Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge is a book written by philosopher Karl Popper. Published in 1936 by Routledge, this book is a collection of his lectures and papers that summarised his thoughts on the philosophy of science. Popper suggested that all scientific theories are by nature conjectures and inherently fallible, and that refutation to old theory is the paramount process of scientific discovery. Should any new theory survive more of such refutations, it would have a higher verisimilitude and therefore, Popper concluded, closer to truth. Routledge is an imprint for books in the humanities part of the Taylor & Francis Group, which also has Brunner-Routledge, RoutledgeCurzon and RoutledgeFalmer divisions. ... Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, including the formal sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences. ... Verisimilitude, in literature, is how fully the characters and actions in a work of fiction conform to our sense of reality. ...
Moreover, by making their interpretations and prophecies sufficiently vague they were able to explain away anything that might have been a refutation of the theory had the theory and the prophecies been more precise.
(2) The actual procedure of science is to operate with conjectures: to jump to conclusions-often after one single observation (as noticed for example by Hume and Born).
Hume showed that it is not possible to infer a theory from observation statements; but this does not affect the possibility of refuting a theory by observation statements.
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