Are Untestable Statements Necessarily "Bad Science"?

[Faizal_Ali]

@colewd

The argument is that the current evolutionary mechanisms proposed are not likely capable of overcoming the large probabilistic barriers. As a result a new mechanism is proposed.

Another rare moment of candor from a defender of ID Creationism: That ID is based on nothing more than denial of evoution, with no positive evidence in its favour.

Bill does err, however, in saying that a “new mechanism” is proposed. We’ve been bugging him for ages to detail the mechanism suggested by ID. No luck.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@davecarlson

As somebody who is currently working on assembling and characterizing a novel genome, I’d say the process is more analogous to exploration than it is to hypothesis testing.

But the end result of this exploration is something that can be used for generating and testing hypotheses.

True, but in assemling and characterizing a novel genome, are you making an untestable claim or statement? No, you’re essentially just setting up conditions that allow you to make observations. You are in effect trying to observe something. To observe that genome. That’s not making a statement or claim. What are you claiming or stating? You aren’t doing that. To the extend that you are making any implicit claim by doing observation (one might say you are implicitly claiming there is something to be observed), that claim IS testable. The results of your observations will be a test of that claim.

So I maintain that untestable claims/statements are bad science. The fact that one can do science without making (explicit) claims or statements, by “merely” doing observation and data collection, isn’t bad science. But they’re also not “untestable claims”.

[davecarlson]

@Rumraket

True, but in assemling and characterizing a novel genome, are you making an untestable claim or statement? No, you’re essentially just setting up conditions that allow you to make observations. You are in effect trying to observe something. To observe that genome. That’s not making a statement or claim. What are you claiming or stating? You aren’t doing that. To the extend that you are making any implicit claim by doing observation (one might say you are implicitly claiming there is something to be observed), that claim IS testable. The results of your observations will be a test of that claim.

So I maintain that untestable claims/statements are bad science. The fact that one can do science without making (explicit) claims or statements, by “merely” doing observation and data collection, isn’t bad science. But they’re also not “untestable claims”.

I think that’s reasonable. Note that my comment was not actually intended to be a reply not to your OP but to a comment by @RonSewell, but either I or the software failed to make that explicit.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@davecarlson

Note that my comment was actually intended to be a reply not to your OP but to a comment by @RonSewell, but either I or the software failed to make that explicit.

Ah no I understood that, don’t worry about it. I just felt like commenting on the distinction between hypothesis testing and naive data collection and your post provided a nice opportunity.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@gbrooks9

@Patrick

I have no complaints to take to @swamidass. I merely point out PS is not a Theist forum for Theistic views.

@Patrick,

If it isn’t a Theist Forum … where exactly do you direct people who want to talk about de novo creation of Adam and Eve and how it CAN be reconciled with the views of scientists?

To this forum, where people discuss that topic, among others.

It is not necessary to be a theist in order to discuss that topic, or indeed any other topic. Nor is it possible to fruitfully discuss how something CAN be done without ever referring to how it CANNOT.