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jaferr's picture

Week 1 Response

Professor Grobstein's explanation of "loopy science" reminded me of Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science, in which a theory can never be proven to be absolutely true, but theories can approach the truth through falsification of previous theories. Basically, when one theory is proven false, the resulting theory is closer to the absolute truth than the previous theory, and the theory that results from proving the second theory false is even closer. Popper also argued that experimental results supporting a theory are essentially worthless in terms of scientific progress, and that scientific progress can only be made through the falsification of previously believed theories.

As of right now, I don't entirely understand why Lincoln and Obama have been so extensively discussed in our classes so far. However, I can see why they are relevant through Lincoln and Darwin's shared birthday and comparisons that are currently being made between Lincoln and Obama, and I am interested to see how these two figures factor into our future discussions.

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