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Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method in favour of empirical falsification. According to Popper, a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can (and should) be scrutinised with decisive experiments. Popper was opposed to the classical justificationist account of knowledge, which he replaced with critical rationalism, namely "the first non-justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy".
In political discourse, he is known for his vigorous defence of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism that he believed made a flourishing open society possible. His political philosophy embraced ideas from major democratic political ideologies, including socialism/social democracy, libertarianism/classical liberalism and conservatism, and attempted to reconcile them.
Quotes Edit
- You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of government. I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence "democracy", and the other "tyranny".
- As quoted in Freedom: A New Analysis (1954) by Maurice William Cranston, p. 112
- Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering in regarding the ends as beyond the province of technology. (All that technology may say about ends is whether they are compatible with each other or realizable.)
- The Poverty of Historicism (1957) Ch. 22 The Unholy Alliance with Utopianism
- If we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favor of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted.
- The Poverty of Historicism (1957) Ch. 29 The Unity of Method
- Scientists try to eliminate their false theories, they try to let them die in their stead. The believer—whether animal or man—perishes with his false beliefs.
- Epistemology Without A Knowing Subject (1967)
- Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
- Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (1972)
- For it was my master who taught me not only how very little I knew but also that any wisdom to which I might ever aspire could consist only in realizing more fully the infinity of my ignorance.
- Before we as individuals are even conscious of our existence we have been profoundly influenced for a considerable time (since before birth) by our relationship to other individuals who have complicated histories, and are members of a society which has an infinitely more complicated and longer history than they do (and are members of it at a particular time and place in that history); and by the time we are able to make conscious choices we are already making use of categories in a language which has reached a particular degree of development through the lives of countless generations of human beings before us. . . . We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.
- As quoted in Popper (1973) by Bryan Magee
- Appealing to his [Einstein's] way of expressing himself in theological terms, I said: If God had wanted to put everything into the universe from the beginning, He would have created a universe without change, without organisms and evolution, and without man and man's experience of change. But he seems to have thought that a live universe with events unexpected even by Himself would be more interesting than a dead one.
- As quoted in Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes by Charles Hartshorne (1984)
- From Plato to Karl Marx and beyond, the fundamental problem has always been: who should rule the state? (One of my main points will be that this problem must be replaced by a totally different one.)
- "On Democracy", The Economist (1988)
- There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions. ... It obviously endangers the freedom and the objectivity of our discussion if we attack a person instead of attacking an opinion or, more precisely, a theory.
- "The Importance of Critical Discussion" in On the Barricades: Religion and Free Inquiry in Conflict (1989) by Robert Basil
- Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification — the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.
- The Open Universe : An Argument for Indeterminism (1992), p. 44
- It seems to me that I may be living too long. Indeed: my nearest relations have all died, and so have some of my best friends, and even some of my best pupils. However, I do not have a reason to complain. I am grateful and happy to be alive, and still be able to continue with my work, if only just. My work seems to me more important than ever.
- I think so badly of philosophy that I don't like to talk about it. ... I do not want to say anything bad about my dear colleagues, but the profession of teacher of philosophy is a ridiculous one. We don't need a thousand of trained, and badly trained, philosophers — it is very silly. Actually most of them have nothing to say.
- As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23 (Jul-Sep 1992)
- I appeal to the philosophers of all countries to unite and never again mention Heidegger or talk to another philosopher who defends Heidegger. This man was a devil. I mean, he behaved like a devil to his beloved teacher, and he has a devilish influence on Germany. ... One has to read Heidegger in the original to see what a swindler he was.
- As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23 (Jul-Sep 1992)
- If the many, the specialists, gain the day, it will be the end of science as we know it - of great science. It will be a spiritual catastrophe comparable in its consequences to nuclear armament.
- K. Popper, The Myth of the Framework, London: Routledge. As quoted in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Popper (2016) by J. Shearmur, G. Stokes
- When I speak of reason or rationalism, all I mean is the conviction that we can learn through criticism of our mistakes and errors, especially through criticism by others, and eventually also through self-criticism. A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others — not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others. The emphasis here is on the idea of criticism or, to be more precise, critical discussion. The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff. He is well aware that acceptance or rejection of an idea is never a purely rational matter; but he thinks that only critical discussion can give us the maturity to see an idea from more and more sides and to make a correct judgement of it.
- "On Freedom" in All Life is Problem Solving (1999)
- Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
- As quoted in In Passing: Condolences and Complaints on Death, Dying, and Related Disappointments (2005) by Jon Winokur, p. 144
- Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle — the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.
- As quoted in 1,001 Pearls of Wisdom (2006) by David Ross
- Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.
- As quoted in My Universe : A Transcendent Reality (2011) by Alex Vary, Part II
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934) Edit
- First translated into English in 1959
- ...no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
- ...The answer to this problem is: as implied by Hume, we certainly are not justified in reasoning from an instance to the truth of the corresponding law. But to this negative result a second result, equally negative, may be added: we are justified in reasoning from a counterinstance to the falsity of the corresponding universal law (that is, of any law of which it is a counterinstance). Or in other words, from a purely logical point of view, the acceptance of one counterinstance to 'All swans are white' implies the falsity of the law 'All swans are white' - that law, that is, whose counterinstance we accepted. Induction is logically invalid; but refutation or falsification is a logically valid way of arguing from a single counterinstance to - or, rather, against - the corresponding law.This shows that I continue to agree with Hume's negative logical result; but I extend it.This logical situation is completely independent of any question of whether we would, in practice, accept a single counterinstance - for example, a solitary black swan - in refutation of a so far highly successful law. I do not suggest that we would necessarily be so easily satisfied; we might well suspect that the black specimen before us was not a swan."
- Ch. 1 "A Survey of Some Fundamental Problems", Section I: The Problem of Induction p. 27
- A principle of induction would be a statement with the help of which we could put inductive inferences into a logically acceptable form. In the eyes of the upholders of inductive logic, a principle of induction is of supreme importance for scientific method: "... this principle", says Reichenbach, "determines the truth of scientific theories. To eliminate it from science would mean nothing less than to deprive science of the power to decide the truth or falsity of its theories. Without it, clearly, science would no longer have the right to distinguish its theories from the fanciful and arbitrary creations of the poet's mind."
Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement. Indeed, if there were such a thing as a purely logical principle of induction, there would be no problem of induction; for in this case, all inductive inferences would have to be regarded as purely logical or tautological transformations, just like inferences in inductive logic. Thus the principle of induction must be a synthetic statement; that is, a statement whose negation is not self-contradictory but logically possible. So the question arises why such a principle should be accepted at all, and how we can justify its acceptance on rational grounds.
- Ch. 1 "A Survey of Some Fundamental Problems", Section I: The Problem of Induction
- The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.
- Ch. 2 "On the Problem of a Theory of Scientific Method", Section XI: Methodological Rules as Conventions
- ...non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science.
- Ch. 4 "Falsifiability", Section XXII: Falsifiability and Falsification. p. 66.
- Science is not a system of certain, or well established, statements; nor is it a statement which steadily advances towards state of finality. Our science is not knowledge (epistēmē): it can newer claim to have attained truth, or even substitute for it, such as probability. . . . We do not know; we can only guess.
- Ch. 10 "Corroboration, or How a Theory Stands up to Tests", section 85: The Path of Science, p. 278.
- Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her. And we must hazard them to win our prize. Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.
- Ch. 10 "Corroboration, or How a Theory Stands up to Tests", section 85: The Path of Science, p. 280.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) Edit
- If in this book harsh words are spoken about some of the greatest among the intellectual leaders of mankind, my motive is not, I hope, the wish to belittle them. It springs rather from my conviction that, if our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men. Great men may make great mistakes; and as the book tries to show, some of the greatest leaders of the past supported the perennial attack on freedom and reason. Their influence, too rarely challenged, continues to mislead those on whose defence civilization depends, and to divide them. The responsibility of this tragic and possibly fatal division becomes ours if we hesitate to be outspoken in our criticism of what admittedly is a part of our intellectual heritage. By reluctance to criticize some of it, we may help to destroy it all.
- Preface to the First Edition
- I see now more clearly than ever before that even our greatest troubles spring from something that is as admirable and sound as it is dangerous — from our impatience to better the lot of our fellows. For these troubles are the by-products of what is perhaps the greatest of all moral and spiritual revolutions of history, a movement which began three centuries ago. It is the longing of uncounted unknown men to free themselves and their minds from the tutelage of authority and prejudice. It is their attempt to build up an open society which rejects the absolute authority to preserve, to develop, and to establish traditions, old or new, that measure up to their standards of freedom, of humaneness, and of rational criticism. It is their unwillingness to sit back and leave the entire responsibility for ruling the world to human or superhuman authority,and their readiness to share the burden of responsibility for avoidable suffering, and to work for its avoidance. This revolution has created powers of appalling destructiveness; but they may yet be conquered.
- Preface to the Second Edition.
- This book raises issues that might not be apparent from the table of contents.
It sketches some of the difficulties faced by our civilization — a civilization which might be perhaps described as aiming at humanness and reasonableness, at equality and freedom; a civilization which is still in its infancy, as it were, and which continues to grow in spite of the fact that it has been so often betrayed by so many of the intellectual leaders of mankind. It attempts to show that this civilization has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth — the transition from the tribal or "enclosed society," with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society' which sets free the critical powers of man. It attempts to show that the shock of this transition is one of the factors that have made possible the rise of those reactionary movements which have tried, and still try, to overthrow civilization and to return to tribalism.
