In principle, you can’t strictly falsify a theory empirically any more (or less) than you can verify one.
This throws the baby out with the bathwater; we can falsify and verify to degrees. Refusing the terms verify and falsify because we are not able to assign infinite credence seems like a mistake.
This throws the baby out with the bathwater; we can falsify and verify to degrees. Refusing the terms verify and falsify because we are not able to assign infinite credence seems like a mistake.
I agree; that’s why “strictly.” But you seem to miss the point, which is that falsification and verification are perfectly symmetric: whether you call the glass half empty or half full on either side of the equation wasn’t my concern.
Two basic criticisms apply to Popperian falsificationism: 1) it ignores verification (although the “verisimilitude” doctrine tries to overcome this limitation); and 2) it does assign infinite credence to falsification.
No. 2 doesn’t comport with the principles of Bayesian inference, but seems part of LW Bayesianism (your term):
This allowance of a unitary probability assignment to evidence conditional on a theory is a distortion of Bayesian inference. The distortion introduces an artificial asymmetry into the Bayesian handling of verification versus falsification. It is irrational to pretend—even conditionally—to absolute certainty about an empirical prediction.
This throws the baby out with the bathwater; we can falsify and verify to degrees. Refusing the terms verify and falsify because we are not able to assign infinite credence seems like a mistake.
I agree; that’s why “strictly.” But you seem to miss the point, which is that falsification and verification are perfectly symmetric: whether you call the glass half empty or half full on either side of the equation wasn’t my concern.
Two basic criticisms apply to Popperian falsificationism: 1) it ignores verification (although the “verisimilitude” doctrine tries to overcome this limitation); and 2) it does assign infinite credence to falsification.
No. 2 doesn’t comport with the principles of Bayesian inference, but seems part of LW Bayesianism (your term):
This allowance of a unitary probability assignment to evidence conditional on a theory is a distortion of Bayesian inference. The distortion introduces an artificial asymmetry into the Bayesian handling of verification versus falsification. It is irrational to pretend—even conditionally—to absolute certainty about an empirical prediction.