Is God an unscientific theory?

How is "God" falsifiable?

Please explain your thought process to reach this conclusion?
 
WordNet is just an online dictionary. Not even an authoritative dictionary. Why should I believe WordNet? Come on. Give me a better site than that.
 
Hypothesis: This is an educated guess based upon observation. It is a rational explanation of a single event or phenomenon based upon what is observed, but which has not been proved. Most hypotheses can be supported or refuted by experimentation or continued observation.

Theory: A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

Real scientific theories must be falsifiable. So-called "theories" based on religion, such as creationism or intelligent design are, therefore, not scientific theories. They are not falsifiable and they do not follow the scientific method.

http://wilstar.com/theories.htm
 
spidergoat said:
Hypothesis: This is an educated guess based upon observation. It is a rational explanation of a single event or phenomenon based upon what is observed, but which has not been proved. Most hypotheses can be supported or refuted by experimentation or continued observation.

Theory: A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

Real scientific theories must be falsifiable. So-called "theories" based on religion, such as creationism or intelligent design are, therefore, not scientific theories. They are not falsifiable and they do not follow the scientific method.

http://wilstar.com/theories.htm
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Thank you ! :)
 
John J. Bannan said:
WordNet is just an online dictionary. Not even an authoritative dictionary. Why should I believe WordNet? Come on. Give me a better site than that.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:

Okay - what would suffice?

Try Karl Popper...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/

To summarise what that entry more or less says, here's a quote from the man...
"The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability." — Karl Popper

If this does not suffice, look up "Scientific Method" on Google and help yourself.
 
Your site is by Jerry Wilson. So, according to Jerry Wilson scientific theories must be falsifiable. I never heard of Jerry Wilson. Is he some important scientist speaking on behalf of an important scientific institution regarding the definition of theory or hypothesis. Your site is even weaker than the WordNet site. You must do better.
 
What is good enough John ? I get the feeling you are only going to accept it when God says its so. :rolleyes:
 
Many physicists do, in fact, criticize string theory as being unscientific because there is currently no way to test it. But that’s mainly because of technological limitations. With sufficiently advanced technology, it is theoretically possible to experimentally test string theory. There’s no way to every test the god “theory,” no matter how clever you are or what sort of technology you have.

Of course, it’s possible to test specific ideas that people might have about god – for example, you can do scientific studies to determine whether or not prayer works.
There is a very important characteristic of a scientific theory or hypothesis which differentiates it from, for example, an act of faith: a theory must be ``falsifiable''. This means that there must be some experiment or possible discovery that could prove the theory untrue. For example, Einstein's theory of Relativity made predictions about the results of experiments. These experiments could have produced results that contradicted Einstein, so the theory was (and still is) falsifiable.
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http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html
 
Scientific theory
A theory is set of statements closed under certain rules of inference. In particular the set of well-formed formulae consisting of certain axioms and all theorems provable from said axioms is a theory.
~http://www.fact-archive.com

Theorem
A theorem is a statement which can be proven true within some logical framework.
~http://www.fact-archive.com
 
You still haven't sited any authoritative scientific body that defines scientific theory or hypothesis to require falsifiability. Try again.
 
I have to go now John. I suggest you help yourself. But you wont, you are pretty arrogant to dismiss the definition of 'scientific theory'.
 
Please site the definition of an authoritative scientific body that defines scientific theory or hypothesis to require falsifiability.
 
Arrogant to question your weak references? Arrogant to ask questions - like where do you get these definitions. If the answer were so easy for you, you would have supplied a better citation by now.
 
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John J. Bannan said:
This is not even a quote of Popper, but a Wikipedia statement."One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability." http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cach...+its+falsifiability"&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
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Are you being deliberately dishonest or just a touch dense?

The Wikipedia quote is LIFTED DIRECTLY FROM POPPER!

http://philosophy2.ucsd.edu/~rarneson/Courses/popperphil1.pdf
Search page 3 - about 2/3 the way down - above "II"

These are POPPERS WORDS - FROM HIS OWN LECTURE "Science: Conjectures and Refutations".


If you don't want to accept that - or if you wish to believe that Popper is not an authoritative source - then just come out and say it.
 
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