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To be fair, that user did say "could be falsified" instead of "has been falsified", but yes, I agree with you here. This is precisely how science works... One starts with a theory, comes up with a singular test that could falsify it (null hypothesis), and sees if the theory withstands (and continues to withstand) that null hypothesis testing. So long as the theory withstands null hypothesis testing, it remains a theory of science. If it fails even a single null hypothesis test, then the theory is utterly destroyed. -- I will point out that, even though many theories are "falsifiable" in the sense that a null hypothesis can indeed be formed, those theories are still (in practice) unfalsifiable because that null hypothesis test is not accessible to us, for example, a time machine to transport people through time...Not quite. To say something has been falsified means it has been shown to be false.
Falsifiable means that if it were false, there is a singular test that could show it.
Very good example of how science actually works... The theory "all swans are white" was a theory of science up until that point, but since that point, that theory was utterly destroyed due to conflicting evidence.Example: “All swans are white.” Inductive reasoning showed this to be true: all swans encountered were white. But the statement was falsifiable in that the discovery of one non-white swan would prove it false. And eventually black swans were discovered in Australia. And the claim was falsified.
Absolutely correct, and another great display of how science actually works. This is a good example of why science doesn't make use of supporting evidence. For every one more white swan that a person ran into, it didn't further legitimize, bless, sanctify, or make holy that swan theory. It simply remained unfalsified.The point is that there was never any way to show that “all swans are white.”
Correct. There was good reason to believe that all swans were white (since there was no conflicting evidence to that theory).Until black swans were found, the idea that all swans are white was perfectly reasonable and rightly accepted as true.
Correct. Here, you have a circular argument. If you would tack on other arguments which stem from that initial circular argument (such as ''you will go to hell if you don't believe in this dragon''), then you would have a religion...On the other hand, “I have an invisible, silent, non-corporeal dragon in my basement” is not falsifiable. If it is false, there is no test possible to show it is false.
Overall, a very good post... I don't come across too many good posts in these parts...