Interesting quote, since my mind immediately went to Critical theory, one of the schools of philosophy probably targetted by Popper.
Over the last 200 years, the definition of science has been deliberately narrowed down a lot, mainly to combat pseudo-science and misinformation, but I think partially also to create an in-circle of academics. There are few good definitions of science, and usually they are a bit self-contradictory or insufficient to capture the underlying goal of science; the building of a corpus of verified knowledge. Falsification is a very high standard, that cannot always be applied, but it is still a good first test to filter out possible bullshit.
In deductive studies (formal sciences but also often in other fields) we need to have acceptable axioms, and rigorous deductions from these axioms. In inductive studies, you need good data and valid methods to derive meaning from that data. A lot of research actually falls somewhere in-between, and we wouldn't want to outright dismiss it, as many subjects would be too elusive to study at all, but we still have a vested interest in understanding them.
A lot of research, and I would count psycho-analysis in there for the most part, kind of walks the line between pseudo-science and proper deductive or inductive studies. These fields definetely build a corpus of knowledge, which often turns out to be true, but there are fewer good measures of filtering the bullshit from the nuggets of truth, and that substantially devalues the field. The risk, not exclusive but especially pronounced, is that acceptance of research becomes more a measure of eloquence than depth of enquiry.
And fields can be collectively wrong, even in the more rigorous fields that lend themselves to proper testing or deductive reasoning: You mention Newtonian Physics, but there are too many examples to enumerate: Quantum superposition was extremely controversial when first proposed, and poor Lobachevsky was ruthlessly mocked for his perfectly valid development of hyperbolic geometry.
IMO, modern psychology “walks the line between pseudo-science and proper deductive or inductive studies”. Psychoanalysis at best sometimes stumbles in the right direction.
Over the last 200 years, the definition of science has been deliberately narrowed down a lot, mainly to combat pseudo-science and misinformation, but I think partially also to create an in-circle of academics. There are few good definitions of science, and usually they are a bit self-contradictory or insufficient to capture the underlying goal of science; the building of a corpus of verified knowledge. Falsification is a very high standard, that cannot always be applied, but it is still a good first test to filter out possible bullshit.
In deductive studies (formal sciences but also often in other fields) we need to have acceptable axioms, and rigorous deductions from these axioms. In inductive studies, you need good data and valid methods to derive meaning from that data. A lot of research actually falls somewhere in-between, and we wouldn't want to outright dismiss it, as many subjects would be too elusive to study at all, but we still have a vested interest in understanding them.
A lot of research, and I would count psycho-analysis in there for the most part, kind of walks the line between pseudo-science and proper deductive or inductive studies. These fields definetely build a corpus of knowledge, which often turns out to be true, but there are fewer good measures of filtering the bullshit from the nuggets of truth, and that substantially devalues the field. The risk, not exclusive but especially pronounced, is that acceptance of research becomes more a measure of eloquence than depth of enquiry.
And fields can be collectively wrong, even in the more rigorous fields that lend themselves to proper testing or deductive reasoning: You mention Newtonian Physics, but there are too many examples to enumerate: Quantum superposition was extremely controversial when first proposed, and poor Lobachevsky was ruthlessly mocked for his perfectly valid development of hyperbolic geometry.