Falsifying Evolution

[Styx87]

Creationists often cite various erroneous arguments as evidence against evolution. But one example strikes me above all others, "In all of nature we've never seen anything change into another fundamentally different kind of anything else!". This argument fails because it obviously demonstrates that those making the argument have no idea how evolution works.

1. If anything did actually change into fundamentally different kind of anything else in a single generation that wouldn't prove evolution factually evident, it would actually serve as evidence against it.
2. You can't grow or evolve out of your ancestry. For example, think about your last name. No matter how many generations removed, your descendents will always be part of your family. Genghis Khan, ahem... "proliferated" his seed so well that 5% of the world's population is said to carry a piece of his legacy. That said, there's a 5% chance you are a Khan. Not a long time ago, but right now, as in you are still a Khan just as you are still an Ape, a Monkey, a Mammal, a Tetrapod, a Chordate, a Deuterostome, a Bilaterian, an Animal and a Eukaryote!
3. Superficially everyone understand there are certain things in nature that we are never going to see. Because even those who don't know anything about evolution know that there are certain rules that nature won't break... and one of them is this...

Creationists. Still looking for the Crocoduck.

But would finding it actually falsify evolution? No. Not necessarily. See, the thing is theories are supported based on a preponderance of the evidence and even if we did find a Crocoduck, and after scientists scrutinized over every atom of the abomination until they were satisfied it wasn't lab grown or otherwise genetically tampered with... and if the crocoduck was found to be an actual natural chimera... it still wouldn't disprove evolution because the evidence would still say that with the exception of one anomaly it's clear that everything else has obviously evolved and still does.

So what would it take? ... Well... all of these...

A Frog-berry, a Hippo-crab-tamus, a Dogle, a Shar-quine, a Wal-ruguana, a Tur-affe, a Tree-noceros, a Fish-hopper, a Squr-antula and hundreds if not thousands more like them such that phylogenetic trees no longer make sense as a model for categorizing life forms. And not just living ones either. We would also need fossil samples too otherwise scientists could just as easily say "Well, everything USED to evolve... that is, up until now.". That's what it would take to falsify Evolution and THAT is why no one has done it.

That's why it's pointless to keep pointing out all of these little tiny supposed flaws in the theory because even if you managed to scrape together an entire encyclopedia of anti evolution evidence, there's still hundreds more volumes of evidence supporting it, and THAT'S what you would need to overcome.

 

[Strathos]

I think this point has been gone over many times here already.

 

[OllieFranz]

While Strathos has a point that this issue is a PRATT (Point Refuted A Thousand Times), it is such a fundamental point that I don't mind explaining the reasoning of Science a thousand and first time.

Science does not pretend that its theories are the "ultimate" or "perfect" truth. They are not descriptions of reality, they are models of reality.The most important fact about a theory is that it is practical or useful. If it "works" and gives answers that, for example allow a bridge or a building to avoid collapsing, or an airplane to fly, it is useful. If it works 99% of the time, but there are one or two anomolies where it does not, scientists note where the anomolous results pop up, avoid using the theory in those areas, but otherwise set the anomolies aside. The anomolies, however, are not forgotten, or swept under the rug. Some scientists chose to study the anomolies and determine exactly why they "defy" the current theory.

For almost 200 years, Newtons Laws of Motion were the cornerstone of Mechanics, and, in fact, of Physics in general. They described reality perfectly, or at least were accurate to within the limits of how precisely we could measure it. Until the failure of the Micheson-Morley experiment.. The experiment was designed to determine the speed and direction of the "lumineforous ether," the background substance of the Universe. The basis of the experiment was to measure the time it took for the same beam of light to travel a given distance and back in two different directions. It was analogous to one common method of measuring the speed of the water in a river. The experiment failed because it always took the beam of light exactly the same time, no matter which direction it went.

Several scientists studied this anomoly. Hendrick Lorentz came up with various equations that indicated that something was distorted in the experiment. And while everyone could agree on the exact amount of distortion, they could not agree on what it was that was distorted. When Albert Einstein looked at the problem, he ignored the supposed effects of the ether, and he assumed that the measured result, that light always left the source and arrived at the destination at exactly the same speed, was true, even when the two were moving differently with respect to one another and with the background ether. Two results of these assumptions were that the background ether became a superfluous assumption which should be eliminated by the principle of parsimony, and certain other and apparently unrelated phenomena would give anomolous results in Newtonial Mechanics. Sure enough, when looked for, those anomolies turned up, behaving exactly the way Einstein predicted. Relativity (Special Relativity, actually) was established .

When anomolies started turning up in Special Relativity, Einstein studied them, and developed General Relativity. But relativity could not replace Newton unless it explained not only the anomolies, but also the common results. Newton's laws assume the mass of an object does not change. Relativity claims a moving object appears more massive than the same object at rest. A number of careful measurements showed the increased mass almost perfectly matched the kinetic energy that Newtonian Mechanics worked with. After allowing an equivalence between Energy and Mass (E=m(c^2)), everything fits.

Even though General Relativity has been established, we have not thrown out Newtonian Mechanics. For ordinary circumstances, it gives the same answer as Relativity, to within the tolerences of our measuring devices, and the math is easier.

In much the same way, there are anomolies in our current theory of Evolution. For purposes of working with the theory, anomolies are set aside. But other scientists are ready to focus in on them and develop new theories. Several times over the last 100 years one theory has replaced another. So far, none of the anomolies have been great enough that a new theory is different enough from the old theory for the general public to notice, with one major exception. We know it as "Punctuated Equilibrium," or "the Hopeful Monster theory." Even so, even that has been refined as studies go on.

 

[evoeth]

Creationists often cite various erroneous arguments as evidence against evolution. But one example strikes me above all others, "In all of nature we've never seen anything change into another fundamentally different kind of anything else!". This argument fails because it obviously demonstrates that those making the argument have no idea how evolution works.

Aggravating.

 

[Styx87]

The point is a theory is a body of Facts that describe the befavior of natural phenomena. To make a theory not useful as a model anymore it would take more facts against it than there are to support it. Like in what happened with phlogiston theory. There's such a mountain of evidence supporting Evolution it would take an enormous amount of evidence against it and the evidence itself would have to be so radical in nature at this point that I often wonder why this is even still an issue. Which is why I posted this.

 

[Dizredux]

There's such a mountain of evidence supporting Evolution it would take an enormous amount of evidence against it and the evidence itself would have to be so radical in nature at this point that I often wonder why this is even still an issue.

I would describe it as mountain ranges of evidence to the extent that one would have to be willfully blind to ignore it.

Dizredux

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

The point is a theory is a body of Facts that describe the befavior of natural phenomena. To make a theory not useful as a model anymore it would take more facts against it than there are to support it. Like in what happened with phlogiston theory. There's such a mountain of evidence supporting Evolution it would take an enormous amount of evidence against it and the evidence itself would have to be so radical in nature at this point that I often wonder why this is even still an issue. Which is why I posted this.

I think a theory can be shaken pretty hard by one small anomaly. Mountains of evidence could be instantly thrown into question by one anomaly.

For example, if a rabbit fossil was discovered in Cambrian strata. It would not necessarily tear down evolutionary theory in an instant. But it would be a pretty devastating blow.


Michelson and Morley was the blow that devastated Newtonian physics. Galileo's observations of Jupiter's moons is what devastated geocentrism. The theory of spontaneous generation was defeated by Pasteur's experiments.