Has The Supernatural Hypothesis Failed?

Well precisely. So has not the concept of supernatural Thor been refuted to all practical intents and purposes?

Dude, If you do not deny the possibilty of the existance of the supernatural. How can you deny the possibility it can influence reality? Which is to say if you dont discount the supernatural then wtf are you going around saying it has no basis to be able to predict or explain anything? Contradiction?Thats like saying, Has the existence of green fairies in my Absinthe failed to move my glass.Edited by 1.61803, : added italic

I don't. If supernaturalistic hypotheses result in verifiable predictions I am all ears.Can you name one such verified prediction? Can you falsify the existence of green fairies? If not how is the existence of whatever supernatural entity you are advocating as sensible or valid (please specify!!) evidentially different from these "green fairies"?

The supernatural hypothesis in regard to Thor and lightning has been disproved.Similarly, other tests in regard to supernatural claims have also been disproved.In science, the overwhelming evidence is against supernatural explanations. Not one test has come down on the side of supernatural; all have come down on the side of natural causes.It would seem that those pushing the supernatural hypothesis should come up with evidence if they want their hypothesis reconsidered.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Heh, I do not believe in the existence of green fairies. Therefore do not believe it is sensible to comtemplate they can move my glass. It is not a hypothesis that has failed. It is your equvocating science with psuedo science that has failed. imo.

Why not? Because all the evidence suggest that this concept is nothing more than something pulled out of your arse? Yeah but you can't prove it isn't green fairies. So your conclusion is illogical, heuristic, illegitimate, statistically invalid and unworthy of any confidence. According to the supernaturalists who preach the gospel of agnosticism taking part in this thread. Any claim that the supernatural can have an observable effect on physical reality is able to be investigated scientifically.Which part of that do you actually disagree with?

This part: Has The Supernatural Hypothesis Failed?

Well indeed! But tell that to Bluejay, CS and RAZD who continue to cite the supernatural hypothesis as a valid explanation for the observable phenomenon of human belief in the supernatural.

Yes. It has failed.To ever explain anything.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

So you keep saying.
I told you from my first comment that if a supernatural god that prevades the universe and all natural laws would be beyond the realm of explaination. But nnnOOOnnnooooooooyou had to keep digging.

If this entity you cite is utterly imperceptible how can any concept of it be anything other than the product of your internal mind?Please explain.

Well according to some religious dogma, it is not that God is imperceptible, more other than a intergral part of the universe and yet still beyond the universe. I personally believe that if something occurs within the universe then it is natural. I can not comment on what may lie beyond or prevade this cosmos. It is unknowable. imo.

Well if it is "unknowable" how can the concept of it it be derived from anything other than human imagination?Any correlation between that which can be humanly imagined and that which might actually exist being "improbable" at best.

Hi, Jon.Do you have a better word than hypothesis that we can use?[rant]Keep in mind that the scientific method is not holy writ; it has evolved. It can continue to evolve.In the meantime, why do you insist the supernatural cannot be tested? The proponents of supernaturalism assert something quite different: Christians claim, repeatedly, that the end is nigh; wrong every time. Witches claim the ability to call down pernicious powers upon their enemies' heads--no curdled milk or barren brides documented yet! Little boys claim that if you step on a crack, you'll break your mother's back: nope. Satan cannot be summoned; disciples do not walk the wards of children's cancer centers healing left and right; the mountain ain't comin' to Mecca.I have a better word, I think: superstition.There are experiments we all can do to test superstition in the comfort of our own homes. Step on a crack, walk under a ladder, break a mirror, draw Mohammed, blaspheme the holy spirit, etc.--the predicted consequences have been spelled out in detail, and they universally fail to materialize. When we perform these tests, and superstition fails to produce its predicted results, why should we not consider that long chain of failures as falsifying the superstition hypothesis notion? Should the predicted results be obtained, wouldn't we all, naturalists and superstitious alike, call it verification?More to the point, why should science permit any phenomena to escape scrutiny by the assertion of vague notions of exceptionalism and special pleading? We cannot absolutely disprove the existence of the superstition notion, but we can test predictions, and we can compare the explanatory and predictive powers of the superstition notion to naturalistic hypotheses. The results, repeated and replicated endlessly over time, in the absence of any positive evidence for the superstition notion, make the likelihood of its validity vanishingly small. Since science, indeed, does not deal in absolutes, "vanishingly small" is as close as we can get to disproved. It will do; I'd call that failure.I agree that superstitionalists, as you noted, seek to build a bulwark against science by retreating into the intellectual fog banks of ineffability, but they ultimately cannot succeed because they cannot surrender their assertions that the superstition notion impacts our naturalistic world. Without that impact, superstitionalists have no way even to claim awareness of their painfully shy force; mind you, they can claim the impact is accomplished by superstitious means, ineffable causes; but even ineffable causes must result in observable effects, or no one can know about them. So we can and have followed those footprints. They go nowhere.Your comment about scientific methodology being subservient to natural empirical means exemplifies the dodgy character of the superstition notion and its adherents. "You can't absolutely prove the fairies didn't eat your strawberries in the night, because they are ineffable little fucks that natural empirical means cannot detect." That's all well and good, trivially silly and useless and even harmless--until the superstitionalists take your strawberries and claim that fairies ate them in the night. An empirically minded strawberry grower films the garden with infrared night after night for a year, and, sure enough, it's that brat next door eating the strawberries: oh no, his parents insist, that was fairies making themselves appear as Jon, or, sure, Jon ate your strawberries every night this year, but not on the night you weren't watching. Then the superstition notion nation hoot like frat boys and walk away jeering and laughing.I say, enough: we can test your superstition notion. I say to superstitionalists, you may think your superstition notion is safely ensconced in its ineffable batshit-crazy cave, but the claims you make for it are not--they are right here, in the same naturalistic world we inhabit, where claims for impact on the naturalistic world can be tested, where predictions can be demonstrably refuted.I would say to any proponent of the scientific method the same thing I say to those who defend injustice because it is the law: If your method means we cannot address the merits of a notion merely because its proponents claim the mechanism to be ineffable, then your method needs to change.Straggler is arguing that the scientific method can handle the ineffable as it stands, and I think he's doing a fine job of that. I'll be a bit more radical: Iif science cannot test and judge the merits of the superstition notion by evaluating it like any other--what observations is it based on, what predictive power does it have, what positive evidence can you present, what experiments can we replicate--then science needs to change. Currently science is in the position of not evaluating something that talks and smells because that something cannot also be seen.What kind of knowledge engine can science be if the bare assertion of ineffability places an area of investigation off-limits?What other notions need to hide from scrutiny by lurking in the dark unknowable? None that I can think of--so I'm not too concerned about corrupting the purity of scientific methodology and naturalistic empiricism.So go tell your gods and godlings and goblins and ghosties that we're coming for them.[/rant]And have a nice day.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.Edited by Omnivorous, : ineffable

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

You cannot refute something using empirical evidence when the something you are attempting to refute is in its very character non-empirical and beyond the realm of nature.The question of the supernatural is irrelevant to science because science simply does not deal with such things. Science cannot answer questions about supernatural Thor, making the application of the scientific method to such questions as supernatural Thor's existence or his hand in storm phenomena inappropriate.It is much similar to the way in which supernatural evidence is irrelevant to scientific explanations, only the other way around.Jon

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"Can we say the chair on the cat, for example? Or the basket in the person? No, we can't..." - Harriet J. Ottenheimer

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