3 ms·
Falsifiablity is generally treated more like a philosophical idea than a practical concern. Consider how relativity made several real predictions about things
by sqeaky 10y ago
Falsifiablity is generally treated more like a philosophical idea than a practical concern.
Consider how relativity made several real predictions about things in the universe, but no human was yet able to test them. In principle relativity was considered falsifiable we just couldn't test it yet. When the 1918 eclipse came about and we could measure the deviation of light from it expected course by traveling through the gravity well of the sun, we had a real test and it was relatively inexpensive and easy compared to to some scientific endeavors (it was still not easy for the teams involved but it was no large hadron collider).
This lets us permanently discard ideas that are in principle not falsifiable. These ideas are categorically useless from the perspective of actually understanding the world, like capricious invisible wish granting unicorns that live in my garage or any typical conception of god.