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To: Petrosius
Thus, not being subject to experimentation and so not being disprovable, Evolution is logically no more than conjecture.

Im sorry but that's wrong. Evolution is subject to experimentation and being potentially disprovable. Every fossil unearthed tests the theory and could potentially disprove it. Every genome sequenced is a test. Every organism studied is a test. It is empirical science.

70 posted on 11/12/2005 10:53:18 AM PST by bobdsmith
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To: bobdsmith

Everything that you listed shows what has happened not why or how. The reason why new species, let alone phyla, arise is unrepeatable and beyond observation. Every organism studied is an observation, not a test. Evolution is not an empirical science.


72 posted on 11/12/2005 11:34:43 AM PST by Petrosius
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To: bobdsmith
Im sorry but that's wrong. Evolution is subject to experimentation and being potentially disprovable. Every fossil unearthed tests the theory and could potentially disprove it. Every genome sequenced is a test. Every organism studied is a test. It is empirical science.

Part of the essence of science is that specific conditions can be deliberately created and tested. The ability to deliberately create the test conditions is essential in science, because it provides the only sure means of separating out cause and effect.

Suppose I through a bunch of different stones, marbles, and other such objects into a jar and shake it; some of the items settle out to the bottom. Mere examination of what pieces do or do not settle out would not suffice to ascertain what causes some items to sink deeper than others. One might be able to make some informed guesses, but to really show what properties have what effect, it would be necessary to run the experiment with items that were identical except for specific chosen properties. Mere observation could lead to erroneous results if, e.g., smaller items happened to be generally either denser or lighter than larger ones (and odds are pretty good they'd be one or the other).

Further, there's another problem with trying to 'predict the past': the fact that something could have come about via a certain mechanism doesn't mean that it actually did. People doing forensic studies on things that fail often have this problem. Even in closed systems, it's often not possible to tell with certainty how a particular bad situation came about. And in open systems, it's generally impossible. Given that the known universe is an open system, it's not really possible to identify all the major factors that affected events millions of years ago.

74 posted on 11/12/2005 12:07:46 PM PST by supercat (Don't fix blame--FIX THE PROBLEM.)
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