[tacticalogic]

That is the beauty of it. If the postulates or axioms are arbitrary, irrational, false or whatever - the theory built on them will be rejected out of hand.

That presupposes that there is some way of testing the axioms. That gets to be problematic once you get outside the realm of physical causes and sensory perception.

[Alamo-Girl]

That presupposes that there is some way of testing the axioms. That gets to be problematic once you get outside the realm of physical causes and sensory perception.

Axioms or postulates or presuppositions are not subjected to testing in the particular investigation or problem which cites them. They are simply declared up-front as "givens" upon which the following theory is based.

Should one of them be falsified, the theory built on it will also fail. For instance, theories which held geocentricity as a postulate are now falsified.

Darwin took life as "given" - he didn't ask or answer the question "what is life v non-life/death in nature" nor did he posit a theory of abiogenesis.

In my view, Darwin should have formally declared life as an axiom or postulate in his theory. Contentious disagreements have multiplied from inferences due to that omission.