Karl Popper and 9/11 Truth

[Ian]

Hi all

Have been thinking back to a few papers I read back at university on Karl Popper's ideas about falsification, and how they apply to 9/11 Truth.

As I understand it, he was basically saying that scientific theories should, at least in theory, be able to be proven to be false.

So:
Theories which can be tested to determine if they're true or false are science.

Theories which can't be tested in this way are something else. Belief / Faith.

Falsification puts the emphasis on proving wrong, or falsifying hypotheses.

Wikipedia:
"Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive: it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper#Philosophy_of_Science

Albert Einstein:
"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."


Popper envisaged a progression of knowledge whereby hypotheses were continually falsified, leading to a sucession of ever renewed hypotheses, which would continue to be falisfied. By this method of elimination, knowledge would increase (or at least what we can prove is wrong would increase)

I suppose all this is a fancy philosophical way of saying Sherlock Holme's famous phrase:
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

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This relates to 9/11 Truth because the one thing we all actually agree on is that overall and in many specific instances, the offical story is false.

Where we seem to get into problems as a movement, is in formulating and trying to positively prove the next series of hypotheses, for example about the exact cause of the collapse of the towers, who's involved etc. Perhaps we can only formulate and prove such hypotheses with additional, currently withheld information?

But of course it's much more interesting to speculate - and the general public certainly want to know what we think actually happened.

So I guess it's a balance between unity of the movement and attracting the attention of the general public.

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I read the papers about Karl Popper quite a while ago and they were only a subset of my course. I don't pretend to be a philosopher or a scientist (and certainly not a philosopher of science) - apologies if I've unwittingly misrepresented any of his ideas.

Not sure what this post contributes really? Perhaps just a re-hash of some ideas that have been out there a long time but with a philosophical twist?

Maybe this will spark someone else with expertise in this area interest to look further into this idea?

Cheers, Ian



PS. - from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Conspiracy_theories

Conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories are often essentially unfalsifiable because of their logical structure. Specifically, they may take the form of uncircumscribed existential statements, alleging the existence of some action or object without specifying the place or time at which it can be observed. So, for instance, one might claim that there are little green men without saying when or where, and furthermore that their existence is kept secret by a conspiracy. In this case, failure to find any little green men does not falsify the conspiracy theory, but rather is claimed as verification of the conspiracy to hide their existence. Such a conspiracy theory cannot be shown to be false.

[zoomer]

"Where we seem to get into problems as a movement, is in formulating and trying to positively prove the next series of hypotheses, for example about the exact cause of the collapse of the towers, who's involved etc. Perhaps we can only formulate and prove such hypotheses with additional, currently withheld information?

But of course it's much more interesting to speculate - and the general public certainly want to know what we think actually happened.

So I guess it's a balance between unity of the movement and attracting the attention of the general public."

There is lots of evidence, as fas as I am aware, that the towers were brought down with explosives.
We know that members of Bush family had access to security of the towers.
We know that Silverstein made. a vast amount of money from the 'terrorist' destruction of the towers, and that WTC7 conveniently just imploded with out even planes slamming into it, completely destorying lots of incriminating paperwork, and possibly a centre of direction for the attack

So when 'members of the public, knowingly stew in their stagnant stupor saying 'where dee evidence??' i cannot give a thought to such ignoramouses. They obviously choose denial---------------and by this I mean, to not even be curious something aint right!!............Because what i have laid out here is a tiny fraction of the clues that SCREAMS inside job

I am constantly reminded of the saying: 'There are none so blind as them that WON'T see''

[utopiated]

Karl Popper - that's a name you don't hear a huge amount of these days. Or maybe it's me. Scientific positivism or something I recall.

Thanks for the ideas. I don't think there is enough looking at the 9/11 movement through the various ideas/forms it takes. This is strange when there ahn't been a movement like this since the 60s.

[utopiated]