How do we know whether a given scientific theory has been proven false? This essay breaks down the logic of falsification and explains why theory falsification is always inconclusive: our evidence can never definitively falsify our theories. This is illustrated first with a trivial example, then a historical example (the Copernican revolution), and then two contemporary examples (the foundations of quantum mechanics and the neuroscience of consciousness). It is argued that the inconclusiveness of theory falsification creates multiple pathways for science: ways science could have evolved differently. This raises the question: how do we know we are taking the most objective pathway, the one that will reveal nature’s secrets in the most efficient way? This paper argues for a novel proposal to help the scientific community take the optimal route. The proposal combines the familiar idea of an adversarial collaboration with a new idea that I call a falsification tree. In an adversarial collaboration, advocates of competing theories try to falsify each other’s theories. The idea of a falsification tree emerges from an analysis of the logic of falsification. Essentially, falsification trees help researchers search many scientific pathways at once to help locate the optimal path.
Kelvin McQueen
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