👎 Falsifiability¶
Estimated time to read: 7 minutes
I don't consider myself well-versed in philosophy, but I do have an internet connection. That's practically the same thing, right?
What is it?¶
A theory or hypothesis is falsifiable (or refutable) if it can be logically contradicted by an empirical test.
— Falsifiability, Wikipedia; See also: Law of Falsifiability, Philosophy Terms
Dragon in my Garage¶
Suppose . . . I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon.
"Where's the dragon?" you ask.
"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
— The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan, 1995. Copied from RationalWiki
Teapot¶
If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
Why is it important?¶
If a claim can be refuted, or proven "false", it carries more value. As Sagan described in the conclusion of his thoughts quoted above, "what's the difference between [an intangible] dragon and no dragon at all?" A claim carries more weight if it could theoretically be proven false. If there's a failure criteria that exists, but is not met, that lends credence toward proof.
If the contents of the Book of Abraham were found in scrolls found in a sarcophagus sold to Joseph Smith, that's a big deal. The idea that Joseph acquired those and accurately translated them to uncover more prophetic teachings is a significant claim. Some, but not all, of the extant documents still exist and can be examined by independent third parties. Since we have the source documents, this is a falsifiable claim. An independent examination could go one of two ways:
- Joseph Smith nailed that translation! For him to happen upon those scrolls and translate them accurately is nothing short of divine intervention, and those resultant teachings prove Mormonism to be true.
- The Book of Abraham has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of those scrolls, which modern scholars can reliably, accurately, demonstrably translate. This calls into question other claims that the LDS church made.
Perhaps there's room for middle ground between those two outcomes? The significance to focus on here is the idea that the claim can be verifiably true, or verifiably false.
The Book of Mormon was translated from golden plates, preserved by Moroni. You'll just have to take Joseph's word that the plates existed, since you're not allowed to see them. Even if you had, it's written in a language no one else can read, also doesn't exist anywhere else so no one else could read it. There's a testimony of three and also eight witnesses, and they saw it. Maybe.
Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus. No one else was there, but it's an event of significant impact and consequence. Despite how world-changing this was, Joseph didn't write it down for 14 years (oops 🤪). Definitely happened, though.
Moving goalposts¶
If you change the criteria of verifying a claim, anything can be true!
You want to examine the golden plates containing the original Book of Mormon text? The plates are gone now, so you can't do any carbon dating, chemical analysis, linguistic study of this extraordinary language or anthropological examination of the only bit of hard evidence that might have existed. Also they were written in reformed Egyptian, which totally exists— not in Hebrew, which could be cross-examined.
You're upset that the Book of Abraham scrolls don't appear to have anything to do with Abraham? Well, there were other scrolls in the set, and those ones were written by Abraham. Or maybe none of it was a direct translation, and the funerary texts for a pedestrian regular guy acted as a catalyst for Joseph to receive the scripture about Abraham through revelation. Revealed to be a translation written by his own hand. It's fine.
The Garden of Eden was in Jackson County Missouri? Well, the garden was geographically small, secretive, and it disappeared to test our faith. No way to prove that it wasn't in Missouri, so it has to be true. I could just as easily claim that it was in Muddy Fork, Arkansas, and you would have no recourse against me, other than I didn't start a church 200 years ago.
A global flood happened during Noah's prophetic leadership? Well, it wasn't actually global, and... uh... counter-evidence is just there to test our faith.
Do you see the problem here? Nothing can prove these claims as false. It tautologically cannot fail, because there's no measurable proof for nor against it. Were I to claim that water boils at 100C at sea level and 80C at 1500m altitude, that is a falsifiable claim. Someone who lives at that altitude could measure the temperature of water when it boils and demonstrate that, while altitude does have an impact on water's boiling point, it's closer to 95C. My claim is falsified. It can be tested, there's a criteria of the claim being true, and also a criteria for it to be false.
Claims by LDS leadership¶
Have LDS church leaders made falsifiable claims that turned out false? I'll add more as I find them, but the first that comes to mind is Joseph Smith making prophecies mortal, imperfect speculations about Jesus Christ's second coming.