Originally Posted by Nereid

There's a very important distinction that has been bubbling along through many posts in this thread, but not once (I feel) brought clearly into the open:

"falsifiable", as in "{hypothesis Y} is falsifiable" vs "falsified", as in "{hypothesis Y} has been falsified (by observations {X})".

The last ~30 years of physics history (at least that part of it that has to do with String Theory anyway) notwithstanding, a good test of whether a hypothesis is scientific or not is whether it is falsifiable, at least in principle; for example, could you do an experiment (in principle) the results from which could rule out the hypothesis? If so, then you're doing science (at least in this regard). Now, historically, whether this rather bland test had to wait for Popper to come along and give it a name, or whether it was an essential part of the working life of just about every scientist anyway (well before Popper was born to boot), may be an interesting question ... but it's not what I myself am particularly interested in.

I started the thread with the intent of exploring the other part - "falsified".