Is the TOE falsifiable and if it was, would it advance Biblical Creationism

It's worth noting that creationists recently had a golden opportunity to falsify the entire theory of evolution at one go. Evolutionary science would be dead today if they had succeeded.That chance was genetics.Until recently, scientists could say little about where mutations came from. If pressed to explain, they admitted that little was known about this but that the emerging field of genetics would yield a bonanza of information.Creationists crowed. Some of them confidently predicted that evolutionary theory would be dead by the end of the twentieth century. Why? Because genetics, rather than explaining more about the theory, would kill it for good.Creationists 'knew' that by the year 2000 scientists would understand that DNA stands in clearly distinct categories. Chimpanzee DNA is unique. Human DNA is unique. Celery DNA is unique. Scientists would know chimpanzee DNA has no more in common with human DNA than celery DNA does. Each living thing with its own unique blueprint. Each item in its own genetic category with no possibility of crossover. Scientists would be busy looking at these unique codes and cataloging the various 'kinds'. Once in a while, they would spare a thought for their predecessors, and wonder how anyone was ever so stupid as to imagine that one species could be ancestral to another.Yes, genetics would settle the matter. Once the facts were in, someone's theory was doomed.

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Archer

... as so does Jar. Excellent.I read a number of complaints by creationists at EvC that no 'one study' or 'one fact' exists that will bring down the theory of evolution if they can overturn it. They complain that thousands of peer-reviewed studies exist, that each study seems to depend on another, that researchers 'make assumptions' based on previous studies, and that to attack the whole thing is a challenge of overwhelming proportions.This is an accurate assessment of the situation, as Jar observes. But what creationists characterize as a rigged game is really just overwhelming evidence. The situation is exactly what one expects from a successful theory. A sound theory not only explains what you discover, it predicts what you will discover. It gives scientists a great deal to discuss.I would run into the same problem if I tried to overturn Plate Tectonic Theory. What is the 'one study' or the 'one fact' I would attack? Plate tectonic theory links studies of mountain formation, lunar geology, seafloor spreading, fossil ecosystems, earth's magnetosphere and a host of other things. It has been validated by discoveries in all these areas and it helps predict and explain new discoveries.You would have the same problem if you wanted to overturn the Germ Theory of Disease. Where is the 'one article' or 'one fact' you would attack? Good luck!The ubiquity is normal. This is what happens when a scientific theory succeeds.A theory can still be falsified, though. You just have to get busy on the research. And be right.I have two requests of creationists:1. Don't complain here about the way evolutionary theory enjoys 'monolithic support' from scientists, then go out and repeat the canard that scientists are embroiled in 'controversy' over it. Tell the truth. If support for evolutionary theory looks monolithic to you, fairly or unfairly, say so. To everybody.2. Don't complain that creationism never gets a chance. Its golden moment arrived a generation ago. A single discovery could have falsified the entire theory of evolution. That moment came with the beginning of genetic mapping. The thing creationism said we would find was not there. The thing evolutionary theory said we would find was there. Again.The better theory won. That's what better theories do.

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Archer

Faith writes: 'Wait til next year' is not a theory, and all the facts are never in.The mapping of the genome was a watershed moment. Evolutionary theory predicted what we would find. It was there. Creationists had made predictions, too. Nothing came of it.Believe as you will. But does it make sense to get angry at others for their confidence in an idea that really does the job?

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Archer

The best value-for-the-money way for creationists to cause headaches for ToE (if creationism is true) is to get busy mapping and dating fossil strata around the world. I'm talking about an aggressive series of geological expeditions. It's bound to reap dividends.Creationists already know that the evolutionary sequence is only apparent and not real. The know that all the 'kinds' have coexisted since creation. It will therefore be no trouble at all to find fossil beds where whales appear next to orthocones, sauropods next to mammoths, therapsids next to ground sloths, trilobites next to water fowl, and stegosaurs next to Thag Simmons.Creationists should go for the knockout punch here. Hold nothing back. We're not talking about isolated bits of stuff that paleontologists can 'explain away.' As 'kinds' have coexisted since the beginning of life on earth, whole mountain ranges surely exist out there, complete canyons and valleys, where the layering of the fossils presents one big mess for evolutionists to explain.If scientists haven't found these places yet, it's obvious they are not looking hard enough. Creationists should not leave this work to biased evolutionary scientists who would just cover it up anyway. Creationists need to get busy and do that job for them--and this time, do it right.Creationists can start raising money now and the first expeditions could set out in just months. And it would not cost that much. The amount creationists spend now on court costs, apologetics and theme parks could easily fund a sustained series of global scientific expeditions. These teams could easily gather enough evidence in 10-15 years to throw the entire mythical chronology of evolution into disarray. In fact, given the huge expanses of geological strata out there that will validate creationism, the odds are very good that enough evidence can be gathered sooner.The existence of these vast fields of 'out-of-sequence' fossils would be enough, if not to falsify the ToE outright, to invalidate its entire imaginary chronology of life on earth. Once that blow is struck, scientists in other fields will see which way the wind is blowing--and smell the career-making discoveries to be made. They will begin conducting their own followup research--in genetics, in cladistics, in dating methods. The illusory theory of evolution will fall like a house of cards.I think creationists should get busy on these expeditions right away. The approach has an excellent chance of working (if creationism is true).

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Archer

obvious Child: Oh, that's no trouble. The geological expeditions creationists send out will also date the fossils by scientifically accepted means and show beyond the shadow of a doubt that the currently accepted chronology of natural history is a lot of hooey.That's why I say it's great value for the money. They can falsify multiple aspects of the ToE for the price of a few expeditions.If creationism is true. Tacky. Really tacky.

