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To: donh; Fester Chugabrew

True. Someone on one of these threads once likened falsifying a theory to cutting down a tree. If you cut away a few of the minor branches, then the tree still stands. If you cut the tree at the trunk, the tree falls. If you find a single anomalous fossil, then that's not really a problem for the theory. However, if you start to find that a significant number of fossils appear out of place, then the theory has a problem. This is similar to cutting off most of the branches of a tree; the tree will die if you cut off enough of them. There are other observations, however, that would be serious enough to be extremely problematic for evolution. Evolution predicts common descent. Therefore finding an organism which doesn't use polynucleotides for heredity would be a more serious problem than a few out of place fossils. Finding a wildly out of place fossil, such as a human fossil that was reliably dated as being over one billion years old in a precambrian rock layer would similarly be a serious problem for evolution. I would liken such hypothetical observations to cutting the tree down at the trunk. The point still remains, however, that it is, at least in principle, possible to falsify evolution. There is no "God did it" type excuse to handle any possible observation as there is in creationism.


1,247 posted on 12/03/2004 1:13:06 PM PST by stremba
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To: stremba
Evolution predicts common descent.

Evolution predicts nothing. It is an assumed construct that can be made to fit the world as it exists. Evolution is a process, and in order for it to be verified it must be observed as it happens, not just as it supposedly happened. There is a world of difference. Who are we kidding to think one can look at static data from the past and then make "predicitions" based soley on dead matter (as it still stands in the record, no less!), and then have the audacity to call it "science?" If evolution wants to maintain a reputation as science, let it predict and observe the process as it happens. Otherwise it should be treated with no less skepticism in the marketplace of objective truth than any other narrative of history.

1,259 posted on 12/03/2004 1:33:35 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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