Briefly, falsifiability is a tenet of science that states that for a scientific theory to be legitimate, it must be falsifiable, that is, able to be proven false. It is attributed to the testability of a theory - as in, if the theory can be tested, then logically those tests could come back with a failing grade, showing that the theory is wrong.
For example, Newton's theory of gravity is falsifiable. How? It's very simple: find an object that doesn't fall to the ground. Since we can test gravity all day long and show how ever many objects we have the time and patience for falling to the ground and not not falling to the ground, we know that it's incredibly likely that Newton's theory of gravity is, in fact, true.
Falsifiability is not universally accepted and there are situations in which falsifiability cannot or should not immediately cause one to dismiss the scientific qualities of a theory or study. For example, observational science cannot necessarily be falsified. If your entire basis of study is simply watching someone or something perform something and recording data on it, how exactly could that be falsified? It is not an entirely black and white principle. It is, however, rather reliable when attributed correctly to things that it should be attributed to.
It's important to note several things here: whether or not something is falsifiable is not the determining factor on whether or not it is important or whether or not it is a valid concept, question, or concern. It merely determines whether something can be considered scientific (and even then, not always, as we see with observational science). Furthermore, something doesn't have to be science to be valid, contrary to the beliefs of many a keyboard-scientist.
This means that, yes, the question "Does God exist?" is not falsifiable, and therefore is not science (and it cannot be argued to be observational science or any other kind of science). This, however, doesn't make the question not valid or important. I've discussed various times how science is not the only way in which we acquire knowledge and it is not the end all be all of human knowledge and understanding. I don't feel like I need to go into it again for this.
Falsifiability of Evolution
So, now we hopefully understand the reality of what falsifiability is. What we're getting into now is the falsifiability of evolution. More specifically, I'm going to be picking at this particular wiki page on the much biased wiki RationalWiki.
First of all, in absolutely no capacity do they try to argue whether or not it is necessary for evolution as a theory to need to be falsifiable in order to be a valid theory. They even state that falsifiability is a central characteristic of science and that science, in its entirety, must be falsifiable to be valid. This misrepresents the concept of falsifiability. As we mentioned, it's not black and white, and it's not even universally accepted. It also relates directly to the theory's testability and it should not be entirely unclear that evolution is something of a hard theory to actively test. A concept like evolution could be argued to be understandably difficult to falsify while still being based off of scientific information and observation.
However, they didn't try to make that argument, and I'm not going to make it for them.
They do state correctly that scientific theories cannot be proven outright, but that the only way to definitively prove a scientific theory one way or another is if it is proven false. They then immediately misleadingly state that if a theory cannot be falsified, then it makes no difference whether or not it is true - quite a shallow view. As been mentioned before, something doesn't become meaningless merely because it is not scientific. There are a great many questions and valid concerns that are not falsifiable - that doesn't make them unimportant, especially if they could influence the quality of your life (or your afterlife).
We go on as it discusses what exactly evolution attempts to prove and, based on that, what would need to happen for it to be falsified.
[Evolution] is based on three main principles: variation, heritability and selection. Given these three principles, evolution must occur, and many features of evolution appear given only these three guiding principles. If any of these were shown to be flawed then the theory would be untenable.This is very interesting, as the author has given himself quite the benefit of the doubt. As I've already discussed these topics quite extensively, I may be a little less detailed here, but let me just start out by saying that this statement is inherently flawed. It's, in fact, so flawed that it may actually just be purposefully misleading intellectual dishonesty.
What this statement is attempting to say is that the principles of variation, heritability, and selection necessitate evolution - that is, the ability for creatures to turn into different kinds of creatures over many years happens necessarily if these three principles are true. While it's very unlikely, this may actually have come from an innocent misunderstanding by the author themselves - these principles only necessitate the ability for generations of creatures to adapt and change over time within their own species, but it does not flow necessarily that they must then turn into different kinds of animals. We have already discussed at length why a species changing over time within its own kind does not, in any way, necessarily extrapolate into that species evolving into an entirely different kind.
If you're interested in in-depth discussion on these points, feel free to visit the lengthy and sourced post linked here. Otherwise, I'll wrap it up with one point:
DNA evidence shows that selection actually reduces the amount of DNA information within a creature. As creatures become specialized for their environment, they actually lose genetic information instead of acquiring new genetic information (new genetic information being necessary for the creature to turn into any sort of different creature, i.e. fish -> amphibian). This means that the process of selection, when analyzed at a genetic level, is actually evidence against the gradual changing over time from one kind of animal into another. Simplified, animals become less complex over time, not more complex.
