Unfalsifiable

An idea is unfalsifiable if no possible observation or argument could refute it. Classical examples include:

• "There's an invisible, untouchable dragon in my garage."
• "The universe was created five minutes ago with apparent age."
• "Whatever evidence you find, my theory predicted it."

CF treats unfalsifiable claims with suspicion:

1. They block error-correction. If nothing can refute them, criticism can't act on them.
2. They hide the goal. Often the real IGC is in the meta-claim ("I'm right no matter what"), which can be refuted.
3. They often smuggle in universal premises that are themselves fallible.

CF, with CR, doesn't say unfalsifiable claims are meaningless — but it does say they're not scientific in the Popperian sense, and they're typically weaker candidates for knowledge status.

"An important form of criticism is scientific testing. Hypotheses which disagree with experiment are wrong." — criticalfallibilism.com