Karl Popper

From RationalWiki

Karl Popper, 1902-1994, was an important figure in the philosophy of science. He wrote his first book, the Logic of Scientific Discovery on what science is and how it works, in German in 1934 and translated it to English in the 1950s. Popper argues that scientific theories can never be proven, merely tested and corroborated. Scientific inquiry is distinguished from all other types of investigation by its testability, or, as Popper put, by the falsifiability of its theories. Unfalsifiable theories are unscientific precisely because they cannot be tested.

[edit] Quotes

On the topic of Christians who feel they are somehow superior to those with different beliefs:

Their thoughts are endowed ... with 'mystical and religious faculties' not possessed by others, and who thus claim that they 'think by God's grace'. This claim with its gentle allusion to those who do not possess God's grace, this attack upon the potential spiritual unity of mankind, is, in my opinion, as pretentious, blasphemous and anti-Christian, as it believes itself to be humble, pious, and Christian.^[1].

On how science creates theories

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths^{[citation needed]}

On Tolerance

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them… We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.^{[citation needed]}