popper-logic-scientific-discovery

corroboration, or how a theory stands up to tests 281
With the idol of certainty (including that of degrees of imperfect
certainty or probability) there falls one of the defences of obscurantism
which bar the way of scientific advance. For the worship of this idol
hampers not only the boldness of our questions, but also the rigour
and the integrity of our tests. The wrong view of science betrays itself
in the craving to be right; for it is not his possession of knowledge, of
irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and
recklessly critical quest for truth.
Has our attitude, then, to be one of resignation? Have we to say that
science can fulfil only its biological task; that it can, at best, merely
prove its mettle in practical applications which may corroborate it? Are
its intellectual problems insoluble? I do not think so. Science never
pursues the illusory aim of making its answers final, or even probable.
Its advance is, rather, towards an infinite yet attainable aim: that of ever
discovering new, deeper, and more general problems, and of subjecting
our ever tentative answers to ever renewed and ever more rigorous
tests.
This is the end of the text of the original book.
The Appendices i–vii which are here printed on
pp. 285–310 were also part of that original edition.
Addendum, 1972
In the preceding chapter of my book (which was the final chapter) I
tried to make clear that by the degree of corroboration of a theory I mean a
brief report that summarizes the way in which the theory has stood up
to tests, and how severe these tests were.
I have never deviated from this view; see for example the beginnings
of the new Appendices *vii, p. 378; *ix, p. 406; and especially the last
section (*14) of *ix, pp. 441 f. Here I wish to add the following points:
(1) The logical and methodological problem of induction is not
insoluble, but my book offered a negative solution: (a) We can never
rationally justify a theory, that is to say, our belief in the truth of a theory, or
in its being probably true. This negative solution is compatible with the
following positive solution, contained in the rule of preferring theories
which are better corroborated than others: (b) We can sometimes rationally