I know I already responded to this post, but I have been thinking about why this particular person, who is relatively unknown among scientists, should have such importance to literal creationists. (I can't say he is completely unknown; he may have been mentioned, but he certainly does not have the importance of, e.g., Robert Koch.)
I think the reasoning behind elevating his importance must go something like this:
Of course, that kind of reasoning is extremely circular. It serves the purpose of trying to convince people who do not know or understand the scientific method that life scientists avoid using the scientific method. Of course, that is not true. We most certainly use the scientific method. It is because of countless attempts at falsification over the last ~170 years that the theory has been revised multiple times: revisiting and refining ideas is what science is all about.
Karl Popper is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century. He was also a social and political philosopher of considerable stature, a self-professed ‘critical-rationalist’, a dedicated opponent of all forms of scepticism, conventionalism, and relativism in science and in human affairs generally, a committed advocate and staunch defender of the ‘Open Society’, and an implacable critic of totalitarianism in all of its forms. One of the many remarkable features of Popper's thought is the scope of his intellectual influence. In the modern technological and highly-specialised world scientists are rarely aware of the work of philosophers; it is virtually unprecedented to find them queuing up, as they have done in Popper's case, to testify to the enormously practical beneficial impact which that philosophical work has had upon their own.So much for his being "relatively unknown among scientists."
Again, to paraphrase, he said that the more a theory survives attempts to falsify it, the more confident we can be in the theory. We cannot be confident in theories which cannot be falsified.
In my view, so-called "theories" in the historical sciences - e.g. evolution biology, archeology, anthropology, Egyptology - are more akin to paradigms. Or if you prefer a blueprint into which new evidence is fit.
But unlike the hard sciences (e.g. physics) where falsification of the theory causes the theory to be discarded - if the evidence will not fit the historical science paradigm, then it is explained away with a "just-so" amendment to the story.
betty boop has mentioned the Cambrian explosion not fitting the evolution theory of gradual change over time. The response was the "punctuated equilibrium" amendment - a "just so" story.
More examples of things that do not fit the paradigm:
Dr. Schroeder points to the thirty plus body plans that seemingly appeared out of nowhere in the Cambrian explosion - and despite subsequent near complete extinctions - no new body plans arose in the fossil record.
Amoeba, for instance, do not die of old age - so what is the selection advantage to programmed cell death? Likewise, there is a temporal non-locality of cells achieving maintenance and repair before the need.
All of this without even mentioning the impossibility of the information content (DNA) arising by unguided natural phenomena. Crick, after all, did not embrace panspermia (alien seeding) without cause. Ditto for Dawkins.
And then there is the rise of autonomy, syntax and semiosis and more. Jeepers, even the question "what is life v. non-life/death in nature" - which is vital to the hard sciences asked to explain the rise of complexity in biological systems - is of almost no interest at all in the historical sciences.
Truly, the difference between the disciplines - hard sciences v historical sciences - cannot be easily reconciled:
Many biologists consider physical laws, artificial life, robotics, and even theoretical biology as largely irrelevant for their research. In the 1970s, a prominent molecular geneticist asked me, "Why do we need theory when we have all the facts?" At the time I dismissed the question as silly, as most physicists would. However, it is not as silly as the converse question, Why do we need facts when we have all the theories? These are actually interesting philosophical questions that show why trying to relate biology to physics is seldom of interest to biologists, even though it is of great interest to physicists. Questioning the importance of theory sounds eccentric to physicists for whom general theories is what physics is all about. Consequently, physicists, like the skeptics I mentioned above, are concerned when they learn facts of life that their theories do not appear capable of addressing. On the other hand, biologists, when they have the facts, need not worry about physical theories that neither address nor alter their facts. Ernst Mayr (1997) believes this difference is severe enough to separate physical and biological models: "Yes, biology is, like physics and chemistry, a science. But biology is not a science like physics and chemistry; it is rather an autonomous science on a par with the equally autonomous physical sciences."
There are fundamental reasons why physics and biology require different levels of models, the most obvious one is that physical theory is described by rate-dependent dynamical laws that have no memory, while evolution depends, at least to some degree, on control of dynamics by rate-independent memory structures. A less obvious reason is that Pearson's "corpuscles" are now described by quantum theory while biological subjects require classical description in so far as they function as observers. This fact remains a fundamental problem for interpreting quantum measurement, and as I mention below, this may still turn out to be essential in distinguishing real life from macroscopic classical simulacra. I agree with Mayr that physics and biology require different models, but I do not agree that they are autonomous models. Physical systems require many levels of models, some formally irreducible to one another, but we must still understand how the levels are related. Evolution also produces hierarchies of organization from cells to societies, each level requiring different models, but the higher levels of the hierarchy must have emerged from lower levels. Life must have emerged from the physical world. This emergence must be understood if our knowledge is not to degenerate (more than it has already) into a collection of disjoint specialized disciplines.
The big thinkers come from theology, philosophy, physics and mathematics - they do not arise from the historical sciences.
In my view, when the Theory of Evolution falls - it will not be because of Biologists - and it will not be because of Creationists, Philosophers and Theologians - it will fall because of the Mathematicians and Physicists who were invited by the Biologists to their table.
The hard sciences do not bow to paradigms.
“Relatively unknown? Really?!
Your declaration strains credulity.
Sir Karl Popper (1902 – 1994), an implacable critic of totalitarianism, is one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century, and also a social and political philosopher of considerable stature. He was a famed and dedicated opponent of all forms of scepticism, conventionalism, and relativism in science and in human affairs generally, and unprecedented in the scope of his intellectual influence among both Scientists and Philosophers.
You can find words to this effect (and many more) in any reputable encyclopedia of philosophy (such as The Oxford Companion to Philosophy ).
“I think the reasoning behind elevating his importance must go something like this:”
I think you need to regear your thinking.