This fact alone destroys any attempt at declaring that the three aforementioned principles necessitate evolution. They can be argued to necessitate change within a species (and I would agree), but not into different kinds of animals. Considering that the basis of the entire argument on this page has been debunked, I cannot even continue using this page as a source for this refutation. There is, however, one more point to be made on the information on this page before we move on.
Falsifiability of Common Descent
It is interesting to note that this author does differentiate between the concept of evolution and the common descent of life.
He defines common descent as:
...the theory that all life evolved from one common ancestor, or groups of ancestors (although it is slightly more complicated than the straw man version of "one day a cell appeared and everything is technically its descendent[sic]").
This is very interesting. Considering scientists and evolution enthusiasts' own explanations of evolution, the origin of species, and the origin of life, this purposeful separation of evolution and common descent is peculiar. The author even goes on to posit that common descent being falsified would not even necessarily disprove evolution.
I'm going to go ahead and make the call that this author is either purposefully or naively misrepresenting the concepts of changes over time and divergence of kinds into new kinds. It is an unignorably important distinction to make that the concepts of "macro-" and "microevolution" are actually distinctly different. The theory of evolution as described by Darwin does not separate itself into various, self-sustaining theories. The theory as outlined by Darwin purposefully includes the origin of life, evolution as a means of speciation, as well as common descent. It is an all-in-one package. While the concept of change over time is something that can exist without Darwin's theory, it's actually the basis of the rest of his theory - that theory being the divergence into kinds and the common descent of life from a universal common ancestor. The entire purpose of his theory was to explain the origin of life through a universal ancestor by means of natural selection causing drastic enough changes over time that all life came into existence this way because of his observations that species experienced small changes over time due to adaptation to their environment.
For what the author claims to be true to be true, the author must be referring to evolution only in its capacity for species to change among themselves over time without the implication that they could, then, evolve into different kinds. If this is the case, I would argue that the author is entirely correct. However, I find it hard to believe that this is, in fact, the author's intent, especially considering the misinformation within the piece as well as the following parts about common descent.
The author's argument for the falsifiability of common descent is as follows:
Common descent could easily be disproved (without even seriously challenging the theory of evolution) if we discovered a form of life that was not related to all the life we know - most simply, by finding life that does not use the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) for information storage and retrieval as known biological life does.
Again, the basis of this argument is flawed. The idea that we share a common ancestor because we share similarities (DNA, RNA, similar traits, functions, etc.) is, in itself, a flawed conclusion. The reality that we are all made of similar kinds of things and share similarities does not necessitate a common ancestor or common descent. The reality that all life shares similar building blocks and features doesn't conclude anything one way or another. If I create several sculptures out of clay, each sculpture is made of the same components, but each sculpture has still been created."
Drawing the conclusion that our similarities is evidence for common descent is a case of assuming your conclusion: because you already believe that we have a universal common ancestor, you view the similarities of all life as being evidence of that conclusion. It is circular and inherently intellectually dishonest. It would be equally circular and intellectually dishonest to conclude that we are all similar because we have been created out of similar materials and intentionally created with similar parts, but this conclusion is drawn in the exact same way that the naturalist's conclusion is drawn. The parallel is that neither is necessarily true - genetic similarities across kingdoms is entirely inconclusive as proof of anything.
So where do we go from here? The correct conclusion is that common descent would be falsified in the same way that evolution is falsified - contrary to the author's insistence, they depend on each other to exist as theories. If it could be shown that different kinds of creatures do not, over time, turn into new and distinctly different kinds of creatures, then common descent would therefore be impossible. Evolution into different kinds must be able to occur for common descent to be true. If evolution is true, it would therefore be evidence for common descent. They are not independent theories.
Evolution Falsified
Because I can't continue to use this same page as the basis for my rebuttal due to the entire foundation of its argument already being debunked, I'll have to come up with my own definition of what evolution shows and therefore what would need to be shown to disprove it.
The theory of evolution posits that due to changes in a species over time, one kind of animal may diverge completely into a different kind of animal. All life is theorized to have come into existence this way, starting with the first life which is assumed to be the simplest form of life that could possibly exist. This first life, due to adaptation and changes over time, diverged into different forms of life, which eventually become more diverse and complex...
Well, perhaps it's just my own bias coming through, but I feel like evolution must have already been falsified as a theory for the origin of species considering that the theory itself outlines the first life as being simple and then becoming more complex. I would suppose, then, that the way to falsify evolution would be to show that life does not become more complex as natural selection occurs, but rather less complex. This would show that, yes, evolution can be falsified, and is therefore valid science. However, it has been falsified, meaning that, while it is valid science, it is now false.
