[unlearner]

"If a theory is testable, it is by definition falsifiable, otherwise, there would be no way to fail the test."

Not exactly. Ideally tests support or falsify, but not necessarily.

Strictly speaking, falsification could be a "test".

But by testable, I refer to the ability to find confirming evidence.

I am not really attempting to argue semantics. Substitute verifiable if you prefer.

There are statements which are verifiable but not falsifiable. In that sense, something can be testable but not falsifiable.

In such a case, the test would not be adequate to qualify the proposition as scientific unless the outcome could also falsify it.

String theory is testable in that sense. There may have been recent predictions which are falsifiable, but for many years string theory was not really qualified to be a theory because even the leading proponents admitted it was not falsifiable.

Of course string theory is very mathematical. It is essentially a mathematical model. Math is not falsifiable, although it is possible to falsify statements which claim real world scenarios match a particular mathematical model.

Anyway, I prefer to use testability in the broader sense of verification. Generally, even though falsification is a more critical demarcation, verification is also important in my opinion in order to give an idea credibility. This is especially true if there are competing ideas for which there is supporting evidence.

I think ID has a very low bar to meet since there really are no scientific theories for the origin of life.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" Not exactly. Ideally tests support or falsify, but not necessarily."

If they don't support or provide evidence against the theory, they are not tests.

" There are statements which are verifiable but not falsifiable. In that sense, something can be testable but not falsifiable."

Then they are not verifiable. If something is not falsifiable, there is no way to verify it.

" I think ID has a very low bar to meet since there really are no scientific theories for the origin of life."

The status of other hypotheses for the origins of life has no affect on the scientific status of ID. All other hypotheses can be falsified, and ID will not be any better off. That being said, abiogenesis has much more evidence to back it than ID, which has nothing.


Merry Christmas!!

[donh]

I think ID has a very low bar to meet since there really are no scientific theories for the origin of life.

What? How does the one follow from the other? There are several naturalistic abiogenetic theories floating around, some of which have been published in refereed journals. And there is Woese's work, which is definitely biological science, and which seems to be narrowing the abiogenetic options down. Whether you can call all of this science or not is in the same problematic bag as crop circles and cold fusion, at the moment, however, it would seem to play hob with your somewhat loopy theory that you can pull any rabbit out of your hat you like, and call it a falsifiable test, because there are no such tests being hunted up for competing theories.