Falsifiability

The concept of falsifiability is central to distinguishing between systems of knowledge and [Page 487]understanding, specifically between scientific theories of understanding the world and those considered nonscientific. The importance of the concept of falsifiability was developed most thoroughly by the philosopher Karl Popper in the treatise Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. Specifically, falsifiability refers to the notion that a theory or statement can be found to be false; for instance, as the result of an empirical test.

Popper sought to distinguish between various means of understanding the world in an effort to determine what constitutes a scientific approach. Prior to his seminal work, merely the empirical nature of scientific investigation was accepted as the criterion that differentiated it from pseudo- or nonscientific research. Popper's observation that many types of research considered nonscientific were also based upon empirical techniques led to dissatisfaction with this conventional explanation. Consequently, several empirically based methods colloquially considered scientific were contrasted in an effort to determine what distinguished science from pseudoscience. Examples chosen by Popper to illustrate the diversity of empirical approaches included physics, astrology, Marxian theories of history, and metaphysical analyses. Each of these epistemic approaches represents a meaningful system of interpreting and understanding the world around us, and has been used earnestly throughout history with varying degrees of perceived validity and success.

Popper used the term line of demarcation to distinguish the characteristics of scientific from nonscientific (pseudoscientific) systems of understanding. What Popper reasoned differentiated the two categories of understanding is that the former could be falsified (or found to be not universally true), whereas the latter was either incapable of being falsified or had been used in such a way that renders falsification unlikely. According to Popper, this usage takes the form of seeking corroboratory evidence to verify the verisimilitude of a particular pseudoscientific theory. For example, with respect to astrology, proponents subjectively interpret events (data) in ways that corroborate their preconceived astrological theories and predictions, rather than attempting to find data that undermine the legitimacy of astrology as an epistemic enterprise.

Popper found similarity between astrologists and those who interpret and make predictions about historical events via Marxian analyses in that both have historically sought to verify rather than falsify their perspectives as a matter of practice. Where a lack of corroboration between reality and theory exists, proponents of both systems reinterpret their theoretical position so as to correspond with empirical observations, essentially undermining the extent to which the theoretical perspective can be falsified. The proponents of both pseudoscientific approaches tacitly accept the manifest truth of their epistemic orientations irrespective of the fact that apparent verisimilitude is contingent upon subjective interpretations of historical events.

Popper rejected the notion that scientific theories were those thought most universally true, given the notion that verifying theories in terms of their correspondence to the truth is a quixotic task requiring omniscience. According to Popper, one cannot predict the extent to which future findings could falsify a theory, and searching for verification of the truth of a given theory ignores this potentiality. Instead of locating the essence of science within a correspondence with truth, Popper found that theories most scientific were those capable of being falsified. This renders all scientific theories tenable at best, in the sense that the most plausible scientific theories are merely those that have yet to be falsified.

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