Peanut Gallery

B+ for reading comprehension, young oni.

"All rabbits are born from other rabbits." This is a high level of confidence scientific theory. The only known source of baby rabbits is being born from adult rabbits. The theory can be falsified by the demonstration of a source of rabbits other than birth from other rabbits.Would you ask someone putting "all rabbits are born from other rabbits" forward as a strong theory to demonstrate conclusively that there is not a single conjurer in the world who has ever really pulled one out of a hat?Don't you agree that if a person or people are suggesting that conjurers and hats are an alternative source of rabbits, then the onus is is on them to demonstrate that that's actually the case?I like the title of your post. Your brother certainly isn't heavy on positive evidence that any supernatural beings actually exist.Are you going to carry him?

Theories like "all swans are white", "all supernatural beings are figments of the imagination", and "all rabbits are born from other rabbits" are all "falsifiable" in scientific terms."One or more yellow swans exists", "one (or more) supernatural beings exist" and "one (or more) rabbit has been literally produced ex nihilo out of a magic hat" are statements that are not falsifiable, but can be, theoretically, verified. There's no way anyone could falsify these three.What's considered falsifiable is dependent on the state of human knowledge at the time. When we cannot know for sure if theories like the first three are correct and true, they are considered falsifiable. All the falsifiable three that I mentioned have naive falsifications, and the "all swans are white" (classic textbook example) one has already been falsified by the discovery of the Australian black swan.Examples of falsifications of my theory would be:the discovery of a fossilized centaur.fishermen actually catching a mermaid in their nets, and bringing her to port for verification.a goddess manifesting herself, and demonstrating beyond all reasonable doubt that she was a powerful supernatural being (she might do things like changing frogs into princes while walking on water).And so on.The problem with your Guan Yu example is that my theory does not state only that Guan Yu's supernatural powers were human inventions, but that all supernatural beings are. That would include deified versions real beings like Pharaohs, Caesars and G. Y.There's no reason that we know of why the above cannot come back and manifest themselves if they really were gods. But all I ask for is the demonstration that just one supernatural being of any sort is real, beyond reasonable doubt.One little garden fairy will do."Some supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination" is another example of a statement that would not be falsifiable, even if it hadn't already been verified.

I'll pick the mermaid who lives in your bath, washes your hair for you when you take a bath, and magically and mischievously forces you to type all your messages on this board in Spanish.Yes, that's easy.Did you miss my question? Do you disagree with me that human invention is the only known source of supernatural beings?

No. It's an imagined thing which is not a figment of the human imagination. There is no reason to suppose that the cat thinks it's magical. No. The human imagination is the only known source of supernatural beings. Concentrate on the word "known", and consider that I mean known to science, not what old Madam X the "clairvoyant" claims she knows.Like the cat, we can imagine non-supernatural beings as well. If the cat can imagine fairies, we do not know that to be the case.

No correction needed. If we find a way to make rabbits such that a rabbit can be produced that was not born from other rabbits, that's fine by me. It would then falsify the theory from that point on, and would be an unusual situation in which the theory isn't falsified for the time which it was made, but becomes false.Like this: "All trains are steam powered", which was true until someone built a diesel train.I don't mind if my theory about rabbits is falsified, or becomes false in the future. I don't even mind if you and your brother manage to construct a real fairy, vampire or god, but I don't think it likely. But my comment to you about asking someone with the rabbit theory to demonstrate that no conjurer had ever produced one was just to see whether you understand that theories aren't consider to be required to be conclusively proven in that way.Someone making the conjurer claim needs to support it.Evolutionary theory is not weakened or falsified by someone asking its supporters to demonstrate that no species in the fossil record was brought into being by supernatural intelligent designers.The I.D. folk need to support such ideas with positive evidence.Are you following me?

Si, Signor. Why do you think I put the Spanish bit in the description?{ABE}Or, rather "No, Signor.Edited by bluegenes, : marked

Certainly. But all rabbits are born from other rabbits is still a strong theory until it does, and all supernatural beings come from the human imagination will still be a strong theory after the event. The analogy is mainly to point out that many people seem to accept the rabbit theory without thinking about it, but fail to do the same with the supernatural beings theory. I think that's inconsistent.Another example is the "all books are authored by human beings" theory. Easily accepted as strong except by those who believe that a god is responsible for one.

Exactly. Which is all that falsifiable ever means. Theoretically falsifiable in respect to our knowledge at the time. We can never know if a theory is actually falsifiable, because the theory could be 100% correct. Here you're assuming something we don't know. Fishermen may net a mermaid tomorrow, for all we know, and bring her into port for verification. That blows out my theory.Claiming that my theory is unfalsifiable, as you have, is tantamount to saying that it's a scientific fact, which it certainly isn't.

Not really. It would be a kind of "natural" so far beyond our understanding that it's essentially the same thing. It would completely transform our view of the world, so I'd concede the theory falsified.

RAZD left this message for you and Mr. Jack on the great debate thread. I think he wants you to find a real god, then present evidence that it's a figment of the human imagination.While you're at it, could you please find me a flying pig, and demonstrate empirically that it's flightless?BTW, I'd be happy to send $100,000 U.S. dollars to anyone who falsifies my theory.

Wrong. Science asks How, Why, Where, When, What questions, and more. My theory really comes from a "where" question. Where do the supernatural being - concepts in our minds come from? Do any of them have a real external supernatural source, or are they all our inventions?You're the second person on this thread to state that science doesn't ask "why" questions. I could easily find you hundreds of papers with why questions in the actual title, and thousands (probably tens of thousands) with why questions in the text, not to mention all the "because" answers in discussion and conclusion sections.If you want to ask about the processes of mind employed to invent supernatural beings (how question), and the underlying reasons we have the type of brains that invent them (why have we evolved the characteristic?), then you would be looking at the hypotheses being made by people who already take my theory as a given, and have moved on to more interesting areas.Here's a paper called "How the Mind Works". It has a whopping 3,790 citations. The first paragraph ends by asking the following "why" questions (my bold).

quote:

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....why is the thought of eating worms so disgusting when worms are perfectly safe and nutritious? Why do men do insane things like challenge each other to duels and murder their wives? Why do fools fall in love? Why do people believe in ghosts and spirits?.

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Steven Pinker.Edited by bluegenes, : forgot to link to the bloody paper!

As someone around here seems to think that people believing in a supernatural character is some kind of evidence for its real existence, why not Harry Potter?

Hi ICANT.What I was talking about in relation to the creation mythologies was looking for points that matched the modern scientific view, in which, as you know, we were not literally created from dirt. Perhaps a description of supernatural beings creating animals from other animals in a string, then ending up with us, like guided evolution, instead of directly creating, or something like that.However, you've got an interesting point. The creation myths choose a wide variety of material for supernatural beings to have made us from, and it usually seems pretty random. But "dust", if we read it as "soil', is one that could have been drawn from observations, hence the chemical accuracy.The people (or person) who authored genesis were farmers and would have been very aware of our relationship with the soil. It feeds the plants that we eat, and which our domesticated animals eat, so indirectly, we gain nutrition from it, and are in a sense "formed" from it.Then, perhaps more importantly, they could observe what happens to animals, including us, when they die. They become soil, or dust; so: dust to dust.They were as smart as we are, just without the modern science and technology, so they could easily make these observations, and, unfortunately for your argument, wouldn't require a supernatural being to help them.Still, that's a better attempt than RAZD has made with the creation myths so far to put some noise onto my theory.