Quotes About Testability

Testability is now generally accepted as the defining characteristic of the scientific method. Popper called it the 'criterion of demarcation' between science and non-science.

In science, if an idea is not falsifiable, it is not that it is wrong, it is that we cannot determine if it is wrong, and thus it is not even wrong.

I can assure you that no string theorist would be interested in working on string theory if it were somehow permanently beyond testability. That would no longer be doing science.

Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testabilty: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.

In the technology value stream, we optimize for downstream work centers by designing for operations, where operational non-functional requirements (e.g., architecture, performance, stability, testability, configurability, and security) are prioritized as highly as user features.

Indeed, one of the findings in the 2015 State of DevOps Report validated that the age of the application was not a significant predictor of performance; instead, what predicted performance was whether the application was architected (or could be re-architected) for testability and deployability.

Finally, and most importantly, we must be concerned about the implications of multiverse theories for the future development of science itself. The multiverse theorists know that they are on weak ground regarding the Testability Principle, and rather than admit that their theories are not science, they argue instead that the rules of science must be adapted to accommodate this kind of metaphysical speculation. They want to change the very definition of science. This is a very slippery slope.