UPDATE: So far NO IDEAS as to how the theory of evolution can be falsified have been proposed…To make things worst, nobody so far picked up any of MY SUGGESTED IDEAS how to falsify evolution – now clearly numbered from 1-4.
It makes one wonder what the bases are for believing in the theory of evolution if no one seems to even want to at least try to falsify it…
Please keep in mind that by falsifying evolution you can refute many claims by the proponents of ID!!! Isn’t it what Darwin’s faithful want to do?
This OP is just a prelude to hopefully many future ones, where I would like to focus on the specific examples of how to falsify the theory of evolution…
This OP gives everyone an opportunity for the input on no doubt the many available ways how to experimentally falsify evolution…
As most of you know, Darwinists and post-Darwinists, for unknown reasons, are reluctant to experimentally prove their beliefs, so by the series of the OPs on the many possible ways of falsifying evolution, we can hopefully encourage Darwinists and the like, to do so for their own good… I could definitely help with that…
Here are some ideas on how to falsify evolution that I have come across so far:
How a walking mammal can evolve into an aquatic one?
1. Just as an example, let’s say I would like to evolve some aquatic functions…
How long would it take for me to see some evolutionary changes, if I spend most of the day in the water and what would they be? How about several generations of water-lovers? Can someone make a prediction, as evolutionists often do?
2. How about growing a bacterium without a flagellum, knockout the genes for the flagellum, or make the flagellum not fully functional and see whether the bacterium will evolve anything at least resembling a flagellum or evolves a better functionality of it…
3. How to evolve a function of an existing appendage that is no longer in full use to fully function again? How to make emus and ostriches to fly again?
4. How about finches? Since their beak size seems to change within one generation, could they evolve into another species within short period of time if put under selective pressure or something?
Let’s come up with ideas and put some organisms under selective pressure or whatever makes the organism evolve, and see if we can falsify evolution, so that we can end the speculations, once and for all, about who is right and who is wrong; Darwinists or Intelligent Design proponents…
Let us not hear any excuses anymore!
Let experimental science speak the truth!
I don’t think anybody in the right frame of mind would object to what I propose here… unless…. one doesn’t have the confidence in his or her preconceived ideas that could potentially be exposed…
Let’s begin!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2952423/
colewd,
Sorry yes, already fixed. See also this from 2003. He discusses several methods, pre-WGS, which broadly concur – and, they match the known, measurable in vitro error rate of DNA polymerase, adjusted by an order of magnitude for the repair correction.
How do you measure explanatory power?
Allan Miller,
Got it. Thanks.
How about the bigger the restriction on the observable data the explanation forces on, the more explanatory power it has?
ETA: does this even make sense in english? LOL
I haven’t seen one piece of evidence from you that evolution is falsifiable…So why should I trust you? I’m not as naive as Darwin’s faithful… 😉
Of course you haven’t seen any of the potential falsifications people provided you given where you keep your head crammed.
J-Mac,
So, because you think I haven’t provided any ‘evidence’ that evolution is falsifiable (something of a mishmash of concepts right there), you don’t even trust me when I say I’m on Earth?
Nice to see an internet Creationist who’s so open-minded, anyway, and avoids leading with the chin. Very refreshing.
Totally irrelevant. Your request was to falsify evolution. Finding (and confirming) a precambrian rabbit would indeed falsify the theory. In fact, finding any organism outside it’s logical location in the geological column would put a crimp on the theory and lend serious support to ID. Oddly, Such has never been found. Kinda takes the wind out of the sails of ID, that does…
Precambrian rabbit. Done. You can try to hand-wave at it all you want, but that’s your silver bullet. Oddly, the lack of precambrian rabbits and crocoducks is yet more support for evolution and a serious blow to ID. But look on the bright side: that means you don’t have to blow ID…
Shouldn’t you? For the sake of your own beliefs…
I mean…how do you know you are not deceiving yourself and others if nobody can falsify evolution by even one experiment?