- Introduction; part of this has sometimes been paraphrased : Our civilization has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth — the transition from the tribal or 'closed society', with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society' which sets free the critical powers of man.
- What a monument of human smallness is this idea of the philosopher king. What a contrast between it and the simplicity of humaneness of Socrates, who warned the statesmen against the danger of being dazzled by his own power, excellence, and wisdom, and who tried to teach him what matters most — that we are all frail human beings. What a decline from this world of irony and reason and truthfulness down to Plato's kingdom of the sage whose magical powers raise him high above ordinary men; although not quite high enough to forgo the use of lies, or to neglect the sorry trade of every shaman — the selling of spells, of breeding spells, in exchange for power over his fellow-men.
- Vol. 1, Ch 8 "The Philosopher King"
- The open society is one in which men have learned to be to some extent critical of taboos, and to base decisions on the authority of their own intelligence.
- Vol. 1, Endnotes to the Chapters : Notes to the Introduction.
- In speaking of sociological laws or natural laws of social life I have in mind such laws as are formulated by modern economic theories, for instance, the theory of international trade, or the theory of the trade cycle. These and other important sociological laws are connected with the functioning of social institutions. These laws play a role in our social life corresponding to the role played in mechanical engineering by, say, the principle of the lever. For institutions, like levers, are needed if we want to achieve anything which goes beyond the power of our muscles. Like machines, institutions multiply our power for good or evil. Like machines, they need intelligent supervision by someone who understands their way of functioning and, most of all, their purpose, since we cannot build them so that they work entirely automatically.
- Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, Vol I Plato Chapter 5: Nature and Convention. P. 67
- The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
- Vol. 1, Notes to the Chapters: Ch. 7, Note 4
- Although my own position is, I believe, clearly enough implied in the text, I may perhaps briefly formulate what seems to me the most important principles of humanitarian and equalitarian ethics. (1) Tolerance towards all who are not intolerant and who do not propagate intolerance. ... This implies, especially, that the moral decisions of others should be treated with respect, as long as such decisions do not conflict with the principle of tolerance. (2) The recognition that all moral urgency has its basis in the urgency of suffering or pain. I suggest, for this reason, to replace the utilitarian formula 'Aim at the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number', or briefly, 'Maximize happiness' by the formula 'The least amount of avoidable suffering for all', or briefly, 'Minimize suffering'. Such a simple formula can, I believe, be made one of the fundamental principles (admittedly not the only one) of public policy. (The principle 'Maximize happiness', in contrast, seems to be apt to produce a benevolent dictatorship.) We should realize that from the moral point of view suffering and happiness must not be treated as symmetrical; that is to say, the promotion of happiness is in any case much less urgent than the rendering of help to those who suffer, and the attempt to prevent suffering. (The latter task has little to do with 'matters of taste', the former much.)
- Vol. 1, Notes to the Chapters: Ch. 5, Note 6.
- I believe that there is, from the ethical point of view, no symmetry between suffering and happiness, or between pain and pleasure. Both the greatest happiness principle of the Utilitarians and Kant's principle 'Promote other people's happiness ..' seem to me (at least in their formulations) wrong on this point which, however, is not completely decidable by rational argument. (For the irrational aspect of ethical beliefs, see note 11 to the present chapter, and for the rational aspect, sections II and especially III of chapter 24). In my opinion (cp. note 6 (2) to chapter 5) human suffering makes a direct moral appeal, namely, the appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who is doing well anyway. (A further criticism of the Utilitarian formula 'Maximize pleasure' is that it assumes, in principle, a continuous pleasure-pain scale which allows us to treat degrees of pain as negative degrees of pleasure. But, from the moral point of view, pain cannot be outweighed by pleasure, and especially not one man's pain by another man's pleasure. Instead of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, one should demand, more modestly, the least amount of avoidable suffering for all; and further, that unavoidable suffering—such as hunger in times of an unavoidable shortage of food—should be distributed as equally as possible.)
- Vol. 1, Notes to the Chapters: Ch. 9, Note 2.
- We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 21 "An Evaluation of the Prophecy"
- No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 24 "Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt against Reason"
- I do not overlook the fact that there are irrationalists who love mankind, and that not all forms of irrationalism engender criminality. But I hold that he who teaches that not reason but love should rule opens up the way for those who rule by hate. (Socrates, I believe, saw something of this when he suggested that mistrust or hatred of argument is related to mistrust or hatred of man).
- Vol. 2, Ch. 24 "Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt against Reason"
- ... the attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell. It leads to intolerance. It leads to religious wars, and to the saving of souls through the inquisition. And it is, I believe, based on a complete misunderstanding of our moral duties. It is our duty to help those who need help; but it cannot be our duty to make others happy, since this does not depend on us, and since it would only too often mean intruding on the privacy of those towards whom we have such amiable intentions.
- Vol. 2, Ch. 24 "Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt against Reason"
- ... the fight against suffering must be considered a duty, while the right to care for the happiness of others must be considered a privilege confined to the close circle of their friends. ... Pain, suffering, injustice, and their prevention, these are the eternal problems of public morals, the 'agenda' of public policy ...
- Vol. 2, Ch. 24 "Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt against Reason"
- There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. It is hardly better than to treat the history of embezzlement or of robbery or of poisoning as the history of mankind. For the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including it is true, some of the attempts to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as heroes.
- Vol 2, Ch. 25 "Has History any Meaning?" Variant: There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.
Utopia and Violence (1947) Edit
- Address to Institut des Arts in Brussels, Belgium (1947); later published The Hibbert Journal 46 (1948), and in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
- Not only do I hate violence, but I firmly believe that the fight against it is not hopeless. I realize that the task is difficult. I realize that, only too often in the course of history, it has happened that what appeared at first to be a great success in the fight against violence was followed by a defeat. I do not overlook the fact that the new age of violence which was opened by the two World wars is by no means at an end. Nazism and Fascism are thoroughly beaten, but I must admit that their defeat does not mean that barbarism and brutality have been defeated. On the contrary, it is no use closing our eyes to the fact that these hateful ideas achieved something like a victory in defeat. I have to admit that Hitler succeeded in degrading the moral standards of our Western world, and that in the world of today there is more violence and brutal force than would have been tolerated even in the decade after the first World war. And we must face the possibility that our civilization may ultimately be destroyed by those new weapons which Hitlerism wished upon us, perhaps even within the first decade after the second World war; for no doubt the spirit of Hitlerism won its greatest victory over us when, after its defeat, we used the weapons which the threat of Nazism had induced us to develop.
- A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise, rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force, by intimidation and threats, or even by persuasive propaganda.
- We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell. Only if we give up our authoritarian attitude in the realm of opinion, only if we establish the attitude of give and take, of readiness to learn from other people, can we hope to control acts of violence inspired by piety and duty.
- There are many difficulties impeding the rapid spread of reasonableness. One of the main difficulties is that it always takes two to make a discussion reasonable. Each of the parties must be ready to learn from the other. You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.
- Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now. Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be sacrificed for the sake of future generations, for the sake of an ideal of happiness that may never be realised.
On Freedom (1958) Edit
- "On Freedom" (1958; 1967) essay republished in Alles Leben ist Problemlösen (1994); translated as All Life is Problem Solving by Patrick Camiller (1994)
- The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong. Above all, he values the intellectual independence of others too highly to want to convince them in important matters. He would much rather invite contradiction, preferably in the form of rational and disciplined criticism. He seeks not to convince but to arouse — to challenge others to form free opinions.
- Although I consider our political world to be the best of which we have any historical knowledge, we should beware of attributing this fact to democracy or to freedom. Freedom is not a supplier who delivers goods to our door. Democracy does not ensure that anything is accomplished — certainly not an economic miracle. It is wrong and dangerous to extol freedom by telling people that they will certainly be all right once they are free. How someone fares in life is largely a matter of luck or grace, and to a comparatively small degree perhaps also of competence, diligence, and other virtues. The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.
- It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we must always be prepared for it to lead to defeat. If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it. Poland fought for freedom as no other country did. The Czech nation was prepared to fight for its freedom in 1938; it was not lack of courage that sealed its fate. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 — the work of young people with nothing to lose but their chains — triumphed and then ended in failure. ... Democracy and freedom do not guarantee the millennium. No, we do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963) Edit
- The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance — the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
- Variant translation: The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear, and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
- What we should do, I suggest, is to give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach. We may admit that our groping is often inspired, but we must be on our guard against the belief, however deeply felt, that our inspiration carries any authority, divine or otherwise. If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far it may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without danger, the idea that truth is beyond human authority. And we must retain it. For without this idea there can be no objective standards of inquiry; no criticism of our conjectures; no groping for the unknown; no quest for knowledge.
- Introduction "On The Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance" Section XVII, p. 30 Variant translation: I believe it is worthwhile trying to discover more about the world, even if this only teaches us how little we know. It might do us good to remember from time to time that, while differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far we may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without risk of dogmatism, the idea that truth itself is beyond all human authority. Indeed, we are not only able to retain this idea, we must retain it. For without it there can be no objective standards of scientific inquiry, no criticism of our conjectured solutions, no groping for the unknown, and no quest for knowledge.
- Introduction "On The Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance" Section XVII, p. 30 Variant translation: I believe it is worthwhile trying to discover more about the world, even if this only teaches us how little we know. It might do us good to remember from time to time that, while differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
- Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.
- Ch. 1 "Science : Conjectures and Refutations", Section VII
- The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities — perhaps the only one — in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there.
- Ch. 1 "Science : Conjectures and Refutations"
- Put in a nut-shell, my thesis amounts to this. The repeated attempts made by Rudolf Carnap to show that the demarcation between science and metaphysics coincides with that between sense and nonsense have failed. The reason is that the positivistic concept of 'meaning' or 'sense' (or of verifiability, or of inductive confirmability, etc.) is inappropriate for achieving this demarcation — simply because metaphysics need not be meaningless even though it is not science. In all its variations demarcation by meaninglessness has tended to be at the same time too narrow and too wide: as against all intentions and all claims, it has tended to exclude scientific theories as meaningless, while failing to exclude even that part of metaphysics which is known as 'rational theology'.
- Ch 11. "The Demarcation between Science and Metaphysics." (Summary, p. 253)
- It is often asserted that discussion is only possible between people who have a common language and accept common basic assumptions. I think that this is a mistake. All that is needed is a readiness to learn from one's partner in the discussion, which includes a genuine wish to understand what he intends to say. If this readiness is there, the discussion will be the more fruitful the more the partner's backgrounds differ.
- p. 352
- It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.
- p. 368
- If I were to give a simple formula or recipe for distinguishing between what I consider to be admissible plans for social reform and inadmissible Utopian blueprints, I might say: Work for the elimination of concrete evils rather than for the realization of abstract goods. Do not aim at establishing happiness by political means. Rather aim at the elimination of concrete miseries.
- p. 385
- Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now.
- p. 485
- In brief, it is my thesis that human misery is the most urgent problem of a rational public policy and that happiness is not such a problem.
- p. 485
- Besides, we should never attempt to balance anybody's misery against somebody else's happiness.
- pp. 486-487
- As for Adler, I was much impressed by a personal experience. Once, in 1919, I reported to him a case which to me did not seem particularly Adlerian, but which he found no difficulty in analyzing in terms of his theory of inferiority feelings, although he had not even seen the child. Slightly shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. "Because of my thousandfold experience," he replied; whereupon I could not help saying: "And with this new case, I suppose, your experience has become thousand-and-one-fold."
- I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behaviour: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and in Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behaviour which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact — that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed — which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favour of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.
- There are all kinds of sources of our knowledge; but none has authority ... The fundamental mistake made by the philosophical theory of the ultimate sources of our knowledge is that it does not distinguish clearly enough between questions of origin and questions of validity.
Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (1976) Edit
- Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.
- One of the ideas I had discussed in The Poverty of Historicism was the influence of a prediction upon the event predicted. I had called this the "Oedipus effect", because the oracle played a most important role in the sequence of events which led to the fulfilment of its prophecy. ... For a time I thought that the existence of the Oedipus effect distinguished the social from the natural sciences. But in biology, too—even in molecular biology—expectations often play a role in bringing about what has been expected.
- Page 29
- Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program.
- Unsourced variant: Evolution is not a fact. Evolution doesn't even qualify as a theory or as a hypothesis. It is a metaphysical research program, and it is not really testable science.
- Popper later retracted his criticisms:
- I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation.
- "Natural selection and the emergence of mind" dialectica Vol. 32 (1978), p. 339-355; republished in Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge (1987) edited by Gerard Radnitzky and W. W. Bartley, III
In Search of a Better World (1984) Edit
- The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts.
- Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.
- There are uncertain truths — even true statements that we may take to be false — but there are no uncertain certainties.
Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them.
- Why do I think that we, the intellectuals, are able to help? Simply because we, the intellectuals, have done the most terrible harm for thousands of years. Mass murder in the name of an idea, a doctrine, a theory, a religion — that is all our doing, our invention: the invention of the intellectuals. If only we would stop setting man against man — often with the best intentions — much would be gained. Nobody can say that it is impossible for us to stop doing this.
Misattributed Edit
- These are quotations that have been wrongly attributed to Popper
- Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride or laziness of mind.
- Principle attributed to Popper by Ryszard Kapiscinski in New York Times obituary, 1995.[1]
- To be ignorant of the past is to remain a child.
- The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in "Israel in the Desert" (1819)
- Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
- Colin Powell in My American Journey (1995)
- When we enter a new situation in life and are confronted by a new person, we bring with us the prejudices of the past and our previous experiences of people. These prejudices we project upon the new person. Indeed, getting to know a person is largely a matter of withdrawing projections; of dispelling the smoke screen of what we imagine he is like and replacing it with the reality of what he is actually like.
- Anthony Storr as quoted in The Observer (12 July 1970)
- Dubious quotations
- A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.
- In an address of 13 October 1896, published in Proceedings of the Liverpool Geological Society, Volumes 8-9 (1900), p. 28 Thomas Mellard Reade attributed this statement to John Playfair, citing it to his Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802); it has not yet been located in the volumes of that work presently available online, and was perhaps a summation or paraphrase, as Reade's statement reads:
- It was well observed by Playfair, some 90 years ago, that "a theory that explains everything explains nothing."
Quotes about Popper Edit
- I referred above to the Popperian school as a school, and yet it was not until I came to Sydney from London that I fully realised the extent to which I had been in a school. I found, to my surprise, that there were philosophers influenced by Wittgenstein or Quine or Marx who thought that Popper was quite wrong on many issues, and some who even thought that his views were positively dangerous. I think I have learnt much from that experience. One of the things that I have learnt is that on a number of major issues Popper is indeed wrong, as is argued in the latter portions of this book. However, this does not alter the fact that the Popperian approach is infinitely better than the approach adopted in most philosophy departments that I have encountered.
- Alan Chalmers (1976), Preface to the first edition, What is this thing called Science?
- The first article republished in Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, "Degrees of Explanation," originally published in 1955, was largely consistent with Popper's methodology. Hayek embraced Popper's "hypothetico-deductive" approach to science: "The conception of science as a hypothetico-deductive system has been expounded by Karl Popper in a manner which brings out clearly some very important points." Here, as elsewhere in his work, Hayek distinguished between the facts of the natural and social sciences primarily on the basis of their complexity.
- Alan Ebenstein, Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003), Ch. 14. Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics
- I learned from Popper what for me is the essence of scientific investigation—how to be speculative and imaginative in the creation of hypotheses, and then to challenge them with the utmost rigor, both by utilizing all existing knowledge and by mounting the most searching experimental attacks. In fact, I learned from him even to rejoice in the refutation of a cherished hypothesis, because that, too, is a scientific achievement and because much has been learned by the refutation.
- John Eccles, "Under the spell of the synapse," The Neurosciences: Paths of Discovery ed. F. G. Worden, J. P. Swazey, G. Adelman (1976)
- Through my association with Popper I experienced a great liberation in escaping from the rigid conventions that are generally held with respect to scientific research. ... When one is liberated from these restrictive dogmas, scientific investigation becomes an exciting adventure opening up new visions; and this attitude has, I think, been reflected in my own scientific life since that time.
- John Eccles, "Under the spell of the synapse," The Neurosciences: Paths of Discovery ed. F. G. Worden, J. P. Swazey, G. Adelman (1976)
- The leading critic of the positivists in their heyday was of course Popper. There has been a tendency for philosophers of science to regard Popper as something of an embarrassment. However, naturalistic philosophers should take it as an interesting fact about science that Popper has long been the favourite philosopher of science among scientists; and it would be condescending to attribute this entirely to the fact that Popper's philosophy is relatively non-complex, self-contained, and flattering to scientists.
- James Ladyman and Don Ross, "The World in the Data" in Scientific Metaphysics (2013) edited by Don Ross, James Ladyman, and Harold Kincaid
- Popper was kind of an egocentric jerk.
- Tim Maudlin, quoted in John Horgan, "Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress" (2018)
- Socrates (and so Plato) makes it quite clear that the rule of wisdom is tyrannical, and that it cannot tolerate words or deeds, laws or traditional institutions, and certainly political theories that impinge upon its rule. In this sense, modern enemies of Plato's political thought, of whom the most prominent in our time is no doubt Karl Popper, are correct in their objections, although they are ingenuous or let us say insufficiently rigorous in their consideration of the political consequences of theoretical truth. In Popper's case, this is probably due to his conviction that we can establish the falsehood of a proposition but not its truth. This conviction may well be more compatible with democracy in the modern sense of the term than the conviction that genuine philosophers know the truth. The argument of the Republic on the other hand is that, if we did know the truth, we would be led to support a city very much like the one constructed in the Republic under the leadership of Socrates.
- Stanley Rosen, Plato's Republic: A Study (2005), Introduction
- I do have a great respect for Popper. I mean, I think... he's nearer to... I mean, Popper's ambition, in relation to science, at least, was to discriminate between, sort of, science and what he called pseudo-science.
- John Maynard Smith, about Karl Popper and the philosophy of science (April 1997)
- Popper believed that any idea of Utopia is necessarily closed owing to the fact that it chokes its own refutations. The simple notion of a good society that cannot be left open for falsification is totalitarian. I learned from Popper, in addition to the difference between an open and a closed society, that between an open and a closed mind.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (2001) Seven: The Problem of Induction | Sir Karl's Promoting Agent | Open Society
- I got to know Bertrand Russell in the last years of his life. I knew Karl Popper quite well, and they were a whole class above me in intelligence. It wasn't that I was jealous, it was that I was trying to grapple with these problems with inadequate weaponry… Popper had this originality, Russell had it, and Einstein had it in spades.
- Bryan Magee, The New Statesman, 8 April 2018
See also Edit
External links Edit
- Karl Popper from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- The Karl Popper Web
- Karl Popper Institute includes complete bibliography 1925-1999
- University of Canterbury (NZ) brief biography of Popper
- Influence on Friesian Philosophy
- Open Society Institute George Soros foundations network
- A Skeptical Look at Karl Popper by Martin Gardner
- Sir Karl Popper: "Science: Conjectures and Refutations"
- Karl Popper at Blupete.com


