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The idea that only testable predictions are valid is... short sighted. Seriously considering extraordinary ideas with as much rigor as possible, with the tools available, is something that has propelled science. If not then ideas about the moon would have been dead in the water.

If anything this kind of "rationalism" only conceals dogmatic ideas about what is or isn't possible..

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That's not true. It's a basic tenet of science. Even astronomical theories (for which no experiments are possible) are backed up by observation.

Scientific theories must be testable. It must be possible to prove them wrong with experiments or observation.

Except in many cases, we didn't have the tools or technology to be able to test theories that eventually turned out to match real-world measurements. But the theories existed beforehand anyway and weren't any less science.

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