The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science

by Michael Strevens

THAT ARCH-METHODIST, Karl Popper, predicated science and indeed civilization on a simple truism: a theory that makes mistaken predictions must itself be wrong. This, the principle of falsification, was the torch that Popper held high to light the path out of the darkness that had haunted his youth, away from social breakdown, mob violence, and mechanized slaughter. A logical rule cannot be improved upon. But the scruples of the people who employ it most certainly can. To that end, Popper believed that it was imperative to fan the critical spirit in science. Inside the white coats, behind the heavy spectacles, there must be installed a pitiless sensibility that would overlook no predictive defect—that would stand ready to call out falsehood, without regard to how hallowed, how plausible, or how beloved the faltering theory might be. A distinctly inhuman elevation of logic over loyalty, according to Popper, is what we should implant and cultivate in the human minds that make up the knowledge machine.