Why Non-Falsifiable Beliefs Are Vacuous

[image error]The observation of a black swan falsifies the hypothesis “All swans are white”.

In a recent post, Professor Darrell Arnold introduced the idea of a non-falsifiable belief or hypothesis. I would like to briefly and simply explain this important concept.

Here is a simple way to understand falsifiability. Suppose you say “It’s raining.” I then point out that cars aren’t using their wipers; people aren’t using their umbrellas; there are no puddles on the ground; nothing is wet; we see no rain; etc. You respond “Well it’s invisible rain that doesn’t create puddles or make things wet.” I then tell you that I have a special rain detector to detect invisible rain and it shows no invisible rain in the area. You respond by saying “well, my kind of rain can’t be detected even by such rain detectors.”

This is an example of a non-falsifiable hypothesis. No matter what the evidence I produce you claim that it’s still raining. Not only is this absurd and delusional but note something else. Your claim is essentially empty or vacuous.

You aren’t really saying anything when you say it’s raining. After all, what’s the difference between your idea of “it’s raining” and no rain at all? What we mean by the phrase “it’s raining” is that we see water falling from the sky, things get wet, puddles are created, etc. If you say it’s raining doesn’t mean any of these things then again, what’s the difference between your rain and no rain at all? Of course, there is none. What you are saying is totally empty.

So if a hypothesis is in principle incapable of being falsified—no matter what evidence I produce that it is—then the hypothesis or belief is just vacuous nonsense.

Let me give a different kind of example to make the same point. Suppose I believe bread rises in ovens because of the color of ovens. That may be a stupid hypothesis but it’s not empty; it can be falsified. All I have to do is put the bread in different color ovens and see if it rises or not. If it rises in different color ovens then I know the color of the oven has nothing to do with the bread rising. The “oven color” hypothesis is falsifiable.

On the other hand, if you say invisible gremlins cause bread to rise and no matter what evidence I produce you continue to insist on the “gremlin hypothesis” then your hypothesis is empty.

Now if I tell you its yeast that causes bread to rise and I put yeast in the bread and the bread rises and take it out and the bread doesn’t rise and I do this over and over a million times then I have given you lots of evidence to support my “yeast hypothesis.” Now, it’s always possible it’s not the yeast but I have provided overwhelming evidence for the yeast hypothesis that a rational person would accept even if we couldn’t be 100% certain. But if you still claim invisible gremlins cause bread to rise after all this evidence then what you are saying is just nonsense.

I’ll leave it to the reader to consider the implications of all this for beliefs in gods, devils, angels, miracles, the power of prayer, etc. If you believe in such things, are your beliefs falsifiable? Would you allow anything (gratuitous evil for example) to falsify your beliefs? If not, then your beliefs in such things are empty or vacuous. Believing in invisible gods, devils or angels may be just like believing in invisible rain or invisible gremlins. Such beliefs are not just false but essentially meaningless.

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Here is a link to a more detailed and technical explanation of falsifiable and non-falsifiable beliefs or hypotheses.