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The 20th-century Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper believed that any theory that was not ‘falsifiable’ – capable of being tested and proven incorrect – should be dismissed as unscientific. He was particularly critical of Marxist theory, which he believed was constantly being revised by its adherents to account for its failed predictions, and therefore could not possibly be scientific. The falsification principle is a cornerstone of the modern scientific method, but some contemporary scientists, cosmologists and philosophers believe it might need to be revised as they investigate concepts such as string theory and the multiverse, which come up against the limits of what is testable – at least for now.
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Animals and humans
Are zoos and natural history museums born of a desire to understand, or to control?
57 minutes
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Virtues and vices
Why Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith were divided on the virtues of vanity
5 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
The tree frog die-off that sparked a global mystery – and revealed a dark truth
15 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
In art, the sublime is a feedback loop, evolving with whatever’s next to threaten us
9 minutes
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Film and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes
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Bioethics
What a 1970 experiment reveals about the possibility and perils of ‘head transplants’
6 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
Can you see music in this painting? How synaesthesia fuelled Kandinsky’s art
10 minutes
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Astronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
5 minutes
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Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
11 minutes