Abstract

Summary In his Logic of Scientific Discovery and also in Conjectures and Refutations Karl Popper laid down methodological rules. They were to secure severe tests of our theories so that we might at least prove our false theories to be false, if we cannot prove our true theories to be true. But falsification turned out to be as impossible as verification. What is more, the rules, which are here examined, do not even advance criticism of theories. Either they are trivial or not applicable or even untenable or they refer to problems, which do not exist. There is no reason to expect that those rules, which we could not here examine, are essentially different. Hence applying the methodological rules of critical rationalism in empirical sciences seems out of the question