Falsifying Evolution.

[Furrowed Brow]

As far as evolutionary theory goes Dollo's Law seems to have been disproved. Thus evolution is reversible. A recent article in the Newscientist 13 January 2007, looks at possible examples of atavism.

Atavist examples cited are an hump back whale with a pair of leg-like appendages, web toes in humans, a dolphin with an extra pair of flippers similar to those found in the fossil record of 40 million years ago. Things get even more interesting when it transpires that some traits such as metamorphism (tadpole to adult form) in salamanders has been turning on and off for tens of millions of years.

Thus a trait/characteristics can appear in a population that has not been present for tens of millions of years.

So here is a crazy thought. What conclusion should we reach if fossil skeleton were found in 40 million year old rock that appear to be modern human. Would evolutionary theory as it applies to humans be utterly disproved, or would evolutionist need to look harder at the genetic story. Are their back doors in the theory like atavism that allow the theory not to be falsified. If the latter, is Q1 evolution theory really falsifiable?

I for one say evolution theory is falsifiable. I often use the example of digging up a rabbit in Cambrian rock. But lets test if I am just swallowing evolutionary dogma. What if rabbits do start turning up in Cambrian rock?

Q2 What things can really falsify evolution, and at what point will the evidence be so strong that the theory can not survive regardless of how much it is tinkered with.?

[diggnate]

In your eyes at least. However, you , for religious reasons, don't accept evolution to begin with, no matter what type.

Absolutely incorrect. My religious beliefs have absolutely NO bearing on my scientific beliefs. NONE! For all I care, the book of Genesis doesn't exist when I study science. It's simply not relevant to the study of observable science. I have no idea where you get this from, but it's just not my position whatsoever. Although, I shouldn't be surprised. Many times darwinists, when they are challenged by a non-darwinist, tend to level the charge of "irrational creationist" to their opponent. I trust that was not your intention.

Why don't you think that over 40 or 50 million years, evolution can't account for the diversity we see, considering that the introduction of oxygen into the environment allowed for much larger organisms to exist?

Well, considering that as many as 35 of the 40 total phyla made their first appearance in one of the largest and fastest information jumps in natural history, naturally I have a few questions as to the sufficiency of a theory that has yet to produce an example of an informationally positive jump whatsoever, much less one that is as quick and efficient as the one in the explosion. To go from simple multicellular organisms, to organisms with complex body plans requires massive amounts of non-deletarious, net information gain. Since it has yet to be demonstrated that an organism, by nothing more than random mutation, can produce novel features and/or body plans without the destruction of pre-existing, sometimes vital system roles, you'll have to bear with my reservation.

How do you account for the fossil record otherwise?

Again, I don't have to. I'm claiming that your theory is insufficient, not that I necessarily have a better one. You don't need a replacement to recognize the limitations of a theory. I'd rather leave a gap unfilled than simply claim "God did it" and walk away.

Variation plus a 'reproductive filter' can be and has been tested

Really? I must have missed the issue of Nature where they observed the addition of brand new phyla, the addition of complex, completely novel body plans, and the addition of loads of new genetic information, absent of any deleterious mutations! I've got to get to the library more often.

Unless, of course, you're talking about variation like say, a wingless beetle, a flightless bird, an eyeless fish? Perhaps your referring to the inherently negative process of adaptation? Perhaps you mean the loss of feature in order to better survive in a new environment? Yes, those all have been observed. If you're referring to the fictional process of a random process producing functional information, without removing pre-existing functional information in the process, thus demonstrating the ability of a random process to produce true net functional information gain, then I hope you've got some ground breaking evidence to back that up.

[Furrowed Brow]

Cambrian fossils, by definition, do not contain mammal fossils. Therefore, if we find a rabbit, or any mammal, in rock layers, it could not possibly be considered Cambrian rock by its very definition.

The notion that "finding a rabbit in the Cambrian" would falsify evolution is laughable.

I think the point you are making is demonstratably wrong. To be true fossils are one method for dating rocks. However it is not the only method.

