Was that anecdotal evidence? Yes.
Can meteorologists do it? Probably, but with certain error bars.
How do I know? Because the evidence says so.
Generally, science can damage supernaturalism in two ways:
- Come up with an experiment that falsifies the idea (if it turns out that it is indeed a natural causality).
- Replace the supernatural explanation with a natural one and explain the natural origin of said supernatural belief (such as rain dance, the Sand Man and so on). Of course, this does not in any way disprove the supernatural idea, but it does make it obsolete.
If science has no valid means to test a claim, how can the burden of proof be dumped on laymen? Granted, their's is a statement of faith, but the debunking is pretty much worthless from what I can see. And I don't mean just here, but in every debunking of it that I've seen.
It does not matter if the claim can be tested by science, is outside science, reason or logic or what have you. The burden of proof/evidence is still on the one making the assertion to show why it is relevant, by which ever means is applicable.
On another subject, this was only briefly addressed at the very end, probably a build-in trailer for the second part. It was the clip with that funny postmodern relativist. Their basic claim is that science is orthodox and that the evidence might support one idea for one person and another idea for another person, thus attempting, in a way, to reduce science to an arbitrary social construction. I
do hope this will be debunked in the second part.
I have a few objections to their claims.
1. If science is an arbitrary social construction, how come it has been enormously successful in such areas as medicine, technology and so on, whereas voodoo, astrology and so on has not shown any progress at all if we look at the advancement of society? This is where the relativistic distortion falls to it knees. This argument is generally enough to debunk their claims, but why stop when you are having fun?
2. Science knows that cognitive biases exists and attempts to remove or limit them by double blind studies, peer-review and a valid method of self-correction (doing more tests), whereas voodoo, astrology and so on does not.
3. Certain aspects of science is hard-wired into our genes. Indeed, this can be demonstrated by babies, how and by which means they explore the world around them.
4. Lack of testability, repeatability, falsifiability, evidence, methodology and epistemology for pseudoscience. These are valid obstacles and they are welcome to try and overcome them (by logic or otherwise). They have not done it so far.
I may have over interpreted his stance. Oh well.