>>
>>But is evolutionary theory, in its current form, falsifiable? Or does it, as
>>Popper believed, have too much explanatory power, rather than too little?
>>
>>Chuck
>
>Sure it is falsifiable. In fact some on this reflector claim that the
>paucity of transitional species and the tempo with which species disappear
>and new species appear in the fossil record disprove evolution. Of course,
>there is not universal agreement of this.
You can say that again. The punk eek crowd has this issue thoroughly
obfuscated. Thus illustrating the extreme malleability of the system.
Darwinian evolution kind of reminds me of Hinduism in its ability to
subsume, rather than refute, competing theories.
> It also seems to me that if the
>fossil record showed no extinct species, only current species the model
>would be untenable.
Agreed - I can't think of anything plausible either. But I have confidence
that Dawkins, Ruse, et al, could come up with *something* - like maybe
*really fast* punk eek.
Of course, with no extinct species in the fossil record, Darwin would never
have formulated his theory in the first place.
> Also, if the measurements of the age of the earth and
>of the universe indicated a very recent beginning, say 10,000 years ago,
>then evolution by natural selection would, again, be untenable.
I don't think I agree with this one, Steve. Many YEC's propose some sort of
very rapid evolution in the few thousand years since the Noahic Flood, in
order to have room on the Ark for a pair of each "kind".
>
>There may be other other ways to disprove evolution as well. In fact, a
>response to my earlier point to Jim, in which I stated that it is fair for
>science to appeal to alternative hypotheses when the data do not fit the
>prevailing model, begs the question, "How often can you do this before you
>must through out the basic model?" It is hard to know the answer to this.
>Basically, it would require a Kuhnian-type of paradigm change and the things
>that cause the community of science to make such a change are not well known.
Do we agree then that Kuhn's view of the scientific community was
fundamentally correct?
If so, we may be much closer to agreement, at least on philosophy of
science, than I thought.
Chuck
------------------------
Chuck Warman
cwarman@wf.net (Wichita Falls, TX)
"The abdication of Belief / makes the Behavior small."
----Emily Dickinson