{"id":2761,"date":"2016-05-13T20:19:43","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T20:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.plato-philosophy.org\/?post_type=teachertoolkit&#038;p=2761"},"modified":"2024-10-23T13:06:54","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T20:06:54","slug":"philosophers-tool-the-demarcation-problem-and-falsifiability","status":"publish","type":"teachertoolkit","link":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/teachertoolkit\/philosophers-tool-the-demarcation-problem-and-falsifiability\/","title":{"rendered":"The Demarcation Problem and Falsifiability"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the practical consequences of the Scientific Revolution was a suggestion that one should only believe things that are both true and justified. Eventually, there was even the proposal by mathematician William Clifford that it is morally wrong to believe things without good justification. While early thinkers suggested we need to justify all of our own beliefs, science and the contemporary world are far, far too complicated for each of us to confirm all of our beliefs. We need to have a system to help us decide what is reasonable to believe.<\/p>\n<p>Is chemistry well founded? Astrology? How can we tell the difference between science and what we might call pseudoscience? The stakes are quite high here . . . think about medicine. How can you decide which pills to take to cure your illnesses?<\/p>\n<p>One famous and prominent suggestion comes from Karl Popper: <a href=\"https:\/\/staff.washington.edu\/lynnhank\/Popper-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Science as Falsification<\/a><\/p>\n<p>See the Discussion Questions tab for questions to help guide this session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the practical consequences of the Scientific Revolution was a suggestion that one should only believe things that are both true and justified. Eventually, there was even the proposal by mathematician William Clifford that it is morally wrong to believe things without good justification. While early thinkers suggested we need to justify all of <a href=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/teachertoolkit\/philosophers-tool-the-demarcation-problem-and-falsifiability\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  The Demarcation Problem and Falsifiability<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2762,"template":"","toolkitcategory":[757,759,33],"gradelevel":[48],"topics":[310,450],"class_list":["post-2761","teachertoolkit","type-teachertoolkit","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","toolkitcategory-epistemology","toolkitcategory-philosophy-of-science","toolkitcategory-science","gradelevel-high-school-and-beyond","topics-knowledge","topics-reasoning"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Demarcation Problem and Falsifiability - PLATO - Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization %<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Philosophy of Science, Karl Popper, What Is Science, Pseaudoscience\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Demarcation Problem and Falsifiability - 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