superunique Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 Hello, all! I seem to be having quite a bit of trouble with talking about falsification... Could anyone help me with this? I really just don't understand it and how it plays into knowledge issues... Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissy Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 All good experiments should be falsifyable. That is to say, that when someone comes up with a theory, someone else should be able to come up with an experiment to disprove your theory. Like saying, "Tomorrow it will be sunny, or it will not be sunny." is always right, so it's not able to be tested. Saying, "Gravity affects all objects." can be tested because there are at least two sides to the theory.Falsifyable doesn't mean the same as false, however, it simply means that the theory has the ability to be proven false. All too often, people create experiments and thesis statements that are non-falsifyable because they are worried about being proven wrong. the point of theories are to get closer to the truth and without falsifyable statements, nothing would be able to be tested and therefore nothing would even be learned.Another point to mention is that falsifyable must be scientific. They can not be opinionated such as, "My favorite color is blue." There is no way to actually test that scientifically, so no way to prove it false.As for it playing into knowledge issues, as I said before, nothing could be tested if nothing was falsifyable. There would be no scientific experiments at all and nothing could be proven true. We would never actually be able to learn anything because most things are learned through experimenting, empirically. When you get rid of the able to create falsifyable statements, you also get rid of the ability to figure anything out empirically; the only thing left would be rationally and personally I believe that you at least need some background knowledge, acquired empirically, to be able to figure anything out rationally.Hope this helps! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jane swiss Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 anyone explain about Karl Popper's theory? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissy Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 Karl Popper's theory on falsification? If so, to define his theory is to define falsification. Because he was the founder of it and the man who coined the term itself. Which is to say, the theory is pretty much stated above. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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