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A Sceptical Look at "A Skeptical Look at Karl
Popper”[1]
J. C. LESTER
"Martin Gardner / Required an intellectual-sin pardoner / As
a "skeptic” who fell for induction / Despite
hypothetico-deductive instruction”
A clerihew by Juan Hoo Gnoes
It is an irony to attack a more sceptical epistemology than one’s
own in the name of scepticism and defend, instead, an
epistemology that is positively illogical. And yet that is what
Martin Gardner has done in his "A Skeptical Look at Karl
Popper.” In this reply I shall give my own responses, which
might differ somewhat from those of other "Popperians” (I am
happy to be called a critical rationalist, but I doubt many admirers
of Popper subscribe to every Popperian theory). If I repeat
similar points in places that is because Gardner repeats the same
errors, and I do not want to let any of them by as though they
might be acceptable. But I shall ignore Gardner’s attacks on
Popper’s character as mere ad hominem slurs.
Gardner tells us that Popper’s "followers among philosophers of
science are a diminishing minority, convinced that Popper's vast
reputation is enormously inflated”. If Popper’s "followers
among philosophers of science are a diminishing minority” then
so much the worse for the philosophy of science. But such a
sociological statistic is irrelevant to the truth of Popper’s
theories. If it is supposed to be a reason to ignore Popper’s
actual arguments, as Gardner does, then it combines the fallacies
of arguing from authority (a decidedly tarnished authority) and
arguing from what the majority believe. It is surely not true that
Popper’s "followers ... are ... convinced that Popper's vast
reputation is enormously inflated.”
Is it true that "Popper's reputation was based mainly on [his] persistent but misguided efforts to restate common-sense views in a novel language”? To take two examples, how can Popper’s Quasi-Platonic World Three or his view that scientific theories are completely without evidential support be "common-sense views in a novel language”? Gardner wants especially to criticise the second example, Popper’s epistemology. He writes that Popper argues that confirmation "is slow and never certain”. It is not slow. It does not start. How can finite instances begin to confirm a universal theory? So "all crows are black" does not entail that "[e]very find of another black crow obviously confirms the theory."
It is a muddle (throughout Gardner's article) to conflate Popper's
general argument about universal cases, which cannot be
observed, with particular instances, which can. We cannot see all
crows being black but we might see a particular crow being black
(though even this remains theory-laden). Thus "water on Mars” is
not an example of Popper's view of a universal scientific theory.
But in any case, neither, strictly speaking, can there be "confirming
instances" of "water on Mars.” Rather, there are only
theory-laden interpretations of apparent evidence that pass the
available tests. It is entirely irrelevant to the epistemological
arguments whether or not astronomers themselves "do not think
they are making efforts to falsify the conjecture.”
We are told that "Falsifications can be as fuzzy and elusive as
confirmations.” That falsifications can be difficult in practice does
not affect the simple logic of a single assumed instance refuting a
universal theory. By contrast, confirmations are not possible just
because even particular examples of a crow’s being black have
an indefinitely large number of implicit universal aspects (such as,
it is always a black crow even when no one is observing it), some
being counterfactual (such as, it would die if deprived of oxygen
for one hour). I take 'confirmation’ to be an inductivist term, at
least as Gardner intends it, implying support. Thus even a basic
statement is not confirmed or supported. It too is a conjecture.
People might think they are looking for confirmations, but
epistemologically they can only ever find corroborations—in
Popper’s intended sense of compatible, but not supporting,
theory-laden evidence (if they are not typographical or scanning
errors, I assume Gardner slips when he uses "conformation” and
"conforming” a couple of times: a conformation sounds more like
a corroboration).
