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It is a myth that the success of science in our time is mainly due to the huge amounts of money that have been spent on big machines. What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.

Karl Popper

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Karl Popper
Age: 92 †
Born: 1902
Born: July 28
Died: 1994
Died: September 17
Philosopher
Philosopher Of Science
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Vienna
Austria
Karl Raimund Popper Sir
Karl Raimund
Sir Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper
Money
Growth
Dues
Ideas
Grow
Myth
Really
Huge
False
Time
Grows
Accounts
Success
Machines
Bigs
Spent
Science
Including
Amounts
Makes
Amount
Mainly

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There is no pure, disinterested, theory-free observation.
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We do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.
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. . . it seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.
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The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to extinct a bad idea, before the idea extincts us.
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It is wrong and dangerous to extol freedom by telling people that they will certainly be all right once they are free. The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.
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[The aim of science is] to explain what so far has taken to be an explicans, such as a law of nature. The task of empirical science constantly renews itself. We may go on forever, proceeding to explanations of a higher and higher universality.
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The fundamental thing about human languages is that they can and should be used to describe something and this something is, somehow, the world. To be constantly and almost exclusively interested in the medium - in spectacle-cleaning - is a result of a philosophical mistake.
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Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
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The conspiracy theory of society... comes from abandoning god and then asking: Who is in his place
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Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it.
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There is no history, only histories.
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There can be no ultimate statements 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.
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The war of ideas is a Greek invention. It is one of the most important inventions ever made. Indeed, the possibility of fighting with with words and ideas instead of fighting with swords is the very basis of our civilization, and especially of all its legal and parliamentary institutions.
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no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
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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.
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It is part of my thesis that all our knowledge grows only through the correcting of our mistakes.
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Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.
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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
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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.
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What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
Karl Popper