── ── Mental model
Falsifiability
A meaningful empirical claim must specify what observations would refute it. Claims that resist all possible refutation are not science — they are unfalsifiable belief. Formalized by Karl Popper (1934): science progresses not by accumulating confirmations but by surviving rigorous attempts at falsification. More-specific claims are more falsifiable; ad-hoc modifications that explain away failures destroy a claim's scientific status.
Run Falsifiability on a real problem
Bring something you're actually deciding — free, in the browser.
How it works
Step 1 — State the claim: claim / who asserts it / decision dependent on it / current evidential basis.
Step 2 — Test whether empirical: claim about how the world works (empirical) or values/aesthetics (non-empirical)? If non-empirical, stop here.
Step 3 — Specify falsification conditions: complete "This claim would be falsified if I observed: ___" — specific, observable, time-bounded. If you cannot complete it, the claim is not falsifiable as stated.
When to use it
- user says 'what would prove this wrong', 'how do we know if our strategy is working', 'what would change your mind', 'this claim feels unfalsifiable', or is designing a hypothesis/experiment/investment thesis that needs to be made testable
When not to use it
When the decision is routine and reversible, applying a formal method costs more than it returns.
Worked example
Separating Falsifiable from Unfalsifiable AI Claims (2024–2026)
Between 2024 and 2026, public discourse around large AI models filled with two very different kinds of statement. Some were slogans — "AGI is near," "the model truly understands," "scaling will just keep working" — and some were concrete, dated predictions with numbers attached. Popper's criterion sorts them cleanly: a claim is empirical knowledge only if you can say in advance what observation would prove it wrong. This walkthrough runs the anchor claims through the falsifiability skill's own six-step Process.
Install this skill (free, MIT)
npx skills add deciqAI/knowledge-skillsUseful? Star the repo — stars help other builders find it.
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