Path · Seed idea · last reconsidered September 8, 2026

How a Field Decides

Two accounts of what makes a claim scientific, one of which refutes the other, and what is left to do afterwards.

Territories
Knowing
Reading time
About 13 minutes

Popper says a theory must forbid something. Kuhn says no working scientist treats it that way. This path puts the two against each other and then asks what a person is supposed to do on a Tuesday.

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Steps

  1. 01startWhat counts as evidence?Start with the question every field answers silently.
  2. 02buildingFalsifiability demarcates sciencePopper's answer, and the cleanest one.
  3. 03turnNormal science does not test its frameKuhn's history, which says nobody actually works that way.
  4. 04buildingWhat would make me wrong?The personal version of Popper's criterion, which survives Kuhn's objection.
  5. 05destinationWhere does reality enter the loop?End on the practical question: where does something outside the process get to object?