Falsifiability

Before child development theories, I want to deal with falsifiability standard of a theory to be able to decide a good or bad theory.
The idea of falsificationism belongs to Popper believing that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability and scientific theories are falsifiable. According to him, after applying tests, if theories fail to stand up, then they are replaced by other theories standing up to these tests. If they stand up, then they continue to survive until another test’s application to them. He (2003) claims that every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation; than others; they take, as it were, greater risks. That is, science progresses by trial and error, conjectures and refutations and only the fittest theories survive.
To me, falsificationism is the possibility of a theory’s being false. If there is a possibility of its being wrong, then it is falsifiable and scientific. There is a widely known example about human behaviors, as Popper (2003) cited: “that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. According to Freud, the first man suffered from repression, while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler, the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority and so did the second man. I could not think of any human behavior which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory.” In this example, there is no other possibilities except saving the child or not saving him. Therefore, theories of Adler and Freud are not falsifiable and so they are not scientific theories, according to Popper. On the contrary, we can say that Einstein’s theory of gravitation was falsifiable because there was clearly a possibility of refuting the theory.Chalmers (1999) states that the more falsifiable a theory, it is the better. For example, Newton’s theory about solar system is superior to Kepler’s theory because there are more opportunities to be able to falsify Newton’s theory than Kepler’s theory. Moreover, according to Chalmers, theories should be clearly stated and precise. If a theory is so vaguely stated that it is not clear exactly what it is claiming, then it can always be evaluated as consistent with the results of experiments and observations. This situation causes theory to be non-scientific because of lack of falsifiability condition.