Prabhupada, Room Conversation, January 30, 1977, Bhubaneshwar: ..We are challenging scientists that, “Life cannot be produced by chemicals only. Life comes from life.” They’re all big, big chemists. There is another Ph.D. another M.A.C., this Oriya, Farey. He can also join. Full Conversation
BBC: ..Karl Popper called for a clear demarcation between good science, in which theories are constantly challenged, and what he called “pseudo sciences” which couldn’t be tested. His debunking of such ideologies led some to describe him as the “murderer of Freud and Marx”.
He went on to apply his ideas to politics, advocating an Open Society. His ideas influenced a wide range of politicians, from those close to Margaret Thatcher, to thinkers in the Eastern Communist bloc and South America.
So how did Karl Popper change our approach to the philosophy of science? How have scientists and philosophers made use of his ideas? And how are his theories viewed today? Are we any closer to proving scientific principles are “true”?
David Tyler: ..A recent example of the lack of real debate can be found in the reception of What Darwin Got Wrong by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini. Here is Douglas Futuyma in Science (7 May 2010) in a review entitled: “Two critics without a clue“.
“Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini show little familiarity with the vast literature on genetic variation, experimental analyses of natural selection, or other topics on which they philosophically expound. They are blithely agnostic about the causes of evolution and apparently uninterested in fostering any program of research.
Because they are prominent in their own fields, some readers may suppose that they are authorities on evolution who have written a profound and important book. They aren’t, and it isn’t.”
Another example is the ID prediction of functionality for Junk DNA, and the establishment Darwinists defence of Junk. An interesting report on some recent exchanges is by Jonathan Wells. This concludes:
“If one overlooks the nastiness, it is clear that there are some interesting issues in this debate. Conceptually, what does it mean to say that a segment of DNA has function? Empirically, what does the evidence show? One might think that professors Matheson, Hunt and Moran would address the conceptual issue calmly, rationally, and collegially.
But they don’t; instead, they stoop to misrepresentation and ridicule. And one might think that they would address the empirical issue by citing published scientific evidence. But they don’t; instead, they simply proclaim themselves the only authorities on the subject.”
What we are seeing is a warped science. Instead of championing empiricism and testing of hypotheses, the consensus scientists end up appealing to authority and treating the evidence lightly. They are making the same mistake as the Medieval Church.
Scientific Consensus
Editorial
Philosophy, April 2010, 85(2), 181 | doi: 10.1017/S0031819110000161
See also this review by another philosopher:
Midgley, M. What Darwin Got Wrong by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli Palmarini, The Guardian, 6 February 2010.
Royal Institute of Philosophy offering some cautionary words in an editorial:
“One of the most striking aspects of Karl Popper’s philosophy of science is his insistence that scientific consensus is sleep inducing, intellectually speaking. He did not actually put it quite like that. What he pointed out was that the most successful scientific theory ever devised turned out to be false, even though it had been treated as scientifically practically unquestionable for nigh on two centuries. Popper was thinking of Newton’s theory, whose refutation (as Popper saw it) in 1917 was a key moment in his own intellectual life.”
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