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You said, "The theory of evolution rules out whole classes of obervations." You did not say that observations can rule out theories. You said that theories can and do rule out observations. I replied, "If you allow a theory to rule out observations then you most certainly are not practicing science." You responded, "Mercury's orbit deviates in a way not allowed by Newton's theory of gravity. This observation proved Newton wrong." Yes, observations can prove theories wrong. This is why I said that the opposite (what you said), that theories can prove observations wrong, is not science.

I think you are both misinterpreting each other. What Condorman meant (if I can be so bold as to put words into his mouth) is that the theory of evolution is testable, and thus scientific, even though it is not reproduceable in the laboratory, because it predicts that we will find certain things and not others.

In Darwin's time, there were no transitional fossils known, but his theory predicted that we would find fish-to-amphibian transitionals, amphibian-to-reptile transitionals, reptile-to-bird transitionals and reptile-to-mammal transitionals, but not, for example, fish-to-bird transitionals or mammal-to-amphibian transitionals.

These predictions have, IMHO, been borne out very well, which is why I accept evolution as the best description of the evidence so far.

There is, in contrast, little to no evidence of where the very first life form came from, which is why I am undecided on the abiogenesis hypothesis. In any event, neither proof nor disproof of that hypothesis would shake my faith that : (a) God is ultimately the author of all life, and (b) He has, aty least as far back as we can glimpse, used His natural laws to achieve His will.

the theory of evolution is testable, and thus scientific, even though it is not reproduceable in the laboratory, because it predicts that we will find certain things and not others.

I would not agree that just because a theory makes predictions that it is testable. These are two different phases of the scientific method. And, without controlled experimentation (a crucial part of the scientific method), an hypothesis cannot be considered scientific.

Controlled experimentation is crucial. Given a set of observations, it is possible to conceive of an hypothesis to explain them. And, while it is true that the hypothesis can make both positive and negative predictions, it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove the hypothesis if you cannot control the conditions. You are at the mercy of a data set over which you have no control. In fact, virtually every data set is actually just a sample of the true data set of all possible observations. There is no guarantee that the sample data set is representative of the whole thing.

For this reason, I consider evolution to be more anecdotal than scientific.