“The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities — perhaps the only one — in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected.”
In the book, Popper argues that scientific progress occurs through trial and error and as the title indicates conjectures and refutations. In the quotation, he introduces the problem of demarcation to differentiate science from non-science. In order to get closer to the truth, an empirical attitude has to be adopted to determine the falsifiability of a hypothesis. Therefore the more falsifiable the hypothesis is the more interesting it is as it allows for criticism, correction, and verification.
“The belief that science proceeds from observation to theory is still so widely and so firmly held that my denial of it is often met with incredulity.”
Popper explores the problem of induction in science to showcase the role of observations in criticizing theories. In the quote, he negates the notion that observations precede hypotheses in searching for scientific knowledge. Since observations are selective it has to have a basis and that basis should be a falsifiable theory. Accordingly, knowledge grows by proving predictions wrong through experiments and observations as opposed to inductive reasoning.
“A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.”
The quote encompasses Popper’s general argument that rejects inductivist notions in scientific approaches. He contends that unrefuted theories are the basis for non-science as they depend on generalizations with no room for criticism. Critical rationalism as the cornerstone of his theory maintains that for a hypothesis to be empirical it has to be falsifiable. In empirical science, ideas should not be supported but criticized and if they are not falsifiable then they are nonscientific.
