Alan Chalmers

"Establishing by observation that there is just one black swan falsifies "all swans are white". This is an unexceptional and undeniable point. However, using it as grounds to support a falsificationist…"

"It should be no news to anyone that the perceptual judgements of individuals can be unreliable for a range of reasons. The challenge, in science, is to arrange the observable situation in such a way t…"

"No matter which comes first, the facts or the theory, the question to be addressed is the extent to which the theory is borne out by the facts. The strongest possible claim would be that the theory ca…"

"Empiricism and positivism share the common view that scientific knowledge should in some way be derived from the facts arrived at by observation."

"Science is widely esteemed. Apparently it is a widely held belief that there is something special about science and its methods."

"The confirmations of novel predictions resulting from bold conjectures are very important in the falsificationist account of the growth of science."

"The greater the number of conjectured theories that are confronted by the realities of the world, and the more speculative those conjectures are, the greater will be the chances of major advances in s…"

"The aim of science is to falsify theories and to replace them by better theories, theories that demonstrate a greater ability to withstand tests."