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Fragment of a discussion from User talk:Tmtoulouse
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The question what science can and can't (dis)prove is interesting. I don't think science can prove anything if we are exact. Why? If we say "science proved that X exists" what we are actually say is "science has - by it's own standard - proven that - by it's own standards - X exists". We can continue that game all day long: "evidence" has it's defintion in science, "method" has one, and so on. Now it may happen that these definitions do not match everybodies definitions of these words and concepts. The normal go-to reaction of scientists (amateur or pro) for that case is "You are stupid for not accepting my definitions", which I always thought was a dick move. Of course we can define a proposed existence in ways which would be not provable for science - simply through the remark "…and behaves so that science can't prove it", and while that claim is valid in the normal world, in science (read branches that use the scientific method) it is invalid (why should be clear). Science and the scientific method are by some taken as the end-all-be-all of thought, but it's fundementals are a question of faith into a concept which can be quite favored looking at the empiric evidence. By scientific standards the scientific method is a valid method and in fact the best system. But that is the minimum requirement of all theories, methods and ideologies. It is presicely why so many scientists scratch your face out when somebody brings up a postmodern concept of steady uncertainty that one of it's fundementals even exists. One attacks the very basement of their nicely build house and they go ballistic, because if that ain't true anymore what is?

Now as I said before, I think that there are several types of rationility (personal, philosophic, scientific) which all have different areas of validity and my personal atheism was reached with the second one, but I'd like to see my atheistic non-believes proven by science, but I can go without it quite nicely.

uhm, t!10:28, 5 July 2011

A couple of things science cannot prove/disprove:

  1. Claims about other universes. Science can only deal with this universe, and maybe other universes somehow "accessible" from this one. If there are other universes with no or very limited accessibility from this one, science can't prove/disprove claims about those universes. The other universe I have proposed, one where all the dead go, but which can only be accessed by dying, is beyond the power of pre mortem science to evaluate.
  2. Suppose there is a perfect(i.e. error-free, never makes a mistake), omniscient, omnipotent, intelligent agent intervening in the universe. Suppose furthermore this agent does not wish for their intervention to be proveable scientifically. Then, science will not be able to detect the intervention of that agent. It may intervene heavily in times/places where there is little scientific ability; but as the ability of science to detect its intervention increases, it simultaneously decreases its intervention. As a result, science can never prove or disprove its intervention, since it only intervenes under circumstances when it knows science will not be able to detect it, and refuses to intervene otherwise.

The second claim is a bit like a Gödel sentence for science. It is a theory which makes the prediction "science cannot prove or disprove the truth of this theory". So it is self-referential (a theory referring to science and its abilities to prove/disprove itself), a bit like a Gödel sentence (I'm not claiming it is exactly like a Gödel sentence though.)

(((Zack Martin)))19:39, 5 July 2011