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Scientists Capture Ultrafast Snapshots of Light-driven Superconductivity
A new study, based on an experiment at SLAC's X-ray laser, pins down a major factor behind the appearance of superconductivity—the ability to conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency—in a promising copper-oxide material.
A new study pins down a major factor behind the appearance of superconductivity – the ability to conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency – in a promising copper-oxide material.
Scientists used carefully timed pairs of laser pulses at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) to trigger superconductivity in the material and immediately take X-ray snapshots of its atomic and electronic behavior as superconductivity emerged.
They discovered that so-called "charge stripes" of increased electrical charge melted away as superconductivity appeared. Further, the results help rule out the theory that shifts in the material's atomic lattice hinder the onset of superconductivity.
Armed with this new understanding, scientists may be able to develop new techniques to eliminate these charge stripes and help pave the way for room-temperature superconductivity, often considered the holy grail of condensed matter physics. The demonstrated ability to rapidly switch between the insulating and superconducting states could also prove useful in advanced electronics and computation.
The results, from a collaboration led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Germany and the U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC and Brookhaven national laboratories, were published online April 16, 2014, in the journal Physical Review Letters.
"The very short timescales and the need for high spatial resolution made this experiment extraordinarily challenging," said co-author Michael Först, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute. "Now, using femtosecond X-ray pulses, we found a way to capture the quadrillionths-of-a-second dynamics of the charges and the crystal lattice. We've broken new ground in understanding light-induced superconductivity."
Josh Turner, an LCLS staff scientist, said, "This represents a very important result in the field of superconductivity using LCLS. It demonstrates how we can unravel different types of complex mechanisms in superconductivity that have, up until now, been inseparable."
He added, "To make this measurement, we had to push the limits of our current capabilities. We had to measure a very weak, barely detectable signal with state-of-the-art detectors, and we had to tune the number of X-rays in each laser pulse to see the signal from the stripes without destroying the sample."
Ripples in Quantum Sand
The compound used in this study was a layered material consisting of lanthanum, barium, copper, and oxygen grown at Brookhaven Lab by physicist Genda Gu. Each copper oxide layer contained the crucial charge stripes.
"Imagine these stripes as ripples frozen in the sand," said John Hill, a Brookhaven Lab physicist and coauthor on the study. "Each layer has all the ripples going in one direction, but in the neighboring layers they run crosswise. From above, this looks like strings in a pile of tennis racquets. We believe that this pattern prevents each layer from talking to the next, thus frustrating superconductivity."
To excite the material and push it into the superconducting phase, the scientists used mid-infrared laser pulses to "melt" those frozen ripples. These pulses had previously been shown to induce superconductivity in a related compound at a frigid 10 Kelvin (minus 442 degrees Fahrenheit).
"The charge stripes disappeared immediately," Hill said. "But specific distortions in the crystal lattice, which had been thought to stabilize these stripes, lingered much longer. This shows that only the charge stripes inhibit superconductivity."
Stroboscopic Snapshots
To capture these stripes in action, the collaboration turned to SLAC's LCLS X-ray laser, which works like a camera with a shutter speed faster than 100 femtoseconds, or quadrillionths of a second, and provides atomic-scale image resolution. LCLS uses a section of SLAC's 2-mile-long linear accelerator to generate the electrons that give off X-ray light.
Researchers used the so-called "pump-probe" approach: an optical laser pulse strikes and excites (pumps) the lattice and an ultrabright X-ray laser pulse is carefully synchronized to follow within femtoseconds and measure (probe) the lattice and stripe configurations. Each round of tests results in some 20,000 X-ray snapshots of the changing lattice and charge stripes, a bit like a strobe light rapidly illuminating the process.
To measure the changes with high spatial resolution, the team used a technique called resonant soft X-ray diffraction. The LCLS X-rays strike and scatter off the crystal into the detector, carrying time-stamped signatures of the material's charge and lattice structure that the physicists then used to reconstruct the rise and fall of superconducting conditions.
"By carefully choosing a very particular X-ray energy, we are able to emphasize the scattering from the charge stripes," said Brookhaven Lab physicist Stuart Wilkins, another co-author on the study. "This allows us to single out a very weak signal from the background."
Toward Superior Superconductors
The X-ray scattering measurements revealed that the lattice distortion persists for more than 10 picoseconds (trillionths of a second) – long after the charge stripes melted and superconductivity appeared, which happened in less than 400 femtoseconds. Slight as it may sound, those extra trillionths of a second make a huge difference.
"The findings suggest that the relatively weak and long-lasting lattice shifts do not play an essential role in the presence of superconductivity," Hill said. "We can now narrow our focus on the stripes to further pin down the underlying mechanism and potentially engineer superior materials."
Andrea Cavalleri, director of the Max Planck Institute, said, "Light-induced superconductivity was only recently discovered, and we're already seeing fascinating implications for understanding it and going to higher temperatures. In fact, we have observed the signature of light-induced superconductivity in materials all the way up to 300 Kelvin (80 degrees Fahrenheit) – that's really a significant breakthrough that warrants much deeper investigations."
Other collaborators on this research include the University of Groningen, the University of Oxford, Diamond Light Source, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Stanford University, the European XFEL, the University of Hamburg and the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science.
The research conducted at the Soft X-ray Materials Science (SXR) experimental station at SLAC's LCLS – a DOE Office of Science user facility – was funded by Stanford University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Hamburg and the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL). Work performed at Brookhaven Lab was supported by the DOE's Office of Science.
View a Brookhaven National Laboratory press release.
Citation: M. Först, R. I. Tobey et al., Physical Review Letters, 17 April 2014, doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.157002
SLAC is a multi-program laboratory exploring frontier questions in photon science, astrophysics, particle physics and accelerator research. Located in Menlo Park, California, SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.
SLAC's LCLS is the world's most powerful X-ray free-electron laser. A DOE Office of Science national user facility, its highly focused beam shines a billion times brighter than previous X-ray sources to shed light on fundamental processes of chemistry, materials and energy science, technology and life itself. For more information, visit lcls.slac.stanford.edu.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

