Falsifiability
Falsifiability or
refutability of a statement, hypothesis, or theory is an inherent possibility to prove it to be false. A statement is called
falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument which proves the statement in question to be false. In this sense,
falsify is synonymous with
nullify, meaning not "to commit fraud" but "show to be false". Some philosophers argue that science must be falsifiable. For example, by the problem of induction, no number of confirming observations can verify a universal generalization, such as
All swans are white, yet it is logically possible to falsify it by observing a single black swan. Thus, the term
falsifiability is sometimes synonymous to
testability. Some statements, such as
It will be raining here in one million years, are falsifiable in principle, but not in practice. The concern with falsifiability gained attention by way of philosopher of science Karl Popper's scientific epistemology "falsificationism".