{"id":998,"date":"2026-11-02T09:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/?p=998"},"modified":"2026-11-01T18:52:50","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T23:52:50","slug":"against-falsificationism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/blog\/2026\/11\/02\/against-falsificationism\/","title":{"rendered":"Against falsificationism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In The Logic of Scientific Discovery<\/em> Karl Popper proposed that falsifiability solves both the problem of distinguishing science from pseudoscience1<\/a><\/sup> and the problem of induction<\/a>, the observation dating to Hume if not before, that you cannot justify generalizations with the same logical certainty that you can justify the conclusion of a syllogism. Even though you\u2019ve seen the sun rise every morning as have millions of people before you, it is possible (even if highly improbable) that it won\u2019t rise tomorrow morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Consider a simple syllogism, this one an example of a pattern known asmodus ponens:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n

All human beings are mortal.<\/p>

I am a human being.<\/p>

Therefore, I am mortal.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The defining characteristic of a logically valid syllogism is that if the premises are true\u2014\u201cAll human beings are mortal.\u201d, \u201cI am a human being.\u201d\u2014then the conclusion must<\/strong><\/em> be true, where \u201cmust\u201d has the same logical force as the assertion that \u201cequals\u201d does in 2 + 2 = 4. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Your belief (and mine) that the sun will rise tomorrow morning is justified, but our belief doesn\u2019t carry with it that degree of certainty, because we can imagine that the sun might not rise tomorrow morning. Earth might explode in the next 12 hours.2<\/a><\/sup> So no matter how many times the sun has risen before, it might not rise the next time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Falsifiability solves the problem of induction by arguing that inductive reasoning should not be the goal of science. What science can establish with certainty is which hypotheses are false. Popper argued that science advances by excluding more and more false hypotheses. And he argued that pseudoscience is characterized by theories unconnected to data or observation or connected only through special pleading, paying attention only to some of the evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The logic of falsification is simple. Consider the hypothesis \u201cAll swans are white.\u201d If that hypothesis is true, we can construct the following syllogism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n

All swans are white.<\/p>

This bird in front of me is a swan.<\/p>

Therefore, the bird in front of me is white.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Well, if you\u2019re a birder or you\u2019ve been to souther Australia, you know that there\u2019s a species of swan there, Cygnus atratus<\/em> that is black<\/a>. Thus, we can conclude with logical certainty that the hypothesis, \u201cAll swans are white,\u201d is false. That\u2019s how falsification works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s a problem with what I just wrote. Given the structure of the argument, if the bird in front of me is black, we know that at least one<\/strong><\/em> of the two premises must be false, but we don\u2019t know which one. Even worse, it\u2019s possible that I wrongly asserted that the bird in front of me is black. Maybe it\u2019s a white bird that\u2019s been dipped in black dye. There\u2019s nothing in the logical structure of those premises that tells us which of those possibilities is right, only that one of them must be. We haven\u2019t advanced nearly as far as we thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

We depend on our background knowledge to judge whether our observation is wrong and whether one or both of our premises is wrong. More precisely, as a knowledge community, the group of people interested in and expert in the subject of our hypothesis use their shared background knowledge and experience to determine the appropriate conclusion, possibly after a lot of argument and additional observation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Falsification isn\u2019t as simple as people often think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

    \n\t
  1. <\/a>The demarcation problem ↩<\/a><\/li>\n\t
  2. <\/a>I\u2019m writing this a little before 7:00pm EST, and the sun is expected to rise tomorrow at 6:23am EST. ↩<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In The Logic of Scientific Discovery Karl Popper proposed that falsifiability solves both the problem of distinguishing science from pseudoscience1 and the problem of induction, the observation dating to Hume… Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy-of-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":999,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions\/999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}