When do we have a scientific fact?
The article portrays Popperian falsifiability as a negative thing, when in fact it is exactly the kind of defining criterion that the author is hunting for. 
        Except it is a criterion of a scientific _theory_ , not a fact derived from it; because the natural sciences are entirely empirical disciplines (today), theories can only be _disproved_ , not proved, by experiments.
Progress - in the form of convergence towards truth among the community of experts (Peirce) - is achieved by revising theories. Like with software, there comes a point when tweaking the old implementation becomes frustrating, and it&#x27;s time for a re-write from scratch - that&#x27;d be a Kuhn-style change of paradigm a la Einstein&#x27;s theory of relativity. Different from the realm of software, older theories (e.g. Newtonian physics) remain valid and often useful for some restricted scope.<p>The author Peter Vickers appears to have written this blog post motivated by a recent line of work that resulted in a book that came out entitled &quot;Identifying Future-Proof Science&quot;:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;academic.oup.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;44533?login=false" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;academic.oup.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;44533?login=false</a> (2022, Oxford University Press); putting it in my shopping basket&#x2F;on my 2023 reading list &amp; curious to hear from anyone who has read it already.<p>Crazy idea: I propose someone collect a list of facts - e.g. a wiki - that actual scientists can sign individually (e.g. owners of academic email addresses that do not contain a <i>.stud.</i> sub-string).
        My contribution of a fact: &quot;On earth, any fruit of _malus domestica_ (commonly called &quot;apple&quot;) that is dropped will fall down&quot; (which means from the height of any person towards the centre of earth) as long as (small print to establish the boundary conditions of Newtonian physics).