Karl Popper - Science Quotes

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Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices.

Karl Popper
Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification — the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.

Karl Popper
Reason like science, grows by way of mutual criticism; the only possible way of planning its growth is to develop those institutions that safeguard. the freedom of thought

Karl Popper
It is the aim of science to find satisfactory explanations, of whatever strikes us as being in need of explanation.

Karl Popper
Science is not a system of certain, or well-established statements, nor is it a system which steadily advances towards a state of finality.. Like Bacon we might describe our own contemporary science... as consisting of "anticipations, rash and premature," and as "prejudices."

Karl Popper
But some of these theories are so bold that they can clash with reality: they are the testable theories of science. And when they clash, then we know that there is a reality; something that can inform us that our ideas are mistaken.

Karl Popper
In order that a new theory should constitute a discovery or a step forward it should conflict with its predecessor... it should contradict its predecessor; it should overthrow it. In this sense, progress in science — or at least a striking progress — is always revolutionary.

Karl Popper
Science never pursues the illusory aim of making its answers final or even probable. Its advance is rather toward an infinite yet attainable aim: that of ever discovering new, deeper, and more general problems.

Karl Popper
What is to be called "science" and who is to be called a "scientist" must always remain a matter of convention or decision.

Karl Popper
Science does not aim, primarily, at high probabilities. It aims at a high informative content, well backed by experience. But a hypothesis may be very probable simply because it tells us nothing, or very little.

Karl Popper
I am inclined to think that scientific discovery is impossible without faith in ideas which are of a purely speculative kind, and sometimes even quite hazy; a faith which is completely unwarranted from the point of view of science...

Karl Popper
All science and all philosophy are enlightened common sense.

Karl Popper
It is the rule which says that the other rules of scientific procedure must be designed in such a way that they do not protect any statement in science against falsification.

Karl Popper
Only a man who understands science (that is scientific problems) can understand its history... Only a man who has some real understanding of its history (the history of its problem situations) can understand science.

Karl Popper
For myself, I am interested in science and in philosophy only because I want to learn something about the riddle of the world in which we live, and the riddle of man's knowledge of that world. And I believe that only a revival of interest in these riddles can save the sciences and philosophy from an obscurantist faith in the expert's special skill and in his personal knowledge and authority.

Karl Popper
Science is most significant as one of the greatest spiritual adventures that man has yet known.

Karl Popper
A young scientist who hopes to make discoveries is badly advised if his teacher tells him, "Go round and observe," and he is well advised if his teacher tells him: "Try to learn what people are discussing nowadays in science. Find out where difficulties arise, and take an interest in disagreements. These are the questions which you should take up."

Karl Popper
The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.

Karl Popper
There can be no ultimate statements in science: there can be no statements in science which can not be tested, and therefore none which cannot in principle be refuted, by falsifying some of the conclusions which can be deduced from them.

Karl Popper
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. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there.

Karl Popper
What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.

Karl Popper
I think that we shall have to get accustomed to the idea that we must not look upon science as a 'body of knowledge,' but rather as a system of hypotheses; that is to say, as a system of guesses or anticipations which in principle cannot be justified, but with which we work as long as they stand up to tests, and of which we are never justified in saying that we know they are 'true' or 'more or less certain' or even 'probable.'

Karl Popper
My thesis is that what we call 'science' is differentiated from the older myths not by being something distinct from a myth, but by being accompanied by a second-order tradition-that of critically discussing the myth.... In a certain sense, science is myth-making just as religion is.

Karl Popper
It is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and recklessly critical quest for truth.

Karl Popper