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Author Topic:   Supernaturalism: Does It Work?
JIM
Inactive Member


Message 31 of 41 (70625)
12-02-2003 5:54 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by MEH
12-02-2003 8:42 AM


Re: Supernaturalism
Indeed, many supernatural explanations are rejected not because they are supernatural but because they cannot or do not lead anywhere. It is possible to come up with any number of possible explanations for anything -- lost socks could be caused by extradimensional vortices which our observations prevent from forming; hiccups could be caused by evil spirits inside us trying to escape; stock market fluctuations could be caused by the secret manipulations of powerful extraterrestrials. Scientists reject such claims on the grounds of parsimony. All of those claims are possible, but they require adding complicated entities which there is no adequate evidence for. To make matters worse, the nature of those entities effectively prevents investigation of them, and the impossibility of investigation prevents us from learning anything new about them. We cannot conclude that any of those explanations are wrong. But from a scientific standpoint, they are worse than wrong; they are useless.
Supernatural forces, if they exist, cannot be observed, measured, or recorded by the procedures of science - that's simply what the word "supernatural" means. There can be no limit to the kinds and shapes of supernatural forces and forms the human mind is capable of conjuring up from "nowhere." Scientists therefore have no alternative but to ignore "claims" of the existence of supernatural forces and causes. This exclusion is a basic position that must be stoutly adhered to by scientists or their entire system of processing information will collapse. To put it another way, if science must include a supernatural realm, it will be forced into a game where there are no rules. Without rules, no scientific observation, explanation, or prediction can enjoy a high probability of being a correct picture of the real world.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by MEH, posted 12-02-2003 8:42 AM MEH has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 36 by Peter, posted 12-08-2003 10:08 AM JIM has not replied

  
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