The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[Silver]

I want to make sure you are clear on what falsification means before we go any further.

A proposition is unfalsifiable when it predicts every possibly outcome of an experiment. The proposition that every light is on, will be falsified by a light that is off. This is true regardless of how hard it is for you to search every light or of every light indeed being on.

The only way for this proposition to be unfalsifiable is if it predicts both off-ness and on-ness. Say, if fairies exist then every light will be on; but if a light is not it's because the fairies turned it off. We cannot test whether fairies exist, because every outcome of the test (lights being on or off) is being predicted.

I get the feeling you've misled us.

In the philosophy of science, falsifiability or refutability is the capacity for a statement, theory or hypothesis to be contradicted by evidence. For example, the statement "All swans are white" is falsifiable because one can observe that black swans exist.