecked and create contrary conclusions.

Hume, a critic of induction believed it was irrational for these reasons but still essential. He argued that “observed realities will continue to hold in the future because we believe in the principle that nature is uniform.” (The Principle of the Uniformity of Nature). He goes onto how people, despite no rational belief that nature will remain the same hold onto facts, labelling it a matter of irrational habit. Like Hume, Popper wrestled with how to deal with sciences perceived overdependence on the inductive method and how he could test the different sciences. Whilst Hume was arguing against induction on a psychological point and from repetition Popper was arguing from a philosophical level that only science can be rational and that it was non inductive.

He was concerned that many theories were created falsely but carried on past their logical point, as people would see confirming circumstances everywhere, based on a possibly shaky logic. He referred to these concerns as the problem of demarcation. Popper concluded that this lead towards dogmatic thinking, as people feel the need to justify themselves. For example, Marxists don’t even consider the Soviet revolution as Communist, as the revolution was agrarian. Part of this response, he argues is to create situations that are untestable to defend the theory, which has often lead to more unscientific theories such as Marxism and Freudianism that can not be proven or disproven effectively. For him this is even worse, as the dogmatic attitude creates the tendency to verify laws and attempt to apply them elsewhere in future observations. This could lead to scientific ideas being carried on for far too long, as people would end up seeing confirmations of their false ideas everywhere. As Popper wanted to work out how to create a dividing line between what was true (and therefore testable) and what was not true (what was seemingly untestable). For Popper, it was felt that we impose regularities on the world through discovering similarities and then jumping to conclusions and then science proceeds from observation to theory.

Popper concluded that induction is merely a myth, being neither a psychological fact, one of ordinary life nor one of scientific procedure. He argued that conjecture and refutations were at the heart of science using falsification. To him empiricism is accepted only so long as it is fully preserved. If the tests confirms it then the theory stays, if they doesn’t it goes. He found that the method of trial and error is a method of eliminating false theories by observational statements. His solution was to strengthen the critical attitude which would help to separate true from false policies. He wanted to extend deductive logic from the mathematical and logical to the scientific sphere. He felt that this intellectual survival of the fittest is important, as testing a theory allows for weaker theories to be eventually replaced for stronger ones and prevents false logic from going unchecked.

Popper’s deductive method did have holes, however. The problem was that his dividing line between a verified and falsified hypothesis was very narrow. He never took into account that the failure of a test may not have been as a result of the hypothesis but from a fault in the experiment itself. For example, it is commonly held that water boils at 100ºC. However, if in an experiment the water did not boil at 100ºC we would, under Popper’s theory reject it and the hypothesis would be falsified. However, this could easily be as a result of the apparatus involved in the experiment and not theory itself. For example, how can we be guaranteed that the water is pure, or that the thermometer is inaccurate? This was pointed out by Duhem, who rejected his theory twenty eight years earlier before Popper wrote.

Popper was a strong critic of dogmatism but his critics highlight how there may actually be advantages to holding onto unpopular ideas. For Kuhn dogmatism existed in science as well as the pseudo-sciences. He argued that instead of people abandoning a theory at the first sight of problems intellectually it will be the more committed people who are prepared to revise and amend some of the assumptions of a theory. Kuhn, who claimed that there would be no scientific advances, as scientific theories would have been rejected before they had been given a chance. Lakatos put a dynamic element into Poppers work, who talked about the decline and progress of intellectual ideas over time. However, even he had weaknesses, as it required great historic perspective to judge whether or not a hypothesis was true.

Despite his best intentions to separate science and pseudo-science using falsification as the defining test Poppers ideas have too many holes. Falsification was born falsified, as the range of assumptions that could have distorted an experiment make it almost impossible to distinguish whether it was the experiment or the hypothesis from a negative result. However, Popper’s ideas were important, catalysing the debate over how to deal with the newer, untestable sciences such as Marxism and Freudianism through philosophers such as Lakatos.

This article was written by Jonathan McHugh in May 2004