 Example. For illustration, let’s return to the ornithological example with two alternative hypotheses: (1) all but finitely many swans are white, and (2) all but finitely many swans are black. As we saw, it is possible in the long run to reliably settle which of these two hypotheses is correct. Hence by the characterization theorem, each of the two hypotheses must be a disjunction of refutable empirical claims. To see that this indeed is so, observe that “all but finitely many swans are white” is logically equivalent to the disjunction