[_ Old Earth _] Can something be true if it is not falsifiable

[brother Paul]

To falsify? You have heard it alleged by some (and refuted by others) that unless something can be falsified it is likely not to be accepted as true by many scientists today...(which sounds like you can only accept that as true which can be proven false)

falsify
verb (used with object), falsified, falsifying.
1.
to make false or incorrect, especially so as to deceive
2.
to alter fraudulently.
3.
to represent falsely:
(He falsified the history of his family to conceal his humble origins).
4.
to show or prove to be false; disprove:
to falsify a theory.
verb (used without object), falsified, falsifying.
5.
to make false statements.

Falsification in science is loosely defined as publishing or reporting misleading facts associated with a study, research or experimentation.

Scientific falsification can be considered as:

• Falsifying data
• Falsifying evidence
• Fabricating data
• Fabricating evidence

So for a hypotheses or theory to be accepted it must be falsifiable...to be true it must first be shown to be possibly false. If it cannot be shown to be falsifiable, then it is not accepted!!!

Now this notion of Karl Popper is often misapplied such that in the field of Evolutionary Biologists the more you indicate falsehood, or deception, or how ridiculously illogical a theoretical notion is, the more they believe it is valid. All Popper was saying is that the nature of good experimentation must include the possibility (and admit the possibility) that it could be correct OR incorrect. That it MAY BE proven true OR false, not that if something can be shown to be false it is therefore true.

(just for those unfamiliar with this concept)

Hmmm?

Paul

 

[Barbarian]

God, for example, is not falsible. The key is, it can't be a scientific hypothesis if it's not falsible. And it it can't be a hypothesis, then it cannot be a theory. Hypotheses become theories when they are tested and confirmed by evidence.

What Popper meant was not fraud, but the possibility that the hypothesis could be disproven, at least in principle.

ID is not falsible, since it is based on the assumption of a supernatural entity which is outside of the natural universe.

ID can make falsible claims for lesser assumptions, though. For example, Behe's claim that irreducible complexity cannot evolve. He now concedes that it can, although he insists that it's so unlikely, it should never happen. But it did. Hall's bacteria did just that.

 

[brother Paul]

True, the existence of God is not falsifiable.