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Entries published on October 25, 2006

1 entry published on this date. See also: all entries published in October 2006, full archive.

That’s not Popper!

In an entry posted the other day, Aaron Swartz expounded on a general observation that the “scientificness” (if I may coin a word) of a theory or discipline is roughly inversely proportional to the number of times the word “science” occurs in its name. Good examples include “creation science” and “Scientology”. This is certainly relevant material, and there are quite a few good, recent books on the subject (many of which, if you’re looking for an author to get into, have been written by Michael Shermer). But I couldn’t help cringing at Aaron’s characterization of Sir Karl Popper as

[A]n enemy of science who tried to insist that science never actually made any progress, that we never learned anything more about the world.

Time to dust off the old philosophy degree and do some expounding of my own, because while I don’t necessarily agree with where Popper ended up, I think …

Entry published October 25, 2006. Read full entry.