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The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to extinct a bad idea, before the idea extincts us.

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
Value
Values
Idea
Ideas
Extinct
Allows
Survival
Intelligence

More quotes by Karl Popper

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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.
Karl Popper
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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.)
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I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth
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What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
Karl Popper
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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.
Karl Popper
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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.
Karl Popper
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. . . it seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.
Karl Popper
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Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves.
Karl Popper
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Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement. . . .
Karl Popper
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The open society is one in which men have learned to be to some extent critical of taboos, and to base decisions on the authority of their own intelligence.
Karl Popper
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The use of violence is justified only under a tyranny which makes reforms without violence impossible, and should have only one aim, that is, to bring about a state of affairs which makes reforms without violence possible.
Karl Popper
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The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff.
Karl Popper
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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.
Karl Popper
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I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society.
Karl Popper
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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.
Karl Popper
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It is part of my thesis that all our knowledge grows only through the correcting of our mistakes.
Karl Popper
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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.
Karl Popper
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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.
Karl Popper
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Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
Karl Popper
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We do not know. We can only guess.
Karl Popper