Observations of black crows, it is stated, "can be taken in two
ways; confirmations of 'all crows are black,’ or disconfirmations
of 'some crows are not black.’"How can a single observation of
a black crow (even if accurate) support a universal theory? How
can it undermine the existential statement that there is a non-black
crow somewhere? Gardner makes his assertions without
attempting to reply to these obvious falsificationist criticisms. It is
true that "Popper recognized — but dismissed as unimportant —
that every falsification of a conjecture is simultaneously a
confirmation of an opposite conjecture.”'All crows are black’
has the form of a universal theory in science. The assumption 'This
is a white crow’ falsifies it and is significant. The fact that 'This is
a white crow’ also logically confirms the theory 'Not all crows
are black’ (assuming this is the "opposite conjecture”) is without
scientific significance. 'Not all crows are black’ does not have
the form of a universal theory in science. Gardner continues, "and
every conforming [sic] instance of a conjecture is a falsification of
an opposite conjecture.” To make sense of this I can only
assume that the "opposite conjecture” to 'All crows are black’
is now 'No crows are black’ (or some equivalent expression).
But that is a universal conjecture that "This is a black crow”
significantly falsifies.
Gardner supposes that the following is an example of how
confirmation and falsification are linked in practice: "If a giant
atom smasher ... detects a Higgs, it will confirm the conjecture
that the field exist[s]. At the same time it will falsify ... that there is
no Higgs field.” There are various confusions here. The detection
of an apparent single Higgs particle is not the detection of a
universal field. That would be like saying that the detection of an
apparent black crow is the detection of universal black crowness
(all crows being black). So the apparent detection of a Higgs
particle cannot confirm the universal theory (and it is a highly
theory-laden singular, in any case). It can only corroborate it. If
we assume that it is a single Higgs particle (because it might be
and we cannot fault the experiment or think of an alternative
theory to explain the particle), then that assumption logically
falsifies only 'there are no Higgs particles’. But the assumption is
not epistemologically confirmed. Of course, we might also grant
the assumption that there is a Higgs field (because there might be
and we cannot fault the experiment or think of an alternative
theory to explain this type of particle). Obviously, that
assumption would logically falsify the conjecture "there is no
Higgs field”. But, a fortiori, that universal assumption is not
epistemologically confirmed.
So we have no sound argument from Gardner that "science
operates mainly by induction (confirmation), and also and less
often by disconfirmation (falsification).” And although there are
logical and conceptual links between them, induction (inferring
from particular instances to some general thesis) is not the same
as epistemological confirmation (that single instances make a
general theory more probable). Further, it is again entirely
epistemologically irrelevant that with scientists and philosophers in
the 'inductive fold’ (to invert Gardner’s gibe), "[i]ts language is
almost always one of induction.” What is the relevance of
Gardner’s joke that "If Popper bet on a certain horse to win a
race, and the horse won, you would not expect him to shout,
'Great! My horse failed to lose!’” Gardner thinks that Popper
ought to shout this if he were consistent about denying
confirmations. But Popper’s point is, again, that we can observe
(albeit in a theory-laden way) such singular events as a horse
winning but we cannot observe universals, such as "My horse
always wins” (even if it has done so in all observed cases).
In what way is discovering that "smaller and smaller planets orbit
distant suns” supposed to be "inductive evidence that there may
be Earth-sized planets out there”? Gardner simply asserts the
existence of induction without explaining how the inference could
possibly work. However, 'There are no other Earth-sized
planets’ is a universal conjecture that the discovery of one would
falsify. But the apparent discovery of one will be a singular
(though theory-laden and not confirmed) observation and not
itself a universal scientific theory. (But why should there not be
other Earth-sized planets if no theory makes the Earth special?
The absence of such a theory is what mainly makes plausible the
conjecture that they exist.) So astronomers can obtain only a
(conjectural) falsification of the universal theory, even if it is true
that they consider themselves to be "inductivists who seek positive
conformations [sic]”. It is absurd of Gardner to appeal to
scientists’ opinions to solve an epistemological problem. It is like
appealing to their opinions on whether genetic engineering is
moral.
How, exactly, do prediction and explanation relate to "classical
induction procedures”? Without an explanation Gardner may as
well assert they are part of classical magical procedures. It leaves
us with nothing substantial to criticise. The quotation from Nagel
that Popper’s falsificationism "is close to being a caricature of
scientific procedures” again reveals the confusion of sociology
with epistemology.
