National Post (National Edition)
Why we need the ideas of philosopher Karl Popper.
YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF KARL POPPER. BUT WE NEED HIS IDEAS, ESPECIALLY IN B.C.
Whether you’ve heard of him or not, Karl Popper is a giant of modern philosophy. Widely considered the greatest philosopher of science, he applied his revolutionary ideas to democracy and politics as well. And for this reason, he deserves a say on British Columbia’s upcoming referendum on electoral reform (ballots for the postal vote are going out this week). As the province toys with proportional representation, Popper’s insights on the topic seem both necessary and relevant. In fact, he’s got plenty to say about many other vexing issues of our time.
Born in Vienna in 1902 to Jewish parents who converted to Christianity, Popper established his reputation with 1934’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery. The rise of Nazism forced him to flee to New Zealand, where he wrote his major political work, The Open Society and its Enemies. Popper later taught at the London School of Economics; he died in 1994.
“Popper was an iconoclast and a skeptic,” says Ian Jarvie, a philosopher at York University, and a former student and colleague of Popper’s. “But he makes a lot of people uncomfortable because he takes away our overconfidence about what we think we know.” Nowhere is Popper’s skepticism more discomfort-inducing than in defining science.
The conventional, highschool chemistry version of science holds that knowledge is gained through observation. Gather enough evidence by heating test tubes or stirring solutions and you’ll eventually reveal what’s true about the natural world. Popper proved this familiar form of inductive reasoning to be utterly unreliable.
The fatal flaw is revealed by the famous example of the black swan, what Popper called his “rubber stamp example.” For centuries European birders saw nothing but white swans, leading to the convincing theory that all swans must be white. Yet this mountain of evidence couldn’t prevent the possibility the next swan observed will be black, as occurred when Europeans explorers visited Australia.
Observation alone can never establish proper scientific proof. Real, indisputable knowledge, Popper concluded, can only be gleaned from the decisive refutation of incorrect claims. As with all-swans-are-white theories, so it also was with one of the most significant events of modern science — the 1919 eclipse proving Albert Einstein’s revolutionary theory on gravity and light correct, upending centuries of mistaken confidence in Sir Isaac Newton’s older, competing claim. “Trial and error is a method of eliminating false theories,” Popper wrote. Scientific knowledge is thus advanced by deduction: testing all claims and removing what is provably wrong. “Science,” says Jarvie, “doesn’t make any sense today without Popper’s agenda.”
After witnessing the rise of dictatorships in Europe, Popper turned to politics. He proposed the true purpose of democracy is not to select the best leaders — a clearly debatable obligation — but to facilitate the prompt and peaceful removal of obviously bad ones. Democracy is a deductive process just like science, which brings us to B.C.’S referendum.
Popper fiercely opposed proportional representation because of its “detrimental effect on the decisive issue of how to get rid of a government.” Allocating seats by gross vote totals makes coalitions nearly inevitable, allowing unpopular leaders to cling to power through guile rather than popular support. Had Ontario’s recent election been carried out under proportional representation, former-premier Kathleen Wynne would likely be sharing power with the NDP. Any such deal, however, would be in violation of the wishes of 80 per cent of voters; even Wynne admitted the electorate wanted her gone.
“Election day ought to be a Day of Judgment,” Popper wrote in 1988. It should be an opportunity to conclusively dismiss failed governments, just as the 1919 eclipse conclusively dismissed Newton’s theory of space-time. Proportional representation frustrates this crucial purpose.
Beyond B.C.’S referendum, Popper offers useful commentary on many other current controversies. Claims “the science is settled,” on climate change or anything else, for example, is mere flawed inductivist logic. “Popper would bristle at the idea any science is ever settled, particularly meteorological science which must be the most unpredictable of all sciences,” observes Jarvie. Popper’s skepticism doesn’t necessarily mean global warming isn’t real, or that policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions might not be a good thing. If a theory is plausible and not-yet-disproven, it can reasonably be relied upon. But all scientific claims must submit to constant scrutiny. There are no exemptions for popularity or elite opinion.
Equally relevant is Popper’s identification of “the tribal theory of morality” as the chief enemy of an open society. Any effort to prevent skeptical inquiry should be considered an obstacle to eliminating false ideas, and thus to progress itself. This concept is a welcome refutation of political orthodoxies that currently suffocate Canadian public discourse on such topics as sexual assault, residential schools, cultural appropriation, race and gender.
Finally, Popper’s calls for rigorous proof and open debate should hold appeal as a unifying force to serious thinkers of all political stripes. “There are two reasons why Popper should be the philosopher of the hour,” says one such adherent, Michael Ignatieff, former federal Liberal leader and currently rector of the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.
“First, the very idea of the open society is under attack everywhere,” says Ignatieff. His school is currently threatened with closure by Hungary’s “illiberal” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for its promotion of Popperian values. “Second, he is important as a philosopher of science and how you search for the truth. In a world of fake news, Popper is the guy who says we need to place the scientific method at the heart of a democracy,” Ignatieff adds admiringly. “He sets us on an unending search for knowledge. And without that knowledge, you can’t guide the ship.”
We move forward by trial and error, says Popper. But without those trials — in science, democracy or the free exchange of ideas — errors can survive long past their due date.