subset: commoncrawl


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Same-sex cohabitors report worse health than people of the same socioeconomic status who are in heterosexual marriages, according to a new study, which may provide fuel for gay marriage proponents.
"Past research has shown that married people are generally healthier than unmarried people," said Hui Liu, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of sociology at Michigan State University. "Although our study did not specifically test the health consequences of legalizing same-sex marriage, it's very plausible that legalization of gay marriage would reduce health disparities between same-sex cohabitors and married heterosexuals."
Titled, "Same-Sex Cohabitors and Health: The Role of Race-Ethnicity, Gender, and Socioeconomic Status," the study, which appears in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, compares the self-rated health of 1,659 same-sex cohabiting men and 1,634 same-sex cohabiting women with that of their different-sex married, different-sex cohabiting, unpartnered divorced, widowed, and never-married counterparts. The study of white, black, and Hispanic 18 to 65-year-olds used pooled, nationally representative data from the 1997 to 2009 National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS). NHIS respondents rated their overall health as excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor. As part of their study, Liu and her co-authors, Corinne Reczek, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati, and Dustin Brown, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology and the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, divided the respondents into two groups: those who reported excellent, very good, or good overall health and those who reported fair or poor overall health.
"When we controlled for socioeconomic status, the odds of reporting poor or fair health were about 61 percent higher for same-sex cohabiting men than for men in heterosexual marriages and the odds of reporting poor or fair health were about 46 percent higher for same-sex cohabiting women than for women in heterosexual marriages," Liu said.
As for why same-sex cohabitors reported worse health than people of the same socioeconomic status in heterosexual marriages, Liu said there could be several reasons. "Research consistently suggests that 'out' sexual minorities experience heightened levels of stress and higher levels of discrimination, and these experiences may adversely affect the health of this population," Liu said. "It may also be that same-sex cohabitation does not provide the same psychosocial, socioeconomic, and institutional resources that come with legal marriage, factors that are theorized to be responsible for many of the health benefits of marriage."
According to the researchers, it is possible that providing same-sex cohabitors the option to marry would boost their measures of self-rated health because they would experience higher levels of acceptance and lower levels of stigma. "Legalizing same-sex marriage could also provide other advantages often associated with heterosexual marriage—such as partner health insurance benefits and the ability to file joint tax returns—that may directly and indirectly influence the health of individuals in same-sex unions," Liu said.
The researchers also found that same-sex cohabitors reported better health than their different-sex cohabiting and single counterparts, but these differences were fully explained by socioeconomic status. "Without their socioeconomic status advantages, same-sex cohabitors would generally report similar levels of health as their divorced, widowed, never-married, and different-sex cohabiting counterparts," Liu said.
Interestingly, the study suggests that the pattern of poorer self-rated health of same-sex cohabitors in comparison with those in heterosexual marriages does not vary by gender and race-ethnicity. In contrast, results comparing same-sex cohabitors with different-sex cohabiting and single women, but not men, revealed important racial-ethnic patterns. "After we controlled for socioeconomic status, black women in same-sex cohabiting relationships reported worse health than black women of any other non-married union status, while white women in same-sex cohabiting relationships actually reported better health than both white women in different-sex cohabiting relationships and divorced white women," said Liu, who explained that black women in same-sex cohabiting relationships may experience significant social discrimination and homophobia, and such stressors may shape their health in especially detrimental ways.


