2011 Sayı 17

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Popper and the theory of evolution
(Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2011) Duman, Musa
This article examines the ideas Popper propounded about the scientific status of the theory of evolution, about whether the theory has a truly scientific character. I first present Popper’s perspective on the criteria that need to be met by the kind of knowledge that claims to be scientific. In the following, I discuss Popper’s basic theses in the philosophy of science and their implications for an assessment of epistemological structure of evolutionary theory. Basic position of evolutionary theory concerning biological reality is roughly described, with a view to bringing out the structure of evolutionary argumentation. I note that while Popper, up to 1977, maintains that the evolutionary theory is a “metaphysical research programme”, a comprehensive and fertile one, he, in his later thought, abandons this claim and attempts to carve out a scientific status for the evolutionary theory, which, however, involves some tensions for the whole logic of the falsificationist strategy.