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A Critique Of Popper’s Strategy For The Growth Of Science
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Observation statements cannot be statements
expressing uninterpreted data. They are rather statements of facts in
the light of theories. “How odd it is,†Darwin notes, “that anyone
should not see that all observation must be for or against some
view….â€22
Nature must be cross-examined on the basis of the
experimenter’s theories, his ideas and his inspirations. Kant was after
all correct when he says that it behoves on the experimenter to question
nature and not wait until it pleases nature to make manifest her
secrets.23 It must however be noted that unlike Kant who asserts that
our theories are valid a priori, Popper maintains that they are only
guesses, doubts, which must be tested empirically. This is an
adumbration of what he calls hypotheticism, which is one of the cardinal
points of his strategy. Hence he maintains that:
Bold ideas,
unjustified anticipations and speculative thought are our only means for
interpreting nature; our only organon, our only instrument, for
grasping her.24
1 See A. Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science? (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), p.47
2 See K. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discover, (Great Britain: IJ International Ltd, 1999), p. 28
3 See F. Ndubisi, Epistemological Evaluation of Science (Lagos: Foresight Press, 2003), p. 1
4 K. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), p. 54
5 F. Ndubisi, Op. cit., p.2
6 A.F. Chalmers, Op. Cit., p.51
7 K. Popper, Objective Knowledge,(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 5
8 F. Ndubisi, Op.cit. , pp.44-45
9 See K. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p.261
10 See K. Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery, p.40
11 See F. Ndubisi, Op.cit., p.12
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