This is a reply to post 3
T-Thus, Creationism is falsifiable.
And you argue that fossil evidence is not falsifiable?
By your same argument alone, the creator could also come down and announce that evolution or the fossil record is wrong thereby providing equally valid falsification according to your logic. Since the likelihood of the creator coming down and doing either appears to be remote, the validity of this argument to provide evidence of falsibiablity of anything is highly questionable to say the least. I am sure you were just trying to be amusing by making that argument.
T- this faith system does not actually fall into the framework provided by the scientific method.
It is always odd how nonscientists act as if they are better qualified to determine what is scientific than scientists. Creationists think that one small flaw in evolutionary theory will cause the whole system to crumble to dust, and this feeling is reflected in your example. No single out of place fossil find is going to invalidate the entire theory. As gene says, your example is a strawman. No good scientist is going to rationalize this way and if he or she did it would be hailed by the scientific community as the BS that it really is.
T-How can a theory claim to be falsifiable if you alway have the ability to rely on the conjectur of absence data to corraborate the data.
Two different things. Conjecture from an absence of data is idle speculation, but idle speculation has no basis for falsification and doesn't get papers published.
According to you, evolutionary theory does: not predict the evidence, (is) an origin narrative, (and is a) faith system...
That's really several different topics to try to debate. You make many claims (acting almost as if making a claim makes it valid) but provide no substantiation. Perhaps you should try to stick to one point at a time.
What kind of evidence would falsify the theory of evolution? That is a good thought question (but another topic). My opinion is that it would almost take God coming down here and settling all this once and for all (heaven forbid!) to actually falsify evolution, since there is so much evidence across so many different scientific fields of study which support this theory. Falsifying the theory would presumably create havoc in general biology, biochemistry, paleontology, geology, archeology, molecular biology, and physics. Perhaps you think those are nonscientific disciplines? I think you trivialize the scientific process to think that your example would provide adequate falsification. The scientific method provides the framework and freedom in which theories can objectively be falsified based on evidence. The history of scientific progress provides numerous examples of how the process of falsification works and works well in science.
How does all this relate to the topic, transitional forms? If I understand it all correctly, the concern seems to be that scientists fill gaps in transitional forms with faith and that because their thinking is based on faith, it is not falsibiable. The only 'faith' that is used is the faith in logical, predicable, and orderly processes that obey natural physical laws. If Mr X was seen at 4th and Main at 7pm on 1/6/01 when my car was stolen and my car was found in Mr. X's driveway with his fingerprints on the inside, I don't need spiritual faith to conclude that Mr. X took my car. I don't need to fill in the gaps (seeing Mr. X get into my car and drive off). I have a chain of evidence, as science does for evolution with a sequence of transitional fossil forms. My theory that Mr.X took my car is perfectly falsibiable if I find more evidence that contradicts my theory. It is the same with scientific theories.
[This message has been edited by nibelung778 (edited 01-09-2001).]