Popper showed that the primary role empirical observations play in the growth of scientific knowledge is actually counter-intuitive. The great thinkers who moved man's knowledge forward weren't those who took empirical perceptions as a given, or as a source of truth, but those who had the sense and honesty to realize that not only could empirical observations not be trusted, but that they were actually, and easily, provably false.
. . . Popper was discussing the limitations of verifying a scientific theory empirically. All one can do is demonstrate that it makes accurate predictions - empirically. He was bemoaning the asymmetry of being able to disprove a false claim about the world, but not being able to prove a correct one, just that the idea has always worked in the past and can be used reliably in the future. That's always been good enough, and it still is. It's not a call to never believe one's lyin eyes. Au contraire.
In my humble opinion, Popper's greatest book is
Conjectures and Refutations. In that book he argued something very few people today even know he's arguing in the book. He argues that the growth of knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge, comes not from processing empirical observations, but by the strange realization that they're all false.
The profundity of this realization, i.e., that all empirical observations are false, is that (and Popper gingerly acknowledged this), it lends itself to theological concepts propounded throughout the Bible.
If man is a product of nature, like trees and monkeys are products of nature, then how on earth could some "he" ---some ghost in the machine ---- begin to question what in a natural sense would be his only access, his only avenue, to reality?
What Popper shows that the first scientist clearly did, was realized that inside their the mind they allegedly received from mother nature, was a inherent understanding of principles and laws, high, almost theological principles and laws, that the body they received from mother nature was clearly breaking seemingly in order to make the man believe he is no different than any other creature on the planet.
For instance, Popper shows that the ancient scientists who codified their understanding as myth, knew, on some level of cognition, that the sun had to be much larger than the moon, even though their eyes made it appear that they were the same size. These early scientists, the heliocentric sun worshippers, pointed out that the source of heat, energy, life, is far greater than a mere producer of light, such that for this reason, i.e., the reasoning associated with a moral law, though the eyes say the sun and moon are the same size, the moral organ of perception say that's not true.
For thousands of years the religious high priest of various ancient religions believed the sun was much larger than the moon while the agnostics poo pooed them for not trusting their lyin eyes.
Volia. When Christian priests began to find ways of testing the moral theory that implied that the sun was much larger than the moon we entered into the modern scientific theory of heliocentrism.
Popper shows that almost every single meaningful advance in the thoughts of man come not from sitting back and relying on empirical perceptions, but on the contrary, using the god-given moral compass in the soul to throw mother nature, and the fallen physical body, a good beatin, i.e., to bring every thought, every perception, into conformity with the Gospel of Christ, which is source of every meaningful modern advance.
John
You are welcome to wallow in your beliefs; Adam, flood, virgin birth and resurrection, walking on water, raising the dead, feeding the 5000, et all. I am an Advaitist Hindu. For me there is no God, no soul. no creation, no birth, no death, no heaven, no hell, no end of days and no judgment.
