"Reed"  wrote
>
> Suppose your friend John shows you a film that depicts a man with a
> wand standing behind a table with, we are told, a large piece of lead
> on top of the table.  We watch as the man waves the wand over the
> lead, muttering incantations, touches the lead creating a flash of
> smoke and voilą, when the smoke clears we see a shining lump of (we
> are told) gold, approximately the same size and shape as the lead.
> The man then informs the audience that what we just witnessed is not
> some cheap trick, but a genuine act of the supernatural - calling upon
> forces beyond what can be explained by science, from outside our
> natural reality. He claims that we just witnessed is nothing less than
> the supernatural transmutation of lead into pure gold. Moreover, the
> wizard is prepared to repeat this feat before any group of scientists
> and skeptics.
>
> Now John is inclined to believe that the magician's claim is true.
> When asked why, he says:  Well we know there are more things on heaven
> and earth than can be explained by science.  The media routinely
> reports on the unexplained and supernatural.  The wizard is prepared
> to defend his claim. The film appears to be genuine, and having no
> particular reason to disbelieve the magician's claim, he is inclined
> to take the film as prima facie evidence in favor of the supernatural.
>
> Consider the claim:
>
> (S)  The wizard in the film supernaturally transmuted the lead into
> gold.
>
> Some questions:
>
> 1.    Is John's acceptance of S rational based on the reasons he gave?
>
Yes. A film showing an alleged transmutation of lead to gold is quite
clearly _evidence_ that such a procedure is possible. There is no reason to
suppose that John is insane or even childish.
However John's opinion is obviously uninformed, because it means that, if
true, something is very radically wrong with our current physics. John
hasn't tried to address this issue.
>
> 2.   In what sense is S unscientific or "beyond the bounds" of
> science?
>
If you are going to argue that something is radically wrong with accepted
physical models, then any scientist is going to ask for far more details
than a single bit of evidence which could easily be faked or for some other
reason spurious.
>
> 3.   Is S scientifically testable or falsifiable?
>
This is a hard one. One thing I would look at is the incantations. Are the
phonemes restricted to the set found in English? This would suggest that
they are nonsense words spoken by a native English speaker. It falls far
short of proof of course, but where we have evidence we can have scientific
investigation.
>
> 4.   Does or can scientific results or investigation affect the
> rationality of belief in S?
>
Ultimately it might be possible to build an overwhelming case that the film
is faked. The problem is communicating that to a non-scientist, who may
never have heard the word "phoneme" for example, and may not have the
intellectual equipment to see the relevance. Whether someone of average
intelligence is "irrational" because they cannot appreciate arguments that
people with university education regard as conclusive is a good question. It
may be possible for someone who is a good communicator to present the
results of a scientific inquiry in such terms that no one of even normal
intelligence would deny it. However this probably not achievable. Many
adults of average intelligence and reasonable literacy accept all sorts of
supernatural ideas.
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