Editing Falsifiability (section)

===Initial condition and prediction in falsifiers of laws===

In his analysis of the scientific nature of universal laws, Popper arrived at the conclusion that laws must "allow us to deduce, roughly speaking, more ''empirical'' singular statements than we can deduce from the initial conditions alone."{{sfn|Popper|1959|pp=[{{Google book|id=LWSBAgAAQBAJ|plainurl=yes|page=64}} 64–65]}} A singular statement that has one part only cannot contradict a universal law. A falsifier of a law has always two parts: the initial condition and the singular statement that contradicts the prediction.

However, there is no need to require that falsifiers have two parts in the definition itself. This removes the requirement that a falsifiable statement must make prediction. In this way, the definition is more general and allows the basic statements themselves to be falsifiable.{{sfn|Popper|1959|pp=[{{Google book|id=LWSBAgAAQBAJ|plainurl=yes|page=64}} 64–65]}} Criteria that require that ''a law'' must be predictive, just as is required by falsifiability (when applied to laws), Popper wrote, "have been put forward as criteria of the meaningfulness of sentences (rather than as criteria of demarcation applicable to theoretical systems) again and again after the publication of my book, even by critics who pooh-poohed my criterion of falsifiability."{{sfn|Popper|1959|loc=[{{Google book|id=LWSBAgAAQBAJ|plainurl=yes|page=65}} p. 65 Footnote *1]}}