[betty boop]

In both cases, for pilot and scientist, there are gray areas - cases in which the thing under consideration *might* be flyable, in which an hypothesis *might* be testable. These things should neither be accepted nor rejected out of hand.

I'm not sure your analogy is sufficiently direct in this instance, King Prout. For one thing, the fact that some human beings in New Guinea would fail to recognize that the object that sits on their tarmac is a fighter jet does not mitigate at all against the truth that the jet was expressly, knowledgeably built for flight, and beyond that for military missions. In other words, to use the language of Aristotelian causation, the formal cause of the jet seeks fulfillment in a final cause (i.e., flight, military missions); and material and efficient causes were applied so as to achieve the aimed-for goal.

Any "gray area" involves the state of our knowledge regarding the object, not the object itself. The guy (team) who built the jet has no "gray area" respecting that particular jet. Does this make any sense at all?

Thanks so much for writing, KP!

[King Prout]

I expected that one of you at least would attempt to extend the analogy beyond its specific intent.

the analogy *itself* is a construct of intelligence, betty.

that has no bearing on the matter (inherent testability or untestability) it illustrates through analogy.