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Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act of 2015
NumbersUSA's Position:Support
H.R. 1153, the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act of 2015, represents one of the most thorough responses to the surge of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) at the Southwest border. Aside from repealing the requirements that resulted in UACs from contiguous countries receiving differing treatment than those from noncontiguous countries, this bill requires immigration officers to order all illegal entrants removed upon screening, absent an asylum claim. In order to encourage cooperation with return, foreign countries who resist repatriation will face cuts to foreign assistance.


text:
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Green tea may counter the cognitive problems that come with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a new study suggests.
Green tea polyphenols (GTP) appear to negate the increased oxidative stress that affects brain tissue in areas involved in learning and memory in people with OSA, reports the study, published in the second issue for May of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. GTPs are known to possess antioxidant properties.
The conclusion is based on giving drinking water laced with GTP to rats intermittently deprived of oxygen during 12-hour "night" cycles — a condition that mimics the intermittent hypoxia (IH) that humans with OSA experience. The rats that drank green tea-treated water performed significantly better in a maze than rats that consumed plain water.
"GTP-treated rats exposed to IH displayed a significantly greater spatial bias for the previous hidden platform position, indicating that GTPs are capable of attenuating IH-induced spatial learning deficits," lead author Dr. David Gozal, director of Kosair Children's Hospital Research Institute at the University of Louisville, said in a prepared statement. He added that GTPs "may represent a potential interventional strategy for patients" with sleep-disordered breathing.
"OSA has been increasingly recognized as a serious and frequent health condition with potential long-term morbidities that include learning and psychological disabilities," Gozal said. "A growing body of evidence suggests that the adverse neurobehavioral consequences imposed by IH stem, at least in part, from oxidative stress and inflammatory signaling cascades."
- Green Tea & Weight Loss
- Benefits of Green Tea
- Green Tea and Acne
- Green Tea and Wrinkles
- Green Tea and Skin Cancer


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The EU Commission published this press release on the EU-Turkey Agreement. It is a very interesting document because it clarifies several of the questions which many people undoubtedly have. Such as: What will happen to the refugees already in Greece? Answer: They will be relocated to other countries, at least 20.000 by mid-May.
Where the Agreement becomes overwhelming is where it stipulates what Greece needs to accomplish. Below is an extract:
Where the Agreement becomes overwhelming is where it stipulates what Greece needs to accomplish. Below is an extract:
The Commission estimates that Greece will need:
Around 4,000 staff from Greece, Member States, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and FRONTEX:
- For the asylum process: 200 Greek asylum service case workers, 400 asylum experts from other Member States deployed by EASO and 400 interpreters
- For the appeals process: 10 Appeals Committees made up of 30 members from Greece as well as 30 judges with expertise in asylum law from other Member States and 30 interpreters
- For the return process: 25 Greek readmission officers, 250 Greek police officers as well as 50 return experts deployed by Frontex. 1,500 police officers seconded on the basis of bilateral police cooperation arrangements (costs covered by FRONTEX)
- Security: 1,000 security staff/army
Material assistance:
- Transport: return from the islands: 8 FRONTEX vessels with a capacity of 300-400 passengers per vessel) and 28 buses
- Accommodation: 20,000 short-term capacity on the Greek islands (of which 6,000 already exist)
- Administration: 190 containers, including 130 for EASO case workers
Well, that's a bit more than a piece of cake. I suppose that the EU thought that any country which can pull off one of the greatest Olympics ever could easily handle such a to-do list.
Let's hope they are right!


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By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com September 26, 2008 Speaking of M14/M1A tactical rifles, just in case you're not quite ready to go bullpup, J. Allen Enterprises, Inc (JAE) has a good-looking M14/M1A rifle stock comprised of a composite polymer skin chemically-bonded over an aircraft-grade aluminum skeleton. So, what's the point. Well, first, it looks pretty slick. But, …Read More »
Tag Archives: taser xrep rounds for sale
TASER XREP (eXtended Range Electronic Projectile) Less-Lethal Shotgun Round
By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com September 1, 2008 If you've been watching FutureWeapons on the Military Channel, you may have seen a segment on the XREP fin-stabilized Taser shotgun round (12-gauge shotgun), which is a miniaturized, self-contained, ballistically-launched Taser round developed, marketed, and soon-to-be-produced by Taser International, Inc.. The XREP, which stands for eXtended Range Electronic Projectile, …Read More »


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SPEAK is a social tech startup that promotes social inclusion of migrants and refugees by connecting them with locals through a language & culture exchange program.
SPEAK's mission is to accept, value and empower cultural diversity and promote equality and social integration. SPEAK tackles social exclusion of migrants and helps them integrate into cities through a language and culture exchange program that breaks the linguistic barrier and brings people of different origins together.
Started in 2012 in Leiria by Hugo Menino Aguiar and a group of friends who were part of Associação Fazer Avançar, SPEAK is, as of April 2018, present in seven Portuguese cities and in Italy (Turin), Germany (Berlin) and Spain (Madrid).
Designed for scale, SPEAK uses an online-to-offline model where all the processes are managed online while the learning and sharing experience happens offline. This increases efficiency and minimises fixed costs, allowing SPEAK to be sustainable at scale while charging only a symbolic fee for its program, with scholarships available so that no one who can benefit from the program is excluded due to financial reasons.
SPEAK was designed not just to be more effective than other alternatives at helping migrants to integrate, but also to be a commercial product with potential for sustainability.
SPEAK's Theory of Change has three main outcomes that contribute to the social inclusion of migrants and refugees. An impact assessment found among participants:
- a 15% increase in the feeling of belonging to the city;
- a 30% decrease in language as a barrier for social integration;
- a 40% increase in the feeling of valorization of their culture by others.
SPEAK is currently working to grow internationally; in recent years, the challenge has moved from settling refugees and migrants to supporting integration, requiring integrated and community-based solutions such as the one offered by SPEAK.
SPEAK aims to grow through organic growth, with Project Managers in each country managed by the central team and a "Take SPEAK to your city" model, similar to social franchising. This model is already being tested in three cities in Portugal (Amarante, Aveiro and Braga).
Since 2014, more than 5,700 people have participated in SPEAK's events and 6,100 people have attended their courses (joined groups). SPEAK aims to be present in 40 cities by the end of 2020 reaching almost 20,000 people every year.
Case study date: March 2018.


