In the medical field there is an expression for facts that are unproven by experiment but are taken to be true. It's called clinical evidence.

I suggest that the belief in something beyond physical life, excluding blind belief that is based on what you read or are told, can be based on clinical evidence. If you all live long enough, this kind of evidence will become very apparent. It's quite close to diagnosing the desease by its symptoms. Only the symptoms in this case are often subtle.

Now such evidence cannot tell us what or who god is, or if something with the powerful attributes we ascribe to god even exists. It just tells us that something exists that is invisible to us, but that affects us. In its most obvious form, it talks to us.

Likewise with Dark Matter. Like god, the scientists do not know what it is, they just know that it is there and how much of it is there; and in some sense it is all powerful as along with dark energy it takes up 99% of the universe. We would not even be here according to science if it were not for dark matter. But the scientists cannot even deduce what it is. A myraid of possibilities have been suggested. But none have been deduced. Most of these possibilities will turn out to be erroneous. Science itself is in the dark, so to speak.

I have been tempted to suggest a Dark Matter and Energy topic to the Admin, but so little is known about it that there would be nothing to talk about. At least with Black Holes we have a theory that can describe everything about them, if the equations can be solved, down to their singularities. Not so for dark matter. There is not even a theory of dark matter or energy, at least none that has any validation.

So I claim that the scientific understanding of dark matter and energy is on the same level as the clinical understanding of god and what we now call the supernatural. But 'I would not be surprised', perhaps not in my lifetime, if these two understandings merge at some time in the future. I hope that I will somehow cognitively exist 'to not be surprised'.

• Incorrect. Dark matter and dark energy have gravitat. signature - alexander - April 2, 2001 - 17:37 UTC
• "Clinical evidence" of supernatural is wishful thinking. - johnpowell - April 3, 2001 - 23:15 UTC
  • Psychotherapy works - yanniru - April 4, 2001 - 12:32 UTC
    • How about: supernatural = unobservable. - alexander - April 4, 2001 - 20:49 UTC
    • What soul? - johnpowell - April 4, 2001 - 23:12 UTC
      • It is true - yanniru - April 5, 2001 - 12:24 UTC
        • What is supernatural? - johnpowell - April 5, 2001 - 22:24 UTC