Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Testability

 

The capacity of a theory to yield predictions that can be tested, thereby either refuting the theory, or, more controversially, confirming it. See falsifiability.

Search unanswered questions...
Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics
Wikipedia: Testability
Top

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 labeled inconclusive.

In engineering this refers to the capability of an equipment or system to be tested

See also

Further reading

  • Popper, K. R. (1968) The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London; Hutchinson.

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Philosophy Dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright © 1994, 1996, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Testability" Read more