Reading through a lot of posts, mainly here and the the Beyond Dreaming section(I cannot speak for R/S, I never go there), I have noticed that most of the discussions between skeptics of anything and believers of anything tend to degrade into fights about science and the scientific method. It seems to be a misunderstanding about the definition of "science".

Those that approve of the scientific method will claim that the intention is to find undeniable, objective proof of the existence or effectiveness of something. They usually convert such proof into text or numbers, the commonly accepted way of presenting information.

Those that disprove of the scientific method will claim that the only objective of science is to push away anything considered too strange. They believe that subjective evidence of a claim, such as their own experiences is enough to warrant a belief in something's existence.

I am with the first group. The fact that something cannot be proved indicates one of two things: either (A) the thing does not exist or work or (B) we do not yet have the method of testing and producing repeatable results on the topic. Science is not a device to crush ideas that do not fit with what is accepted, it is a tool we use to ensure we only accept what is true. It takes a long time and extensive repetition to begin to call a theory a law. Scientists are seeking the truth and being careful about what to support.

The point is, the first group does not want to believe in anything that may be suggested by subjective evidence alone. We want to be certain that we have investigated everything we believe to the best of our abilities.

An important side note here is that the scientific method MUST APPLY EVERY TIME. There is nothing we cannot explain. If something cannot be explained, then it either doesn't exist, or we merely lack the tools for doing so. If you walked up to a random philosopher from ancient Greece and tried to convince them of the existence of bacteria, tiny animals invisible to the naked eye that are responsible for a large percentage of illnesses, they would have thought you to be in the second group; you had no way of supporting your claim. When the microscope was created, we suddenly had a method to prove that bacteria were, in fact, real.

Looking back, I can see that I can't support what I have said in the first paragraph, because I do not offer evidence of my claim that science is the base cause of arguments. This can be tested. I could count every topic and see where the topics go. I won't, because this is easily done(although time-consuming) and I wanted to post something like this anyway.

So, where do you stand? Agree or disagree? If the latter, what is Science in your mind?