Nature - autonomous learning

198 the dis/unity of geographyFigure 4.3 Hypotheses in physical geography. Adapted from Schumm (1991)Fourth, because of Popper’s well-known ‘critical rationalist’ approach,many physical geographers accept that verification is a logically insufficientbasis for the testing of hypotheses.Verification involves identifying evidencethat confirms a particular hypothesis. Popper argued that this was a logicallyflawed approach to testing because while 10,000 observations mightconfirm any given hypothesis, the 10,001st might falsify it. Popper thusfavoured falsification as a testing procedure, wherein the researcher activelylooks for evidence that disproves a hypothesis. In physical geography, Haines-Young and Petch (1986) and Richards (2003a) strongly advocated criticalrationalism on the grounds that it is an efficient and rigorous way ofidentifying true and false hypotheses (and thus theories, models and laws).Fifth, most physical geographers are cautious about the truth-value of theknowledge they produce. Human geographers often hold to the unthinkingstereotype that their physical counterparts are unsophisticated epistemologicalrealists who believe their knowledge is True with a capital T. But