Arguments 'evolutionists' should NOT use

I strongly disagree, for two reasons:
1) this is not the way people normally use the word "proof" in relating to science. They generally mean a logical proof similar to what is used in mathematics. You want to redefine the word for them, which is a big job and has questionable merit.
2) this clouds a very important issue for how science is done. Namely, scientific theories must be amenable to DISproof (they must be disprovable in principle), but are never provable in the same sense. This concept is essential for understanding modern science, and redefining the word "proof" will cloud the issue.In doing science, we need to be careful to truly be scientific. Overstating the case, overstressing the evidence, and claiming things are "proven" when they are not will backfire in the long run, because such approaches will convey a philosophical "faith commitment" rather than an objective scientific position.

Not using the word at all is an option, if there really is the difference in understanding that you claim.Maybe I've been a scientist for too long; I prefer to communicate some basic scientific concepts rather than deferring completely to lay terminology. The concept that scientific theory is not provable but must be in principle disprovable is very fundamental to science. I have given a number of talks to describe science and the scientific method for non-scientists, and this is something I always stress. I have not had difficulty in communicating the concept.

No, falsification is still alive and is ESSENTIAL for something to be a scientific theory. If it's not falsifiable, it's not science! Yes, sometimes the theory can be modified to fit the new data, but sometimes it can't . Either way, the original theory was shown to be false.This is just the very basic scientific method, which I was taught in grade school. And this is the way science is done professionally, whether you agree with it or not. I am really surprised at how many folks here misunderstand or disagree with the scientific method! I am new to posting here; my initial impression is that this crowd is either not very scientifically literate or is intentionally being disingenuous to promote some agenda other than science.If you want another opinion, take a look at "scientific method" in wikipedia. Here's an excerpt: And here's an excerpt from the entry on "science":

Thanks for the clarification. My approach is still to start by trying to explain the classic scientific method to non-scientists. I find that this gives a better context for discussing science, and it's not very hard to explain.One of the problems that I see with science at the lower levels (grade school, high school, even undergrad) is that it is presented much too dogmatically. This gives people the mistaken notion that science is all about "truth" and "certainty", whereas it is really better characterized by "exploration" and "discovery". Explaining the scientific method helps to address this. My understanding of the philosophy of science is that there are lots of different perspectives which conflict with one another. The leading proponents are not scientists, and do not really understand science. They offer some good insights, but get lots of things wrong, too. So I would take philosophy of science with a grain of salt. This is often true. In addition, different scientific specialties do their science quite a bit differently.So if most scientists can't explain what they do, and most philosophers of science don't really understand science, where do we go for an explanation of how science is done? The best perspectives I've seen on how science is done come from actual scientists who have gotten interested in philosophy, but these folks are not as famous as the professional philosophers of science.i agree that the classic scientific method is an oversimplification in some ways, but I believe that it's still a good framework to explain science.

But this is pretty much the same idea as "falsifiability." It is the same sense that Newton's theories were "falsified" by Einstein's. Newton's still work quite well in many cases, but there are cases in which they break down and are "false". And this is how many scientific discoveries are made; things don't work as expected, and a good scientist hunts for the answer and finds that unexamined assumptions were wrong. Yes, on the basis of a single experiment one can never be sure. (And even on the basis of multiple experiments all done the same way.) This is why science demands repeatability and testability. Other experimenters will test a new theory with different procedures to try to improve upon the accuracy or precision, and eventually the various pieces will be sorted out.