Peanut Gallery

Apparently, you did. That is theory, not fact, therefore this (my bold): Does not follow. It would help if you understood what you were talking about.Your theory predicts that my theory will not be falsified (and so does mine), but we cannot conclusively know that the two theories will not be falsified, therefore they have to be regarded as falsifiable. That's all "falsifiable" means.

Right. You theorize that it will never happen, and so do I. But we cannot state it as a fact that it will never happen. So, our theories are considered falsifiable. Do you see it yet?

Correction: The stronger the support for bluegenes' theory, the less likely it seems that it will be falsified. Or: the stronger bluegenes' theory is, the stronger xongsmith's theory is.Neither become facts.It works like that for all scientific theories. You are (inadvertently?) implying that I have a very strong, high confidence theory, yet still trying desperately to argue against that claim.Why?

Who is this anal Emma, anyway? Can you introduce me to her?

One could easily speculate that there just might be a few emotions involved, couldn't one? That a few toes of desire are being trodden on.I think I might get similar reactions to my "all books are authored entirely by human beings" theory in certain quarters.But no-one seems too bothered about the rabbits coming from their only known source.

You have noticed something that may not be coincidence, but your hypothesis misses the mark. Try again. I'll give you a clue. Levels of supernaturalism are far from uniform throughout the world. Guess which country has the highest level in the "Western World".

Break down: anal Emma. She's a great lay, man, but I don't know her terms.

A strong theory IMO, but not a fact (we cannot go into the future and conclusively prove it). A fact that supports my theory and yours. Dubious phrasing, as it seems to imply that everything observed has been explained. Stick to the point that every good explanation of anything so far has been natural, and that's correct. Which strongly supports the theory that there's no actual supernatural beings outside our heads, and that they are natural figments of our imagination. That would also be a falsification of my theory. Your theory supports mine. Correct. That would be an unsupported claim. We don't know for sure whether they can exist or not (like elves). What is applicable is the point that we cannot know the future, therefore we cannot declare that a supernatural scientific explanation is completely impossible. That's why both of our theories are regarded as falsifiable. My theory also predicts that.Thanks for your support.

This is where you're going wrong. You can theorize that my theory will not be falsified on the basis of the observations that you've made. But you cannot demonstrate it as a fact.My theory itself theorizes that it will not be falsified.So your theory, if well supported, supports my claim that my theory is strong.To put it another way, the fact that the natural is the only known source of anything makes a theory that ascribes a phenomenon to its only known natural source a strong one.

Nope. You cannot claim to have proved the future, and if you did, my theory would have become a fact.The stronger yours, the stronger mine.Last time we discussed this (on one of Straggler's spin off threads), I gave you a link to a paper by a scientist who disagrees strongly that science cannot deal with supernatural propositions in principle.The fact that science has never established the existence of a supernatural being outside our minds can hardly be used against my theory, can it? Think about it. And have a good read of this, again.It appears that plenty of scientists have not signed up to the agreement that you suggest they have. They just haven't found anything supernatural outside our imaginings!

Don't be so sure, Chuck. The devil can't resist anagrams, and he wants the hearts and minds of our children. The Great Imposter

There's zero empirical support for the hypothesis that SBs cause tornadoes, or cause anything else for that matter. Are you presenting tornadoes as evidence against my theory?I'll try to explain.Currently, it is a very strong theory that the chimps are our closest living relatives.Someone could make the suggestion that there could be a branch species which diverged from our lineage since the chimps that is still surviving deep in some forest somewhere; perhaps Erectus or another earlier hominid. Hypothetically, that's not impossible.However, the suggestion (or a stronger claim by someone that they firmly believed or knew such a species to be extant) would not in itself weaken the "chimp" theory in any way. It would be necessary to find good supporting evidence of the existence of such a creature to weaken the theory, and it would be necessary to actually establish its existence to falsify the "chimp" theory.RAZD has been making "suggestions" that would contradict my theory. You have claimed to know of the existence of a specific supernatural being (rather like someone claiming to know that the mysterious hominids in the example above exist). What neither of you can do is establish your alternative "hypotheses" or claims with good empirical evidence. I can't find any supportive empirical evidence for them either. Neither can any other participant on this thread.What I'm pointing out here is that contradicting claims can be made against any scientific laws and theories. They are of no use as a basis for criticizing a theory or law unless they have proper empirical support.Human invention remains the only source of the ideas and descriptions that we have in our heads of supernatural beings knowable to all of us and known to science. While that remains the case, I have a very strong theory. The very fact that both you and RAZD have made numerous posts expressing strong personal desires to criticize the theory, but have completely failed to offer any empirical evidence of the existence of SBs outside human minds makes my point for me.

Name calling (and unsubstantiated counterclaims) does not weaken or falsify theories. Edited by bluegenes, : grammar

A theory that attributes something to its only known source certainly is supported by the evidence, and is very strong. Suggesting that magicians might occasionally produce rabbits ex nihilo from hats does not weaken the theory that all rabbits are born from other rabbits unless evidence can be provided to support the suggestion. Asking someone to prove that every single rabbit in the world today wasn't produced out of a hat would just be demonstrating your ignorance of how science works. (See also Adequate's flying pig link above).It's no good attempting to criticize my theory unless you can make a good evidence based case for a source of supernatural beings other than human invention. Absolutely wrong. I am theorizing, and I can demonstrate that humans can and do invent supernatural beings, and that that's their only currently known source. You are claiming to know something as a fact, and you cannot demonstrate the existence of a single SB that has an actual existence outside our minds. As for RAZD, he doesn't understand inductive theories, and anyone who does understand them can tell that from his posts on the GD thread. I meant exactly what I said. And in addition, if you want to criticize something presented as an inductive theory, you need to learn what those are before you do it.

One of the interesting things about the theory that "all supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination" is the kind of emotional reactions it produces. Normally, when we theorize that certain phenomena (in this case the ideas or concepts of supernatural beings that we all have in our minds) come from their only known source, the theory is treated as virtual fact or law. Why the difference with SBs? Do some people have a personal emotional attachment to the idea of one or more supernatural beings actually existing outside our minds?Inductive theories are constructed a bit like this:1) Humans can and do invent supernatural beings.2) Human invention is the only source of supernatural beings known or currently knowable to all of us (or "currently known to science").3) Therefore the inductive theory: "All supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination".This can only be a theory, not a conclusively proven fact, because it does not automatically follow from the first two statements, as would be the case in a deductive syllogism; a logical proof.Science explores the unknown, and therefore has to use inductive reasoning as well as deductive.Almost all of the criticism of the theory has come from people who clearly do not understand the inductive laws and theories of science, and how they work. The worst criticism comes when people demonstrate that they think that strong scientific theories cannot be established without falsifying unsupported speculative "hypotheses" that contradict them.For example: Humans have subjective experiences which involve real externally existing supernatural beings.This involves a hypothetical alternative source of SBs other than our own invention. But it doesn't support a claim that my theory is weak unless it can be supported by good evidence. The suggestion alone is just as useless as suggesting that fairies actually do exist in some English gardens. And, like the fairies, it is not supported by the "some people believe it" argument.So far, the absurdity and pathetic weaknesses of the arguments put forward against the theory I've proposed just serve to illustrate what a strong theory it is.