Here is a link to a good discussion of the scientific method:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
When discussing scientific methods, it is best to be aware of these guidelines. When discussing religion and particular beliefs, other guidelines will, of course, apply.
Many of the problems on these threads occur when people intermingle, or ignore, the two different approaches in their efforts to convert others to their positions.
Creation science / intelligent design adherents often pervert the scientific method (whether out of ignorance or deliberate intent does not matter) in an effort to discredit evolution as a theory because this is what they believe.
On the other hand, scientists and those who follow this line of reasoning really should study and adhere to the scientific method. A little study of the scientific method, even as a refresher course, is never time wasted.
The many people who enjoy this forum, from all viewpoints, will thank you!
There is no scientific method - save for verification. Great discoveries are the product of night terrors and demonic suggestion, or that of angels - you pick. The ideas just pop into one's head, as with the great lyric and song, poem and novel, painting and organizational idea, for which so many are so embarrassed to take personal credit. It wasn't me - they say.
Rather, the scientific method is verification based on metric. You have to be able to measure it, define it, and falsify it. It's always a guess. It's designed to be wrong. And it must ALWAYS be subject to test on the same protocol and assumptions made by the first, second and so on to perform the test. It's tradecraft, based on the language of math, and the calibrated rule.
And so evolution, as we see in this thread, and so many other places, is difficult to place in the category of science. So much of that specificity is missing. The tests are not encouraged but resented. The theory hides in a fog. The fact becomes a tautology. And so on.
Very true.
For example, -- digressing a bit from the competing theories of origin of species, -- it is often said by atheists that since religion deals with the supernatural and consequiently cannot be experientially verified by scientific methods, then religion disproves itself. This is tautological: if a phenomenon is supernatural then it is not naturally observed.
There are vast areas of human experience beside canonical religion that cannot be scientifically observed. Love, pride, jealousy are all experientially available but cannot be subjected to the scientific method of hypothesis-prediction-verification (physiological reactions that attend to emotions can, but that is a different issue). Similarly, millions of people experienced varieties of religious experiences of exultation, awe, divine presence, spiritual love, etc. Some of these are undoubtedly illusory, but it does not scientifically follow that all are illusory.
Another way to objectify the supernatural is similar to the methods of mathematical abstraction. Non-Euclidian geometries, or some algebras, cannot be observed in nature (leaving aside some advanced physics to which unusual math can be applied, and then physical phenomena indirectly observed). To a mathematician, an object exists if he can produce axiomatics defining the object, then building an abstraction fitting the axiomatics, -- no experimentation with the physical world is required.
It is often the case that some mathematical object, -- for example, complex numbers, -- is build as an abstraction, then applied successfully in real world engineering. Wave mechanics for example would be impossible to understand without complex numbers, but we cannot experience a complex number by bending fingers or fooling around with a tape, or in any other tangible way.
Similarly, while God and other supernatural subject matter of religion cannot be perceived through the methodology of natural science, the theological concepts give us an understanding of human purpose and condition that we cannot get from anywhere else. For example, such elements of human existence as love, happiness, shame or grief cannot be understood but in theological terms.
It is fine for someone to say: "I never experienced God". The leap to "Therefore, god is not there" is wholly unwarranted.