Science Fiction

[FinBak 12]

On 26/03/2019 at 20:19, SnailyBoy said:

How do you rule out the supernatural?

 

To rule it out you'd have to demonstrate its existence in the first place.

 

It's therefore of no consequence. I'd be amazed if you could find any astrophysicist who states they've 'ruled out the supernatural' as part of their conclusion into the working of the Universe, or anything for that matter.

 

 

"How do you rule out the supernatural"?....

 

That's VERY easy. !

 

I'd also be amazed, if You, or ANYONE for that matter, could show me a Scientist who HASN'T ruled out the Supernatural.

[FinBak 12]

On 27/03/2019 at 10:31, Obelix said:

Why is it false?

 

The CMB shows exactly what you would expect from the Big Bang - a spectrum that is consistently homogenous to a great extent in terms of temperature, that is anisotropic over the sky, and has a perfect match to black body radiation.

 

If you think it is false, then you have to come up with an alternative explanation to how the CMB formed, which still explains all those critera....

What the CMB shows us..... there was a Lot of fluctuating Light around 13Billion years ago. 

 

It certainly Does NOT prove, in the formal sense you can prove, with evidence, that there was a BigBang.

 

I didn't mean to say  the CMB was false in itself, but the interpretation of it.

 

 

 

 

 

[Robin-H 11]

15 minutes ago, FinBak said:

What the CMB shows us..... there was a Lot of fluctuating Light around 13Billion years ago. 

 

It certainly Does NOT prove, in the formal sense you can prove, with evidence, that there was a BigBang.

 

I didn't mean to say  the CMB was false in itself, but the interpretation of it.

 

 

 

 

 

And what are your scientific credentials? 

[SnailyBoy 10]

6 hours ago, FinBak said:

"How do you rule out the supernatural"?....

 

That's VERY easy. !

 

I'd also be amazed, if You, or ANYONE for that matter, could show me a Scientist who HASN'T ruled out the Supernatural.

If it's easy, then show what test criteria you would use to rule out the supernatural.

 

As I posted earlier, to rule the supernatural out, you have to first demonstrate the existence of the supernatural.

 

You can't use the scientific method, that only applies to the natural, it renders any claims of the supernatural irrelevant.

 

What method would you use?

Edited March 31, 2019 by SnailyBoy

[Annie Bynnol 614]

Energy, plain and simple.

Any process, activity, observation etc. that is made by has to be explained through the laws of thermodynamics. Nothing that happens in the universe is free of these laws.

[Cyclone 10]

14 hours ago, SnailyBoy said:

If it's easy, then show what test criteria you would use to rule out the supernatural.

 

As I posted earlier, to rule the supernatural out, you have to first demonstrate the existence of the supernatural.

 

You can't use the scientific method, that only applies to the natural, it renders any claims of the supernatural irrelevant.

 

What method would you use?

Surely if you're looking for a natural explanation for something then by definition the supernatural is ruled out.

On 26/03/2019 at 20:19, SnailyBoy said:

How do you rule out the supernatural?

 

To rule it out you'd have to demonstrate its existence in the first place.

 

It's therefore of no consequence. I'd be amazed if you could find any astrophysicist who states they've 'ruled out the supernatural' as part of their conclusion into the working of the Universe, or anything for that matter.

 

 

You're talking about negative proofs, but that means that we can't rule out any nonsense that someone makes up for any phenomena.  All you can ever say is that there's no evidence for their hokum pokum, and there is evidence for something else (a natural something else).

[SnailyBoy 10]

1 hour ago, Cyclone said:

 Surely if you're looking for a natural explanation for something then by definition the supernatural is ruled out.

You're talking about negative proofs, but that means that we can't rule out any nonsense that someone makes up for any phenomena.  All you can ever say is that there's no evidence for their hokum pokum, and there is evidence for something else (a natural something else).

I agree, the time to believe something is when there's evidence to believe it.

