Conjecture and refutation

K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge and Kegan, London, 1965. 

The New never grows from nowhere, but is rooted in the Old and Unexpected. The latter is a function of curiosity and emotional not rational involvement in the subject. We hope that the following chapters will stimulate emotion and thought, and provoke new systematic and empirical research. The dilemma is that in one sense, we as humans abhor speculation and the unknown, but that in another sense, as scientists, we need the speculative as life needs water. Curiosity drives us and fills the gap. And fortunately, theories pass over, but the frog persists, as Jean Rostand expressed so succinctly the relation between conjecture and refutation [ Les theories passent, la grenouille reste. Carnets d un biologiste]. 

K.R. Popper, on p. 287 of Conjectures and Refutations (Harper and Row, New York 1968), argues that the least probable theories are the most valuable. He means that the more precise predictions a theory makes, the less one would bet on it a priori, but the greater its value when it turns out to be true, i.e., when its a posteriori probability after checking against reality is close to unity. 

Popper, K. (1963) Conjectures and refutations. Routledge and Keagan paul, London. 

Popper, Karl R. Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Knowledge. In Conjectures and Refutations, 4th ed., London/Melbourne/Henley Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972. 215-250. 

Popper, Karl. Conjectures and Refutations. Harper Row, New York. 1963. Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Harper Row, New York. 1968. 

Conjectures and Refutations The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (New York Harper Torchbooks, 1968). 

Popper, Karl R. 1963. Conjectures and Refutations. London Routledge. 

Popper, K. R. 1962. Science Conjectures and refutations. In Conjectures and refutations The growth of scientific knowledge, 33-65. New York Basic Books. 

Popper was led by logical considerations to replace Hume s psychological theory of induction with a theory of trial and error, of Conjectures and Refutations. Without waiting passively for repetitions to impress or impose regularities upon us, we actively try to impose regularities upon the world. We try to discover similarities in it, and to interpret it in terms of laws invented by us. Without waiting for premises, we jump to conclusions. These may have to be discarded later, should observation show that they are wrong (Popper 1989, p. 46). 

Popper, K. R. (1963), Back to the Pre-Socratics , Conjectures and Refutations. The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. London Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 139-65. 

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