Pardon the provocative title. Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion isn't
plainly bad or anything like that... It's popular
for a very good reason: it's a single word that gets
right at the heart of how we want science to function. But it seems like all the online-atheist-community folks I come across don't think too hard about what we mean with this phrase... well, maybe some folks do, but
most of the time they're doing it wrong...
Okay, okay, so what's my point? I have two gripes about the use of falsification:
1. This criterion has a lot more holes in it than people seem to acknowledge
2. Paradigmatic characterizations of science are
a lot more tenable, and
need more love
There's some very sound criticism of Popper's criterion (via Kuhn, in his book, linked below) and I'll leave him to argue his own arguments (read it!). I'm taking a... more scattershot approach, since I don't want this post to be the length of a book.
My "short" argument: Our standards for interpreting evidence, our standards of what constitutes proof, and even our standards for the
importance of an experiment are all occurring
prior to any statement like, "Evidence
X will force me to relinquish supposition
A". Every falsification-check occurs within an
ocean of unexamined presuppositions, and in most discussions where this is pointed out, the pro-science person (whose opponent usually has their head fully up their ass, e.g. presuppository apologetics) has to nuke the issue. with something like "Even if our suppositions are wrong, we aggresively look for ways to discover their wrongness.. are you able to do this?" And that's a fair defense ...
But when the debate is over, we should be able to sit down examine how these unexamined preuppositions function in science--and I don't mean by picking up some pop-pscyh book about how our subconscious runs most of our lives.
"A wee bit longer" arguments from better-educated folk:
Wikipedia isn't a bad place to start. (in case you want my coordinates: my thinking is most in line with Lakatos' "research program" business)
Kuhn's book is the reason why 'paradigm' has its current place in our vernacular.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9Wxn1L9E...32DBC7CA58 <--Giorgio Agamben talks a lot on what a paradigm is (mainly via Foucault, but it's still relevant/interesting).
And a side note: How do I link youtube video without embedding them on this site?
