"Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths"
About this Quote
Popper opens with a provocation: the thing modernity flatters itself for escaping - myth - is precisely where science gets its first traction. “Must begin” is doing heavy lifting. He’s not romanticizing superstition; he’s reminding you that inquiry doesn’t start from a clean slate. It starts from stories people already live inside: cosmologies, intuitions, folk explanations, even the elegant “common sense” models that feel too obvious to question. Those are myths in Popper’s sense: not necessarily false, but insulated, taken-for-granted frameworks.
The second half is the scalpel. Science isn’t defined by having fewer myths; it’s defined by a posture toward them. “Criticism” signals Popper’s core commitment to fallibilism: knowledge advances by attempting to break its own narratives, not by polishing them into dogma. The subtext is a warning shot at two targets. One is naïve positivism, the fantasy that observation alone can generate theory. Popper insists you need a conjecture - a myth-like starting point - before you even know what to look for. The other is ideologies that cosplay as science by refusing risk, building systems that can explain everything and therefore can be refuted by nothing.
Historically, this lands as mid-century Europe’s hard-earned skepticism. Popper, having watched totalizing political myths turn lethal, recasts the scientific attitude as a civic ethic: tell your best story, then invite the most ruthless objections. That’s not cynicism; it’s an operating system for staying sane.
The second half is the scalpel. Science isn’t defined by having fewer myths; it’s defined by a posture toward them. “Criticism” signals Popper’s core commitment to fallibilism: knowledge advances by attempting to break its own narratives, not by polishing them into dogma. The subtext is a warning shot at two targets. One is naïve positivism, the fantasy that observation alone can generate theory. Popper insists you need a conjecture - a myth-like starting point - before you even know what to look for. The other is ideologies that cosplay as science by refusing risk, building systems that can explain everything and therefore can be refuted by nothing.
Historically, this lands as mid-century Europe’s hard-earned skepticism. Popper, having watched totalizing political myths turn lethal, recasts the scientific attitude as a civic ethic: tell your best story, then invite the most ruthless objections. That’s not cynicism; it’s an operating system for staying sane.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: Philosophy of Science: A Personal Report (Karl Popper, 1957)
Evidence: Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices. (pp. 182–183). Primary source publication appears to be Popper’s essay “Philosophy of Science: A Personal Report” published in 1957 in the edited symposium volume British Philosophy in the Mid-Century: A Cambridge Symposium (edited by C. A. Mace). Multiple scholarly bibliographic records describe this chapter and its page range (pp. 155–191 for the essay; the specific quote is indexed at pp. 182–183). The same passage was later reprinted (with slight context differences) as “Science: Conjectures and Refutations” in Popper’s 1963 book Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (often cited as ch. 1). Because I could not access a scanned page image of the 1957 volume in the open web results, I’m relying on high-quality bibliographic metadata for the pinpoint pages and on widely repeated verbatim text of the sentence; hence confidence is medium rather than high. Supporting bibliographic evidence: PhilPapers record for the chapter (pp. 182–83) and Cambridge/Core secondary scholarship noting the 1957 publication and later reprint. The book-level publication info is also corroborated by national library catalog records. Other candidates (1) Thinking Through Myths (Kevin Schilbrack, 2003) compilation95.0% ... Karl Popper , he asserts that religious explanations operate in a " closed " society , whereas scientific ... sci... |
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Popper, Karl. (2026, February 22). Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/science-must-begin-with-myths-and-with-the-103412/
Chicago Style
Popper, Karl. "Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths." FixQuotes. February 22, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/science-must-begin-with-myths-and-with-the-103412/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths." FixQuotes, 22 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/science-must-begin-with-myths-and-with-the-103412/. Accessed 9 Mar. 2026.
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