It's impossible to know rabbit populations aren't somehow connected to hemline trends either. You're special pleading that the null hypothesis should be different in this particular case...which is what special pleading is without very good justification for the different treatment.

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The null hypothesis is vital to science. It gives us a procedure. Someone says 'maybe voltage fairies push electrons through wires'. Someone else says, 'so, the null hypothesis would be 'voltage faeries don't exist'. Now you've got the first step for the original hypothesis: demonstrate that voltage fairies exist. If you succeed, the new null hypothesis is 'voltage fairies don't push electrons through wires', and the new task is to show that they do.

In no case would the null hypothesis be 'we can't know' on the question of whether something exists. It could be the null hypothesis to a hypothesis like 'we can know X', but not 'X exists'. Whatever X is, the null hypothesis for its existence will be that it doesn't.

There are probably cases where 'X is not the case' is not the null hypothesis for 'The case is X'; probably only for peculiar formulations of 'The case is X', like 'The case is that the Greek gods aren't really real' is kind of already the null hypothesis, you can't correctly formulate the null hypothesis to that statement as 'the Greek gods really are real'. It's not the null hypothesis because it's 'not null'.

(December 22, 2016 at 12:14 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(December 22, 2016 at 11:59 am)robvalue Wrote: I'd like anyone to define supernatural without using an equivocation fallacy.

The only definition I've heard that is consistent is that it refers to things external to our reality. This makes it subjective of course.

If something is defined to be unfalsifiable, it can be safely ignored. The question of its existence becomes irrelevant, for all practical purposes.

Supernatural is anything not part of the natural universe. As such, not constrained by our observable framework (perhaps constrained by another framework). That is not to say it cannot interact with our natural universe (causation). 

On what basis do you make the philosophical statement that "If something is defined to be unfalsifiable, it can be safely ignored"?

What is the natural universe? Since universe generally means everything that exists, there's a language problem already. Our observable framework? I assume you must be referring to our attempts to model the framework; here is the equivocation. Our models are not the framework. We don't have access to the rules of the framework, so we cannot know if something isn't constrained by it. We can just have the as-yet unexplained.

I explain in the video why it can be ignored. If it makes no discernible difference to anything, then things are the same whether the thing is real or not. It only exists by assumption, because there can be no evidence for or against it.

If God is "doing something", then no one can differentiate it from him not doing anything. I'm doing pretty well so far ignoring all unfalsifiable phenomenon.

(December 22, 2016 at 11:57 am)SteveII Wrote: I see why some atheists don't like the term supernatural--because discussion of it is insulated from the myopic view that only science can provide us knowledge.

It serves as a catch-all phrase for any claims about beings and events that cannot, by definition, be verified. The problem with this should be obvious-- there is no consensus on such claims and believers will dismiss claims that do not fall within their accepted beliefs even though they cannot establish the veracity or falsity of those claims. You have the events of your sacred book as evidence, but someone who follows a different denomination can claim that they mean something different and we don't have a way to determine who is right. Or someone who follows a different religion can claim that you are wrong and it is the events in his sacred texts that are evidence of his god(s) and we have the same problem in figuring out who is right.

It's the same with the personal experiences of billions of people. What does that evidence point to? It depends on your belief system. It may be evidence that your god performed a certain act, or it may be an evil spirit masquerading as an angel of light to mislead the innocent. We can't prove which of you is correct. If we ignore the likelihood that an investigation will lead us towards a natural explanation for nearly all of those billions of experiences, we are left with a bunch of explanations that are contradictory and no way of determining which one is true. Even if we accept that the forces of good are allowing us to stumble about in search of the truth and the forces of evil are doing a very good job of tricking more than two-thirds of the world, we don't get any closer to a consensus. On questions of universal and eternal import, no one is able to point to a clear explanation that everyone can agree on.

The best we can get regarding the existence of God is that we cannot prove there isn't one. The one claim that nearly every theist can agree on is that at least one god exists because it's not possible for that not to be the case. Any step taken beyond that is little different from speculation, seeing as it relies on evidence that is dubious at best and impossible to verify otherwise. Under those circumstances, it is reasonable to hold the belief that only through the scientific method can we learn anything.

The default position is that the people who insist that their gods are real have failed to provide evidence of that. 

They can safely be dismissed as crackpots until they do.

(December 22, 2016 at 2:05 pm)robvalue Wrote:

(December 22, 2016 at 12:14 pm)SteveII Wrote: Supernatural is anything not part of the natural universe. As such, not constrained by our observable framework (perhaps constrained by another framework). That is not to say it cannot interact with our natural universe (causation). 

On what basis do you make the philosophical statement that "If something is defined to be unfalsifiable, it can be safely ignored"?

What is the natural universe? Since universe generally means everything that exists, there's a language problem already. Our observable framework? I assume you must be referring to our attempts to model the framework; here is the equivocation. Our models are not the framework. We don't have access to the rules of the framework, so we cannot know if something isn't constrained by it. We can just have the as-yet unexplained.

I explain in the video why it can be ignored. If it makes no discernible difference to anything, then things are the same whether the thing is real or not. It only exists by assumption, because there can be no evidence for or against it.

If God is "doing something", then no one can differentiate it from him not doing anything. I'm doing pretty well so far ignoring all unfalsifiable phenomenon.