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Archer

obvious Child: Not my problem. But if what they say is true they will be able to do it. They have reality going for them, after all. They have to believe that the scientific measurements in so far are at best misleading and at worst illusions. A few years of committed, thorough research by honest Bible-believing people like themelves should yield a bonanza of evidence that will cut through the evolutionist lie like a hot knife through butter.(You might want to turn on your irony meter.)
No doubt. I meant it was a tacky thing for someone to do.And tacky of me, to make the pun.
Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity.

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Archer

RickJB asks: I've been browsing a bit. The catch is that these predictions come from a (barely) pre-Internet age. Articles would have been in print and would have to be transferred to digital media. And there's the usual problem of documenting a failed prophecy. People bury that stuff. No creationist organization is going to re-publish an article containing predictions that blew up in their faces. You have to count on someone else picking it up.I was speaking from personal experience. As a college student in the early to mid-1980s I regularly heard this prediction made by evangelicals on our campus--especially those studying or working in scientific fields.You have an entire generation of evangelicals who were science majors then and who took the apologetics they read very much to heart. They belonged to Campus Crusade for Christ and had read The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb & Morris. The press called them part of the Religious Right--an emerging force in American politics. And they were psyched. They were in the vanguard of a new Golden Age of Bible-based science that would emerge in their lifetimes.I had conversations with them. In scenes typical on college campuses at the time, they made these predictions with confidence. The newly emerging field of genetics would invalidate the theory of evolution once and for all. Geneticists would discover each species was unique: no possibility of crossover, no no-one-species-related-to-another-species nonsense. The biblical idea of 'kinds' would be upheld and genetics would even give us the categories.You have to respect it. Young evangelicals had a creationist belief that as young scientists they really treated like a theory. They used it to make falsifiable predictions about what they would find.Interesting thing about falsification. It works.They made other predictions as well. 'No one will ever observe evolution in progress.' That one fell off the charts, too. But other predictions are easier to document because they remain in circulation. You can see them at EvC: 'One day someone will find a human and a sauropod in the same stratum.'Failed prophecies may not be repeated, but they are often recycled. Evidence for the failed predictions appears most readily in the reincarnations you can read right here at EvC. 'OK, scientists do observe evolution, but it's not good evolution.' 'Reproduction by kinds was only apparently falsified in the late twentieth century. Genetics will still find something--just you wait!--that proves it true. Maybe it's somewhere in that junk DNA...'(One valuable service EvC provides to future generations: it records the canards while they are still quacking. Very useful.)I should probably look some people up--alumni directories, resources like that. A number of those people who still work in the sciences today are not likely to have remained creationists. They would remember these predictions and might be willing to share.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarified detail.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Corrected typo.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Corrected detail.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Still tinkering. This is it, I promise. ; )

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Archer

Off topic. kuresu asks: Born in America, live in Taiwan. (My mother is native Taiwanese.)When you live in Asia you can't miss what a provincial phenomenon creationism is. Here the line about 'teaching the controversy' prompts laughter. What controversy?Everyone knows the controversy is a product of American culture--and that it rages within churches, not science.

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Archer

obvous Child: Please, no one is laughing at the US. America is highly regarded in Taiwan. Democracy took root here under an umbrella of American protection. And America has the iPod and the NBA and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. How cool is that?And you are right about the universities. American higher education is respected by everyone, it seems, except American fundamentalists.
Every country has its historical problems, that's all. People know this.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Faith: Beware the fallacy (one of them) that sank the ID advocates in the Dover ruling. Their fallacy lay in assuming that anytime the rival theory 'lost,' theirs gained ground.Valid theories require evidence. Casting doubts on one theory does not mean another wins by default.It is one task to set the ToE on its ear. It is another to establish a scientifically valid model in its place.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

hughes says: What is this 'philosophy of naturalism'? It explains volumes about it, actually--in a way that makes the theory of evolution an excellent predictor of discoveries. That's one hallmark of a good theory.You are the one, I'm afraid, who is waving your hand in blanket dismissal. Right now this is more true of your posts than the ToE. But you can fix that.Please explain what you mean by this 'philosophy of naturalism.'Edited by Archer Opterix, : Fixed typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Faith: A lot would depend on the stratum. Miocene? You likely win the bet. It wouldn't make a lot of difference. Scientists would just conclude that at least one strand of non-avian dinosaur survived the K-T extinction as a 'living fossil.' Jurassic? More of a toss-up. Our understanding of mammal evolution would have to be completely overhauled to account for this and it would raise questions in other areas. Still, the ancestors of mammals were around long before this (Permian, Triassic) so the first thing people would go to work on is finding primate ancestors in those strata. Pre-Cambrian? jar likely wins the bet. But other factors still play a role.A great deal would also depend on whether a credible alternative theory exists. If one does not, then of course scientists will revise the one they have until a better theory comes along.A great deal would also depend on how many specimens you're talking about over how wide a geographical area. Does the established chronology of natural history remain an excellent predictor of fossil strata around the world, except for this one startling specimen? If so, the specimen still raises plenty of questions. But it doesn't upset the apple cart the same way that finding human bones and dinosaur bones in an undifferentiated jumble in various locations on four continents would. That would go along way toward invalidating the entire chronological model.Those are my thoughts. But there's only one sure way to settle this dispute. Produce a fossil Brachiosaur with the bones of Fred Flintstone between its toes, and see what happens.Place your bets.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Hughes: If what quantities of qualified scientists have to say on the subject really matters to you, you will be an evolutionist.Project Steve:
http://www.ncseweb.org/...s/3541_project_steve_2_16_2003.aspEdited by Archer Opterix, : Fixed HTML code.Edited by Archer Opterix, : REALLY fixed it.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.