0fc66fedcb
Standardize draft articles with YAML frontmatter including title, date, topics, related, and abstract. Expand README drafts section into a table listing all drafts with topics. Add "Testing Telos" to published articles.
13 lines
957 B
Markdown
13 lines
957 B
Markdown
---
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title: "Popper and the Risky Test"
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date: 2026-04-20
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topics: [philosophy, epistemology]
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related: []
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abstract: >
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A good test is a risky prediction — one the product could plausibly fail. Low-risk tests that pass because there is nothing interesting they could catch are the testing equivalent of unfalsifiable theories, and Popper's demarcation criterion gives us the vocabulary to say so.
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---
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Popper and the Risky Test. You've covered modus tollens but stopped short of the inevitable: Popper's demarcation criterion[^1]. A good test is a risky prediction — one the product could plausibly fail. Low-risk tests (tests that pass because there's nothing interesting they could catch) are the testing equivalent of unfalsifiable theories: they look like science but aren't. This would give you a rigorous vocabulary for the intuition behind "my regression suite is green but I don't feel confident."
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[^1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
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