Error-Correction

Trying to rely on the sheer good luck of avoiding bad outcomes indefinitely would simply guarantee that we would eventually fail without the means of recovering. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

Its quest for good explanations corrects the errors, allows for the biases and misleading perspectives, and fills in the gaps. — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

Could it be that the moral imperative not to destroy the means of correcting mistakes is the only moral imperative? — David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform The World

What are the best sources of our knowledge – the most reliable ones, those which will not lead us into error, and those to which we can and must turn, in case of doubt, as the last court of appeal?’ I propose to assume, instead, that no such ideal sources exist – no more than ideal rulers – and that all ‘sources’ are liable to lead us into error at times. And I propose to replace, therefore, the question of the sources of our knowledge by the entirely different question: ‘How can we hope to detect and eliminate error?’ — Karl Popper, Knowledge without Authority (1960)