Falsification

Full Title or Meme

• A processes to test hypothesis. If successful the hypothesis is not true.

Context

• Émilie du Châtelet, died 1749, insisted that, though no number of positive affirmations can establish a theory, one Falsification can disprove it. "A single experiment is not enough to confirm a hypothesis, but one alone is sufficient to reject it."
• Hermann von Helmholtz
• JBS Haldane expressed an early version.

  If the mathematician doubts the validity of an argument which proves the convergence of an infinite series satisfying a given criterion, he constructs a series which obeys the criterion but does not converge. Such tests are conclusive, and have shown up the inaccuracy of some trains of reasoning which were at first sight very convincing.

• Popper

Literature

• The Black Swan