Sir Karl Popper is my favorite philosopher, and one of the most influential thinkers in my life. I’m reading some of his ideas on scientific inquiry right now, and find them fascinating in their implications.
Popper is commonly seen as being somewhat philosophically responsible for the exponential curve that has happened in the world of science, discovery and invention in our lifetime. And, without getting into it to deeply, his significant contribution to how we understand the world of science is the idea of “falsifiability”. In short, he shows that the role of science is NOT to prove a theory, but to disprove one. In fact, ultimately, in purely logical terms, no scientific theory can EVER be proven, it can only be given a value of reliability from past observances.
One simplified way of putting it is this: If I have a theory that all crows are black, I cannot prove this theory by the observation of 10,000, 100,000 or 1,000,000 black crows. If EVERY crow I EVER observe is black, it does not logically prove my theory. But if I observe a SINGLE white crow, I have falsified my theory.
The idea of falsifiability led to the standard attitude in the scientific world of what we now call “peer review” where an idea is thrown out there with the INTENTION of it being challenged – because the scientist understands that challenging it will (a) cause it to be discarded as wrong or (b) show it to be on the right track “AS FAR AS WE KNOW”, or maybe even (c) tweak it and make it stronger with some modifications.
So, scientific discovery moves ahead piecemeal (a very important concept in Popper’s thinking, both social and scientific) – one person taking another’s idea and improving it a bit, showing that whereas it GENERALLY proves true, it SPECIFICALLY may not, and therefore is “wrong” and must be refined.
Here is an important piece: THE MORE GENERAL the information the LESS FALSIFIABLE. THE MORE SPECIFIC the information THE MORE FALSIFIABLE.
If I say “all dogs have hair” that is very general, and very difficult to TEST (and hence to falsify) (note: even if every dog I have ever observed has hair, it still doesn’t “prove” my thesis). If I say something like “all dogs have brown hair” this is easier to falsify and so more scientifically valuable. If I further narrow it down to “all dogs in my house have brown hair” the specificity of the statement is even more testable and falsifiable.
And so scientific progress is made by the gradual movement of INCREASED SPECIFICITY in a particular idea. Ideas are made better. THINGS are made better. Through testing and tweaking.
*******
Having said that, Popper points out that, practically speaking, a WRONG SPECIFIC STATEMENT is often much more valuable than a CORRECT GENERAL STATEMENT.
If you ask me what time it is, and I tell you, “It is EXACTLY 5.22 a.m.” (it IS, by the way – I couldn’t sleep this morning), and if I am WRONG by two minutes, that information – though inaccurate – is more valuable than the more general statement, “It is Sunday morning”. In the real world, if I say the plane leaves at 1.30 this afternoon, and I am wrong by ten minutes, it is still much more valuable than saying the plane leaves between noon and six.
********
Which brings me to the Church and theology.
Taking Popper’s ideas and applying them to the life of the Church, there are a couple of things that are worthy of further contemplation.
FIRST, the idea of falsifiability – I suppose people from the academic world are used to the notion of peer review, but perhaps that should permeate much more of our life together than it does. Some leaders are afraid of being questioned, of being tested, of submitting their ideas, theologies or “revelations” to peer review. One should not be “ashamed” of putting something out there and having it shot down – if it can be shot down it should be shot down. One should not be ashamed of wrong turns and dead end streets – they falsify ideas and therefore help the rest move toward something more true. For example, that much disparaged idea of Government by Consensus in the CEC. Some of it worked. Some of it didn’t. Some of it was terribly abused and misapplied. Tweak it. Improve it. Correct it. OR, maybe even throw it out completely and start from scratch, or go back to another model that “works” better. My point is, whatever is done, work toward improvement, in a spirit of OPENNESS.
If we could have an environment of falsifying without condemning, it could go a lot further toward a truer establishing of God’s people.
Apply this to any number of topics of discussion: a theology of the beginning, a theology of the end, a methodology of church government, a theology of you-name-it.
But SECONDLY – and this is really what I wanted to get at – I would like to further contemplate the Popperian idea of the “wrong specific” being more valuable than the “correct general”. Take the canon of Scripture, for example. MIGHT it not be the case that a particular church is better off naming a specific canon and being wrong, rather than maintaining a more general view of “we won’t specifically define the canon, we’ll just state the broader parameters of the thing”? (This is NOT, by the way, a dig at Anglicanism, whose position on the O.T. canon has been greatly misunderstood).
This is only one example – there are tons of others and I’m sure you can come up with some of your own. Might not a church be better off stating clearly and specifically its positions, but being open to those positions being tested and improved? If we could ever come to a place of saying “proving me wrong” doesn’t “prove me bad” we would be much better off. We could learn from our own mistakes, the mistakes of others, and move forward toward improving the Church, the world, and ourselves.
That’s all for now. Enough early morning musings.
Popper defines science precisely as that field which can be tested. Some things cannot – some important things – metaphysical things – things particularly in the realm of faith. But having said that, our faith DOES carry with it some elements of the scientific. Aquinis thought theology itself to be the queen of sciences. And St. Paul said, “TEST ALL THINGS. HOLD FAST TO THAT WHICH IS TRUE.”
