Is everything natural testable?"

Welcome ID,There are quite a few topics concerning your username (ie, intelligently designed). As AdminNosy mentioned, you might want to take the time to look through a few threads before starting your own topic. We gladly welcome all viewpoints here, but you had better be able to back them up with something other than personal beliefs. Quite a few of us really enjoy this debate forum, and I hope that you will enjoy it as well. Happy posting!!

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I am intrigued by one of the statements in your previous post, the one where you said, "We gladly welcome all viewpoints here, but you had better be able to back them up with something other than personal beliefs."

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so, are you saying that any assertions that I make here must be confirmed by physical evidence to be considered valid?

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For theories pertaining to the natural world, yes. If you want to make a scientific argument you must use objective evidence. That is, observations that can be repeated by everyone regardless of world view. Just for an example, most of us can agree on when the Empire State building was made and how tall it is. Not everyone can agree if it is a beautiful building or not.Just going by your username, but the Intelligent Design movement hasn't quite figured this out yet (objective vs subjective evidence in science). They use the subjective statement "It looks designed." Or in Behe's case "I don't see how that could have evolved step by step." These are subjective statement lacking any and all objective evidence. These are personal beliefs.However, philisophical positions are open to personal interpretation. "What is the meaning of life?" does not need objective evidence for support, personal beliefs will do just fine. But if you want to say something about the physical world, a world accessible to all of us through our 5 senses, then you must be objective.Hope this clears things up.

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but, do you agree that there are things that exist in this natural world (sic) that cannot be confirmed by physcial, tangible evidence (i.e. a petri dish)?

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First of all, let me define "natural world". The natural world is the realm that can be sensed by our 5 senses, or through instrumentation that relates back to our 5 senses. It could also be defined as the physical world.What I am trying to say is that if something affects the natural world, then that something can be detected. Whether or not it is able to be detected now is not important. What is important is that theories based on natural mechanisms can be tested by referrence to a physical phenomena that can be measured. Theories based on supernatural mechanisms are inherently untestable because there is no way to verify their existence. Supernatural mechanisms are steeped in faith and personal belief because they must be believed in before they can be evidenced.

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do you agree that there are things that exist in this physical world that cannot be quantified (i.e. tested in a lab, swished around in a test tube, examined under a microscope, etc.)?

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If you switch "quantified" with "observed", then I would say no. ("Quantified" means being able to give something a numbered value, while "observed" just means that it is detected physically). If it is part of the physical world, then it is detectable.

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you are holding the position that everything that exists in this physical world can be observed, or otherwise physically tested?

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is that basically what you're saying?

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Observed, but not always testable. For istance, the Casimir effect is where matter and anti-matter come into being for a breif amount of time and then anhilate each other. There is no way to predict when this will happen or where this will happen (hence it can't be tested per se), but you can observe it. If you mean testable in a loose sense, then yes, everything in the physical world is testable.