“Establishing by observation that there is just one black swan falsifies "all swans are white". This is an unexceptional and undeniable point. However, using it as grounds to support a falsificationist philosophy of science is not as straightforward as it might seem.”
Source: What Is This Thing Called Science? (Third Edition; 1999), Chapter 7, The limitations of falsificationism, p. 87.
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Alan Chalmers17
Australian philosopher of science 1939Related quotes
Giovanni Boccaccio book The Decameron
Leggiadre donne, infra molte bianche colombe aggiugne più di bellezza uno nero corvo, che non farebbe un candido cigno.
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Source: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), Ch. 1 "A Survey of Some Fundamental Problems", Section I: The Problem of Induction http://dieoff.org/page126.htm p. 27
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Section 2, member 3, subsection 14.
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Walter Slezak (1902–1983) actor
That story has since become a classic in operatic lore.
Source: What Time's the Next Swan? (1962), p. 210