The fundamental purpose of software testing is to find defects. It is an investigative process designed to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the software product. By executing the software with the intent of making it fail, testers can identify discrepancies between expected and actual results. While successful test execution can increase confidence in the software's functionality, it is a logical fallacy to claim testing proves correctness. Testing can only demonstrate the presence of defects, not their absence.

B: Testing cannot demonstrate that an application works properly under all possible conditions; it can only confirm its behavior for the specific test cases executed.

C: Validating the logical design is a component of the broader verification and validation (V&V) process, often addressed through static methods like reviews and inspections, not solely through dynamic testing.

1. Myers, G. J., Sandler, C., & Badgett, T. (2011). The Art of Software Testing (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. In Chapter 2, "The Psychology and Economics of Software Testing," it is established that a primary goal of testing is to find errors. The text states, "Testing is the process of executing a program with the intent of finding errors" (p. 6).

2. Pressman, R. S., & Maxim, B. R. (2015). Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education. In Chapter 17, "Software Testing Strategies," testing is defined with the objective of finding errors. The authors state, "Testing is a process of executing a program with the intent of finding an error" (p. 450).

3. Ammann, P., & Offutt, J. (2016). Introduction to Software Testing (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1, Section 1.1, "A Fault, Error, Failure Terminology," clarifies that testing's goal is to reveal failures, which are caused by faults (defects). The entire process is oriented around the discovery of these faults.