11:22 AM
I have a lot of sympathy for @Sklivvz's position that unfalsifiable claims are bad, (i.e. that Xenoglossia exists, versus this particular instance is a case of Xenoglossia).
The main reason I don't like them is that they sit unanswered, and they present the message to the world that "Ah, skeptics have no answer to these questions! They are defeated by them." when a more accurate take on the skeptical position is "They are apriori extremely unlikely, and the evidence to support it is very, very poor, so we must provisionally accept it is false."
However, I don't see we have a precedent or, even better, a good reason, for selecting one particular inquiry and closing it as implausible, while selecting another inquiry and leaving it open as merely unresearched.
So, I currently don't think we should close them.
I don't think @Articuno's "Does X exist?" is a strong enough template - Do atoms exist? Do aliens aircrafts exist? Does relativity exist? Does Xenoglossia exist? Did dinosaurs exist? Half are answerable, half aren't.
I agree with Brian's point, that the distinguishing feature here is difficult to see, without first forming a strong opinion on the answer.
I don't get the same cringe as Sklivvz at the idea of having a standard post notice, but I don't think having a mod decide this counts as "exception handling". (I have the same objection to the current need for a mod to apply the notability post-notice.)
I've wondered before if we should have a convention of allowing people to post a Community Wiki non-answer to such question that reads something like:
> This question is unfalsifiable, blah, blah, can only be answered in one direction, blah, blah, blah Karl Popper. The skeptical position in such cases is to keep an open mind when evidence is presented, but to provisionally accept that this phenomena does not exist until then. Sagan's Razor blah blah. Anecdotes, blah blah. Feel free to ask about specific cases.
Such an answer could be up and downvoted like any other, and presumably a real answer (which might include "Here is a peer-reviewed literature review that reveals no evidence.", "Here is a paper that demonstrates that the Loch Ness Monster is not a dinosaur." or even, shock horror, "here is an indisputable case of Xenoglossia!") would be voted higher that it.
@Sklivvz The term anecdote has a few meanings. While we do NOT want to ask for the reader's anecdotes - they are unverifiable - I want to be clear that a documented, verifiable anecdote may be an answer to the question "Do any X exist?" e.g. Has anyone fallen out of a plane and survived? Yes, this dude, for example...