falsifiable

Necessity to strengthen laws to make them falsifiable

Grover Maxwell discussed statements such as "All men are mortal." This is not falsifiable, because it does not matter how old a man is, he might die next year. Maxwell said that this statement is nevertheless useful, because it is often corroborated. He coined the term "corroboration without demarcation". Popper's view is that it is indeed useful, because he considers that metaphysical statements can be useful, but also because it is indirectly corroborated by its agreement with the falsifiable law "All men die before the age of 150." For Popper, if no such falsifiable law exists, then the metaphysical law is less useful, because it is not indirectly corroborated by a stronger law, a law that prohibits more. This kind of non-falsifiable statements in science was noticed by Carnap as early as 1937.