[From English falsify: to prove or show to be false based on evidence or testimony; derived from Latin falsus: false.]
(epistemology) The view, first expounded by Karl Popper (1902-1994), that a scientific theory has the potential to be true only if it describes the types of evidence that could prove it false. According to Popper, "a theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific" and thus "the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability."