Before I quote, I cut out just the part I am responding to. Not cherry picking, not censoring, just quoting the only part I am responding to. I've been accused a couple of times of doing this or that unfairly, so I wanted to get that out of the way first this time.
Now, if you misunderstood that to mean that all knowledge had to be falsifiable, that is understandable, but likely (I can't speak for Alasdair) not what was being said. If you are saying that falsifiability in science is somehow wrong, there is plenty of evidence to show that science works just fine with that requirement in place and, in fact, there are some very good reasons for that requirement as it weeds out "guesses". If you are saying that it's scientifically invalid then likely you are claiming that because, while it works just fine for all of science, it prevents your pet beliefs from being taken seriously as science, that is special pleading. Looking at what the two of you wrote, though, I think it was a simple miscommunication.
(December 21, 2016 at 1:23 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: ...You are confusing "scientific" with "knowledge", maybe? Scientific theories must be falsifiable, not knowledge. And it is not a red herring in science, it is a mechanism that makes science work so well. Alasdair used the word "falsifiable" likely because many "proofs" of the existence of someone's favored deity claim to be scientific and therefore subject to scientific standards.
With respect to the idea that only falsifiable claims can be considered knowledge, that was certainly not a position Karl Popper would have accepted. Presenting "falsifiablity" as some kind of test is a red herring. I would refer you to this more comprehensive article on the subject which you can find at:...
Now, if you misunderstood that to mean that all knowledge had to be falsifiable, that is understandable, but likely (I can't speak for Alasdair) not what was being said. If you are saying that falsifiability in science is somehow wrong, there is plenty of evidence to show that science works just fine with that requirement in place and, in fact, there are some very good reasons for that requirement as it weeds out "guesses". If you are saying that it's scientifically invalid then likely you are claiming that because, while it works just fine for all of science, it prevents your pet beliefs from being taken seriously as science, that is special pleading. Looking at what the two of you wrote, though, I think it was a simple miscommunication.
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