Re: RE: speculation/testability (too long)

[Lars_Bergquist@public.se (Lars Bergquist)]

On 95-02-26 at 04.34, Crpntr@ix.netcom.com wrote:

> After all, Popper gained fame as a 
> philosopher of science through 'Logic of Scientific Discovery' (1939, 
> Eng. trans. 1969), revised as  Conjectures and Refutations' (1963).  
> His 'Objective Knowledge' (1972) examined the problems concerning 
> knowledge. 

Well well, the whole bibliography! Popper outpopped again! I pointed
out--if you would care to read what I wrote--that Popper's real 
interest was in logic. Logicism permeated the intellectual atmosphere
of late Habsburg Austria,  (Logical Positivism and all that) and from 
there it emigrated to the British universities, not least with Sir Karl
himself. Logical Positivism (a.k.a. Logical Empiricism, a.k.a. Analytical 
philosophy) is outspokenly *anti-philosophical* in that most classical 
philosophical problems were rejected as due to misconceptions. This 
"philosophy" would not even deign to discuss them.

As I pointed out in my example, Darwin's ideas of scientific method and
what he actually did were two entirely different things. You too, of course,
are free to think whatever you like about what you are doing, as long as
you produce peer-reviewed and peer-accepted results. If science could
be produced only by people who knew what they were doing, then we
would have little science indeed. However--

1) do never try to apply the Popperian precepts to paleontology, or any
other science. Remember, you will be accountable for EVERY fact that
anybody can find; and if there is one fact or observation, however trivial, 
which you cannot account for, then all your theories come tumbling down
and you are cast out into the darkness of un-science. For in science, things
hang together. Facts are integrated with other facts by way of theories, and
theories with theories. This integration is really what science is. So it is
not only YOUR theories that will collapse--but all others with which they
are connected. The trouble with Popper's logical precepts is that he never
bothered to apply them to his own thinking.

2) lots of people write books and papers with footnotes in them. If that is
the criterion of science, then lots of humbug too is science. And do not try
to hit me over my head with the chair you are occupying. Nihil in verbum
--and Nihil in sedem. Well-reasoned argument is what cuts ice, not
expostulations about your position in the academic republic. I think,
therefore I am. Not "I sit, therefore I am".

3) If your toe is sore, try not to stick it out. Someone may inadvertently
thread on it.

Lars Bergquist
lars_bergquist@public.se
(lexicographer ... "a harmless drudge" according to Dr. Johnson,
so bear with me. And look, no chair!)

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