Evolution and Falsification
From SkepticWiki
[edit] Introduction
It is sometimes claimed by creationists that evolution is unfalsifiable: that no conceivable observation could prove it false.
Such a "theory" would not be a theory, nor indeed a hypothesis. For a scientific theory must be testable: we must be able to think of observations that we can make which, if they turn out one way, would falsify the theory, and so which if they turn out the other way can be taken as a bit of confirmation for it. If the predictions of evolution were simply "anything can happen", then we should have no reason to think that it was true.
[edit] Discussion
The most obvious rejoinder to the claim that evolution is unfalsifiable is to point out that all creationists know perfectly well that evolution is falsifiable, as demonstrated by the fact that they keep making claims which, if accurate, would prove the theory of evolution false.
For example, creationists often claim that there are no beneficial mutations. Now, if only that was true, then the theory of evolution would be dead. They know this; this is why they so often make this claim.
Again, creationists make strange claims about the fossil record, such as asserting that all modern species can be found in Cambrian fossils. Why? Obviously, because if this was true then all the claims made about evolutionary history would be utterly false.
Why do creationists go about claiming that there are no intermediate forms in the fossil record? Because they are rightly convinced that if we hadn't found any by now, evolution would have to be written off as a silly idea.
Why does Duane Gish go about claiming, without evidence[1], that mysterious unnamed scientists have shown that humans are closer, in molecular terms, to chickens and to bullfrogs than to chimps? He does so, of course, because this, and, indeed, millions of other conceivable results in molecular phylogeny, would make a nonsense out of evolutionary claims.
Why do creationists claim that evolution contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Because, of course, they know very well that if evolution was physically impossible, that would be strong evidence against it.
Now, it would seem from this that creationists should be divided into two warring camps: there should be the creationists who think that there is evidence proving evolution false; and the creationists who maintain that evolution is unfalsifiable, and that therefore no such evidence can possibly exist. This conclusion, however, would attribute to creationists a degree of logical consistency that they do not possess. In fact, whenever you see a creationist maintaining that evolution is unfalsifiable, this will always come accompanied with a jumble of made-up "facts" which, if true, would falsify evolution. We attribute this not so much to deliberate dishonesty as to the widespread creationist failure to think about the phrases that they learn to recite.
