Download Bold hypothesis by Popper

Bold hypothesis ( or “bold conjecture”) is a concept in the philosophy of science of Karl Popper,
first explained in his debutThe Logic of Scientific Discovery (1935) and subsequently elaborated
in writings such as Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963).
The concept is nowadays widely used in the philosophy of science and in thephilosophy of
knowledge. It is also used in the social and behavioural sciences.
Brief explanation[edit]
Popper’s argument is that the growth of scientific knowledge progresses by means of
formulating bold hypotheses, and trying to refute (falsify) them. Popper believed that:
"Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature:
our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her."[1]
He makes this point more specific in a 1953 lecture, where he argues that, if we aim to explain
the world, then:
"... there is no more rational procedure than the method of trial and error - of conjecture and refutation: of
boldly proposing theories; of trying our best to show that these are erroneous; and of accepting them
tentatively if our critical efforts are unsuccessful. From the point of view here developed, all laws, all
theories, remain essentially tentative, or conjectural, or hypothetical, even when we
feel unable to doubt them any longer."[2]
A “bold” hypothesis is a new scientific idea which, if it was true, would be able to predict and/or
explain a lot, or a lot more, about the subject being theorized about. The “boldness” of a
hypothesis depends mainly on:
●
its degree of applicability, or scope (the number and variety of
phenomena which it could explain, if it is true).
●
its novelty (the extent to which the hypothesis is a genuinely new
departure from the received scientific ideas).
●
whether it enables new and novel predictions, or stimulates new,
innovative research (heuristic power).
Once a bold hypothesis has been mooted, Popper argues, scientists try to investigate and test
how well the bold hypothesis can stand up to the known evidence, with the aim of finding
counter-arguments which would refute or falsify the bold hypothesis. In this process of testing
and criticism, new scientific knowledge is generated. Even if the bold hypothesis turns out to
have been wrong, testing it generates new knowledge about what can and cannot be the case.
Inversely, if a hypothesis lacks the quality of boldness, then it would make very little difference to
what scientists already know. It is not "a big deal", i.e. it is not very significant for the theory
which exists already. It can contribute rather little to advancing scientific progress, because it
does not expand or add to scientific understanding very much.
According to Popper,
"Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a
swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but
not down to any natural or ‘given’ base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have
reached firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the
structure, at least for the time being." “[3]
In Popper's philosophy of science, if a statement cannot even in principle be proved wrong, it
cannot be a scientific statement. Thus, in Popper's eyes, the falsifiability criterion clearly
demarcates "science" from "non-science". This Popperian idea has been very controversial,
however. The reason is that it can be quite difficult to test scientifically how true a particular idea
is. Even if scientists do want to test an idea, they may not know yet how exactly to test it
conclusively. Yet, scientists also don't want to abandon a hunch that seems useful, simply
because they don't know how to verify it yet. This point is especially important for "bold" new
hypotheses, because the very "boldness" of the new hypothesis could mean that it would take a
lot of work before adequate tests could be designed.
Some philosophers have argued that, in the real world, scientists operate routinely with at least
some metaphysical beliefs for which they have no proof or verification whatsoever.[4] According
to Paul Feyerabend, the creative processes that lead to a scientific discovery are usually quite
reasonable and non-arbitrary. However, the creative processes are by no means fully "rational",
and they can be quite unique. Thus, the idea that there is one standard model which can define
the rationality of all scientific methods should be rejected.[5]