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Nicole Rust /
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2024-06-09 15:43:51

Nicole Rust on Nostr: Fact check gem of the day: On Karl Popper's contribution to neurotransmission In the ...

Fact check gem of the day: On Karl Popper's contribution to neurotransmission

In the early 1950s, neuroscientists were arguing about whether neurons communicate with one another via electricity (sparks) or chemical neurotransmissions (soups). It was known as "The War of the Soups and the Sparks" (Big reveal: It's mostly soups).

The experiment that put the debate to rest (at least for the spinal cord) was performed in 1950 by John Eccles and colleagues. In that experiment, they demonstrated that their own hypothesis (sparks) was *wrong*.

What inspired them to do a "disproving" experiment as opposed to the type that would gather support for their favorite theory? In 1944, Eccles met Karl Popper, and they began corresponding. Per one historian,

"The association with Popper made Eccles reformulate his experimental questions in accord with Popper’s philosophy that apparent ‘‘authentication” is no proof at all. It is only the clear-cut ‘‘falsification” of a theory that carried intellectual weight."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18617413/
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