Falsifiable

An idea is falsifiable if some possible observation or argument would refute it. Popper's criterion of science is that scientific claims must be falsifiable.

Examples

• "All swans are white" — falsifiable (a black swan would refute it).
• "There is tea in this cup" — falsifiable (look in the cup).
• "There is a transempirical world" — unfalsifiable by direct observation (though see non-empirical-criticism).

CF's take

CF, with CR, treats falsifiability as a useful but not exclusive criterion:

• A claim can be meaningful without being falsifiable in a narrow empirical sense.
• Mathematical claims can be criticised via non-empirical-criticism.
• A non-scientific claim can still be evaluated by CF — you just specify the IGC.

CF's broader criterion: an idea is evaluable if there is some argument that could refute it for some goal in some context.

"We can tentatively establish that ideas are wrong, but there's no way to establish that ideas are right." — criticalfallibilism.com