You might be on Earth…but this is childishly irrelevant…
You are wasting my time…
I’d been trying to stay away from J-mac posts, and this is why.
What part of evolution?
That evolutionary change happens to all organisms?
That some particular mechinisms are reponsible for that change?
That evolutionary change can lead to adaptation?
That speciation has occurred in the past and is in part responsible for extant biodiversity (that at least some species share common descent)?
That all species share common descent?
Be specific. It isn’t really possible to falsify all of the above with a single experiment or observation, they are each supported by different lines of evidence and inference. So you have to be more specific.
You gave some examples in your OP of things you think would be experiments that would falsify evolution (or some aspects of it). But seriously, all your examples were terrible and confused and betrays a complete lack of familiarity with what evolution is about. In order to be able to speak about falsifying evolution, you first have to understand what scientists actually say about evolution.
It’s pointless…I’m doing the OP on common descent…You will have a chance for your fairy-tales there…lol
Which scientist talking about evolution are you talking about and most of all do 2 of them at least agree on their major beliefs other than evolution? Lol
I bet he never designed an experiment to test his second greatest idea either, the theory of universal common ancestry.
Well well. Looks like Darwinism can be falsified after all. And has been falsified.
Wolf-Ekkehard Loennig again? Wow! He is taking Darwinism down by himself… lol
In a few months, we will all be back to arguing about how “Darwinism” is unfalsifiable.
Btw, that whole article fails to point out what the problem with galling insects is. Ernst Mayr and Richard Dawkins gives an account from natural selection, to which that Loennig guy simply declares it fails because it is (apparently in his view) unfalsifiable. All the while claiming it has been failsified. Wut?
I was kind of hoping to see some sort of population genetic calculation that demonstrates such balancing opposing selective pressures (a classic evolutionary arms race) fails. Yet he never manages to do that.
He also manages to somehow claim that galling insects have arisen 132,930 times independently later in his article.
And he favorably cites Douglas Axe to substantiate that new proteins and folds can’t evolve. LOL
Guys, those of you who are impressed with that article, don’t hold your breath waiting for the collapse of “Darwinism”.
By quoting some folks who counted how many different plants ended up having insect galls, and ignoring the possibility that one insect species could make galls on two species of plants.
Or that speciation might occur within gall-producing clades.
So the Designer has an inordinate fondness for galls? That’s quite galling.
Hahaha. I’d forgotten what a shithole UD is!
ET, by the way. If that’s not Joe Gallien I’ll eat my hat.
“What “evolution” are you talking about- blind watchmaker evolution or intelligent design evolution? How can we test the claim that blind watchmaker evolution can produce plants?”
[eta – I posted that after reading just that one comment. 3 more, it’s an absolute cert!]
Not seeing the problem though. If part of the phenotype of a parasitic interaction is a change in the host which is detrimental to the host … how does this differ from any other kind of parasitism?
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Look who’s here…the speciation gods…Joe Felsestein and John Harshman
BTW: We are still waiting for your expert answer about the claim you made Joe regarding new species…on “The Mystery of Evolution: One Down”. My question is in comment #115.
I’m sure you are not trying to run away from providing evidence for your claims…With 10 billion species evolving and transitioning into other species, providing evidence how to distinguish newly evolved species should be a piece of cake for a couple clever guys like you two…
How about studying their mutation rate and comparing how far their genomes have diverged. That should give you a timescale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_rate
Some more info….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20425468
Who do you think I am? A child?
This is the issue I’m talking about:
“J-Mac Post September 9, 2017 at 6:36 pm
Joe Felsenstein: I stand by my statement (which was to agree with, I think, dazz) that all species are evolving, and given enough time will change enough to be considered new species.
J-Mac
I’m glad that you stand by your statement that ALL 10 BILLION SPECIES ON EARTH ARE EVOLVING AND TRANSITIONING INTO OTHER SPECIES…Harshman was a bit surprised by your statement of 10 billion…I’m not sure why…
So, how will you be able to prove that those species are changed enough to be considered different species?
Do you mean literally, figuratively or functionally?
I mean them all…
I’m waiting for the world’s renown population geneticist– Joe Felsenstein– to tell me how I’m going to distinguish in the future THE NEW SPECIES that are now in the process of transition from one species to another…
and you are quoting me wikipedia?
I can read wikipedia I don’t need anybody to point me there…
Capish?
A number of folks here already made this clear. Check to see if it is presently in a species — which, being currently an organism, it will be.
Then it is in transition to being a different species. Because if you wait long enough, it will change enough to be unable to mate with the present-day form.
J-Mac apparently thinks that being in transition is some special state where things are very unusual. Nope.
When a mummy population and a daddy population love each other very much but can’t have babies….
Why would an OMNI-LOVING OMNI-GOD allow such a thing! Therefore, God does not exist.
Joe Felsenstein,
You also wrote:
And although it is not absolutely impossible that an okapi will turn into a zebra, so much would have to happen very precisely that it is astronomically improbable, an event that would not happen even once in the whole history of the Universe.
Can you tell, what do you call, normal folk, how they go about making sure that okapi is not evolving into a zebra? I mean you said it yourself that “…it is not absolutely impossible that an okapi will turn into a zeba…” I think a lot of folks would like to know how not to make the same mistake dazz did…How are you so sure okapi is not evolving into zebra? Give the folks some pointers…
What would it take to evolve the giraffe neck for example…
So, couples that can’t have children are different species?
Populations
You see Joe, if being in evolutionary transition isn’t some special state, there is nothing unusual happening with an organism, so how do you know the species is actually evolving? For new features to evolve, something has to be in a special state, something unusual has to happen…otherwise, the species will stay the way it is…
Even my children know species are changing because they look different than last year… Please tell me, Joe, you have something more to offer…
Please tell me that you haven’t pinned the hopes of all the believers of evolution to nothing special and nothing unusual change of an organism…
These people religiously trust people like you that evolutionary transition is something more than just a minor change within species…
Anybody would like to add anything?
What’s a species then?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species
Prego.
The problem for a lot of people appears to be that any species concept other than their species concept (“they’re discrete! I mean, look around you!”) isn’t an actual species concept. So until some evidence is provided that change in the sense of their species concept is happening, change isn’t happening. I might try that again in English at a later date …
I got it, but I concede to having this strange habit of reading for comprehension and content, rather than reading to find something disagreeable.
Are the finches with the small beak and the large beak separate species then according to this definition?
I thought evolutionists here like you Neil, Alan and Rum agreed that Theobald clarified this issue in his 29 evidences for macroevolution? Please tell me you agree with Joe Filistine and Theobald at least about the concept of species and macroevolution… Don’t you?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
J-Mac,
This definition? Did you even read the link? I’m guessing no.
J-Mac,
I don’t know what you are actually saying.
That’s two of you, then. Three, if you count myself.
Glen Davidson
or the particular concept of God is paradoxical.
I did.
Now I want someone to tell me whether according to this definition finches with small and large beak are different species…
Why is it so difficult for people to give a Yes or No answer each time the issue of evolution of species comes up? Isn’t evolution a fact according to you? If that is the case, why is there so much mambo-jumbo nonsense going on each time giving a straight answer is requested?
Each time I ask Joe Felseinstein a straight question, he gives me a vague answer and runs away, as if he were afraid to discuss the subject he made his living on…
Can you explain that?
Neither do I know why Joe Felseinstein says evolution of one species into another is nothing special, and Theobald goes on and on how difficult, complex and special the macro-evolutionary changes in an organism are…
Why such a discrepancy between the two world renown experts so many of you rely on?
Oh, so J-Mac thinks “macroevolution” is the origin of a new species. Creationists are remarkably flexible as to where they draw that boundary. Others are talking about the origin of a new phylum. This issue deserves careful discussion — among them.