ENSC 103 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Karl Popper, Falsifiability, Thomas Kuhn

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Environmental Studies
• Course: ENSC 103
• Professor: Stephen brown

Document Summary

1992, carson published silent spring, in this book carson talks about pesticides and how it was killing the living. Chemical manufacturers were furious with carson/ questioned her abilities as a scientist. Because of carson"s book, the government began passing laws and established the environmental protection agency (epa). Shift in professional commitments to shared ideas happens when an inconsistency (anomaly) interferes with the current scientific practice, these shifts are what kuhn describes as scientific revolution. New assumptions = paradigms (requires reconstruction of prior facts) Popper wrote the logic of scientific discovery. Popper"s idea was that it must be possible for a scientific system (based on actually seeing things) to be proved as false by experience. (falsifiability) Major theories are rarely falsified by a single experiment. Multiple follow- on studies are necessary to conclusively decide the hypothesis one way or the other. Modern falsified theories continue to be extremely accurate.