> Related to testibility is repeatibility. To be considered valid science, a
> claim should be testable by anyone who has the appropriate equipment and
> repeats the conditions under which the phenomenon is claimed to occur. The
> supernatural is excluded because it is assumed to be nonrepeatible.
It isn't per se repeatability, it's more a matter of the test being
verifiable. If it is a lab experiment, it should be repeatable. If
it is a field observation, someone else should be able to verify it.
The supernatural isn't excluded because it is nonrepeatable, it is
excluded because we cannot demonstrate that it exists in the first
place. It is excluded for the same reason ESP, Atlantis and UFOs are
excluded from mainstream science, because these things simply are not
shown to exist and hence, we cannot be making hypotheses based on
them.
> Walter, if you claim a supernatural occurrence -- an act of God, say -- is
> testable, are you not implicitly claiming that it is possible for an
> experimenter to establish conditions under which God will do something,
> predictably? And doesn't that amount to claiming that under these
> conditions it is possible for a human experimenter to control God, however
> slightly?
And since God hasn't been terribly willing to sit down and perform
under lab conditions, God will continue to be excluded from science,
like it or not. Otherwise, why can't we claim that Allah or Vishnu
or Enki or a whole host of other deities aren't really out there and
responsibility for the universe? They don't sit still for science
experiments either.
-Brian