Falsifiability of scientific theory

[dennisgorelik]

I was surprised today that very few people understand what falsifiability means and how to apply that useful evaluation tool.

Of course I knew pretty well, that an average person has no idea about what Popper's criteria of falsifiability is.
But most of my online friends do not understand what "Falsifiability" means either.

It is a pity, because Falsifiability criteria - is a very powerful tool that allows to quickly separate potentially useful theories from pseudo-scientific scam.

Hopefully my friends understand better what testability is (the meaning of "testability" and "falsifiability" overlaps a lot).

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

It was pretty much a discovery to me. But know I'm convinced; all this is about "natural sciences" and their theories. It does not cover mathematical theories.

[dennisgorelik]

> It does not cover mathematical theories.

Since useful math theories serve natural sciences, then these math theories can be evaluated as a part of the overall package together with natural sciences theories.

There could be some math theories that are not used by natural sciences at all (not even indirectly). Such useless math theories are not science. At least not until they are tested directly or indirectly in the real world.

[juan_gandhi]

It's just nonsense what you are saying here. You don't even know what mathematical theories are. No clue. And I don't think you'll understand it if you read about it. Just skip it, it's not your area.

[dennisgorelik]

Your hypothesis (that I am saying nonsense here) - is not falsifiable.
Therefore it is not scientific.