Talk:Testability

Defining a 'test'
A "test" in systems engineering is by any combination of four possible accepted methods:
 * Inspection (It's supposed to be green, and it looks green to me!)
 * Analysis (includes modeling and simulation or other accepted mathematical or analytic methods)
 * Test (control stimulus and observation of expected response)
 * Observation (use in a live environment and based on approval of subject matter experts)

In no way is any of this considered a proof. Its simply a matter of formal acceptance. In engineering, there is no test that can eliminate all possible defects.--71.245.164.83 (talk) 02:06, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Popper, Kuhn, etc.
Testability is a key concept in philosophy of science. As I remembered it, my overly simplistic version of the story went like this: before Popper, scientists tried to verify theories. Popper proved that there's no such thing. For example, if you have a sequence of a million numbers, from 1 to a million, and you want to figure out what the next number is, it can't be done, since an infinite number of mathematical formulas could generate that sequence but where the next number would not be a million and one. To make a long story short, Popper introduced the concept of falsifiability. Then Kuhn came along and said it's not that simple, that nobody deliberately sets out to falsify established theories. And then, or so I thought, he introduced the term "testable." However, after trying to look it up The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, I couldn't find it. However, I think I still have the overall chronology right. Back in the 60s and 70s, people were still arguing about Popper and "falsifable" the important new word entering the vocabulary of science. By the 1990s one enountered the word "falsifiable" a lot less and the word "testable" a lot more.

So who introduced the concept of testability to philosophy of science? Or maybe not who invented the idea, but who was responsible to pushing it to the forefront? Once we find out, we can begin to supply this article with some references. Zyxwv99 (talk) 19:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I differ in your WORD meanings
"Testability, a property applying to an empirical hypothesis, involves two components: (1) the logical property that is variously described as contingency, defeasibility, or falsifiability, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible, and (2) the practical feasibility of observing a reproducible series of such counterexamples if they do exist. In short, a hypothesis is testable if there is some real hope of deciding whether it is true or false of real experience. Upon this property of its constituent hypotheses rests the ability to decide whether a theory can be supported or falsified by the data of actual experience. If hypotheses are tested, initial results may also be label(l)ed inconclusive." General concensus2012 (talk) 19:18, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Contrary or specifically, falsifiability, has the root word from "falsifiable" and "false". Meaning that it can be made or proven to be false. And has a general meaning in that, it can be a false/falsifiable belief, or falsifiable by instrumentation. This means it can be studied by either the Scientific Methods or by logic analysis.

Testability is the specific definition from root words of a "test" and "testable". And of what can be testable or not. Something can be or cannot be testable solely by instrumentation and scientific observation by the senses. Testability does not denote persee anything to do with it being false, falsifiable or falsifiability, by the mere word root definition. A test is a test and specific. A test does not mean in its word roots that it can be falsifiable.

What can be falsifiable is hence, a test or a logic statement or belief. And thus has these two components. It is not Testability that has these two components.

It is for wikipedia to decide over this. General concensus2012 (talk) 19:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I completely agree! Back from forceful free will evolutionary exile! GeorgeFThomson (talk) 06:04, 22 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the definition of testability currently used in this article is a slight broadening of falsifiability as described, for example, in: But I imagine that this definition of testability does not encompass other meanings in engineering, as others have complained above. Biogeographist (talk) 19:49, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Likely plagiarism of this article in Robert G. Bednarik's 2011 book The Human Condition
There is likely plagiarism of this article in Robert G. Bednarik's 2011 book The Human Condition. Text nearly identical to the current start of this article (and which has been in the article since early 2006) appears on page 4 of Bedarnik's book as follows: "... testability ... involving two components: first, the logical property that is variously described as contingency, defeasibility, or falsifiability (which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible); and second, the practical feasibility of observing a reproducible series of such counterexamples if they do exist. Thus, a hypothesis is testable if there is some real hope of deciding whether it is true or false of real experience."

Bedarnik doesn't cite Wikipedia, as he should have. To me this appears to be another example of academics essentially copying from Wikipedia but not acknowledging the source. I found Bedarnik's passage while looking for citations to add to this article, and I thought I should note it here in case anyone else, like me, mistakenly thinks at first that Wikipedia is violating Bedarnik's copyright, when the evidence shows that it was likely Bedarnik who copied without acknowledgment from Wikipedia, in violation of the CC BY-SA 3.0 License. Biogeographist (talk) 19:49, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Additions
Hello! I added a few paragraphs in a new section titled "Verification and falsification." Please evaluate and improve as you see fit! Ainsmcf (talk) 04:37, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I removed your addition. It's not true that verificationism was established by Ayer; the Vienna Circle had worked on it before him, building on the work of earlier positivists. The summary of Popper is not as precise as it should be either, and there is some unattributed editorializing: e.g., it "works well as a standard for accepting scientific theories". Biogeographist (talk) 18:19, 20 March 2021 (UTC)