“Science as Falsification”
PSI ASSOCIATES are steadfast in their support of the traditional scientific method as encapsulated in the ideas of Karl Popper.
PSI opposes post-normalism and endeavors to provide society with an antidote (from the Greek αντιδιδοναι antididonai, “given against”) to the seemingly gargantuan and pervasive rise of post-normal science by way of our publishing, educational and media-focused materials and presentations. For, as Karl Popper advocated, any hypothesis that does not make testable predictions is simply not science. Such a hypothesis may be useful or valuable, but it cannot be said to be science.
(Wikipedia excerpt) In Popper’s view, the advance of scientific knowledge is an evolutionary process characterized by his formula:
In response to a given problem situation (
), a number of competing conjectures, or tentative theories (
), are systematically subjected to the most rigorous attempts at falsification possible. This process, error elimination (
), performs a similar function for science that natural selection performs for biological evolution. Theories that better survive the process of refutation are not more true, but rather, more “fit”—in other words, more applicable to the problem situation at hand (). Consequently, just as a species’ biological fitness does not ensure continued survival, neither does rigorous testing protect a scientific theory from refutation in the future. Yet, as it appears that the engine of biological evolution has produced, over time, adaptive traits equipped to deal with more and more complex problems of survival, likewise, the evolution of theories through the scientific method may, in Popper’s view, reflect a certain type of progress: toward more and more interesting problems (
). For Popper, it is in the interplay between the tentative theories (conjectures) and error elimination (refutation) that scientific knowledge advances toward greater and greater problems; in a process very much akin to the interplay between genetic variation and natural selection. (End of Wikipedia excerpt)
So where does the ‘untruth’ of post-normal scientist take us? Here is a clue:
“Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking, although science will gain some insights into the question if it recognises the socially contingent dimensions of a post-normal science. But to proffer such insights, scientists – and politicians – must trade (normal) truth for influence.” — Mike Hulme, British Climate Scientist.
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