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“The word 'proof' should strictly only be used when we are dealing with deductive inferences.... Popper claimed that scientists only need to use deductive inferences.... So if a scientist is only interested in demonstrating that a given theory is false, she may be able to accomplish her goal without the use of inductive inferences.... When a scientist collects experimental data, her aim might be to show that a particular theory...is false. She will have to resort to inductive reasoning.... So Popper's attempt to show that science can get by without induction does not succeed.”

PhilosophyScienceLogicPhilosophy Of ScienceKarl PopperDeductive LogicInductive Logic
Book:Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction
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“The failure of Popper's demarcation criterion throws up an important question. Is it actually possible to find some common feature shared by all the things we call 'science...'? It may be that they share some fixed set of features that define what it is to be science, but it may not.... If so, a simple criterion for demarcating science from pseudo-science is unlikely to be found.”

PhilosophySciencePhilosophy Of SciencePseudoscienceKarl Popper
Book:Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction
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“From a philosophical point of view, Leibniz's most interesting argument was that absolute space conflicted with what he called the principle of the identity of indiscernibles (PII). PII says that if two objects are indiscernible, then they are identical, i.e. they are really one and the same object. What does it mean to call two objects indiscernible? It means that no difference at all can be found between them--they have exactly the same attributes. So if PII is true, then any two genuinely distinct objects must differ in at least one of their attributes--otherwise they would be one, not two. PII is intuitively quite compelling. It certainly is not easy to find an example of two distinct objects that share all their attributes. Even two mass-produced factory goods will normally differ in innumerable ways, even if the differences cannot be detected with the naked eye. Leibniz asks us to imagine two different universes, both containing exactly the same objects. In Universe One, each object occupies a particular location in absolute space.In Universe Two, each object has been shifted to a different location in absolute space, two miles to the east (for example). There would be no way of telling these two universes apart. For we cannot observe the position of an object in absolute space, as Newton himself admitted. All we can observe are the positions of objects relative to each other, and these would remain unchanged--for all objects are shifted by the same amount. No observations or experiments could ever reveal whether we lived in universe One or Two.”

LovePhilosophyScienceSpacePhysicsNewtonAstrophysicsLeibnizThought ExperimentsPiiPrinciple Of Indiscernibles
Book:Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction
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“Although a version of Hamilton's rule is indeed a fully general evolutionary truth, nothing about individual maximization can be deduced directly from this generalized form of the rule, contrary to what is sometimes implied. In particular, although the generalized Hamilton's rule yields the rb > c condition for the social trait to spread, one cannot conclude that that individuals behave as if trying to maximize the quantity (rb - c); they cannot do this, as this quantity is frequency-dependent.”

EvolutionNatural SelectionInclusive FitnessHamilton S Rule
Book:Agents and Goals in Evolution
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