Science & TechMental model

A theory that can explain everything explains nothing.

Karl Popper, 1934: a statement is scientific only if some observation could refute it. A thousand white swans don't prove all swans are white; one black swan disproves it. Popper criticised psychoanalysis and astrology because they could explain any outcome after the fact and therefore never made a risky prediction.

Useful: Ask of every claim: what would have to happen for you to drop it? If nothing comes to mind, it isn't knowledge.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

DenkwerkzeugLogikWissenschaft

Difficulty:

Related cards

Nobody mentioning it almost never proves it did not happen.A source's silence carries weight only under three conditions: the author meant to be exhaustive …
How many piano tuners are in Chicago? Work it out.Enrico Fermi estimated unknowns by breaking them into quantities he roughly knew: population …
Magnitude 7 isn't "a bit stronger" than 6.The magnitude scale is logarithmic. One step up means ten times the ground motion and about 32 …
Evolution wants nothing. It only sorts.A common mistake: species "develop" traits because they need them. In reality, variants arise at …
A language model only ever guesses the next word.Large language models like ChatGPT were trained on billions of sentences to predict the most likely …
Why doubling is so hard to picture.In 1965 Gordon Moore noticed that the number of transistors on a chip doubled at a regular pace …
Encryption explained with an open padlock.Imagine handing out open padlocks that only your key can open. Anyone can lock a box with one, but …
Earth's entire history compressed into one day.Squeeze Earth's 4.54 billion years into 24 hours. The first life appears around 4 a.m. …

Keep reading

This card belongs to the topic Science & Tech. Every card is short, cites a source and can be saved – due ones come back by themselves later.

About Doomlearn · Projects · Legal notice · Privacy · Terms