Falsification

[elas]

On the locked Forum Rules forum

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/49483-moderators%3B-admins%3B-etc/

 

the maths expert Bignose states:

 

Popper's main point is one of falsifiability. Without the ability to falsify an idea, the idea is NOT science. It is story telling.

 

This is not strictly correct, Popper clearly states that non-perturbative theories cannot be falsified; Popper defines ‘non-perturbative' as having no margin of error. Only perturbative theories (i.e.with a mathematical margin of error) can be falsified.

[Mr Skeptic]

If you accept that, to be science, a field must deal with the real world, then things like math and philosophy are not science. While math and philosophy make claims that are proven true, they don't say anything about the real world. But if some theory says something about the real world, it could potentially turn out that something else happens, which would prove the theory wrong. And if this were not the case, it would instead be the case that the theory didn't really make any predictions about the real world. "Hints" and "nice sounding explanations" aren't part of science.

 

Anyhow, that's what falsifiability is about.