Sensitive High Resolution Ion Micro Probe (SHRIMP)

Radiometric dating

Lithostratigraphy

The principle of faunal succession in the geologic record was established by direct observation as early as 1799 by William Smith. By the 1830's Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison established a correlation between the various types of fossils and the rock formations in the British Isles. It was found that certain fossils, now referred to as index fossils, were restricted to a narrow zone of strata. Studies done on the European continent soon demonstrated the universal validity of index fossils. That is, an index fossil corresponded to a very specific point in the geologic column. Once the worth of index fossils had been established on the basis of stratification studies, they could logically be used to extend the correlation of rock formations to other continents. At this point in time they were simply a useful tool for correlating rock formations.
One can hardly accuse these pioneers of evolutionary prejudice. Nearly a halfcentury would pass before Darwin's book, The Origin of Species, was published! By then, the relative ages (order) of the geologic column had already been worked out in some detail. Radiometric dating would later confirm the relative ages of the strata and tie them to absolute dates. (Far from being a rubber stamp, radiometric dating would go on to revolutionize our understanding of the Precambrian.) Thus, it became possible to date strata directly from index fossils. Note that evolution has nothing to do with how the index fossils are used to date strata!

Given the above links I think a more than reasonable case can be made that objective methods for aging rocks exists. Ones that do not rely on evolution. Thus if a rabbit was found in Cambrian rock, as much as this would cause evolution a major headache, evolutionist could try to cast doubt on the age of the rock, but there is objective methodology in place that can thwart sophism or dogma. Evolutionist do not get to define the age of the rock.

Do you still stand by you assertion diggnate, or would you prefer to withdraw it.

[diggnate]

I think the point you are making is demonstratably [sic] wrong. To be true fossils are one method for dating rocks. However it is not the only method.


Do you still stand by you assertion diggnate, or would you prefer to withdraw it.

I have no reason at all to doubt dating methods. I do, however, have sufficient evidence to show that dating methods can be inaccurate sometimes, a fact that I, if I were a darwinist, would quickly bring up in the case of the alleged "rabbit in the cambrian rock".

Certainly, there would come a point where I may have to admit that the rabbit was significantly older than it should be, according to our geologic timeline. In which case, I would do something similar to what TalkOrigins would have done if it could be shown that Dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time:

And I quote:
"If true, such a finding would dramatically contradict the conventional geologic timetable, which holds that humans did not appear on earth until over 60 million years after the dinosaurs became extinct."

Finding an animal out of place would hardly even make me flinch as a darwinist. Would it be tough? Sure, but we like a good challenge. Would the entire NDT fall apart? Give me a break. "Mountains of evidence" vs. one little rabbit, no contest.

[Furrowed Brow]

That's how evolutionists think. When they use the date, they are forced to classify the fossil as whatever species fits into that time frame, no matter that the footprints look entirely human and would make humans co-existent with or ancestral to Australopithicine apes.

On the other hand, if evolutionists decide that the footprints are human, then they will have to perform their magic bunny act by changing the date of the fossils to within the time-frame that Homo erectus or habilis lived in Africa. That would be less than 2mya.

To understand human evolution, one only needs think like a human evolutionist.

Ok you have a point. Within any theory there is an element of interpreting the evidence to suit the theory. But all scientific theories are guilty of that to a point. However, the point about the falsification principle, is that if a theory really is falsifiable then there will be some evidence that breaks the theory. Karl Popper thought up the principle to separate science from doctrines with universal explanatory power like Marxism. Doctrines that adjust their rational to explain any and all phenomena in exactly the way you are saying evolutionists do.

The problem with the example of the footprints to give is that there is available an explanation perfectly consistent with the standard evolutionary model, and not much worked has to be done to see the consistency.

The kind of self serving logic you suggest evolutionist are guilty of is not fatal, nor even a serious flaw, unless there is nothing that can falsify the theory. Human-like bipedal footprints in 100 million year old rock would do that. No amount of tinkering with the theory can explain that one without a wholesale, and very embarrassing, restructuring of the theory.

But perhaps that is not itself enough on its own.

Put this another way: if rabbits started turning up in Cambrian rock, bipedal footprints in 100 million year old rock, plus various other fossils turning up in the wrong rock strata, then evolution could not make sense of the evidence. It would be a dud theory would it not?

[Furrowed Brow]

I think the point you are making is demonstratably [sic] wrong. To be true fossils are one method for dating rocks. However it is not the only method.


Do you still stand by you assertion diggnate, or would you prefer to withdraw it.

I have no reason at all to doubt dating methods. I do, however, have sufficient evidence to show that dating methods can be inaccurate sometimes, a fact that I, if I were a darwinist, would quickly bring up in the case of the alleged "rabbit in the cambrian rock".

