Comments on: How could evolutionary theory be falsified?

By: Troy Britain

Troy Britain — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 09:40:33 +0000

I must be psychic, for I can predict the future... Hi John. From your 2nd linked post:

We don’t have a sharp line between them, but good science is well marked by its explanatory successes, predictive value, and contribution to further research. A “theory” that offered no avenues of further investigation is useless in science...

"Predictive value" and the stimulation of "further research" read to me as testability.

...it [ID creationism] is in fact an argument from ignorance – what we don’t know can be put down to the “Designer” (by which they of course mean God, despite the disingenuous protestations). And there are no other methods – no way to identify the action of the Designer, no way to find out if the Designer did a particular thing or it is natural, and so on.

And likewise, "no way to identify the action of the Designer" etc. reads as untestable. Are we basically in agreement or am I missing something?

By: John S. Wilkins

John S. Wilkins — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 05:58:09 +0000

I’ve already discussed this before

http://evolvethought.blogspot.com.au/2005/10/darwin-evolution-and-popper.html
http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2006/06/12/demarcating-science/
http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2006/12/04/the-demarcation-problem-again/

By: Troy Britain

Troy Britain — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:49:50 +0000

When we are talking about YEC (and to a lesser extent OEC), yes they do make many testable claims, which, as you know, are almost always (to be generous) falsified. But they also make unfalsifiable claims, liberally sprinkling “God did it” miracles into their narratives.

So it’s a mix of testable (mostly falsified claims) with untestable “God did it” miracles.

Then of course there is ID creationism which is just “evolution sucks” combined with untestable “God did it” claims.

By: Troy Britain

Troy Britain — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:38:42 +0000

The “problem” is that falsifiability (as Popper originally proposed it — he modified it later on, though probably not successfully) is not a reliable way to separate science from nonscience. But that is only at the the the close intersection of science/nonscience.

Could you give an example?

By: johnpieret

johnpieret — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 04:09:12 +0000

To expand just a bit, Larry Laudan, a distinguished philosopher of science, criticized Michael Ruse’s testimony at the McLean trial on the basis that creationists *do* make falsifiable claims and that their claims have been falsified. Ergo, they were just doing bad science. The point I think Laudan missed was that the creationists denied the very existence of those falsifications and, therefore, were, in fact, denying that their claims could be falsified. It was just a back-door route to Omphalos.

By: johnpieret

johnpieret — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 03:55:38 +0000

“And now John Wilkins, or some other philosopher of science, will yell at me about Popperian Falsificationism being passé with regards to the demarcation problem. Just to head that off somewhat I am not advocating naive falsificationism.”

No (and Wilkins has agreed with me on this), any argument that, by its own terms, denies that there can be evidence against it (such as Omphalos or “presuppositionalism”) cannot be science. The “problem” is that falsifiability (as Popper originally proposed it — he modified it later on, though probably not successfully) is not a reliable way to separate science from nonscience. But that is only at the the the close intersection of science/nonscience.