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Propose theories which can be criticized. Think about possible decisive falsifying experiments-crucial experiments. But do not give up your theories too easily-not, at any rate, before you have critically examined your criticism.
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
Criticism
Propose
Theory
Examination
Possible
Theories
Science
Crucial
Falsifying
Give
Experiments
Critically
Giving
Ease
Examined
Think
Easily
Criticized
Thinking
Rate
Decisive
More quotes by Karl Popper
Some scientists find, or so it seems, that they get their best ideas when smoking others by drinking coffee or whisky. Thus there is no reason why I should not admit that some may get their ideas by observing, or by repeating observations.
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I have spoken to Einstein and he admitted to me that his theory was in fact no different from the one of Parmenides.
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While differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
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We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure.
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But it is certainly not possible to insist on one hand that the formalism is complete and to insist on the other hand that its application to 'the actual' actually demands a step which cannot be derived from it.
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[To] interpret Parmenides as a Kant before Kant ... this is exactly what we must do.
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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
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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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Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it.
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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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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.
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A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
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Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
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The influence (for good or ill) of Plato's work is immeasurable. Western thought, one might say, has been Platonic or anti-Platonic, but hardly ever non-Platonic.
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The best thing that can happen to a human being us to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to live trying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears.
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Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement. . . .
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True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
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I see now more clearly than ever before that even our greatest troubles spring from something that is [as] admirable and sound as it is dangerous – from our impatience to better the lot of our fellows.
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A theory that explains everything, explains nothing
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No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain.... No scientific theory is sacrosanct.
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