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What does it mean for an idea to be unscientific? Generally, one primary standard for the consideration of an idea to be scientific is testability. If an idea can be tested by observation, it is scientific. To be testable, an idea must be falsifiable by the right observations. If no possible observation would cause a rational person to give up an idea, then that idea is not scientific.

Now, let’s put evolution to the test. (BTW the term “darwinism” is a poor term; evolution includes much that Darwin would never have known). Can we think of an observation that would render evolution false? I can think of several, just off the top of my head without even thinking hard about it. Here’s a brief list:

1. Finding a fossil of an anatomically modern rabbit that is reliably dated at over 500 million years old.

2. Finding an organism whose genetic information is stored in some manner other than nucleic acids.

3. Finding an organism whose basic metabolic processes are catalyzed by something other than polypeptides.

4. Finding a particular endoviral insertion that is shared by the genomes of gorillas and humans, but is not present in chimpanzees.

5. Observing a chimpanzee giving birth to a human. (Or any case where an organism gives birth to an offspring that is wildly different from its parents) Yes, despite creationist mischaracterizations, this is something that is strictly forbidden by evolution and would conclusively falsify it. Evolution works only by the accumulation of SMALL changes to produce large ones, not by large, sudden changes. The theory never stated that a human was born from an ape of any kind, but rather that humans and apes share a common ancestor. The chimpanzees are the organisms that shared the most recent common ancestor with humans. This ancestor was neither a chimpanzee nor a human, but some other species. The population of this organism would have become separated into two groups. These groups would have, little by little, diverged from each other genetically. Over the course of time, the divergence became greater and greater, leading to modern chimps on one hand and modern humans on the other. At no time would there have ever been a case where any organism gave birth to an offspring that was wildly different from its parents. If we ever did observe this, it would falsify evolution.

These are just a few examples off the top of my head showing that evolution is testable. So far, it has passed all observational tests, including laboratory experiments designed to produce new species of organisms via the process of evolution. Of course, these aren’t likely to meet the creationists satisfaction since “they’re still fruit flies!” But expecting to see otherwise in a short time is not realistic. There are many things that actually occur that we cannot expect to observe over the course of centuries. For instance, observation of the location of Niagara Falls, the average elevation of the Rocky mountains or the distance between San Francisco, CA and Juneau, AK over periods of centuries would produce no discernable change, at least without sensitive measuring instruments. Observation over millions of years would show significant changes, however.