The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online

Experimental methods have features in common across all the sciences. All tend to use the framework of falsification, but there is inherent ambiguity in knowing which of the many hypotheses necessary to construct a test are negated by observations contrary to predictions. This ambiguity tends to engender much discussion, contestability and the design of new experiments that attempt to resolve the open qsts. This social process is not part of the logic of scientific testing, but it explains what scientists do and how new results become established.