Topics Science

Question If I make a claim, based on empirical evidence, that itself invokes the existence of unobservable entities (e.g., those which are very small) am I making a supernatural claim? For example, if I claim that there are tiny elephants which act as the smallest building blocks of all that exists, is this supernatural or is it simply a scientific claim, given that we currently do not possess the means to observe existence at this level but we might eventually develop such means?

Accepted:
May 12, 2009

Comments

If you have a powerful theory about the smallest building blocks of the world, aboutwhat the laws governing them are, how they combine to generate morefamiliar entities, and this allows you to make more or less successful predictions about the world, then you are presumably giving a scientific account of the natural world. What else?

True, these building blocks may not be directly observable, and indeed yourtheory may explain why they can't be observed. But postulating theirexistence may still be the best explanatory game in town by standardscientific criteria. There's nothing 'supernatural' going on -- even if the quantum mechanical laws governing these micro things do make them pretty weird by everyday standards.

You jokingly call these ultimate building-blocks "elephants", I call them "quarks" (in fact a name that seems to have originated in another joke). But what's in a word?