[unlearner]

"always holding up hoops of their own devising for science to jump thru"

You said yourself that falsification was a requirement for science. Do you think it is possible to falsify a prediction or hypothesis using data which itself is not testable or falsifiable? If so, how? If not, then how are prehistoric historical data falsifiable?

Is this a hoop to jump through? If so, I guess falsifiability means whatever you want it to mean.

[donh]

You said yourself that falsification was a requirement for science. Do you think it is possible to falsify a prediction or hypothesis using data which itself is not testable or falsifiable? If so, how? If not, then how are prehistoric historical data falsifiable?

Is this a hoop to jump through? If so, I guess falsifiability means whatever you want it to mean.

No matter how obtuse you manage to remain about it, there is no significant functional difference regarding falsifiability, between data you collected 10 minutes ago with a telescope, or an oscilloscope, or unearthed 10 minutes ago with a trowel and spade. The essential thing about the data that makes for a falsifiable experiment, is that you didn't have the data 10 minutes ago, with which to rig the experiment--regardless of how long ago the data was generated. This isn't exactly rocket science--why are we still talking about it? Do you like looking this dense?