 

My point is that to actively rule 'something' out, which means to considers the attributes of that 'something'. After all if you don't know the attributes, how can it be actively ruled out?

 

In the context of the earlier posts the supernatural has no attributes that can be demonstrated to exist, apart from a dictionary definition.

 

There is therefore no need to rule it out, it's irrelevant.

 

Think of a biologist in Scotland studying low fish populations in inland bodies of water.

 

Are they seriously going to go through the process of formally ruling out the Loch Ness Monster?

 

A better way of explaining it would be to say, science doesn't consider (no evidence, irrelevant) the supernatural , rather than science rules out(evidence, could be relevant, but wasn't) the supernatural.

 

There's a difference. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 1, 2019 by SnailyBoy

[Cyclone 10]

Can't you actively rule out the supernatural if you're trying to find a natural cause for something?  In fact, if by definition anything you find is natural then by definition it's impossible to find anything supernatural and indeed impossible for anything supernatural to exist.  Whatever you find, no matter how exotic or unusual, by definition is natural.

Perhaps it's the wording "ruled out" that is the problem.  "Dismissed as without any possible basis in reality" would cover it more accurately perhaps.

Edited April 1, 2019 by Cyclone

[Guest makapaka]

I don’t believe in the supernatural personally -  but I think humans are very arrogant in terms of scientific ability.

 

even though we have achieved great things as a species - to assume these achievements represent the total limit of reality is arrogant.  

 

There is sure to be vast amounts of information we have yet to learn, understand or even consider and saying “we can rule out” assumes we have far more knowledge than we actually do.

[SnailyBoy 10]

11 minutes ago, Cyclone said:

Can't you actively rule out the supernatural if you're trying to find a natural cause for something?  In fact, if by definition anything you find is natural then by definition it's impossible to find anything supernatural and indeed impossible for anything supernatural to exist.  Whatever you find, no matter how exotic or unusual, by definition is natural.

Perhaps it's the wording "ruled out" that is the problem.  "Dismissed as without any possible basis in reality" would cover it more accurately perhaps.

You could I suppose, but why even consider the supernatural, until it's demonstrated to exist?

 

It would be theoretically dismissing something that you don't even know anything about what you're dismissing.

 

 

[SnailyBoy 10]

22 minutes ago, makapaka said:

I don’t believe in the supernatural personally -  but I think humans are very arrogant in terms of scientific ability.

 

even though we have achieved great things as a species - to assume these achievements represent the total limit of reality is arrogant.  

 

There is sure to be vast amounts of information we have yet to learn, understand or even consider and saying “we can rule out” assumes we have far more knowledge than we actually do.

I think the scientific field is the least arroga nt, part of the method is actually trying to prove a claim to be wrong, only coming to a conclusion when there is supporting evidence.

 

The arrogance comes from those who claim to have answers, without a shred of supporting evidence.

Edited April 1, 2019 by SnailyBoy

[Cyclone 10]

You aren't considering it, if it's summarily dismissed.  By definition there's nothing to consider if you're looking for a natural cause for something.

It's dismissing something that literally CANNOT exist with the framework of the attempt to investigate the natural phenomena that drive the universe.

23 minutes ago, makapaka said:

I don’t believe in the supernatural personally -  but I think humans are very arrogant in terms of scientific ability.

 

even though we have achieved great things as a species - to assume these achievements represent the total limit of reality is arrogant.  

 

There is sure to be vast amounts of information we have yet to learn, understand or even consider and saying “we can rule out” assumes we have far more knowledge than we actually do.

Science makes no such assumption.  Science, or more specifically the scientific method is a way of investigating things.  It's not a body of knowledge really, although investigations often build upon the outcomes of earlier investigations.

Obviously there is far more to learn, that's kind of why the scientific method exists, to continue to explore and learn in a structured, logically rigorous way.  Ascribing anything to the supernatural is the opposite of that, it's laziness in the extreme, it's throwing up your hands and saying "we don't know how it works, so we'll make something up without evidence to support it, simply so that we have an easy answer".