So does that mean that any thing not susceptible of test or metrical description does not exist? How does Darwin's theory itself escape such a fate?
Here's an observation from [physicist] Menas Kafatos' article — "The Science of Wholeness," which appeared in the Analecta Husserliana: The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research, Volume CVII, 2011 — which lays out the problem:
Today's science has achieved remarkable successes and is an indispensable aspect of humanity. Without science, there can be no progress. Yet, science cannot explain, it is not equipped to explain anything that is not subject to algorithmic rules, to ordinary mathematical descriptions, or in the case of physical systems, partial differential equations. It cannot explain the qualitative aspects of reality. Present science cannot completely explain not only living processes in large aggregates of cells, organisms, etc., or what we may term holistic organizations (it certainly has great success to account for molecular biochemical processes), but also noetic aspects of reality, mind and consciousness. It cannot explain or even account for the experiences of art, for the entire experience of human life, driven by the emotional levels of the psyche. And certainly it has little to say about the deep underlying nature of the cosmos, or reality, in general.Reductionism and the machine metaphor are dead ends for biology. So is the supposition that all causation is local causation.
We believe that present-day science needs to be extended beyond its present limits and it needs a new ontological model of reality, what we term here the science of wholeness. A revised methodology, which derives from the above ontological model will have to follow. The methodology in laying the foundations of science of wholeness would indicate that rather than pursuing distinct but separate paths in trying to understand the universe and human experience, that these realities ought to be considered together, an undivided whole. As Kafatos and Draganescu (2007) have pointed out, we may not be able to account for the whole levels of life and explain noetic aspects without knowing the nature of the underlying reality. We should compare our approach to the seminal work of [David] Bohm (1980), who perhaps more than any other physicist explored the underlying levels of reality, giving rise to wholeness, what he termed the implicate order. [bolds added for emphasis.]
What we need is a paradigm shift in the natural sciences. I think one's coming — but it's coming out of physics and mathematics — DO see [mathematician] Robert Rosen's splendid books, Life Itself and Essays on Life Itself for details.
It's the mathematicians and physicists who are out-front in the study of living systems these days. Biologists seem to be dragging their feet....
I think that may be because Darwinist evolution theory is one of the most successful myths of all time: It has achieved "dogmatic form."
What do you think? Can you think of any reason why scientists would require that theories be based on something that can be empirically quantified or qualified? The history of the development of science, and it's embrace of empiricism and the reasons why is no secret.
How does Darwin's theory itself escape such a fate?
It relies on evidence that can be observed and expressed empirically. There is evidence of many forms of life having existed in the past that are now extict, and new forms of life appearing along a time scale. We know mutations happen, and that they can change the form of an organism.