I cannot understand why Gardner thinks that 'corroboration’ is
just 'confirmation’ but, supposedly like Popper’s other terms,
"restated ... in a bizarre and cumbersome terminology.” The
assertion that the apparent evidence merely fits (corroborates)
some universal theory, which is possible, is clearly quite different
from the assertion that the evidence positively supports (confirms)
some universal theory, which is impossible. Is there no difference
between asserting something that is possible and asserting
something that is impossible? And to be impressed by the fact that
a theory made novel predictions and was not falsified is not to be
covertly inductivist. True theories will pass all the tests we can
come up with, provided that the tests are carried out correctly.
And true theories are what we seek.
Popper did not, as others had done, "point out that science, unlike
math and logic, is never absolutely certain.” He pointed out that
science is absolutely uncertain. Quite a different proposition
(consider the difference between being 'not absolutely bullet
proof’ and being 'absolutely not bullet proof’). And
mathematics and logic are not that certain either. This is a far
more extreme form of scepticism than that of most who accept
"fallibilism”. However, it is compatible with this view that we can
attain truth nevertheless: as truth is a metaphysical
correspondence between a theory and the world it describes.
Either a theory or its negation is true. So we have a 50% chance
of success merely by a random selection of the two.
Popper’s propensity theory of probability applies to single
instances and flouts determinism. As I understand it, the standard
frequency theory does not apply to single instances and is
compatible with determinism. Mathematicians undoubtedly use
probability in a way that fits well with the propensity
interpretation, but they leave it undefined. So, again, how is this,
"introducing a new term which says nothing different from what
can be better said in conventional terminology”?
In my view, in The Open Society and Its Enemies Popper’s
refutation of Marx is relatively flimsy[2] and his defence of liberal
democracy is significantly at odds with his epistemology and
methodology.[3] Yet Gardner praises it as his "most impressive
work” with "powerful arguments and awesome erudition”
(though I concede that it does contain these as well despite the
two crucial aforementioned flaws).
Gardner concludes his criticisms by saying that "[c]onfirming
instances underlie our beliefs that the Sun will rise tomorrow, that
dropped objects will fall, that water will freeze and boil, and a
million other events. It is hard to think of another philosophical
battle so decisively lost.” But since these theories were first
formulated we have discovered that the sun does not always
'rise’ each day in the North and South poles (and does not really
'rise’, at all), that a 'dropped’ hot air balloon will not fall, that
water will not freeze or boil at normal temperatures given unusual
pressures, and a million other refutations of things we thought we
once knew. In any case, Gardner is again implicitly confusing
sociology with epistemology. And it is even too early to give a
sociological appraisal. Today’s counterintuitive theory can
become tomorrow’s common sense. Perhaps the modern
equivalent of Descartes’s deceiving demon is that we live in a
Matrix-like virtual reality (though this has obvious parallels with
Berkeley’s view of the world as well). As ordinary cinema-goers
do not seem to have any problem with understanding that this is at
least a logical possibility, then they presumably see that apparent
'confirming instances’ of everyday life must count for nothing as
an argument against it. (But this is not to suggest that it is true or
that there cannot be cogent philosophical arguments that it is
false.)
Finally, as he thinks it "one of the best” books by a
"Popperian”, it is a pity that Gardner did not attempt to reply to
any of the actual arguments in Critical Rationalism: A
Restatement and Defence (1994), by David Miller (the unnamed
"top acolyte”). Consider, for instance, the claim made in Chapter
3 that if you 'confirm’ a hypothesis you learn nothing (because
you had already predicted that result) but if you refute it you learn
something. But then Gardner has not dealt seriously with any of
Popper’s arguments either. It is much to be regretted that
Gardner, who years ago published an excellent book critically
dissecting Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, has now
reached the stage of uncritically genuflecting to fads and fallacies
in philosophy.
J C Lester, January 2004
[1] Martin Gardner, "A Skeptical Look at Karl Popper," Skeptical Inquirer, 2001, 25(4):13-14, 72.
[2] For a more robust refutation see David Ramsay Steele, From Marx to Mises: Post-capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation, Open Court, 1992.
[3] J C Lester, Escape from Leviathan: Liberty, Welfare and Anarchy Reconciled, Macmillan/St Martin's Press, 2000, 135-142.
© J. C. Lester
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