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Have studied recently some about philosophical views of probability and ran into an interesting problem put forward by Popper:

According to Popper, probability statements are not strictly falsifiable. [For example, the statement "the probability that it would rain tomorrow is equal to 0.85" would not be falsified even if it would not rain tomorrow, since the statement also says indirectly that the probability that it would not rain tomorrow is equal to 0.15; so probability statements in fact resemble statements that cover all cases: namely, statements of the form "A or not A"].

Yet Popper adds, that probability statements are nevertheless treated by scientists as falsifiable. In turn he proposes to treat them as such but he seems to leave it for statisticians to spell out the details of how to falsify probability statements.

My question has two parts:

  1. Concerning Popper's methodological decision to refer to probability statements as falsifiable: would it not weaken his demarcation criterion? Would it not render scientific every social science which resides on statistics?
  2. Concerning statistics (of which I know very little): what kind of tests statisticians perform in order to refute hypotheses?
Joseph Weissman
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L.M. Student
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  • Suppose the probability of A occuring is 0.2 and the probability of B occuring is 0.3. Assuming that A and B are independent, the statement: the probability that A and B both occur is 0.5 is falsifiable. (basic) Probability theory tells us that the probability of A and B both occuring is in fact 0.06.
  • – M. le Fou Feb 15 '16 at 08:30
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    In some cases, the Law of Large Numbers can be used to falsify probabilities. – Era Feb 15 '16 at 18:24
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    I had a series of questions regarding this some time ago. The answer seemed to be that the philosophy of science is murkier than the nice easy clearcut falsification of logical statements might suggest. From the answers I got, the acutall process of falsifying involved abduction to reject hypotheses which are sufficiently "unlikely." – Cort Ammon Feb 15 '16 at 20:18
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    With respect to the 2nd part, one of the methods that can be used, is "correlation" with a double blind test. – Guill Feb 16 '16 at 05:47
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    The statistical part is answered in Hypothesis Testing: Fisher vs. Popper vs. Bayes http://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/3176/hypothesis-testing-fisher-vs-popper-vs-bayes/3186#3186, and Popper's demarcation as it applies to social sciences is addressed in Semantics of Popper's Demarcation criterion http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/24530/semantics-of-poppers-demarcation-criterion-what-is-included-within-science/24536#24536 – Conifold Feb 16 '16 at 18:25
  • Thanks for all comments; and @conifold - thanks for these helpful related links. – L.M. Student Feb 16 '16 at 22:23