Strict Popperians? - Letters to the Editor

Twenty-one years ago, I sat in an undergraduate paleontology lecture, listening to a Popperian explanation of the scientific method. At the conclusion, I asked the instructor, Richard C. Fox, why hypotherico-deductivism wasn't obviously reducible to induction, and spent the next forty minutes in an intense debate, forcing my classmates to miss half of their lunch hour (since walking our on Professor Fox was never a good idea). Since then, I have slowly come to the realization that staunch Popperianism is no longer widely accepted among either scientists or philosophers, and was delighted to read Martin Gardner's excellent summary of this subject, and of the constraints posed by induction (July/August 2001 and January/February 2002).

Yet I still encounter strict Popperians among ecologists, paleobiologists, and systematic biologists, leading me to think that these fields may be a last holdout for the hypothetico-deductive apptoach. It did not surprise me that J. David Atchibald, a prominent paleobiologist, rose to Popper's defense in the letters column of your November/December issue. It is my impression that sysrematists in particular became strongly attached to Popperian criteria as part of the dadistic revolution--an event that took place mostly in the 1970s and was clearly intended to force the rest of biology to take systematics (formerly more commonly called "taxonomy" and now commonly considered part of "biodiversity studies") seriously as a scientific enterprise. Since systematics has strong intellectual ties to both ecology and paleontology, these fields were also caught up in the "we-can-prove-we're-scientists-too!" frame of mind. For many of us who were trained in this heady period, I suspect it is now hard to think of admittin g the inductive nature of science as anything other than a step backward, sadly enough. This whole mess was explained to me in my student days as a response, by systematists and ecologists, to being bullied by those with the luxury of conrtolled experiments and relatively uncomplicated subjects to study.

John Acorn

Edmonton, Alberta

Canada

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