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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.

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
Hand
Application
Possible
Demands
Actually
Actual
Science
Complete
Hands
Demand
Formalism
Cannot
Step
Derived
Certainly
Mechanic
Steps
Insist

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Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
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Simple statements are to be prized more highly than less simple ones because they tell us more because their empirical content is greater and because they are better testable.
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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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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.
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The old scientific ideal of episteme - of absolutely certain, demonstrable knowledge - has proved to be an idol. The demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative for ever.
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A system is empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation... It must be possible for an empirical or scientific system to be refuted by experience.
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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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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
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I have insisted that we must be tolerant. But I also believe that this tolerance has its limits. We must not trust those anti-humanitarian religions which not only preach destruction but act accordingly. For if we tolerate them, then we become ourselves responsible for for their deeds.
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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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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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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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. . . it seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.
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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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Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement. . . .
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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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Good tests kill flawed theories we remain alive to guess again.
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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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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.
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The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.
Karl Popper