[lit-ideas] Re: Black Swans Anyone?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:14:25 +0100 (BST)
--- John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Just posted the following on Savage Minds. Thought some here might
> find it interesting.
Include me in (of course).
But this does not seem at all new stuff if you know Popper's work. Does he
for example discuss the 'Wason test' - a test, and series of tests, devised
by the late Peter Wason. Wason believed that Popper was right on logic and
scientific method but was curious that Popper's ideas (which are generally
very appealing and intuitive to most scientists) meet fierce resistance from
(and are counter-intuitive to), for example, many philosophers. His
explanation was that psychologically most of us have a 'confirmationist bias'
- that is, we tend to cling to facts that support our thinking (by being
consistent or illustrative of it) rather than looking for facts that might
disconfirm what we think. This is the opposite of proper scientific method
i.e. falsificationism.
An interesting result that arises from further development of Wason's ideas
is that in certain circumstances, for example when the issue is cheating, we
do think in a logical and falsificationist way - whereas, given the
logically-identical problem in another form, we do not. Why? Steven Pinker
speculates on an evolutionary explanation in his 'How The Mind Works'.
The Wason test(s) can no doubt be googled. But an initial one is as follows:-
You have four cards face up on a table: one says 'A', another 'D', another
'4', another '7'.
You are given the following rule 'If a consonant on one side, then an even
number on the other'.
Which cards do you need to turn over to find out if the rule is true? (Clue:
the answer is strictly a matter of logic i.e. falsificationism).
Of course, the appeal of 'induction' may be its psychological appeal to our
illogical 'confirmationist bias'
Donal
Still intending to take up the induction issue again (and maybe even again)
Can so far say that my preliminary findings in relation to Robert Paul's
suggested reading on induction, the Stanford article, is that (at best) it
sketches what a viable theory of induction would have to achieve - it does
not present, still less properly defend, a viable theory of induction: and
this is a fundamental problem with it if we are debating whether 'induction'
is actually viable as a theory
Also: to talk at length about 'induction', as the article does, with only a
cursory mention of Popper's work is, imo, laughable
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