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Author Topic:   Potential falsifications of the theory of evolution
EZscience
Member (Idle past 5153 days)
Posts: 961
From: A wheatfield in Kansas
Joined: 04-14-2005


Message 37 of 968 (313594)
05-19-2006 4:58 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Minnemooseus
02-12-2002 11:41 AM


ToE *inferences* are falsified all the time
I think it is useful to ask ourselves how we might be able to falsify specific aspects of ToE, but we have to consider ”falsifiability’ on a manageable scale. There is no reasonable experiment or data collection exercise we might conceive of to falisfy the entire synthesis because it is not a single theory, but a comprehensive amalgamation of many. What is feasible are attempts to falsifiy specific component parts that comprise important support pillars for the overall framework, but even that could prove difficult.
There are certainly specific, fine-scale inferences taken from ToE that warrant serious efforts to falsify them, but you are probably going to have a hard time falsifying any of the large-scale ”big branches’ of the theory. mark24’s suggestion for demonstrating lack of congruency of genetic evidence with phylogenies derived from conventional taxonomy would be such an example, were it possible. It is not likely to happen, given the remarkably consistent trees that have already been constructed for most higher level taxa, and I don’t think you could convince a serious scientist to expend any time and effort to that end.
It is more the specific *applications* of ToE that are worthy of trying to falsify, and they are being tested and falsified all the time, at least within highly specific contexts. As I see it, the biggest problem with ToE in the context of ecology is that very often we are left with multiple alternative hypotheses that are difficult to pare down to a ”single explanation’ by process of elimination, either because they are not mutually exclusive, or if they are, it is very difficult to collect the data necessary to eliminate any of them. So for example, in a recent paper I was forced to put forward 4 alternative hypotheses for an ecological phenomenon which I was seeking to ”explain’. Granted the evidence did not result in the all hypotheses being weighted equally, but neither could any be ruled out entirely.
So there is plenty of ambiguity left in the application of ToE that still cries out for falsification, but it’s all fine-scale stuff.

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