Karl Popper Scientific Realism Essay

Scientific realism is defined in terms of the truth of empirically proven scientific theories. A scientific realist is someone who thinks that all scientific theories aim to describe the universe as it is. Scientific realists believe the claim that there is true progress in science and whether the unobservable entities explained by science can really be taken as truth. The distinction between observable and unobservable entities is reflected by the human senses. For instance, a scientific realist believes in the existence of electrons because of empirical data despite not being able to see an electron with human senses. Within the philosophy of science, scientific realism answers the question of “How is the success of science to be explained?”

Karl Popper is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century. Popper outlined in his work, Realism and the Aim of Science, the school of realism and made his own arguments to back up the ideas of realism. Popper views the search for truth as “one of the strongest motives for scientific discovery”, just like realism does. He also is a proponent of the concept that science is progressive in nature just like realism claims. Popper was also a fan of the method of falsification, which was not a way to reject or get rid of the original scientific theory, but simply to improve it. Through the method of falsification, the scientific progress can occur. Popper argues that scientific knowledge is progressive in nature, and is in fact able to predict phenomena successfully due to valid claims about unobservable

This argument holds that it would be a miracle if the universe behaved largely, as it does, as if there were quarks and electrons and other unobservable entities, if in fact there were no such entities. But that would be miraculous, and scientists should not believe in miracles. If theories say that what going on behind the phenomena, such as the photon light theory, are “approximately true” then the theories got the phenomena correct. Therefore, realism is correct because the unobservable entities truthfully explain how the universe