What would it take to falsify a belief in evolution?

Question

Since evolution has never been proven in the scientific sense, what criteria could be established to falsify the belief in evolution?

It is one thing to predicate an idea. By the limits of induction, one always has to be open to being wrong. Falsifying a belief however is a deductive process. By your own answers you are proving to being dogmatic in this issue. This is a no no in the scienctific sense. Truth has to correspond to reality which evolution fails to do with the II law of thermodynamics. Noone has ever satisfied this observation.

Answer 1

Evolution IS a scientific fact, we have discovered fossils that have been proved without a doubt, to be millions of years old, so why are there still people who really think that the Earth is only 6,000 years old? Are they semi-retarded?

Answer 2

Me and a friend were just discussing this yesterday... He strongly believes in evolution (he is an atheist), while I believe that both evolution and creation could have happened (I am spiritual, but not religious)...

It is obvious to anyone alive and who believes in history, that the human race has evolved - just look at the progress in our health & life expectancy, since more knowledge about what affects those things has been obtained! If learning and using that knowledge to affect ourselves isn't evolution, then what is?

Both views (evolution & creation) need to be integrated into a more coherent whole. They both have some right & some wrong to them.

The creationists want everyone to believe that God is in complete control - which contradicts free will.

The evolutionists want everyone to believe that science is the only answer - what you can detect with your five senses is all there is - which contradicts the fact that we know some animals have senses outside of the human senses, so that can't be all there is.

Trying to falsify a belief that has some right to it is wrong. Try to take what is right in both views, and discard the rest.

A closed mind is a dangerous thing.

To paraphrase my friend: An open mind is good, just not so open that your brains fall out!

Answer 3

I agree with you, that your question is completely justified. It is generally accepted that it is impossible to prove a scientific theory because it is impossible to investigate every possible case/instance. So even if you want to collect evidence that evolutionary theory is correct you would do that by trying to find instances where it fails. The likelyhood that your theory is correct increases the more often you can't falsify it.

I guess if you could find an example of exactly the same organism having evolved twice would do it for evolution. The odds are so much against it that that is basically impossible. If we would find a population of trilobites and could prove that they were not a surviving population from when trilobites went extinct, but a comparatively new species evolutionary theory would say that's next to impossible. The more examples of that the better.

Answer 4

First of all evolution is a hypothesis! To those who don't know what this means -- hypothesis means an "educated guess!" Basing our lives on a mere guess would be absurd and ignorant. I mean - I am looking past this life into the next and I don't see one thing in evolution that proves I came from monkeys and there is absolutely nothing in evolution that offers me hope beyond death. Perhaps you can be satisfied with that kind of hanging in limbo, but I am intelligent and like to have more to hang my hat on than that.

Consider that if we came from monkeys as evolution teaches that there should be an ongoing evolutionary process taking place right now. That is to say, there should be a bunch of half-man/half-monkeys running around in transition. To be honest with you I have yet to see one of those things. There are no transitional species and there never will be so the theory of evolution if bogus from end to end.

Now if you are tired of believing in this "guess" there may be some other source that sheds some light on man and why he exists that is more realistic and requires less "faith." I mean after all there is such a squabble about evolution compared to creationism that surely intelligent men and women who can be objective in their thinking might want to consider both as possible alternatives. To stick to one side or the other would necessitate either totally subjective thinking or searching and finding out that one or the other is absolutely true. I wonder how many who argue both points have seriously considered both sides and done their due diligence on both. I have.

I found out personally in meeting with God through His Son Jesus Christ that they actually exist and can be reached and communicated with every day and, not only that, I don't need an appointment to speak with them. Funny thing is that my wife and children have found out the same thing as have many other people. Imagine this - I have prayed many times over the last 33 years and have received answers to my prayers that were so specific that there is no way they could have come from a monkey or any other source but God!

What would it take to falsify evolutiion? Little children have the answer. It goes like this. "Jesus loves me this I know -- for the Bible tells me so." You really want truth - become like children - faith is a simple thing and yet has depth beyond the most educated adult that ever lived. It certainly falsifies the "theory of evolution." Hypothesis you know!

Answer 5

There are plenty of scientific evidences to counter religion yet the followers refute them all. I suspect that even if evolution had irrefutable evidence, religious followers would still be disbelieving. Organized religion is a business and their goal is to defeat the competition.
Could it be that "God" started the entire process of evolution and simply stepped back to watch it occur and that perhaps the entire "bible story" is just a manmade collection of parables?

I doubt you will select a view which opposes your own as best answer, you fundamentalists are all alike.

Additional comment:
Why is it that fundamentalists will embrace bits of science which bolster their cause yet deny the validity of any which defeats it?
Religion being a matter of faith requires no "scientific evidence" for justification. Faith is the ability to believe with the heart that which the mind finds illogical. For any bit of evidence one can produce to "prove" creationism, there are numerous bits which tend toward evolution.

Answer 6

find an animal that came into existence without it, with no near relative in the animal kingdom. Oh, but as others have stated, the theory has been proven in a very real scientific sense, the only problem is we do not have all fossils to examine for holes in the theory - we simply never will. The fact that it HAS been proven doesn't actually affect your question, you simply threw that in as an interjection.

Answer 7

If God materialized on the 50 yard line during the next Superbowl and conjured up an entirely new species right before our eyes I might consider changing my beliefs from the monkey team to the God squad. Until then I am going to continue to believe in evolution.

Answer 8

Evolution is not a belief. It is a scientific theory which is very different to a "belief". The fossil record, mytochonria tracing techniques and observations of closed systems and of dna mutations would all need to be explained with other models and these new models would all have to agree with each other.

Answer 9

Your statement is false. Evolution has been proven in a "scientific" sense, over and over again.

Since the existence of god has never been proven in a scientific sense, what criteria could be established to falsify the belief in god? Why, the Bible of course.

Answer 10

Well, now, I suppose it's possible to prove that natural selection might have been extremely statistically unlikely in the time period given - but that would only disprove (or cast doubt on) natural selection - evolution could occur by some other mechanism.