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The familiar complaint by creationists that you all just hand-wave away, that the ToE and the Old Earth are "just theory," has genuine substance to it, it's a serious criticism and not something your definitions can so easily dispense with.
Trying to cast doubt on scientific conclusions by calling them "theories" is hardly a serious argument. Pointing out that the argument is ignorant and false is a valid response, and hardly "hand waving". If creationists are too proud to admit their errors, then that is their problem.
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What you don't seem to recognize is that this definition can apply to an accepted untestable delusion into which you feed facts although there may be better explanations of those facts in reality. In other words this is a recipe for nothing but hardened bias.\
Fortunately science has mechanisms for dealing with that problem. Unless you define "better" as being whatever
you happen to like. But that would place more weight on prejudice not less. Creationism lacks such mechanisms, which explains why it is in such a dreadful state.
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A scientifically testable general principle or body of principles offered to explain observed phenomena
This applies ONLY to what I've been calling REAL science or HARD science because first of all it IS about actually OBSERVED phenomena so it IS testable as described above, while the sciences of the ancient unwitnessed prehistoric past deal with one-time events that are not observable or replicable.
Of course you're wrong because there's nothing there demanding that principles or the testing derive from direct observation. Of course, quite a lot of the principles in evolution and geology are tested by direct observation, where that's possible so even that objectin fails to stand.
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We can only guess about how a worldwide Flood would behave for instance because nobody has ever seen one.
Can't we apply what we know about the behaviour of water, for instance, to work out a lot?
Or do you object to that because the results aren't what you would like?
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For the theories of TRUE science, REAL science, REAL WORLD PROOFS OR TESTS to validate or falsify them can be performed by anybody with the means to do so
Noting that those means might include use of the Large Hadron Collider - or construction of an equally powerful facility - what's your problem with either the Old Earth or evolution? Both are open to testing - and have passed many tests.
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YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH THEORIES ABOUT THE UNWITNESSED OR PREHISTORIC PAST.
Writing that in capitals doesn't make it any less wrong.
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You cannot prove that fossils found in the strata are genetically related to other fossils
Being unable to perform a test that you would like performed doesn't mean that no tests are possible. Indeed, we should ask why we find the pattern of morphological features that we do without genetic relationships? Do you have a testable alternative explanation? At least we can test the relationship between genetic relationships and physical form in existing species.
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You cannot prove they are of any particular age either, because you cannot test your radiometric methods.
Of course we can test radiometric methods. For instance we can apply multiple methods to rocks of similar age and see if they agree. Ask RAZD about that. Or we can apply the same method to rocks where we have an idea of the relative age (from the geometric relationships) and see if the radiometric results are consistent with what we already know.
To sum up, the "just a theory" argument is hopelessly wrong.
The argument about direct observation is a
different argument - and also wrong. Not only because it ignore the role of direct observation in geology and evolutionary science, bit because it makes a categorical distinction that does not exist. All observations are indirect to some degree - a witness experiences only the effects of a past event, not the event itself.
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