Falsifiability

The framing of claims such that tests can be constructed which, if indeed the claims are false, would show the claims to be false or the extent to which an hypothesis, measure, or theory, etc., is framed so that it can be subjected to empirical investigation and is open to refutation by such investigations.

†Falsification

The act or process of making attempts to demonstrate that something, for example, a concept, a claim, or an hypothesis, is not true or is incorrect – also, an instance in which such an attempt at refutation is successful. If evidence falsifies an hypothesis, this means the evidence rules it out or shows the hypothesis is not true. Sustaining a charge of logical inconsistency will also falsify a concept.

Relevant considerations include:

 

1.	the observation that in the absence of efforts to moderate or constrict the tendency, actors will ordinarily display a bias towards looking for confirmations rather than disconfirmations;
2.	confirmations should be treated as having substantive value only if they result from ‘risky’ predictions, for example, a test which a false hypothesis will not pass;
3.	‘good’ scientific hypotheses involve prohibitions, that is, they specify that certain things are forbidden from happening, the more that an hypothesis forbids – the clearer will be any indication of validity or applicability;
4.	an hypothesis which cannot be refuted by any conceivable event fails to be a scientific hypothesis;
5.	for a test of an hypothesis to be scientific it must involve a genuine attempt (or attempts) to show the hypothesis to be false – the more exposed to refutation our hypothesis is, the better;
6.	confirming evidence should only legitimately count for an hypothesis if it is the result of such full-blooded, yet unsuccessful, attempts to falsify the hypothesis;
7.	endeavours to ‘rescue’ an hypothesis by introducing ad hoc assumptions, or worse still, reinterpreting and recasting the hypothesis in non-falsifiable terms may well save the hypothesis, but only at the cost of jeopardizing or even destroying its scientific character.

(see also: Test, Testability, non-falsifiable)

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