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"I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection."

-- Dr Karl Popper (Dialectica, vol. 32, no. 3-4, 1978, pp. 339-355).

His initial argumentation is compelling. His later changes are more in the nature of opinions and not based on the specifics he detailed previously.

I also find this--"My recantation"--AN UNUSUAL WAY FOR A PHILOSOPHER OF SCIENCE TO DESCRIBE HIS THINKING. More like a statement made in the middle ages to avoid a charge of heresy. He was teaching at The London School of Economics (?)and must have stirred considerable academic controversy.

He never did "recant" his opinions on psychoanalysis or scientific socialism. I don't think he opined on Scientology and Thetans but then I could be wrong. Scientology may some day recant as well. It does have "science" in its name and this might obviate the current assumption of metaphysical content. We will have to get someone to "recant" and then we will be certain we have a science and not a religion.

Being familiar with psychoanalysis helps me to understand "recant." After all Wittgenstein allegedly rescued psychoanalsyis by: "A more important question lies at the root of the two above: How can Wittgenstein call Freud's therapeutic method a mythology and acknowledge that his own technique is also a mythology in a similar sense -- for neither are based in science -- yet that both his and Freud's views either produce knowledge or clarify the nature of certain problems. In other words, how can Freud's therapeutic methodology, if it isn't backed by science, produce knowledge?"