Editing Falsifiability (section)

====''McLean v. Arkansas'' case====

In the ruling of the ''[[McLean v. Arkansas]]'' case, Judge [[William Overton (judge)|William Overton]] used falsifiability as one of the criteria to determine that "[[creation science]]" was not scientific and should not be taught in [[Arkansas]] [[Public school (government funded)|public schools]] as such (it can be taught as religion). In his testimony, philosopher [[Michael Ruse]] defined the characteristics which constitute science as (see {{harvnb|Pennock|2000|p=5}}, and {{harvnb|Ruse|2010}}):
* It is guided by natural law;
* It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;
* It is testable against the empirical world;
* Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not necessarily the final word; and
* It is falsifiable.
In his conclusion related to this criterion Judge Overton stated that: {{Blockquote|text=While anybody is free to approach a scientific inquiry in any fashion they choose, they cannot properly describe the methodology as scientific, if they start with the conclusion and refuse to change it regardless of the evidence developed during the course of the investigation.|sign=William Overton|source={{harvnb|McLean v. Arkansas|1982|loc=at the end of section IV. (C)}}}}