No, the word 'universe' has never meant everything that exists. When I said 'framework', I was distinguishing between a natural set of laws not binding the supernatural as a further way to define the word 'supernatural'. 

The supernatural may be meaningless to us until there are supernatural causes in the natural world. I would argue there is evidence of supernatural causation--certainly enough evidence to have a discussion about it where we understand each other and therefore containing 'meaning'. 

You seem to equate 'Unfalsifiable' with 'not meaningful'. Is that the case?

“universe” in British English

universenoun
uk ​ /ˈjuː.nɪ.vɜːs/ us ​ /ˈjuː.nə.vɝːs/

B1 [ S ] everything that exists, especially all physical matter, including all the stars, planets, galaxies, etc. in space:

(December 22, 2016 at 2:53 pm)Tonus Wrote:

(December 22, 2016 at 11:57 am)SteveII Wrote: I see why some atheists don't like the term supernatural--because discussion of it is insulated from the myopic view that only science can provide us knowledge.

It serves as a catch-all phrase for any claims about beings and events that cannot, by definition, be verified.  The problem with this should be obvious-- there is no consensus on such claims and believers will dismiss claims that do not fall within their accepted beliefs even though they cannot establish the veracity or falsity of those claims.  You have the events of your sacred book as evidence, but someone who follows a different denomination can claim that they mean something different and we don't have a way to determine who is right.  Or someone who follows a different religion can claim that you are wrong and it is the events in his sacred texts that are evidence of his god(s) and we have the same problem in figuring out who is right.

It's the same with the personal experiences of billions of people.  What does that evidence point to?  It depends on your belief system.  It may be evidence that your god performed a certain act, or it may be an evil spirit masquerading as an angel of light to mislead the innocent.  We can't prove which of you is correct.  If we ignore the likelihood that an investigation will lead us towards a natural explanation for nearly all of those billions of experiences, we are left with a bunch of explanations that are contradictory and no way of determining which one is true.  Even if we accept that the forces of good are allowing us to stumble about in search of the truth and the forces of evil are doing a very good job of tricking more than two-thirds of the world, we don't get any closer to a consensus.  On questions of universal and eternal import, no one is able to point to a clear explanation that everyone can agree on.

The best we can get regarding the existence of God is that we cannot prove there isn't one.  The one claim that nearly every theist can agree on is that at least one god exists because it's not possible for that not to be the case.  Any step taken beyond that is little different from speculation, seeing as it relies on evidence that is dubious at best and impossible to verify otherwise.  [1] Under those circumstances, it is reasonable to hold the belief that only through the scientific method can we learn anything.

Because there are multiple and conflicting truth claims does not mean that one of them is true to the exclusion of the others. You say there is no way to determine which claims are correct--perhaps, but we can examine the overall theological framework of each religion and see which one is internally consistent, which one best matches claims against reality, which one makes more sense of more observations, and which one has the best predictive value when examining issues of xyz. 

[1] Did you mean that is is reasonable to employ the scientific method to the truth claims of religions because of the reasons listed or do you mean that in general, only through the scientific method can we learn anything?

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(December 22, 2016 at 3:42 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: “universe” in British English

universenoun
uk /ˈjuː.nɪ.vɜːs/ us /ˈjuː.nə.vɝːs/  
       
B1 [ S ] everything that exists, especially all physical matter, including all the stars, planets, galaxies, etc. in space:

So when cosmologists say that the 'universe' is 13 billions of years old, they mean to include the universe generator, or the quantum field, or whatever you think was before the big bang? Do you really think people confuse the word 'universe' to include the supernatural (especially since like 80% of the world believes in a god(s) that created the universe)?

it depends on how you say it.

The christian type god does not exist.

What is there nobody knows, but the data clearly shows that something is. Even if its just a life form we exist in.

(December 22, 2016 at 3:48 pm)SteveII Wrote: Because there are multiple and conflicting truth claims does not mean that one of them is true to the exclusion of the others. You say there is no way to determine which claims are correct--perhaps, but we can examine the overall theological framework of each religion and see which one is internally consistent, which one best matches claims against reality, which one makes more sense of more observations, and which one has the best predictive value when examining issues of xyz.

Yeah, but if one of them was the God's honest truth, wouldn't we expect an overwhelming number of people to follow it? The assumption is that only one religion would fulfill the criteria you described. After centuries of study and experience, not only do we still have many different major religions but each of them is fragmented into thousands of denominations with varied interpretations of almost every major tenet of their faith.

Quote:[1] Did you mean that is is reasonable to employ the scientific method to the truth claims of religions because of the reasons listed or do you mean that in general, only through the scientific method can we learn anything?

The latter. It's the one method we know that helps us to find answers while dealing as best it can with limitations in existing knowledge and understanding, as well as with the countless biases that can corrupt our attempts to learn more.

Theists dismiss the existence of other gods, leprichauns, fairies, unicorns and Santa Claus without ever troubling themselves over such questions as to whether it's rational to do so without absolute, certain evidence. The theist treats the skepticism of the atheist in special terms. To my mind, negative claims do not carry the same burden of proof as positive existential claims. That's being consistent and rational. All that I require is that there be a reasonably plausible explanation for what 'evidence' the theist is capable of presenting. So far I have that, and so I am satisfied with the nonexistence of God in the same measure that the theist is persuaded of the non-existence of the aforementioned mythical creatures.