Vasundhara Savarikar Philosophy of Science

Nave Falsification: The notion of nave falsification is rooted in dissatisfaction with empirical or inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning assumes that a sequence of events will occur in the same manner in future as they have occurred in the past. Inductive evidence is limited, because we do not observe the universe at all times and in all places. Thus, it is not viable to deduce a general rule from mere observation. Pooper argued that scientific method is not about observing collected data and making generalizations, rather, the purpose of science is to make bold hypotheses which are falsifiable. Falsifiability or refutability is the logical possibility that an assertion could be shown false by a particular observation or physical experiment. The concept of nave falsification can be logically represented by modus tollens in the following way. If X is true then Y is true. Y is false. Therefore X is false Naive falsification refers to the notion that, a theory or hypothesis can be decisively rejected on the basis of a single non-supporting occurrence. For example: Occurrence of one black swan would refute the hypothesis that all swans are white. According to Popper, making generalizations from collected data is nothing but pseudo science .The virtue of science is its capability of being refuted by valid evidence. Thus nave falsification propagates the idea that, scientists propose hypotheses (or conjectures) which are tested by way of predictions deduced from them. If the predictions are found to be false, the hypotheses are falsified, and must therefore be abandoned by the scientific community and any corroborating or confirming evidence of a theory should be considered as an unsuccessful attempt to refute it. Although, the logic of nave falsification is valid for the problem of induction, it is rather limited. Nave falsification is criticized on the basis that scientists do not actually follow it i.e. they do not work with intention of falsifying theories. To overcome the limitations of falsification, Popper introduces the concept of verisimilitude.

Vasundhara Savarikar Philosophy of Science

The primary objective of this paper is to determine the validity of verisimilitude and its capability to provide satisfactory explanation for the problems posed by nave falsification. This paper proceeds by defining and subsequently outlining the limitations of nave falsification. Then it dwells on the notion of verisimilitude as an attempt by Popper to counter the limitations of nave falsifications. Finally, it is argued that, although, to some extent verisimilitude addresses the limitation of nave falsification pertaining to growth of science, it does not provide satisfactory measure to ascertain the logical truth content of a theory. Limitations of Nave Falsification The nave falsification argument re-conceptualizes confirmation/verification as unsuccessful falsification. On the basis of nave falsification it can be deduced that scientific knowledge progresses over time in terms of theories which are abandoned on account of being untrue. However, it is difficult to explain the progress of science when scientific theories are falsified (instead of verified). Secondly, the process of selecting a scientific theory is oversimplified by stating, that we accept those theories that survive falsification attempts and discard those that we have falsified. This process, although guides in determining how we select our theories, but it does not tell us whether the theories that survive falsification actually correspond to reality. The process of nave falsification makes assumptions about the ability to observe, quantify and analyze data. Thus, if any of the assumptions are found faulty, than, the falsification is faulty. Critics believe that, nave falsification conveys controversial notion that, that every hypothesis can be decisively falsified. In real world scientific hypotheses are much more complex, in the sense that a newly proposed hypothesis rests on numerous auxiliary hypotheses that are assumed to be true. Thus, if a prediction deduced from the new hypothesis is later falsified, it is not clear whether the new hypothesis was in error or one of the many auxiliary hypotheses were incorrect. It should also be noted that if induction assumes that something which was true in past will continue to be true in future, deductive falsification too assumes that if something can be falsified in present time T than it will be false in future time T as well. Finally, for Popper, it is through the interplay between the tentative theories (conjectures) and error elimination (refutation) that scientific knowledge advances.

