Quote

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.

Karl Popper

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Begin
Science
Must
Myths
Myth
Criticism

More quotes by Karl Popper

Image
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
Image
. . . it seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.
Karl Popper
Image
To give a causal explanation of an event means to deduce a statement which describes it, using as premises of the deduction one or more universal laws, together with certain singular statements, the initial conditions ... We have thus two different kinds of statement, both of which are necessary ingredients of a complete causal explanation.
Karl Popper
Image
The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to extinct a bad idea, before the idea extincts us.
Karl Popper
Image
We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure.
Karl Popper
Image
Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths.
Karl Popper
Image
It is not intuitive ease I am after, but rather a point of view which is sufficiently definite to clear up some difficulties, and to be criticized in rational terms. (Bohr's complementarity cannot be so criticized, I fear it can only be accepted or denounced - perhaps as being ad hoc, or as being irrational, or as being hopelessly vague.)
Karl Popper
Image
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
Image
We never know what we are talking about.
Karl Popper
Image
The question is not how to get good people to rule THE QUESTION IS: HOW TO STOP THE POWERFUL from doing as much damage as they can to us.
Karl Popper
Image
The defence of democracy must consist in making anti-democratic experiences too costly for those who try them much more costly than a democratic compromise
Karl Popper
Image
Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it.
Karl Popper
Image
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.
Karl Popper
Image
Man, some modern philosophers tell us, is alienated from his world: he is a stranger and afraid in a world he never made. Perhaps he is yet so are animals, and even plants. They too were born, long ago, into a physico-chemical world, a world they never made.
Karl Popper
Image
It is part of my thesis that all our knowledge grows only through the correcting of our mistakes.
Karl Popper
Image
Criticism of my alleged views was widespread and highly successful. I have yet to meet a criticism of my views.
Karl Popper
Image
Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement. . . .
Karl Popper
Image
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.
Karl Popper
Image
[To] interpret Parmenides as a Kant before Kant ... this is exactly what we must do.
Karl Popper
Image
Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
Karl Popper