Final answer:
The term "falsifiable" means that a theory could be shown to be false by certain types of observational or experimental data. It's an essential feature of scientific hypotheses, making them testable and refutable, which is a critical aspect of the scientific method.
Step-by-step explanation:
If a theory is classified as "falsifiable," this means that the theory D) could be shown to be wrong by some type(s) of data. Falsifiability is a cornerstone of the scientific method and implies that a hypothesis or theory can be tested and potentially refuted by observation and experimentation. In other words, for a hypothesis to be scientifically valid, it must be possible to conceive of a scenario or set of observations that could contradict the hypothesis.
An example of a non-falsifiable statement could be "Botticelli's Birth of Venus is beautiful," since beauty is subjective and cannot be empirically tested. Conversely, a statement like "All swans are white" is falsifiable because finding a single black swan would prove it wrong. Falsifiability distinguishes scientific hypotheses from non-scientific statements. A falsifiable hypothesis can be rigorously tested through experiments, and if it withstands repeated testing, it gains support, but it is never "proven" in the mathematical sense. The scientific process continuously evolves, and hypotheses that are inconsistent with experimental data are rejected.