Sir Karl Raimund Popper

Popper, Sir Karl Raimund (1902–94), Austrian-born English philosopher, best known for his theory of falsification in the philosophy of science. Popper contends that scientific theories are never more than provisionally adopted and remain acceptable only as long as scientists are devising new experiments to test (falsify) them. He attacks the doctrine of historicism (presuming to understand phenomena entirely through their development) in The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1957).

See also: Philosophy.