Certainly, there would come a point where I may have to admit that the rabbit was significantly older than it should be, according to our geologic timeline. In which case, I would do something similar to what TalkOrigins would have done if it could be shown that Dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time:

And I quote:
"If true, such a finding would dramatically contradict the conventional geologic timetable, which holds that humans did not appear on earth until over 60 million years after the dinosaurs became extinct."

Finding an animal out of place would hardly even make me flinch as a darwinist. Would it be tough? Sure, but we like a good challenge. Would the entire NDT fall apart? Give me a break. "Mountains of evidence" vs. one little rabbit, no contest.

Thomas Kuhn has written about scientific hegemony. And you have a point. Careers, grants, reputations would not let one little rabbit shift them. But as I have just posted in reply to Jcrawford, the hegemony of evolution could to withstand multiple falsifications.

[diggnate]

The problem with the example of the footprints to give is that there is available an explanation perfectly consistent with the standard evolutionary model, and not much worked has to be done to see the consistency.

Actually, this is a post hoc statement. No such consistency was considered until after the fact. I actually have a quote from Dr. Peter Ward during a debate in Seattle in which he attempts to prove the falsifiability of the TOE. He states:

"If we found a human skull in the jaws of a T-Rex, we have made a huge mistake!"
Peter Ward, Talk of the Times

Little did he know that his peers had already derived an explanation for such an occurrence.

Put this another way: if rabbits started turning up in Cambrian rock, bipedal footprints in 100 million year old rock, plus various other fossils turning up in the wrong rock strata, then evolution could not make sense of the evidence. It would be a dud theory would it not?

Of course not! The common interpretations of geologic timelines would be in dire straits, but the FACT that we are indeed evolved beings would be untouched. There would be a necessity for a restructure of the theory, as you put it, but the theory as an interpretative framework would not be dud.

As goat so eloquently put it:
"do you have any positive evidence it was something OTHER than evolution?"

The fact is, because evolution is the only conceivable alternative (other than a miracle), it simply cannot be toppled, it won't be let to topple.

[Ncik666]

Many people keep forgetting that evolution is not I repeat NOT random mutations. It is the consectutive reinforcement of useful traits in the genetic genepool by process of continueing survival and propogation of the particular organism/s with the specified traits. This in no way implies that evolution is random, no matter what religious debaters will keep claiming.

[diggnate]

Many people keep forgetting that evolution is not I repeat NOT random mutations.

Actually, yes they are. Mutations are completely random.

Richard Dawkins:
"Well, the novelties themselves are genetic variations in the gene pool, which ultimately come from mutation, and more proximately come from sexual recombination. There’s nothing very inventive or ingenious about those novelties, I mean, they are random, and they mostly are deleterious…most mutations are bad. "

This in no way implies that evolution is random, no matter what religious debaters will keep claiming.

Well then, it's a good thing I never said that it was. I said that the mutations are random, and they are. Selection is non-random if you don't scrutinize it too hard. It does have a goal, survival, so I guess you could claim that the goal is not random.

However, mutations are random, plain and simple.

[Ncik666]

The traits that survive are not random, most christian debaters will try and claim that the whole thing was completely random. The fact is mutations are not the only source of the adaption. An organism can be born slightly lighter, if that helps it survive and propogate then the tendency to be smaller will survive. A mutation is not the only cause of evolution.

[diggnate]

The traits that survive are not random

Exactly what I said.

, most christian debaters will try and claim that the whole thing was completely random.

Well, if you look at "survival" as sufficiently specific goal, then I suppose you could say that it is non-random.

The fact is mutations are not the only source of the adaption. An organism can be born slightly lighter, if that helps it survive and propogate then the tendency to be smaller will survive.

That organism can only be born lighter by 1 of 2 ways:
1) sexual recombination of pre-existing genes that were mutated to form a lighter color somewhere in the genealogy but stayed either dormant or recessive.
2) mutation during the reproductive process

Either way, you simply can't get away from mutation. It is the fuel in the motor of natural selection that drives evolution.

A mutation is not the only cause of evolution.

No, but it is the only source of new functional information on which to select for, therefore it is a vital part of the evolutionary process, no? I don't ever remember claiming that mutation was the only cause of evolution. You can't have evolution without selection. That just doesn't make sense.