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A testable prediction doesn't require an experiment. Observational science is full of falsifiable predictions, just predictions that can't be tested without mor
by tripletao 8y ago
A testable prediction doesn't require an experiment. Observational science is full of falsifiable predictions, just predictions that can't be tested without more time elapsed, more money spent, etc.--"that star in the Little Dipper will always appear stationary, with all the other stars rotating around it", "the carnivores we find in future will have shorter intestines than the herbivores", "no one will discover a language without subordinate clauses", etc.
- aldoushuxley001 8y agoWhat about systems of classification, like that animal is a zebra because it has x,y,z features? There's little to be tested there, but it is enormously useful and very foundational to science.
- tripletao 8y agoI'd see classification more as a means of organizing scientific knowledge, and less as scientific knowledge itself. (Like, the question of whether a result belongs to algebra or number theory isn't math. Those are just labels that we assign in the way we think we makes the body of knowledge most understandable.) A classification is often somewhat arbitrary--a biologist and a furrier might classify rodents differently, and both have the most useful system for their respective work. Though if you specify the basis for your classification, then I think the classification itself can become a testable prediction. You might have a category for "animals with features X and Y", because you've only ever found animals with both. This is implicitly the testable prediction that those two features will occur together. If you found a black-and-white-striped horse-shaped carnivore, then the biologists would surely consider something to have been falsified...