Timeline for Is any aspect of the supernatural testable? What level of proof is possible for the supernatural?
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| Dec 9, 2015 at 1:31 | comment | added | Nelson Alexander | I don't know about the bar being "high." Science is just a method of definition, falsification, prediction, experiment, etc., ending in a hypothetical consensus that is always open to revision, given new evidence. Certainly, there are many things we do not know. Many may contradict or revise our current "laws of nature." But things we term "supernatural" are assumed not to be in the realm of "natural science." They may just be intermittent, uncontrollable, random, perceived by only a few. As such, they are not "provable" in the "scientific" sense. | |
| Dec 9, 2015 at 1:18 | history | edited | Nelson Alexander | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 9, 2015 at 0:55 | comment | added | LightCC | So, thinking on this a bit more, is the crux of your answer that the body of evidence shows that scientific inquiry has answered the natural explanation for things that people who lived before the age of reason would have called "supernatural" that the bar of evidence is so high it cannot be met? | |
| Dec 9, 2015 at 0:53 | comment | added | LightCC | Thanks Nelson, but I do want to point out I didn't limit the discussion to scientific inquiry or proof (though scientific proof is not limited to the scientific method and can include empirical data alone). I find it interesting (and somewhat funny actually), that you can substitute "supernatural" in my question for something like "aliens" and can pretty much as the same question unchanged... and have the same answers. | |
| Dec 9, 2015 at 0:49 | history | answered | Nelson Alexander | CC BY-SA 3.0 |