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moridinamael comments on How to provide a simple example to the requirement of falsifiability in the scientific method to a novice audience? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (57)
You have a bucket. You draw out a few red balls, and state that the "theory" is that the bucket contains only red balls. You emphasize that this is a falsifiable theory because it can be completely disproved by drawing out any other color of ball. For dramatic effect, you can proceed to draw out a blue ball.
If you have the opportunity to make it slightly more complicated, you can have another bucket, and state that your hypothesis about this bucket is that it contains 50% red and 50% blue balls. You start drawing out balls, and keep track of the count on a screen or whiteboard. The more balls you draw out, the more obvious it is that the ratio is something more like 90% red, 10% blue. This gives you the opportunity to talk about instances where the theory can't be disproven instantly by a single observation, but the burden of evidence nonetheless accumulates against it over time.
I use something like this in introductory psychology lab classes.
For the initial example (theory = bucket contains only red balls) you can also introduce an unfalsifiable alternative theory, perhaps something like "bucket contains only red balls but the act of observing them may change their colour".
That's not unfalsifiable! Get them out by machine and photograph them before they get looked at. Then when you look at them and they're red, but the photographs are of blue balls, you've nailed it. Observation producing physical effects.
And carry on. As the theories have to squirm to avoid experiments, they'll slowly approach unfalsifiability and become more and more complex / make fewer and fewer predictions.
Except in quantum mechanics, where they end up being really simple and explaining everything, but they make your head break.
bonus: coloured buckets; balls with more than one colour, transparent balls, rubber ducks, empty bucket.