The Abuses of Popper - Aeon

The Popper in the title refers to the influential philosopher Karl Popper (1902-94) who argued that the process of science is to propose a hypothesis and then attempt to falsify it. Charlotte Sleigh, a professor of science humanities and honorary professor in history at the University of Kent, UK, explains the "abuse" in the title this way: "The notion that science is all about falsification has done incalculable damage not just to science but to human wellbeing. It has normalised distrust as the default condition for knowledge-making, while setting an unreachable and unrealistic standard for the scientific enterprise. Climate sceptics demand precise predictions of an impossible kind, yet seize upon a single anomalous piece of data to claim to have disproved the entire edifice of combined research; anti-vaxxers exploit the impossibility of any ultimate proof of safety to fuel their destructive activism. In this sense, Popperianism has a great deal to answer for." A reader of the Anomalist brought this piece to our attention, saying "It might be worth a mention insofar as Popper has from time to time been used to bludgeon Fortean studies." Excellent point. (PH)

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from THE ANOMALIST https://bit.ly/3vdymU1