1959: Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery published [147]

Art Piece: Discovery of the Remains of Raphael in the Pantheon in Rome, Stéphane Pannemaker, 19th Century [167]

Paper: The most important application of science [159]

Karl Popper made a significant amount of contributions to the philosophy of science in the twentieth century, and his insights have significantly added to the ways in which we see and do science. Notably, in his text Popper introduces [147] the concept of a “basic statement,” which he defines as a “ statement which can serve as a premise in an empirical falsification and which takes the singular existential form ‘There is an X at Y.’” Popper was an advocate for evidence-based science that was falsifiable, and thought that scientific knowledge was more so provisional, that instead of it being concretely fact, that it is what we can best do/think of at this moment in time. Moreover, Popper’s Falsification Principle [148] suggests that for a scientific theory to be considered actual science, that must [95] be able to be “able to be tested and conceivably proven false.” This was a significant paradigm shift because Popper’s thoughts and ideas on this ended up significantly defining how we view science, even today. The artwork above [167], depicting “Discovery of the Remains of Raphael in the Pantheon in Rome’’ is relevant to this Popperian paradigm shift because much like the discovery [176] of Raphel’s burial site actually being the Roman Pantheon, a revelation which was new to many, Popper’s philosophy of science lead to many understanding that upon further inspection, much of science was “rigor mortised” in the sense that the way it was done led to some standstill in discovery. That is to say, Popper’s ideas helped people understand what good, effective science should look like, and many, upon further inspection, were probably able to point out flaws in the way [146] they conducted science and were able to subsequently improve upon these flaws. The scientific paper above [159], which discusses the “most important application of science,” explores how science can be a driving force for different philosophical and social movements, and how more recently, there seem to be some more distinct trends in this scientific driving force. Much like Popper’s ideas, this paper discusses how different paradigm shifts in science have contributed to the way science is perceived by many.