Karl Popper, science and enlightenment (1st)

Here is an idea that just might save the world. Itis that science, properly understood, provides us with the methodological keyto the salvation of humanity. A version of this idea can be found in the worksof Karl Popper. Famously, Popper argued that science cannot verify theories butcan only refute them, and this is how science makes progress. Scientists areforced to think up something better, and it is this, according to Popper, thatdrives science forward.

But Nicholas Maxwell finds a flaw in this line ofargument. Physicists only ever accept theories that are unified - theories thatdepict the same laws applying to the range of phenomena to which the theoryapplies - even though many other empirically more successful disunifiedtheories are always available. This means that science makes a questionable assumptionabout the universe, namely that all disunified theories are false. Without somesuch presupposition as this, the whole empirical method of science breaks down.

By proposing a new conception of scientificmethodology, which can be applied to all worthwhile human endeavours withproblematic aims, Maxwell argues for a revolution in academic inquiry to helphumanity make progress towards a better, more civilized and enlightened world.