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20 April 2006

Pimp my Snide Today in class, I corrected the professor who'd gotten Popper's falsifiability all wrong, then realized I've never actually read Popper and most of my (partial) knowledge of his ideas comes from arguments on MeFi. In fact, though I doubt it's made me any smarter, MeFi has definitely made me better at arguing in real-life. (The level of snarkiness IRL doesn't even approach what we're used to in MeFi, for example.)
If people displayed as much snarkiness in real life as on Metafilter, there'd be a lot of people without gainful employment, at least. No boss would put up with it.
posted by AlexReynolds 20 April | 07:44
Nor would employees.
posted by dabitch 20 April | 08:04
If people displayed as much snarkiness in real life as on Metafilter, I'd be in prison.
posted by Hugh Janus 20 April | 08:21
I corrected the professor who'd gotten Popper's falsifiability all wrong, then realized I've never actually read Popper and most of my (partial) knowledge of his ideas comes from arguments on MeFi.

so... how do you know he got popper all wrong? how'd he respond?

I had a student last semester who was really sharp and seemed amazingly well read for a 19 year old - he offered correction-ish comments from time to time, although (luckily?) none of them really tripped me up (most of them were alternative interpretations I was plenty familiar with, so I just went into greater detail about the matter). But anyway, about half way through the semester I realized he had probably not read any of these books, but just read all the wikipedia articles about these books (or the equivalent). At first I had attributed a lot more knowledge to him than he really had; once I realized this, it became more clear that his knowledge was actually pretty superficial. Which is totally normal for a 19 year old...
posted by mdn 20 April | 08:29
Some 19 year olds are pretty cluey, and I've encountered at least one lecturer who got Popper wrong. So I too am keen to hear the gory details.
posted by GeckoDundee 20 April | 09:04
I have to go to bed soon. I'm sure this thread will be miles down the page when I next login, so I'd just like to say that the best thing (IMO) to read about this is Alan (aka A.F.) Chalmers's book What is this thing called Science?" (1976, reprinted heaps of times, and still a timely work). Chapters 4, 5, & 6 give you a great grounding in falsification. His Science and its Fabrication develops some of those themes.
posted by GeckoDundee 20 April | 09:31
I think a good project could be "the best insults heard on metafilter."

Maybe someone has already done that.
posted by danf 20 April | 09:57
re:Popper: he said that falsifiability was about being able to show that a proposition was "true or false", so I stuck up my hand and said "nope, just false", and explained about all black ducks, one white one, etc.
posted by signal 20 April | 10:12
And he responded very well, actually edited his powerpoint presentation right then, and just moved along. Very good move, from a teaching perspective.
posted by signal 20 April | 10:12
A-ha! Wikipedia says it's all white swans and then one black swan - nothing at all about ducks. However, they confuse matters by showing a picture of two black swans. Not sure if Popper explained that one.
posted by mullacc 20 April | 11:11
In my defense, I started out by saying I've never read Popper myself.
posted by signal 20 April | 13:42
I harshed a professor on Monday! I felt bad.
posted by halonine 20 April | 15:21
What are some good gifts for someone into climbing? || Is it time to go home yet?

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