Yeah, the 'help' was a futile attempt to close the open italics tag. Didn't work, obviously.

Don't know if that'll solve matters, just trying. This does seem very Popperian - in a bad way, in that it's an oversimplified approach to theory-formation. What do you think about Kuhn, who finds this kind of reinforcement in normal, productive science - but still allows a distinction between evidence-based science and entirely circular nonscience? What about the idea that we have 'rings' of beliefs, and will sacrifice any number of 'outer-ring' theory detail to preserve our core beliefs?