"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Richard Alexander wrote:
Al Klein wrote in message
...

[snip]

The definition of "scientific" doesn't include "testable".

I think we should at least settle this question; Can an hypothesis,
theory, principle, claim or statement be scientific if it is not
testable?

It needn't be immediately testable with current technology and the
resources humans are willing to put into it. Those are just practical
considerations.

But, among other qualities, a theory must say something definite about
nature, must make concrete predictions of observables that will be either
right or wrong. Theory aids the understanding, but science is
fundamentally empirical.


www.m-w.com

Main Entry: em·pir·i·cal
Pronunciation: -i-k&l
Variant(s): also em·pir·ic /-ik/
Function: adjective
Date: 1569
1 : originating in or based on observation or experience empirical data


That is why scientists differentiate between :

1. universal, scientific (empirical) statements ("There is no X") because we
can all observe, experience it when such statements are false, and

2. unscientific, metaphysical (non-empirical) statements ("X exists")
because the only thing that falsifies any such statement is the universal,
empirical statement "There is no X."

See Popper, _The Logic of Scientific Discovery_.

And see this principle put in practice in the scientific method of
investigation:

Null : of, being, or relating to zero
www.m-w.com
(as in, "There are no ETs.")


---
Testing the Null Hypothesis
by John Marcus, MD
email

http://www.setileague.org/editor/null.htm

SETI is perhaps the most highly interdisciplinary of sciences,
encompassing not only astronomy, biology, engineering and physics, but
also psychology, metaphysics, probability, and belief. But it is, first
and foremost, a science, one to which we hope to apply the scientific
method.

[...]

The Scientific Method for the Argus search is this:

There are no ET's. (null hypothesis).

.... [W]e now design an experiment (Project Argus, for example) to try to
prove that statement wrong, recognizing that it takes only one clear,
unambiguous counter-example to reject the null hypothesis. ...

---