This is a Lexicon entry: the mechanism, when it shows up, and the countermeasure. The full correction, with real-world cases and the audit prompt, hasn't been written yet.
Definition
Karl Popper's criterion of demarcation: a claim is scientific only if it is falsifiable - if there exists some observation or experiment that could, in principle, show it to be wrong. Claims that can absorb all possible evidence (psychoanalysis, certain political ideologies, astrology) are not false - they are simply outside the domain of science. Unfalsifiability does not make a belief useless or wrong but it does mean it cannot be tested, confirmed or refuted through evidence.
When it shows up
When a claim is defended against any possible evidence; in ideology, religion and pseudoscience. In any expert field: when understanding your own calibration helps you communicate uncertainty to stakeholders. In research: when hypothesis pre-registration forces you to articulate your prior before seeing data.
Failure mode
Investing in beliefs that cannot be corrected by reality. Building intellectual and policy structures on foundations immune to empirical revision.
Countermeasure
Ask: "What would prove this false?" If no answer exists, the claim may be worth holding on other grounds - but not as an empirical claim. Be honest about which category your belief is in.
Related traps
Also connected in the map7 more, locked
Credit & first seen
DiscoveredPopper, K. (1934/1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Hutchinson source ↗
Also revealed
Entry #593 of 631 in The Lexicon · see the full Lexicon