So yes, Popper did make a mistake here, but it has been corrected in modern PCR (pan critical rationalism).

The trouble here lies with Popper’s outdated phrasing in terms of refutation/disproof/falsification. PCR does not say that a single piece of evidence refutes/disproves/falsifies H. It says that a single piece of *fallible*(1) evidence can convince us to *provisionally*(2) reject H.

1. Fallible evidence: As with ideas, no piece of evidence is certain or beyond criticism.
2. Provisionally reject. Just as we never paint any idea gold and place in the glass case beyond criticism, we also never toss any idea into some irretrievable hell from which it can never recover.

Restating 1: The probability on any piece of evidence is always strictly between 0 and 1, but never exactly 0 or 1.
Restating 2: We never assign probability 0 to an idea; we don’t literally refute/disprove/falsify.

So PCR replaces the words refutation/disproof/falsification with the phrase “provisionally convincing criticism”, and the understanding that everything (with content) can be criticized and no criticism is final.

Raelifin: “Ultimately, I cannot refute anything with absolute certainty, so I cannot disprove.”

Yes, we can not refute with certainty, and we can not disprove formally. Instead we reject provisionally.

Raelifin: “…doesn’t allow any refutation to LOGICALLY occur.” (My emphasis added.)

It is legitimate to fallibly convert fallible statements and fallible evidence into predicates and symbols, and then to use logic to make deductions. But this does not place one’s logical deductions beyond criticism. Things can and do go wrong in the conversion process. It’s a useful process, but it is not perfect.

Raelifin: “…any sort of updates to belief weights requires knowledge that is assumed to be true”

You can provisionally assume something to be true, as long as you realize that you may have to revise the assumption later.

Raelifin: “Unless I’m overlooking an infallible source of knowledge, I can conclude that nobody in the entire universe has any knowledge”

Or you could decide that all knowledge is fallible, and we do have fallible knowledge, and much of it often works.

If it is, how does it make sense to say that it approaches the objective truth when it requires subjective belief (in axioms/a priori knowledge) to work?

Sorry if I’m not understanding you. I doubt it’d be much better in person, though, as it’s hard to spend as much time elaborating.

When you buy a scale (a real scale) it comes with a series of bronze weights. There would be no way to test absolutely, but one could get pretty dang close to a standard 30g or 45g weight.

AGH, this is too simple a thought experiment to show what I mean when I criticize making hypotheses or doing weighting or any of these useful tools of drawing conclusions about reality and being “right,” or proving things false or true.

yes, we can hash it out when you come…

You wrote “NO experiment is valid without repeatability under different circumstances. Things that are known to be 35g must be tested on the scale. The stone must be weighed on other scales. The things known to be 35g must be weighed on other scales.”

Are you saying that there are some things are known to have a mass of 35g? Where does this knowledge come from?

(P.S. I never used 35g in my example. Did you mean 45g?)

(A) The scale says “45g”.
(B) The mass of the stone is 30g.
(C) The scale is an accurate measure of the stone’s mass.

each of these statements can be tested independently of each other. Empirical science demands that they be tested and re-tested and tested again. NO experiment is valid without repeatability under different circumstances. Things that are known to be 35g must be tested on the scale. The stone must be weighed on other scales. The things known to be 35g must be weighed on other scales. I think you hit on the “common sense” which is the huge body of testing that goes on every day, but you didn’t apply it very well in your thought experiment. You weight things, but much of science is searching for ways to get out of the box, or get more objective about the measure.

I’ve noticed that the social sciences and history tend to fall short of trying to get more objective about the measure, but even they have to agree to a consensus or a common story. Scholarship is about trying to tear apart stories. To be a scholar one must never trust the truth and never trust that one could be right. But act upon thinking one is right.

I think this is a great post. I’m glad that you’re tearing into CR. I like that you applied all your recent study of weighting to CR. But I’ve run into this thousands of times: that people weight things without exploring alternatives and testing them, too. I think that the whole process of making hypotheses is bad thinking. I’m looking forward to talking to you about that, but Dr. Coyote will tear me apart for it. Basically, I think people close off options as soon as they make a hypothesis. You weight only what you think of to weight.

Not to be flip, but you always need to consider that gravity might be different when you weighed that stone. Seems silly in this context, which is simple, but not in others like the apple is red under red light and black under green light and no crow is black.

Hm, but you got me thinking….

love and hugs
mom