It seems that most all scientific theory includes specific predictions which can either be proven as true, or disproven as false, through experiment or observation.
The falsification method I understand was championed by Karl Popper. Basically, as I understand it, it is quicker and less expensive to go the falsification route than to compile positive evidence.
I realize that Popper theory is extremely unpopular among evolutionists, but I don't see why. After all, in most theories (e.g. "water freezes at 44 F") - simply running the test to prove the theory is false ought to be enough.
So what is the problem with applying falsification methods to evolution theory?
The problem is that evolutionists just move the line each time their theory is falsified or they say that unless it is proven utterly, absolutely, completely impossible then evolution is true. Take for example Behe's example of irreducible complexity, the bacterial flagellum. The example has been out there for a dozen years. Everyone has taken a try at explaining it away. They have done experiments trying to knock out one by one the 40 some genes necessary to make it work. Yet evolutionists continue to deny that it refutes their theory. The example of abiogenesis above I think also is almost irrefutable and don't know of anyone that has even been able to propose an alternative that explains the scientific facts we know to be true. To me that shows that evolution is certainly not science but a religion to which its adherents refuse to listen to the facts.
Not a thing. Words, however, are nuanced, slippery, malleable entities and subject to manipulation by bright human beings while mathematics, also a language, is far more precise and rigorous. Thus physics is legitimately the most respected science. The math may be esoteric but it yields specific, testable, falsifiable conclusions about physical reality and thus must be respected. There is no "wiggle room".
Not so with Evolution, which is why Master Sophists such as Gould and Dawkins could rise to public prominence within this so-called science. For years, Gould promoted the absurd notion that "chance" was explanatory. This is not only surrealistic, it is anti-science.
This fundamental sophistry at the heart of Darwin's work was brilliantly exposed by Gertrude Himmelfarb in 1959 with the publication of Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, as you know. But did you also notice that the substance of her critique was not addressed on a recent thread? When Darwinists spend their time attacking and ridiculing "Creationists" and not supporting their theory, it is a tipoff that something other than science is going on. Good science always respects the facts and good science does not draw unwarranted conclusions about reality. Abiogenesis, as tested by physical reality, is a failed hypothesis. But why won't the Darwinists let it go unless they feel there is a philosophical understanding of the universe at stake, and an anti-Christian one at that?
Here's the TalkOrigins definition:
Biological evolution is a change in the genetic characteristics of a population over time. That this happens is a fact. Biological evolution also refers to the common descent of living organisms from shared ancestors. The evidence for historical evolution -- genetic, fossil, anatomical, etc. -- is so overwhelming that it is also considered a fact. The theory of evolution describes the mechanisms that cause evolution. So evolution is both a fact and a theory.
And here's my critique of it. "Change over time" is no big deal and easily dismissed as science. So we dismiss it. Change occurs but that doesn't validate Evolution. TalkOrigins goes on to simply state that "common descent" has been established with evidence so overwhelming that it is considered a fact. Well this is simply not so. There are acknowledged and important similarities among species and the complexity of final living forms has increased over geological time but how that occured, supported by the physical evidence, has neither been established nor made plain by the Evolutionists. It is thus absolutely untrue that "the theory of evolution describes the mechanisms that cause evolution", TalkOrigins' bald but unfounded assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.
My conclusion (I'm not in the least afraid to make value judgements, as I'm sure you've noticed) is that they are lying to us and to the world. And this is validated by their constant resort to the debating tactics so well described by Phillip Johnson in his small book, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, copyright 1997, InterVarsity Press. The "tipoff" is always the vehemence of their ad hominem attacks. Some of us are, however, quite capable of trading barb for barb, if it comes to that. But it should be clear that this is not science.