Falsifiability in scientific methodology and theory

Falsifiability

The scientific method has been around for millennia, and ensures that knowledge derived by this method is objective and as accurate as the circumstances of experimentation allow. The scientific method exists to make sure that other experimenters will be able to repeat and verify results; if results cannot be repeated, than they are considered invalid. In his book the Logic of Scientific Discovery, Karl Raimund Popper examines many aspects of how we attain scientific knowledge, and somewhat revolutionized the way we think about science and knowledge. One of his most profound claims is that the form of all knowledge "must be such that to verify them and to falsify them must be logically possible" (Popper, 1992, 17). This does not mean, of course, that all knowledge must be proven false. Instead, the concept of falsifiability means that there must be a logical way in which any point of knowledge could be proven false, just as there must be a logical way to prove that something could be true. For example, claims of God's existence are not falsifiable; one cannot logically prove that God does not exist (this would be proving a negative, which is a logical impossibility). This, Popper claims, for a point of knowledge to be considered scientifically objective, it must be falsifiable.

When claims are not falsifiable, they cannot be said to be empirical. To put it another way, "the simplest, and best, way to determine if a theory has content is to see whether it can be refuted. If a theory can't be refuted then it implies that it either does a very poor job of explaining, or that the objects of the theory are disconnected from the real world" (Peter, 2007). Because scientific claims must be rooted entirely in logic in order to have any value, it makes sense that they must be logically provable -- and it follows that they must be logically disprovable. This is, at its most basic, and explanation and understanding of the empirical nature of falsifiability.

As important as falsifiability is in the quote-unquote "hard sciences," it is equally important -- perhaps more so, due to their sometimes subjective nature -- in the human sciences. This is especially true of psychology, where theories can be adjusted to fit new facts regarding a patient without questioning the underlying theory being used by the psychologist (Peter, 2007). This approach would make of psychology a pseudoscience; if a psychologist constantly adjusted their application of a theory based on new evidence, rather than changing the theory itself, they would no longer be practicing science using the criterion of falsifiability.

Psychology need not be practiced in this manner, however; "indeed, historians of psychoanalysis have convincingly argued that Freud abandoned his early "seduction theory" because his clinical failures refuted predictions about the therapeutic benefits of recovering repressed memories of early childhood sexual abuse" (McNally, 2003). This is one example of a falsifiable -- indeed, a falsified -- psychological theory. Many aspects of Freudian psychology have raised serious objections since Freud first advanced them, and in this instance the observations did not fit the logic of his seduction theory, so the theory was abandoned. It was logically proven to be incorrect -- or falsified. McNally also points out that falsifiability should in now way be considered the only, or even the primary, indicator of pseudoscience, as many pseudoscientific claims -- such as the belief in a flat Earth -- are logically falsifiable, which might make them seem scientific (McNally, 2003). Thus, psychologists and other practitioners of psychology must make sure that their theories are not only falsifiable, but they also need to make sure that they are built on logical deductions from repeated observations.