Falsifiability as the demarcation of science
A theory is scientific only if it forbids some observation and can in principle be refuted. Testability, not confirmation, separates science from pseudoscience.
Philosophy and the real world
6 ideas
Knowledge grows by conjecture and refutation
We advance by making bold guesses and then rigorously trying to disprove them. Learning is the elimination of error, not the accumulation of proof.
Induction is a myth
Science never proves theories true by piling up confirming instances. It can only fail so far to falsify a theory, leaving it provisionally standing.
Easy verification is a warning sign
Pseudo-sciences find confirmations everywhere because they risk nothing. Genuine science actively courts its own disproof.
The open society and its enemies
Popper extends his epistemology to politics, favoring piecemeal, correctable reform over utopian blueprints. Fallibility argues for institutions that can be revised.
Objective knowledge as World 3
Popper holds that theories and problems inhabit an objective realm independent of any individual mind. Ideas have consequences and structure of their own.