Karl Popper's Proposed Solution To The Demarcation Problem:
Popper vs. Kuhn
According to the philosopher Karl Popper, "the central problem in the philosophy of science is that of demarcation, i.e., of distinguishing between science and what he terms 'non-science'" (Thornton 2009). Colloquially, of course, all of us think we know what science is -- it is the scientific method, or the proving of a hypothesis. But even here there is confusion, given that what constitutes a scientific 'theory' is not what is meant by 'theory' when a layperson speaks. And much of what we intuitively believe to be science may not be science at all, given that it may be based more upon observed correlations and observed, personal experiences than the proving and disproving of hypotheses. According to Popper, what we call science is largely a web of hypotheses, rather than 'truth.'
Popper called the problem of distinguishing between science and non-science to be a problem of demarcation. Popper was unusual amongst philosophers of his era to take seriously Hume's critique of scientific induction which is: "Our knowledge of such contingent truths could only be grounded in our experience. But the principle of the uniformity of nature isn't something that we can just 'see' to be true. As a result, it appears that we could only have inductive evidence to support it. So it seems that the only way we could justify anything like the inductive principle is through induction" (Beisecker 2005). Although our presumptions may be accurate much of the time, they are hardly true all of the time.
Popper's critique of Hume is that pure, objective inductive observation is, in fact, not the foundation of all scientific theories. "All observation is selective and theory-laden -- there are no pure or theory-free observations" (Thornton 2009). Observation takes place only with a purpose, whether the purpose is a consciously-designed experiment or everyday observation. There is no unique, scientific methodology that stands apart from conventional observation. All human activity "consists largely of problem-solving," whether the problem is a theoretical...
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