Looking for a Black Swan
Induction, for Popper, is simply logically invalid, since you cannot
infer that all swans are white merely from having observed that all the
ones you have come across are; and anyway induction is not actually
used by scientists. The best we can say of a theory is that it has not
(yet) been refuted. Thus there is no room for dogmatism in science;
modesty is the only sensible attitude. Science consists of conjectures
that have not been rejected, not of accepted facts derived from
observation of the world.
(from Looking for a Black Swan, by Colin McGinn, NYR, 11/21/2002)
