A post today by PZ Myers nicely expresses something which has
been frustrating me about people who, in arguing over what can
be a legitimate subject of “scientific” study, play the
“untestable claim” card. Their ideal is the experiment that, in
one session, shoots down a claim cleanly and neatly. So let’s
bring in dowsers who claim to be able to detect water flowing
underground, set up control pipes and water-filled pipes, run
them through their paces, and see if they meet reasonable
statistical criteria. That’s science, it works, it effectively
addresses an individual’s very specific claim, and I’m not
saying that’s wrong; that’s a perfectly legitimate scientific
experiment. I’m saying that’s not the whole operating paradigm
of all of science. Plenty of scientific ideas are not
immediately testable, or directly testable, or testable in
isolation. For example: the planets in our solar system aren’t
moving the way Newton’s laws say they should. Are Newton’s laws
of gravity wrong, or are there other gravitation