Legit question.
Here are the 6 Criteria you need to know in order to determine whether a theory is scientific or not.
- We have to accept that searching for confirmations of our theory is actually really easy… too easy.
- Confirmations should only be considered scientific if it is the result of a risky prediction, or a hypothesis that was meant to refute the theory, but instead confirmed it.
- Every good scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
- A theory which cannot be refuted or is irrefutable is not scientific.
- Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify or refute it, not confirm it.
- No ad hoc explanations of a theory to escape falsifying evidence. We can’t reinterpret our theory in such a way that it escapes refutation.
This list was created by philosopher Karl Popper.
Citations:
Popper, Karl Raimund. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge by Karl R. Popper. Routledge, 2002.
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