Vasundhara Savarikar Philosophy of Science

However, falsifibility alone is inadequate in advancing science because it fails to answer how do you measure the growth of knowledge? .It also gives a pessimistic view of growth of knowledge, as no amount of data can verify or even hint that the theory has high probability to be true. Popper himself believes that establishing truth is the most important motive of scientific theory but nave falsification speaks only about the falsibility of the content and does not provide any information about the truth content. Thus it also fails to give an optimistic measure of scientific progress. Finally, it should be noted that in the real world too scientists do not function on the principle of nave falsification. Verisimilitude: In order to deal with the problem of truth content posed by nave falsification, Popper along with the assertion that content is inversely proportional to probability went on to develop his notion of verisimilitude. Popper argued that a good scientific theory should have high information content at the same time the more content it has the less probable it becomes. The more information a statement contains, the greater will be the number of ways in which it may turn out to be false. Thus the statements which are of special interest to the scientist are those with a high informative content and consequentially a low probability, and thus they are close to truth. Thus, focusing on truth and content, Popper frames the concept of truth likeness or verisimilitude. According to Popper a good scientific theory has a higher level of verisimilitude i.e. it is closer to truth than its rivals. Thus we can say that, Degree of verisimilitude expresses the relative distance to the truth of a (false) statement or a (partially) false theory (Garcia, 2006, pg 121). According to Popper, two competing theories T1 and T2 are such that the truth-content and the falsity-content of two theories are comparable, then we can say that T2 has more truth content, or corresponds better to the facts, than T1, if and only if : (a) The truth-content but not the falsity-content of T2 exceeds that of T1, or

Vasundhara Savarikar Philosophy of Science

(b) The falsity-content of T1, but not its truth-content, exceeds that of T2. (Popper, 1963 and1965;Pg 233). Popper further explains that even if a theory T2, with higher truth content than theory T1 is subsequently falsified, it can still legitimately be regarded as a better theory than T1. Which means T2 is closer to truth than T1. Thus on the basis of verisimilitude it can be summarized that one theory can be closer to truth than another even though both are false. The central notion in the concept of verisimilitude is that of content. The logical content of a statement a is the set of all logical consequences of a. Those consequences of a that are true comprise the truth content of a and those that are false, make up the falsity content of a. Thus the quantity of verisimilitude which a statement a possesses can be written as: Vs(a) = CtT(a) CtF(a), Vs(a): represents the verisimilitude of a, CtT(a) is a measure of the truth-content of a, CtF(a) is a measure of its falsity-content . (Popper, 1963 and1965;Pg 234)

Analysis: Thus viewing Poppers notion of nave falsification in the light of verisimilitude it can be

deduced that scientific progress involves, abandoning partially true, but falsified, theories, for theories with a higher level of verisimilitude, i.e., which are more closer to truth . In this way, verisimilitude allows to overcome the pessimism of nave falsification that, science progresses by means of falsifying or refuting theories. Secondly the most apparent criticism of falsification is that it does not provide ways to assess growth of knowledge and scientific progress cannot be reliably measured in terms of falsified theories. Popper believes that with the concept of verisimilitude, scientific progress could be

Vasundhara Savarikar Philosophy of Science

represented as progress towards the truth, and experimental corroboration could be seen an indicator of verisimilitude. Popper introduced this concept of verisimilitude as an answer to the criticism that nave falsification does not provides a measure of scientific growth. Verisimilitude provides answer to this question by measuring scientific growth in terms of theories that have more truth content. However, verisimilitude does not provide any direction or guidance on how to measure the logical truth content of a theory. In absence of standards to determine the truth content of a theory we can never be sure about the accuracy of judgments regarding the truth or falsity content of a theory. G.S Robison mentions The formal definition of verisimilitude and the concepts it involves is inapplicable in practice, it in fact decreases genuine objectivity by concealing the point at which judgment enters under a cloak of formal procedures, and allows intuitive assessment to masquerade as the outcome of logical and mathematical calculation. (Robinson,G. 1971. Pg195). The inability to accurately determine the truth and falsity content of a theory is further complicated, if we are to compare two theories. For if we do not have any guiding standards, of measuring the truth and falsity content of the theory then, the determination of verisimilitude of competing theories likely to be faulty. Secondly if Popper asserts that the basic aim of scientific inquiry is to discover the truth than verisimilitude does not fulfill this criterion as it can only provide with verisimilar (truth like) theories and not the truth. Conclusion: Thus we conclude that although verisimilitude appears to answer some of the challenges posed by nave falsification, in practicality it does not solve the core problem of determining a methodology that can assess the growth of scientific knowledge. Verisimilitude tells that a theory with more true logical content must be accepted, but it does not tell that to what degree the logical content of the theory corresponds to absolute truth. Thus the quest of discovering truth gets limited to theories which are closer to truth. The problem of nave falsification is that, it does not tell us to what degree, the theories which survive falsification are closer to truth. In response to this problem, verisimilitude merely tells

Vasundhara Savarikar Philosophy of Science

that the theories that survive falsification are closer to truth than the theories which are falsified. Thus the notion of verisimilitude gives a false impression that closeness to truth has the same objective character as that of absolute truth.