Memahami Logika Penemuan Ilmiah

"Pria berasal dari Bumi dengan LOGIKA-nya, Wanita berasal dari Bumi dengan PERASAAN-nya. bersatulah di Bumi dengan Kasih-Nya."
~A.N~

Suatu ucapan atau teori belum bisa dikatakan ilmiah hanya karena sudah dibuktikan, melainkan karena sudah dapat diuji. 

Ucapan: "Semua logam akan memuai jika dipanaskan" dapat dianggap ilmiah kalau dapat diuji dengan percobaan-percobaan sistematis untuk menyangkalnya. 

Kalau suatu teori setelah diuji tetap tahan, berarti kebenarannya semakin kokoh (Corroboration). Makin besar kemungkinan untuk menyangkal sebuah teori, makin kokoh pula kebenarannya.

Inilah yang kemudian oleh Karl R. Popper disebut sebagai: The Thesis of Refutability, suatu ucapan atau hipotesa bersifat ilmiah bila terdapat kemungkinan untuk menyangkalnya. 

Berdasarkan pendapat tradisional, cara kerja ilmu didasarkan pada prinsip verifiabilitas: yaitu bahwa suatu pernyataan dapat dibenarkan berdasarkan bukti-bukti pengamatan empiris. 

Dengan mengajukan prinsip falsifiabilitas Popper menyatakan bahwa segala ungkapan atau pernyataan pada dasarnya dapat dibuktikan salah. Prinsip ini menjadi penentu untuk membedakan suatu ungkapan ilmiah dan non ilmiah. 

Falsifiability/Problem of demarcation

Popper coined the term "critical rationalism" to describe his philosophy. Concerning the method of science, the term indicates his rejection of classical empiricism, and the classical observationalist-inductivist account of science that had grown out of it. Popper argued strongly against the latter, holding that scientific theories are abstract in nature, and can be tested only indirectly, by reference to their implications. He also held that scientific theory, and human knowledge generally, is irreducibly conjectural or hypothetical, and is generated by the creative imagination in order to solve problems that have arisen in specific historico-cultural settings.


Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive: it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false. The term "falsifiable" does not mean something is made false, but rather that, if it is false, it can be shown by observation or experiment. Popper's account of the logical asymmetry between verification and falsifiability lies at the heart of his philosophy of science.

It also inspired him to take falsifiability as his criterion of demarcation between what is, and is not, genuinely scientific: a theory should be considered scientific if, and only if, it is falsifiable. This led him to attack the claims of both psychoanalysis and contemporary Marxism to scientific status, on the basis that their theories are not falsifiable.

Popper also wrote extensively against the famous Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. He strongly disagreed with Niels Bohr's instrumentalism and supported Albert Einstein's realist approach to scientific theories about the universe. Popper's falsifiability resembles Charles Peirce's nineteenth century fallibilism. In Of Clocks and Clouds (1966), Popper remarked that he wished he had known of Peirce's work earlier.

In All Life is Problem Solving, Popper sought to explain the apparent progress of scientific knowledge that is, how it is that our understanding of the universe seems to improve over time.

Sumber: 

Logika Penemuan Ilmiah: 

Oleh: Prof. Karl R. Popper. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper

Arip Nurahman Notes