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There is no pure, disinterested, theory-free observation.

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
Disinterested
Observation
Pure
Theory
Free

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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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[To] interpret Parmenides as a Kant before Kant ... this is exactly what we must do.
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We know a great deal, but our ignorance is sobering and boundless. With each step forward, with each problem which we solve, we not only discover new and unsolved problems, but we also discover that where we believed that we were standing on firm and safe ground, all things are, in truth, insecure and in a state of flux.
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Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
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Good tests kill flawed theories we remain alive to guess again.
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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.
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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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True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
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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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[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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We do not know. We can only guess.
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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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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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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
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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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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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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.
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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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With regards to political enemies Plato had a kill-and-banish principle. ... In interpreting it , modern-day Platonists are clearly disturbed by it, even as they make elaborate attempts to defend Plato.
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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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