Thread: Do Theories Have to be Testable to be Scientific?
View Single Post
  #39   Report Post  
Old 15-07-2003, 07:12 PM
neepy
 
Posts: n/a
Default Do Theories Have to be Testable to be Scientific?
(Richard Alexander) wrote in message . com...
Al Klein wrote in message . ..

[snip]

The definition of "scientific" doesn't include "testable".

I think we should at least settle this question; Can an hypothesis,
theory, principle, claim or statement be scientific if it is not
testable?

Well, it depends on your definition of "science", doesn't it? Popper
used the concept of falsifiability to DEFINE science (actually, to
distinguish between "science" and "pseudoscience"): If you accept
that definition, then (by definition) a hypothesis MUST be falsifiable
to count as scientific. On the other hand, you may want to define
science some other way... but there haven't been any better
definitions I can think of.