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[ Matos v. Hermanos 300 U.S. 429 (1937) ] [300 U.S. 429 , 430]
Messrs. Nelson Gammans and Gabriel I. Lewis, both of New York City, for petitioner.
Mr. Francis H. Dexter, of San Juan, P.R., for respondent.
Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Two sections of the Revised Civil Code of Puerto Rico follow:
Several sections of the Island's Penal Code interdict sale or possession of animals suffering from a contagious disease.
A complaint filed by respondents, Alonso Hermanos et al., in the District Court of San Juan, December 12, 1929, alleged that they purchased March 1, 1929, from petitioner, Jose Matos, a herd of cattle-122 head-for the lump sum of $18,000; although apparently in good condition the cattle were suffering from tuberculosis, a contagious disease; prior to December 6th 43 had died, 29 were condemned and destroyed by the Health Department. They further declared readiness to [300 U.S. 429 , 431] return all surviving cattle and prayed that the sale be declared null and void, in accordance with section 1397 of the Civil Code, also for judgment for the purchase price.
A demurrer invoking the limitation of forty days upon redhibitory actions, prescribed by Code section 1399, was overruled. An answer followed. This admitted execution of the contract, receipt of the consideration, death, and condemnation of the cattle as alleged. But it affirmed that tuberculosis was contracted after the sale through improper care; also renewed the claim of prescription.
The trial court found the facts shown by the evidence; concluded the questioned contract was illegal and void, that the action was not subject to the prescription of forty days; and ordered return of the entire purchase price.
Upon appeal the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ruled the sale contract was not void but voidable at the purchaser's election; its legal effect and the remedy for violation were within the Code provisions relating to redhibitory contracts; the limitation of forty days applied; 'that section 1397 does not exclude the transaction made in this case from the field of warranties.' Also, the contract for the purchase of the herd was 'individual' or 'distributive'-not unitary; as to the dead cows the right to recover the purchase price was prescribed; as to those which survived no right of recovery ever existed. It accordingly reversed the judgment of the District Court and directed dismissal of the complaint.
The Circuit Court of Appeals held the contract of sale illegal- nonexistent-as to cows which had died or were condemned; as to them the action was not redhibitory; the prescription of forty days had no application; and it reversed the questioned judgment. 81 F.(2d) 930, 933. With respect to the surviving cows, it adopted the interpretation of section 1397 approved by the Supreme Court. It said: 'To sum- [300 U.S. 429 , 432] marize: In the trial court the plaintiffs put their claim on the herd basis; they endeavored to rescind the entire transaction and get back the full consideration which had been paid; and they were held entitled to do so. On appeal the Supreme Court held that the sale could not be given this unitary character, but must be considered with respect to the individual animals; and that view stands. In its decision that, as to the tuberculous cattle, a contract was entered into and the plaintiffs' rights were of redhibitory character and subject to the limitation of section 1399, the Supreme Court fell into error.'
Accordingly, the judgment of the Supreme Court was reversed and the cause remanded to the District Court with instructions to permit an amedment to the complaint. A dissenting opinion approved the Supreme Court's construction of the Code, also its judgment.
The matter is here by certiorari. Manifestly, the solution of the controversy must turn upon the meaning and effect of the above-quoted sections of the Civil Code-local law of Puerto Rico.
Considering the argument here, the divergent views below, the authorities cited, and 'recognizing the deference due to the understanding of local courts upon matters of purely local concern,' it becomes impossible for us to entertain 'a sense of clear error committed' by the Supreme Court. Following the view so often approved, we think the Circuit Court of Appeals should have accepted and affirmed the ruling there announced after much consideration. Nadal v. May, 233 U.S. 447, 454 , 34 S. Ct. 611; De Villanueva v. Villanueva, 239 U.S. 293, 299 ; Diaz et al. v. Gonzalez et al., 261 U.S. 102, 105 , 287.
The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals must be reversed; the judgment of the Supreme Court is affirmed.
[ Footnote * ] Rehearing denied 301 U.S. 712 , 81 L.Ed. -.
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Citation: 300 U.S. 429
Docket No: No. 227
Argued: March 02, 1937
Decided: March 29, 1937
Court: United States Supreme Court
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(CNN) -- Lady Gaga is aware that some less than kind comments were made about her physique during her Super Bowl halftime performance.
But the "Born This Way" singer is not sweating it.
"I heard my body is a topic of conversation so I wanted to say, I'm proud of my body and you should be proud of yours too," she wrote on Instagram in the caption of a photo of her performing. "No matter who you are or what you do."
I heard my body is a topic of conversation so I wanted to say, I'm proud of my body and you should be proud of yours too. No matter who you are or what you do. I could give you a million reasons why you don't need to cater to anyone or anything to succeed. Be you, and be relentlessly you. That's the stuff of champions. thank you so much everyone for supporting me. I love you guys. Xoxo, gaga
Gaga was trolled and called "fat" among other things after she donned multiple outfits during the halftime show, including one which exposed her midriff.
The singer also offered up some advice in the caption to her fans.
"Be you, and be relentlessly you," she wrote. "That's the stuff of champions."
Her words were hailed on social media by many who noted the multitude of women celebrities who have been criticized for their bodies.
Gaga is riding high otherwise. She just announced a world tour and sales of her music spiked by 1000 percent following the Super Bowl according to Nielsen Music.


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Has one of the PlayStation 4's big launch exclusives has been pushed back to next year? Rumors are swirling that DriveClub has been delayed to 2014, but Sony won't comment on the matter.
UPDATE (10/18): Sony has confirmed the delay.
A website called The Same Coin sparked the rumor earlier today, claiming they'd heard from "an anonymous source" that Sony's big racing game, originally slated for release alongside the PS4 on November 15, has been bumped to next spring. "Treat this as 100% rumour for now," they wrote. "Hopefully it will turn out to be false."
While I hadn't heard of this website before today, a person familiar with goings-on at Sony told me this afternoon that the report is true.
To add some fuel to this rumor fire, today in San Francisco, Sony is holding an event to show off their PS4 games. Although DriveClub was originally part of the lineup, a Sony rep told me this afternoon that it has been removed due to a "scheduling conflict."
When I asked if the game has been delayed, the Sony rep said they don't comment on rumors and speculation.
DriveClub design director Paul Rustchynsky wrote on Twitter today that he doesn't have "any new information on DRIVECLUB to share."
At E3 in June, Sony promised that their PlayStation Plus membership program will include access to a free, stripped-down version of DriveClub, among other benefits. If DriveClub is indeed delayed, Sony may need to find a way to replace that offer.
These rumors come a day after the delay of Watch Dogs, the sci-fi open world game that was also originally set to launch alongside next-gen consoles this November. Maybe something's in the water this week. We'll keep you updated as we hear more.


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Man Who Raised Adrian Peterson's Son -- 'So Tired of This Poor Adrian Peterson Sh*t'
Adrian Peterson Man Who Raised AP's Son: "So Tired of This 'Poor Adrian' Sh*t"
The man who raised Adrian Peterson's 2-year-old son says he's sick and tired of people feeling sorry for the NFL star, claiming AP didn't care about the boy because he never got the chance to meet him.
We broke the story, AP only learned he was the biological dad a few months ago. Before the revelation, the child's mother was under the impression that the father was a man named Bobby Ruffin.
After the child passed away on Friday, Bobby went to his Facebook page and unloaded ... writing, "So tired of this poor Adrian Peterson sh*t. Let me blow all your minds. The boy who died was my son."
"Yes A.P. he was the biological father but I raised him and he carried my name. Tyrese Robert Ruffin. I don't blame AP for not really caring cuz him and I both found out recently who the biological father was."
"AP met my son for the first time yest when my son was already in coma. I was here today when we pulled the plug, not him. He was happily practicing and has no problem playing on Sunday."
"So yea this isn't all out yet but I'm sick of the poor AP sh*t. He didn't know or even meet my son. Sorry for the outburst but put yourself in my place."


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George Strait Performs 'Give It All We Got Tonight' an the 2013 ACM Awards
George Strait performed his current single 'Give It All We Got Tonight' at the 2013 ACM Awards show on Sunday (April 7). The superstar is planning to release a new album later this year, and is currently on his farewell tour. Despite some audio difficulties, the crowd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas still gave the King a healthy round of applause.
Eli Young Band took the stage to introduce the legendary singer, who is engaged in the 60 for 60 campaign. His current single is well on its way to becoming the 60th No. 1 hit single of his career. His team is pushing for that to happen before Strait turns 61 on May 18.
Strait has always been a consistently strong performer at awards shows, but audio goblins can even get the best in the business. At Sunday's ACMs he gave a held-back vocal performance that sounded like he simply couldn't hear himself in the mix very well. His band may have also had difficulties with the sound.
That said, the worst Strait has to offer is still better than most people could ever hope to do, and he toughed it out to deliver a workmanlike version of the song. Later in the show, Strait is expected to team up with Garth Brooks to honor the late Dick Clark.
Watch George Strait Sing 'Give It All We Got Tonight' at the 2013 ACM Awards


text: Hello, I just installed ISPConfig on my Mandrake 10.2 server. Everything went well and I immediately started playing with it. I could login with admin/admin, changed admin password, created a client and a site. Problem is : everytime I try to login as the only user (webX_Y) I created, I get the 101 error, incorrect user/password. No trouble with admin or client logging. SSH access is OK for that user so I wonder what's the problem here. Thanks for shedding some light on this issue.