Oh my, I heard the shouts through my monitor: "What about mutations? The entire basis of Darwin's theory was that new information could be acquired through mutations!"
The thing about mutations is that they, too, are (almost exclusively) a loss or degradation of information. I've already discussed this at length, too, so this will again be just a summary:
From a genetic, DNA standpoint, mutations are overwhelmingly negative. Even mutations that are said to be "good" are, from the geneticist's view, negative. The biologist can see a mutation as being positive if it provides a survival advantage, but the genetic reality is that it is still a loss of information. Mutations may, rarely, (less than 1% of the time) create new information, but due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of mutations are either negative or a "switch being flipped" coupled with the fact that selection actually causes animals to become less complex, the chance of mutations being, for example, the reason why fish grew lungs and eventually became amphibians is effectively zero.
Let's give evolution one more shot. Let's ignore the first life. Let's assume that perhaps there are already pretty complex life forms on earth, somehow. We'll ignore how they got there and simply question whether or not those already existent, complex life forms evolving into different kinds of uniquely different life forms could occur.
The theory of evolution posits that due to changes in a species over time, one kind of animal may diverge completely into a different kind of animal. In this way, a common ancestor would take two separate evolutionary paths, with one path leading to a completely different kind of animal than the other. The diversification of the creatures of the earth could therefore occur this way.
We have a much more solid, much less already-falsified theory, here. Ignoring where those life forms came from, how could we falsify complex life forms evolving into totally different kinds of life forms due to changes over time?
We are still pretty stuck with our knowledge that animals do not become more complex over time. But does this necessarily falsify this sort of theory? It would not be entirely wrong to say that dogs and cats, while very distinct, don't necessarily have anything too drastically different that small changes over time couldn't necessitate. Neither is particularly "more complex," they are just different. While changes over time couldn't cause a fish to grow lungs, they could change a skeletal structure, make longer whiskers, maybe even retractable claws and sandpaper tongues. After all, it's not necessarily new information, just a restructure of already existent types of information.
So, our falsifiability could possibly stem from this. If it could be shown to not be possible for two morphologically and genetically distinct creatures to be able to diverge from one common ancestor, this theory would be falsified. I suppose this could be done with more research on genetics - perhaps a discovery in genetics that shows that genes couldn't reorganize themselves to change, for example, a stationary claw into a retractable one.
The problem here is still that this would be very hard to show. Proving a negative, contrary to popular belief, is not impossible, but it can be quite difficult. The reality is that it is not necessarily impossible - what you would end up with is merely a lot of evidence for the contrary, and no or little evidence in favor of it.
Which happens to look like it is the case. There is a pretty large and looming pile of evidence that two morphologically and genetically distinct creatures could not, in fact, diverge from one common ancestor. It's just that you can't definitively prove or disprove this, merely show it to be likely/unlikely. So far, it's highly unlikely.
This doesn't feel entirely satisfactory, though. A theory has to be definitively falsifiable or else it's invalid, right? Newton's theory of gravity is entirely falsifiable, right? If we saw an object thrown into the sky actually continue to fly away and not fall back down, wouldn't we have falsified gravity?
Not necessarily. See, there is that not-black-and-white thing again. We have an enormous amount of evidence that Newton's theory is correct. If it could be shown that one type of object, or even one single unique object, was not subject to gravity, we would not simply throw gravity out the window. That single object itself would be seen as an anomaly, perhaps it itself having unique properties that cause it to simply ignore gravity, while gravity itself was still solid.
So what do we do, here? Do we accept that this aspect of evolution is falsifiable, but only sort of? Or do we declare that it is not falsifiable, and therefore not valid science?
My opinion on this was already made pretty clear in the beginning. Falsifiability is not the end all be all, it does not make a question, concern, or observation meaningless. Falsifiability is also not something that can be blindly adhered to with rigid, inflexible rules. I feel that evolution is, on some level, falsifiable, and to proclaim that it isn't or was never a valid question to investigate would be intellectually insincere.
After all, it's the investigation into evolution that is continually giving us more evidence for creation. The reality of the situation is that, before we were able to see and understand the things that we are now, evolution seemed rather plausible. It wasn't until more in-depth research was done that we learned important things about how the world around us works - and how those things point toward our Creator. I would implore biologists and scientists to continue their studies, even if they do so in an attempt to explain away their own Creator. Hopefully they will reevaluate the evidence staring back at them and realize it's actually pointing in a different direction than they originally thought, as many others have done.
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