Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: DannyTN; PatrickHenry
[see my post 66]

What do you mean it fits all data?

Exactly what he said. What field observation, fossil, or lab test is inconsistent with creationism/id? If there aren't any, the hypothesis (not theory) is vacuous, incapable of making any predictions. How do you test whether a theory is consistent with observation if there's no way it could fail?

PH: It can't be falsified. It's scientifically useless.

DannyTN: Can't you really say the same thing about evolution?

Absoutely not! There are thousands of ways evolution could have fallen had the data been different: EG:

A precambrian rabbit fossil.

An elephant fossil in Hawaii

A pseudogene in a chimp and an orangutang but not in a person

A 'missing link' between birds and mammals (don't get your hopes up, the platypus bill only looks like a bird's)

A pseudogene in a cow and a whale but not in a hippo.

Does either evolution or ID really offer that much in the form of an explanatory purpose? Neither really advances our understanding of anything useful. Advances in biology, genetics, microbiology, etc, could all have come with either or neither of the two theories.

Really? How would an ID-er explain the above facts? How would he come up with new tests for his 'theory'? ("If a pseudogene is found in x and y, it must also be in z.")

Standard biology uses common ancestry to make predictions of this form; it is hard for me to believe that any creationist/id-er would say, with a straight face, that cows and whales *should* share genetic material. Duane Gish used to make fun of the idea that they were even related! (he probably still does)

74 posted on 11/01/2003 6:02:21 PM PST by Virginia-American
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies ]


To: Virginia-American
Absoutely not! There are thousands of ways evolution could have fallen had the data been different: EG:

A precambrian rabbit fossil.

That wouldn't disprove evolution. You'd either say the rabbit fossil was "misplaced", that layer wasn't the precambrian, or that rabbits were a special case.

An elephant fossil in Hawaii

That wouldn't disprove evolution. You'd either say that the land was connected to a continent at one point, or that the elephant wandered onto an iceberg and drifted to the island.

A pseudogene in a chimp and an orangutang but not in a person

That wouldn't disprove evolution. You'd simply say that was a mutation in the person.

A 'missing link' between birds and mammals (don't get your hopes up, the platypus bill only looks like a bird's)

That wouldn't disprove evolution. You'd simply change your tree. Hasn't that already happened a few times in other species.

A pseudogene in a cow and a whale but not in a hippo.

Again, you'd simply say the one is a mutation. But the following page has an interesting discussion on whales and hippos and how they make a strong case for common design as opposed to evolution. It's about half way down look for a bold faced "Whales". Whales

So I don't see anything in any of those examples that could falsify evolution. The cambrian explosion ought to falsify it but evolutionists ignore it.

82 posted on 11/01/2003 6:52:54 PM PST by DannyTN (Note left on my door by a pack of neighborhood dogs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson