Final answer:
A theory that can be confirmed or contradicted through experimentation or observation is said to be testable. Scientific theories are testable and must withstand empirical scrutiny to be considered likely accurate or true.
Step-by-step explanation:
If there is some way to determine whether a theory is true or false, it is said to be testable. A scientific theory in particular is considered testable when it can be supported or refuted through carefully crafted experimentation or observation. In the context of scientific inquiry, various approaches can be taken, such as the instrumentalist view, which suggests that a theory is useful if it makes accurate predictions that are verified in practice, or the realist view, which aligns with the correspondence theory of truth, meaning that a theory provides true explanations when its predictions are consistently verified empirically.
Another viewpoint is the conceptual relativist's coherence theory, which postulates that truth is a matter of internal consistency within a conceptual framework. However, irrespective of the specific approach, the overarching principle remains the same: a scientific hypothesis must present a scenario that is empirically testable and can be confirmed or contradicted by experimental evidence or observational data.