Has The Supernatural Hypothesis Failed?

I am still having trouble understanding how it is you differentiate between a natural claim and a supernatural claim.What about cutting a goat and burning it is supernatural?Jon

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"Can we say the chair on the cat, for example? Or the basket in the person? No, we can't..." - Harriet J. Ottenheimer

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"Dim bulbs save on energy..." - jar

In and of itself I think that is called cooking a goat.The supernatural part comes in when you start invoking cause and effect between the observable world and that which is claimed to be inherently empirically inexplicable.Saying that cutting and burning a goat will result in a fine harvest of your crops because it pleases the will of some materially inexplicable entity who apparently likes dead goats and rewards those who do such things with good harvests is what makes the claim supernatural.

Nothing.As I said, whatever the supernatural is, it would include intangible causal agents getting involved in the world. In the sacrifice example - it would be the intangible causal agent that can be invoked for aid in crop protection, not the natural activity that is used to invoke it.

But then when we test our claim that 'sacrificing goats to Mubu brings higher yield', what are we really testing?If we compare yields with killed, burnt goat to yields without killed, burnt goat, what at all has our experiment to do with the supernatural? We are merely testing the impact of one natural action on another; just like we can test the impact that the natural activity of throwing cow shit on the field has on the natural function of the growth of the crop.So, how does your 'experiment' test the 'supernatural'? How does it allow us to draw any conclusions whatsoever on the 'supernatural'?JonEdited by Jon, : No reason given.

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It tests the hypothesis. If sacrificing does not produce more non diseased crops than non-sacrificed for crops then we know that the supernatural hypothesis: Mubu will protect against crop disease for sacrifices must be false.Yes, we also rule out any natural hypothesis linking goat burnings to crop success and show the perception of greater crop success was not accurate. The successful hypothesis was "The perception is not correct.", and has evidence of similar perception errors that people make that are similar as support. The failed hypothesis for the observation was "Mubu interceded to drive away disease spirits."The latter was a supernatural hypothesis.

I explained this to you hundreds of posts ago.Folks make all sorts of claims involving the supernatural, from Thor and his thunder to young earth, global flood, and healing power of prayer. Those folks believe that these are examples of the supernatural.Science can examine these claims and see if they stand up against empirical evidence.So far, all of those claims that could be tested have shown that the supernatural explanation has failed.Those folks who believe in such things refuse to accept the results. This thread is full of such disbelief.Bottom line: for any but the true believers the supernatural hypothesis has not just failed, but EPIC FAILED.No other hypothesis with such a failure rate is taken seriously by science, why should this one be considered anything other than a failure as well?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

If I am eating an apple, but tell you it is an orange, is it an orange or an apple that I am eating?Jon

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So if we were to see a positive influence on crop yields, would we be able to declare the 'supernatural hypothesis' in this case vindicated?Jon

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No - the supernatural hypothesis as stated is not necessarily verifiable but the test proposed was for falsification. The test could only verify the observation that goat burnings are linked to crop yield.

Perhaps instead of quibbling you could address my point.So far the supernatural hypothesis is EPIC FAIL.Why should it be given any consideration after such a dismal record of failure?Edited by Coyote, : Formatting

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Do you feel this is an inherent property of supernatural claims?

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You fail to provide criteria for distinguishing supernatural claims from non-supernatural ones.What makes the claims supernatural?

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Quibbles.It's EPIC FAIL and quibbles aren't going to save it.What else are scientists to evaluate other than claims of the supernatural? There is no evidence, so all we are left to work with is the claims.If you have evidence of the supernatural, bring it forward to be evaluated otherwise stop quibbling.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

What makes the claims supernatural?

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"Natural" claims would be those things which occur within the confines of reality."Supernatural" claims would be those things which occur outside the confines of reality.We typically consider a claim "supernatural" if it cites an undetected/undetectable force or agent which engages in some sort of manipulation which can not be demonstrated to exist.For example:
A "witch" using undetectable and ill defined "magic" causes "bad luck" to happen to a victim.How do we measure this "magic"? How do we know how much "magic" is being used? How do we know when it starts or stops?How do we measure the "bad luck"? How do we determine what is caused by the "magic" versus what would have happened normally?Now, you can make an argument that there are forces which were previously undefined and therefore may have seemed supernatural prior to science explaining them.A magnet may appear supernatural to someone who's never seen one. It's an object capable of moving metal against the force of gravity without any strings attached. It will work through other objects, etc.However, an observer CAN measure the presence of the magnet. They CAN test the strength. They CAN demonstrate when it is working vs when it is not working. It's CLEARLY a phenomena which is occurring, observable, and while "unexplained" (for that observer) can be experimented on/with by people dealing with the natural world.