Chapter 106 scientific = fallible

For more than 200 years after Newton, "science" became synonymous with "truth".Most people believe that science is science because it tells us something "true".The activity of a scientist is an activity in which the truth can be obtained. However, an Austrian-born British philosopher turned the tide.He said that "science" is "science" not because the knowledge is true and correct, but precisely because it may be wrong.A proposition that may be negated can be called a "scientific proposition".The man's name was Karl Pope. Pope was born in 1902.He spent his childhood in the berserk Vienna after World War I. At the age of 16, he left school to attend lectures at the University of Vienna.During those days, he studied Freud's psychoanalysis theory and came into contact with Einstein's theory of relativity.He noticed that Einstein always took a critical attitude towards his theories, while Freud was not.

In 1922 he was admitted to the University of Vienna, where he received his Doctor of Philosophy six years later. In the late 1920s, he began to associate with the Vienna School.But in the end he became an "open opponent" of the Vienna School.Because the members of the Vienna School have a common belief - science is true, it can be verified by experience; knowledge should be as certain as scientific knowledge, and language should be as precise as scientific language. But Pope's view is just the opposite.Because in his view, "We don't know anything - that's number one. We should be very humble - that's number two. We shouldn't claim to know when we don't know - that's number three." "

In particular, he disagreed with the Vienna School group who said, "Scientific things are things that can be tested by experience and can be confirmed."Popper believed that scientific things must of course be tested by experience, but even if there are empirical facts to prove a certain proposition, it cannot be said that this proposition is correct. why?Let's take an example - Take, for example, the proposition "All swans are white".Can you prove the proposition to be true when you observe that a swan is white?cannot!But even if you observe many white swans, can you prove it?also can not!Because who knows if the next swan you meet will be white?

From this we can see that although we cannot "prove" this proposition with a lot of positive evidence, we only need one negative example (a black swan) to "false" this proposition!This is Pope's "falsificationism" thought!A proposition is a scientific proposition not because it can be proven (because it cannot be fully proved at all), but because it can be falsified. Knowing that you could be wrong is the "scientific" attitude.On the contrary, those things that claim to be "impossible to go wrong" are not "science" but just "myths".

The same can be applied to society.Pope felt that the development of society is also uncertain, and it is also possible to make mistakes.And totalitarians like fascists think that they have mastered the direction of social development, and then give orders brazenly, wantonly depriving others of their lives and rights! Pope hated fascism because the Nazis forced him to leave his homeland in 1937 and has been wandering in a foreign land.The place where he returned to his roots was not Vienna, but London thousands of miles away.