From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Oct 16 2004 - 02:31:08 BST
Mark, Jim,
> On 15 Oct 2004 at 9:33, Scott Roberts wrote:
> > >But why is Darwinism
> > >treated as scientific? The theory is untestable, as far as I can
> > >see.
> > >
>
> jim:
> > Not strictly true. There are a few retrodictions that constitute
> > tests, although not in the standard set-up experiment & compare
> > results to theory basis.
>
> scott:
> When I say Darwinism, I have been explicitly using it in the sense of
> evolution solely through chance and natural selection. I don't see
> how the evidence you describe indicates that evolution comes about
> through "solely through chance" and natural selection, rather than in
> some other way.
>
> msh says:
> But isn't the fossil record loaded with examples of biological false
> starts, goofy non-viable mutations, and dead ends? (I bet Jim can
> provide plenty of examples.) If this is so, then wouldn't this be
> evidence (retrodictive tests, to use Jim's phrase) supporting the
> idea of random mutation rather than design, which (design) is what
> I'm assuming you mean by "some other way."
[Scott:] It's not the only "other way", but that is beside the point. The
point is...
>
> As for testability, since when must ALL elements of a scientific
> theory be immediately testable? General Relativity wasn't completely
> testable for, what, 10 years before science was able to measure the
> warp of starlight passing through the Sun's gravitational field.
> Does this mean the theory wasn't scientific?
[Scott:] It was testable from the start, just that one had to wait for the
right situation to do the testing.
>
> Besides, what sort of test would one conduct to show that life and
> consciousness can arise randomly? I suppose we could cook up a
> primordial soup and bombard it with random flashes of lightning for a
> million years, then wait around for a few billion years for self-
> aware life to start tapping on the glass. But even if such an
> experiment were possible, there would be no scientific defense
> against the claim that we had in no way excluded the possibility of
> divine intervention. It's a no win situation for science because,
> ultimately, the question is not a scientific one.
[Scott:] That's my point. There is no scientific way to tell. So why call
evolution "solely by chance and natural selection" scientific? Why isn't it
called dogma?
- Scott
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