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NORFOLK, Va. — In a case that could give gay marriage its first foothold in the old Confederacy, a federal judge will hear arguments Tuesday on whether Virginia's ban on gay marriage should be struck down – the position the state's newly elected Democratic attorney general has endorsed, angering many Republican lawmakers.
In January, Attorney General Mark Herring's office notified the federal court in Norfolk that it would not defend the 2006 voter-approved constitutional amendment in a lawsuit. Republicans have accused Herring of abandoning his responsibility to defend the state's laws. On Tuesday morning, a handful of protesters gathered at the courthouse. They shouted phrases decrying his position and carried signs: "Herring's herring. AG's must uphold the law."
Across the street, gay-marriage supporters – in about equal numbers – shouted their support for the plaintiffs and carried signs saying "Marry who you love."
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Newly elected De mocratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe has rebuffed calls to appoint outside counsel to defend the ban. On Monday, Republicans in the House passed a bill that would give lawmakers standing in lawsuits where the attorney general and governor have chosen not to participate.
With Herring's office deciding to side with the plaintiffs in the case, the job of defending the law during verbal arguments will fall to the legal team of Norfolk's Circuit Court clerk. In addition, an attorney for the religious group Alliance Defending Freedom will present arguments on behalf of the Prince William County's clerk, which has been allowed to intervene in the case, as to why the law should be upheld.
Herring plans to attend Tuesday's hearing, although Virginia Solicitor General Stuart Raphael will argue in court on behalf of the state.
The lawsuit challenging the ban was filed on behalf of Norfolk couple Timothy Bostic and Tony London, who were denied a marriage license by the Norfol k Circuit Court on July 1. The lawsuit says the state's law denies them liberties that are guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Since then, Chesterfield County couple Carol Schall and Mary Townley have joined the case. The couple were married in California in 2008 and have a teenage daughter. They want Virginia to recognize their marriage.
The attorneys representing the plaintiffs on behalf of the American Foundation for Equal rights are the same ones that successfully challenged California's ban on gay marriage in court there.
After Herring's office decided not to defend the law, U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen considered not even hearing verbal arguments in the case because of the "compelling" filing by the attorney general's office. Wright Allen is a former public defender and assistant U.S. attorney who was appointed to the post by President Barack Obama.
The lawsuit was filed shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the section of the f ederal Defense of Marriage Act that prevented gay couples from receiving a range of federal benefits that are generally available to married people.
Herring's announcement last month came on the heels of court rulings in which federal judges struck down gay-marriage bans in Utah and Oklahoma.
Currently 17 states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage. Most are clustered in the Northeast; none is in the former Confederacy.
Nationwide, there are more than a dozen states with federal lawsuits challenging state bans on same-sex marriage.
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text:
Controversial Cholesterol Pill Vytorin Shows Promise For Kidney Patients
Remember Grandpa Frank?
Way back in 2008, the ad above ran in heavy rotation on TV during the heyday of Vytorin, a cholesterol-lowering pill that claimed to fight both genetics and bad habits.
Soon after the ad had appeared, oh, say thousands of times across the country, the Food and Drug Administration asked the company to revise the ads with Grandpa Frank and other relatives because the ads didn't reveal a study showing Vytorin wasn't any more effective than simvastatin, a generic cholesterol medicine that is one of Vytorin's components.
Later that year there was more bad news for Vytorin — and fear among patients — when a study suggested Vytorin raises the risk of cancer slightly. Sales fell from a peak of $5 billion a year to $2 billion last year.
None of this caused the FDA to change its view of the safety of Vytorin. The agency even issued a statement in 2009 essentially exonerating Vytorin of the cancer risk.
Now, Merck, the maker of Vytorin, is looking to regain some of the lost sales of the drug by touting its use in people with chronic kidney disease.
A new FDA analysis shows Vytorin lowered the relative risk of heart attacks and strokes by 22 percent among CKD patients in the relatively early stages of disease — before they need dialysis. For those with more severe, later-stage disease, the drop was 6 percent.
The FDA analysis also failed to find any increase in cancer or cancer deaths in the 20,000-plus patient study.
Merck is seeking FDA approval for use of Vytorin in CKD patients of which there are 26 million in the U.S. alone, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
A committee of independent advisers to the FDA will go over the data for and against Vytorin at a meeting Wednesday.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
James Beard A Biography by Robert Clark
James Beard A Biography by Robert Clark
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James Beard A Biography
by Robert Clark
Pre-Owned Hardcover
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Condition: Near Mint
In his second in-depth foray into the world of professional cooking, Michael Ruhlman journeys into the heart of the profession. Observing the rigorous Certified Master Chef exam at the Culinary Institute of America, the most influential cooking school in the country, Ruhlman enters the lives and kitchens of rising star Michael Symon and renowned Thomas Keller of the French Laundry. This fascinating book will satisfy any reader's hunger for knowledge about cooking and food, the secrets of successful chefs, at what point cooking becomes an art form, and more. Like Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef, this is an instant classic in food writing-one of the fastest growing and most popular subjects today.


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Adam Smith on how "furious monopolists" will fight to the bitter end to keep their privileges (1776)
Found in An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Cannan ed.), vol. 2
In 1776 Adam Smith (1723-1790) was not optimistic about the chances of Britain introducing free trade because of the outspoken opposition and political power of the vested interests. He compared the protected manufacturing interests to "an overgrown standing army" which would focus the "insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists" which no politician would dare cross:
To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established in it. Not only the prejudices of the publick, but what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of many individuals, irresistibly oppose it. Were the officers of the army to oppose with the same zeal and unanimity any reduction in the number of forces, with which master manufacturers set themselves against every law that is likely to increase the number of their rivals in the home market; were the former to animate their soldiers, in the same manner as the latter enflame their workmen, to attack with violence and outrage the proposers of any such regulation; to attempt to reduce the army would be as dangerous as it has now become to attempt to diminish in any respect the monopoly which our manufacturers have obtained against us. This monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of them, that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature. The member of parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening this monopoly, is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If he opposes them, on the contrary, and still more if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest publick services can protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists.
It is sobering to think about the obstacles which liberal reformers like Adam Smith and William Wilberforce had to face in the late 18th century. For Adam Smith and the free traders they had to overcome the enormous power of the entrenched agricultural and industrial interests if they wished to see Britain introduce a policy of free trade. For William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and the other opponents of slavery and the slave trade they had to overcome the equally powerful planter and trading interests which benefited from the use of slaves in the colonies. After a decades long battle the latter achieved success first with the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 and the abolition of slavery itself in the English colonies in 1833. It took somewhat longer for the free traders under Richard Cobden to have a similar level of success. It was not until 1846 that Cobden acting in Parliament and the Anti-Corn Law League in the streets, were able to see the ending of the Corn Laws in 1846 and the beginnings of free trade in Britain. In both these cases the "overgrown standing army" of the vested interests were eventually defeated.
Visit our sister site, AdamSmithWorks for a classroom bellringer based on this quote.