Scientists - How was everything created from nothing?
Posted 10-22-2014 at 05:24 PM by cupper3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
You are describing the scientific method which includes constructing experiments to reproduce results. That is related to, but not the same, as empirical evidence. A method is not evidence, it's a way to obtain evidence.
An argument can (and has) been made that the theory of evolution is not fully subject to the scientific method, and that is what you're really saying here.
But there are many, many things that are only indirectly observable. We don't seriously expect a hypothesis about background radiation in the universe to require someone to build an actual universe and measure the radiation. We expect them to measure the radiation that's there to see if it conforms to the hypothesis and if the hypothesis has predictive power.
Historians are in the same situation; they can't "prove", say, that Julius Caesar was ever a real person by conducting an experiment. They instead have standards of evidence relating to primary sources, different historical witnesses, and so forth. If Julius Caesar was real then we will expect to find in the historical record, x, y, and z ... and sure enough, there it is. Analysis of fossil records follow much the same principles.
We can observe the fossil record, microevolutionary changes, and other such data for whether it fits with predictions made by the theory of evolution. We can apply evolutionary principles, creating technology based upon it -- and that's just what we've done in genetic engineering, molecular biology, vaccines, many aspects of computer science, etc. That a theory (in the scientific sense of that word) has predictive power is part of what validates it.
Many aspects of evolutionary theory can be played out repeatedly in the way you describe at the microscopic level and at the microevolutionary level. Obviously a process so slow as macroevolution cannot be observed directly, only its outcomes can be observed via the fossil record, which is necessarily fragmentary in some respects.
Some aspects of Darwin's theory have been disproven and when science disproves something, unlike religion, it changes its tune. Most aspects, though, have been so thoroughly validated that they are beyond serious question.
If you have a vested interest in young earth creationism then no amount of scientific consensus will convince you. I get that. But there is nothing less proven about the theory of evolution vs gravity vs electromagnetism vs germ theory. It is a little tricker and more complex to validate in some respects but well over 150 years of work has been done in that regard.
An argument can (and has) been made that the theory of evolution is not fully subject to the scientific method, and that is what you're really saying here.
But there are many, many things that are only indirectly observable. We don't seriously expect a hypothesis about background radiation in the universe to require someone to build an actual universe and measure the radiation. We expect them to measure the radiation that's there to see if it conforms to the hypothesis and if the hypothesis has predictive power.
Historians are in the same situation; they can't "prove", say, that Julius Caesar was ever a real person by conducting an experiment. They instead have standards of evidence relating to primary sources, different historical witnesses, and so forth. If Julius Caesar was real then we will expect to find in the historical record, x, y, and z ... and sure enough, there it is. Analysis of fossil records follow much the same principles.
We can observe the fossil record, microevolutionary changes, and other such data for whether it fits with predictions made by the theory of evolution. We can apply evolutionary principles, creating technology based upon it -- and that's just what we've done in genetic engineering, molecular biology, vaccines, many aspects of computer science, etc. That a theory (in the scientific sense of that word) has predictive power is part of what validates it.
Many aspects of evolutionary theory can be played out repeatedly in the way you describe at the microscopic level and at the microevolutionary level. Obviously a process so slow as macroevolution cannot be observed directly, only its outcomes can be observed via the fossil record, which is necessarily fragmentary in some respects.
Some aspects of Darwin's theory have been disproven and when science disproves something, unlike religion, it changes its tune. Most aspects, though, have been so thoroughly validated that they are beyond serious question.
If you have a vested interest in young earth creationism then no amount of scientific consensus will convince you. I get that. But there is nothing less proven about the theory of evolution vs gravity vs electromagnetism vs germ theory. It is a little tricker and more complex to validate in some respects but well over 150 years of work has been done in that regard.
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