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

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Maybe it would have helped if I'd put a smiley after the sentence?

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Oh. Jocularity. I get it.

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Seriously, however, it's a more parsimonious or elegant explanation than having to postulate a different local dunking for each mountain on which you find marine fossils.

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Er, the mountains weren't "dunked", as it were.The mountains used to be sea floor.

faith: Near as I can tell, the engine of evolution is mutation (caused by various things). So how does one get from an ameba to an elephant for example? Lot's new information has to be added in there somehow. How did it get there? Does a mutation have something that isn't observed, some special property that it designs what is needed to survive in the current environment?Quetzal:Seems to me that this has happened many times. And the cry from believers is that not enough time has been given to the experiment. The fruit fly Drosophila comes to mind. It's been turned colors made different sizes and shapes, and legs coming out various places. Yet, nothing has ever indicated that it's evolving into anything else but another fruit fly Drosophila.
So, in my mind, ToE has been falsified by this. Which is why I don't think it's strictly a scientific theory anymore.schrafinator: Mostly Ontological naturalism.Percy:My point is that there isn't really a "mountain" of evidence at all. Each and every supposed connection made by paleontologists [of different ancestors] is made in their minds, not in any empirical/testable way, hence it isn't falsifiable at all.
Sure there is not unaminity among scientists on any theory, but there does seem to be quite a lot on this one.
I still would contend that if a pattern developed, we'd hear of some different divergence or a new kind of punctuated evolutionary theory arise to explain it all.Percy:If geneticists are reluctant to make such a claim because they believed that evolution has no limits, even though everyone of their attempts to push the envelope failed. Then you begin to see the problems to finding a falsification to evolution. And the pressure that one's world view places on science. In the field of archeology, often times the source of the objects aren't known. However, they are identifiable as "created by an intelligence source..." (Man). This process is also used in forensics. Where one has died, and if this death was an accident or an elaborate scheme designed by an intelligent source (a criminal).
Both cases above are viewed as scientific methodologies for discovering whether intelligence was the source of said artifact or event. Yet, ID is not? My opinion is that evolution as a science has already been falsified, and hasn't ever had enough evidence to support it's conclusions. It now exists as a philosophy, where it's remains untouchable, unless something ground shaking happens.
The net effect on creationism/ID would be validation, I suppose. More people believe God created us now anyway, so I don't see that as being that huge.
The net effect on public education would be a more balanced teaching of science, with an emphasis on empirics, and less on "this is what the scientists say, so you must believe it...".
The net effect on Science itself, would be near chaos, and political war (yes politics, as in who gets what grants to study this or that, or teach etc.).

To quote a good movie in regards to your use of the word "Parsimonious", 'I do not think it means what you think it means..."If the geology all over the world showed a major flood deposit (relatively uniform throughout the world) that could be dated to the same date with all the same species which were all sorted in order of their sinking (such that you find a remarkably uniform sorting of species in worldwide deposits), then you might have hit upon something. But the fact is that the noadic flood explanation for many of the geology features of this world is in no uncertain terms so far from being "parsimonious", that it borders on the inane. The scientific community has rejected that explanation roughly 150 years.We don't find uniform flood deposits throughout the world that can be dated to about the same time. What we do find are evidences of local floods sometimes on large scales, such as the flooding of the black sea, or mediterranean, or when large tsunamis hit coastal areas. All of the geological evidence for flood deposits do not show any uniform worldwide catastrophe.You seem to be confused to mem, when you make statements such as As far as I am aware, nobody is postulating a "dunking" for each mountain you find marine fossils. What people WILL tell you is that the uplift of land that was formally a marine environment is a constant feature of our world. It is still happening today, sometimes in dramatic fashion. NOBODY is saying individual massive flood events covered each mountain and deposited marine animals on their top. Those marine deposits were already deposited BEFORE the land got uplifted to form dry land, or their was a recession of the ocean, as the ocean cycled from transgression to recession. THIS is what we see in the rock record, and why the TOE is a very elegant explanation for what the rock record tells us.

Hughes has been repeating the old creationist canard that mutations can't add information quite a few times now. It would be nice to start a new thread on the topic so that he/she actually has to defend that position rather than actually just continue with what is an obvious falsehood. Sigh. How many times does one have to rewrite somethings. You can falsify ToE to the extent that it is totally rejected by providing a scientific theory that better explains the diversity of life we have on this planet. This should be easy since, as you say, there really isn't a mountain of evidence supporting the current theory anyway. Go on. Propose a new scentific theory. Get yourself a Nobel prize.

Umm, you do understand what the Drosophila experiments were designed to do, right? And you do understand that they have been quite successful at identifying what changes to any number of specific loci do, right? And you have some knowledge of what this implies for our understanding of things like developmental pathways, homeobox activation, etc, right? Interestingly enough, none of the experiments were trying to create anything other than a fruitfly - in which they succeeded admirably, as you note. They were not however, as you are apparently attempting to imply, an attempt to "prove" evolutionary theory. They were designed to try and understand the roles various genes play in things like limb formation, etc - an objective which they greatly advanced.If, as you claim, these experiments somehow show the genetic barrier you assert exists, perhaps you'd care to provide the citation that shows this? A reference, maybe, whose and conclusions show this? At least you should be able to tell us which lab or which research team arrived at this conclusion? Well, your opinion means exactly zero in the great scheme of things, now doesn't it? (Hint: this is your cue to provide the reference(s) to the experiment(s) that support/s your claim.)

