Method
Falsification Testing
Classification
- Method family
- empirical
- Domains
- Epistemology , Philosophy of Science
Overview
Falsification testing derives a risky prediction from a theory and looks for the observation that would refute it, treating survival of serious attempts at refutation as the only support a theory can earn.
Purpose. The method replaces the search for confirming instances with the search for a refuting one, so that a theory's content is measured by what it forbids. It is a procedure for testing, not a theory of meaning: a claim that fails the test is not thereby meaningless. The asymmetry it relies on is logical rather than practical — a surviving theory is corroborated rather than proved, and a failed test never refutes a theory on its own either, since what is tested is always the theory together with its auxiliary assumptions.
Characteristic operations
- State the theory so it forbids something: Formulate the claim precisely enough that some observable outcome is ruled out.
- Derive a risky prediction: Identify an outcome the theory requires but that is improbable on background knowledge alone, so the theory is exposed if it is wrong.
- Seek the refuting observation: Design the severest test available rather than collecting agreeable examples.
- Corroborate or abandon: Treat survival as provisional standing, and treat a refutation as grounds to revise or drop the theory rather than to rescue it with an ad hoc amendment.
Used by traditions
Applied to questions
References
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Karl Popper, §3
- Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), ch. 1 §6 and ch. 4