It's St. Pat's not April Fool's.
Nevertheless for those who prefer their thinking easy-side up and half-baked,
here's a pdf for you:
http://www.davidpapineau.co.uk/uploads/1/8/5/5/18551740/popper-tls-complete.pdf
"However, this "problem of demarcation" is not a genuine problem, but entirely
of Popper's own making. The real difference between the atomic theory of
matter, say, and astrology, is that the atomic theory is firmly established by
a large amount of evidence, whereas astrology is mere speculation. This is what
most non-philsophers would say, and they would be quite right. But Popper
cannot say this, because he thinks that inductive evidence is impotent. So he
is forced to regard the atomic theory as no less speculative than astrology,
and is stuck with the non-problem of explaining why some speculations are
better than others."
Against Pap's pap, we need only understand that the "atomic theory of
matter"/ATOM struggled to find a falsifiable/testable form for a very long time
(from the time of 'atoms and the void' to the time of Einstein's work on
Brownian motion), but it does now have a falsifiable/testable character, and
the "evidence" from the tests corroborates the "atomic theory of matter" - all
this Popper can say, and can say as part of explaining why the ATOM is
scientific now whereas it was not in the time of the Ancient Greeks.
None of this shows that the ATOM is "firmly established by a large amount of
evidence" in any inductive sense, and the paragraph quoted is extremely feeble
as any kind of argument that it does show this.
The giveaway is the claim that Popper cannot provide any rational basis for
distinguishing the ATOM from pseudo-science like astrology "because [Popper]
thinks that inductive evidence is impotent". The hidden assumption is that the
only "evidence" worth its name would be "inductive evidence": but of course the
true position is that while Popper denies there is "inductive evidence" he is
not therefore denying there is no such thing as "evidence", and so is NOT
denying that the ATOM bears a different scientific status to astrology because
it bears a different relation to "evidence" [i.e. empirical tests] - far from
it, Popper is explaining that it is this different relation to "evidence" [i.e.
evidential testing] that provides the best demarcation between science and
non-science. It is just that Popper's account of scientific "evidence" [i.e.
evidential testing] is stripped of treating evidence as providing inductive
support, and instead treats scientific evidence as a matter of critical testing
that works on a logic of falsifiability.
David Papineau is, iirc, a Professor and we may hazard the bold conjecture that
his work provides firm evidence (albeit non-inductive) that you can be a
Professor and yet (at times) a third-rate buffoon. In the light of Pap's
tendentious opening paragraphs regarding future reputations, we may further
guess that it is the likes of Pap that will fall away unremembered by future
students of important ideas.
DL
From: Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>
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