As I said earlier, if you'd like to discuss how information is added to the gene pool of a population, please propose a new thread. Okay, so in your view evolution has already been falsified, so you agree that evolution is falsifiable. That scientists don't share your views on this is different matter having nothing to do with falsifiability or the topic of this thread. But what you're referring to isn't evidence. The places where paleontologists put the pieces of the puzzle, indeed the very shape of the puzzle itself, is just an interpretation of the evidence made within an evolutionary framework. Interpretations are not evidence.There are, of course, many mountains of evidence for evolution. The fossil evidence alone if actually placed in a pile would probably create a literal mountain by itself. I think what you mean to say is that you disagree with the interpretations of the evidence. The problem for you is that geneticists have discovered no such limits, but bringing the discussion back to the topic, your point was that discovering such a limit would falsify evolution, so once again you take the position that evolution is falsifiable. True, you and scientists disagree about whether falsification has already occurred, but that's not the topic of this thread. I'll leave the semantic games to you. Needless to say, archeology and forensics seek signs of human presence and activity, not of intelligence. I suppose one could even argue that when forensics dusts for fingerprints they're actually seeking signs of human stupidity. There, you've said it yet again. Clearly you believe evolution is falsifiable, and I think everyone else here agrees. If you'd like to discuss whether this falsification has actually already taken place then I suggest you propose a new thread.Since everyone in the thread agrees that evolution is falsifiable, we can now move on to consider the hypothetical question of what would be the effect on Biblical creationism if evolution were one day falsified.--Percy

evidence that PE doesn't work please, this is nothing more than a claim, i've read there is evidence of PE i asked you what the limit would be, we see not evidence there would be any as far as what can be possible, the only thing is the evirirment and part of the ToE accounts for this.
what do you mean "pushed enough?" they die because they don't fit the niche anymore or don't adapt enough to produce another generation to survive the enviriment.
any evidence there are limits and they have shown this in the lab? evidence please, i've read no such thing, the judge found that a theory that bases its foundation on the failure of another theory is not useful or science. thoerys stand on thier own, ID can only work if it answers all the questions not just poking holes in evolution yes and what do 99% of the IDists think the designer is? God. DI even says that they are out to wedge religion into schools, they don't even hide this.
as for your mis-representation, i said nothing about design automaticly shows god, i said it comes down to god since ID considers complexity of life shows intelligence, any other answer but god being the designer, allows people to ask who designed the designer, its a few steps to just admiting you believe god designed life.which is why the judge ruled that ID is not science and will not be taught in dover because, ID tries to pretend it is science when its religion just like creationism, not talking about the designer, doesn't help since if it was a true scientific theory it would be about the designer

"Dunked" is also a jocular term in context.It's just odd that all the mountains with marine fossils were once "sea floor" in their separate localities. But that theory in itself is good evidence for the Flood. Evos are always saying things that support the Flood while denying it.

You see, there is this little problem of dating.The different sections of the fossils that are on the mountain top show different ages. There are also massive layers, with certain species not intermixing in the layers.For that to be evidence of a 'flood' there can't be layers of different ages, and there would have to be a more homogenious mixture between the layers. That did not occur, so that is not evidence of a flood.

Repeating what I said at the end of my previous message...Since everyone in the thread agrees that evolution is falsifiable, we can now move on to consider the hypothetical question of what would be the effect on Biblical creationism if evolution were one day falsified.--Percy

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It's just odd that all the mountains with marine fossils were once "sea floor" in their separate localities. But that theory in itself is good evidence for the Flood. Evos are always saying things that support the Flood while denying it.

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As ramoss said, dating dashes your hopes here. Also the ordering of the fossils in the geologic column hits them hard as well.The evidence needs to be taken as a whole, Faith, not in little bits and pieces.As a whole, the Flood theory cannot explain ALL of the evidence.

you are aware how mountains are formed, right?later I'll dig up a couple of graphics. I've got to go to class soon, so . . .

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

Yes I know how mountains are formed. Let's get off this subject as it's off topic.

you ever read the book, "what's wrong with kansas?"

If the ToE was falsified a new theory would emerge that excludes the parts that had been falsified and that incorporates the new observations. The new theory would be rigorously tested to see if it explains the evidence and can make valid predictions. Those who oppose the ToE would not gain credibility because they still have not constructed a theory that offers a better explaination of the evidence.Those who argue against evolution are not interested understanding the world around us. They simply want us to stop talking about evolution. They intentionally misunderstand and mis-state what the theory of evolution means and then claim they have proof that their version of the ToE is wrong. Well, they are right, their fantasy ToE is incorrect.Scientists want to understand everything about our world. It is our passion, what drives us, the thirst for knowledge about how everything works and why it works that way. We try every way we can think of to be sure that our explainations of our observations are correct. We share them with other scientists to see if they come to the same conclusions. We designed a standardized way to study our subject (the scentific method) and report our observations (peer reviewed reports) to help keep us from making mistakes. If we were not interested in finding the truth we would not have become scientists in the first place.In my field of entomology one of the major tools I use to understand my observations and the results of my research is various aspects of the theory of evolution. No other set of principles can make sense of the data because the ToE incorporates so many other disiplines; paleontology, genetics, biogeography, physiology, etc. YEC and ID provide no tools for working biologists to use in our research.Most of the time scientists do not really care about the creationists, they can believe whatever they want. When they lie about holes or flaws in the the theory of evolution and want to introduce those lies in school science classes under the guise of balanced treatment that is a different matter. We have to insist that students are taught about "real world science" and our current understanding of the world, not "faith based science". This has nothing to do with a political or phylosophical agenda, it is about the truth.enjoyEdited by Tanypteryx, : grammer correctionEdited by Tanypteryx, : grammer.