廣島大學で 2012 年に出題された 5 題中 1 題目の問題です。月曜日と金曜日に、パラグラフ毎に解説して參ります。
次の英文は、科学における反証可能性（falsifiability）について書かれたものである。反証可能性とは何かを説明した上で、その優れた点と問題点を本文に基づいて、200～220 字以内の日本語で要約しなさい。句読点も字数に含めます。
Science and philosophy have always worked together to try to uncover truths about the world and the universe around us. Scientists design experiments and try to obtain results verifying or disproving a hypothesis, but philosophers are the driving force in determining what factors determine the validity of scientific results. Often, they even determine the nature of science itself and influence the direction of viable (注1) research. One of the tenets (注2) behind science is that any scientific hypothesis and resultant experimental design must be inherently falsifiable.
In its basic form, falsifiability is the belief that for any hypothesis to have credence (注3) , it must be inherently disprovable before it can become accepted as a scientific hypothesis or theory. For example, if a scientist asks, “Does God exist?” then this can never be science because it is a theory that cannot be disproved. The idea is that no theory is completely correct, but if not falsified, it can be accepted as truth. For example, Newton’s Theory of Gravity was accepted as truth for centuries, because objects do not randomly float away from the earth. However, later research showed that, at quantum (注4) levels, Newton’s laws break down and so the theory is no longer accepted as truth. The British philosopher Karl Popper saw falsifiability as a black and white definition: if a theory is falsifiable, it is scientific, and if not, then it is unscientific.
According to Popper, many branches of applied science, especially social science, are not scientific because they have no potential for falsification. Anthropology and sociology, for example, often use case studies to observe people in their natural environment without actually testing any specific hypotheses or theories. While such studies and ideas are not falsifiable, most would agree that they are scientific because they significantly advance human knowledge.
For many of the pure sciences, the idea of falsifiability is a useful tool for generating theories that are testable and realistic. If a falsifiable theory is tested and the results are significant, then it can become accepted as a scientific truth. The advantage of Popper’s idea is that such truths can be falsified when more knowledge and resources are available. The major disadvantage of falsifiability is that it is very strict in its definitions and does not take into account that many sciences are observational and descriptive. [384 words]
(Adapted from “Falsifiability” by Martyn Shuttleworth, 2008)
(注1) viable 実行可能な、発展し得る (注2) tenets 信条 (注3) credence 信頼、信用 (注4) quantum 量子
