THE AUTHORITY OF SCIENCE - AND ITS ENEMIES

Abstract

Successful scientists pick out one philosopher as having articulated the rationality of what they do as scientists. He is Sir Karl Popper FRS. But Popper's ideas play no part in contemporary philosophy. As Popper has said "Here I am being showered with honours as no professional philosopher before me; yet three generations of professional philosophers know nothing about my work" (Bartley, 1982). How did this situation arise? I suggest, because philosophers use a false analogy to model the nature of authority held by ideas. It causes them to find intellectual problems where there are none and ignore achievements where they exist.