Is the TOE falsifiable and if it was, would it advance Biblical Creationism

Thank you very much for this acknowledgment. I don't know why others found this so hard to recognize."We" creationists here at EvC, some of us anyway, have been working on one particular angle, and MJFloresta has recently brought up another. The first angle is the observation that speciation involves a loss of variability in the genome; that is, the process of selecting alleles that express a new phenotype eliminates other, competing alleles from the new population of necessity, so that speciation and depletion of genetic options go together.The usual answer is that mutation makes up for the loss, so what is now needed is to show that mutation does no such thing, which seems intuitively obvious to some of us, but is still in need of being demonstrated.New member Hughes has stated this same idea just a few posts above, in Message 107: And I know that MJFloresta also stated it on his thread about macro versus microevolution.Another area of interest for showing a possible genetic limit to speciation was suggested to my mind by something MJFloresta said about how it appears that all the variation we see in any Kind, that is, in microevolution, although it may bring about some pretty dramatic new varieties, never changes what he called the "body plan" of that particular Kind. This is problematic in that body plan is very hard to define, but we're working on it. In any case it made me think that the limit to speciation will eventually be shown in that part of the DNA that codes for the particulars of body plan. That is, it would show up for instance in that small portion of the DNA that is not shared between humans and chimpanzees, which should specify what is absolutely definitive of each, the rest of the DNA shared in common being features common to all life as well as those that make people think we appear to be related. What the genetic picture might be that would demonstrate that there is a barrier in this part of the DNA that would prevent speciation from one body plan to another I don't know how to guess, but I'm curious to find out if such a barrier might be found there.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

sure-- I screwed up. I used the wrong explanation for the semie conservative model. I think I wrote this fairly late last night, which might be why. If not, well, I guess I fail the test. oops.as to falsifying the semi conservative model--I'm on a roll of screw ups, huh? I was meaning sexual recombination (?) where one half comes from each parent. If you can disprove this fact--that we inherit our DNA from both mom and dad, well, that knocks out a huge chunk of ToE. Not only does it begin to question the common ancestor concept, but also a major source of variation for us.that's what I should have said. And I know better than to write what I did, but we all have thos days.thanks for calling me out on that.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

You earlier claimed that evolution was philosophy, not theory. Now you're making a different argument, that the ToE, like all science, is based upon naturalism, and anything based upon naturalism isn't falsifiable.I can't even guess where you got this strange idea, but if you want to stick with it you'll have to support it with argument and evidence. These issues are best addressed in a thread about ID. Modern evolutionary theory is a synthesis of Darwinian evolution and genetic theory. The nested hierarchy is seen by observing life today, by analyzing the fossil record, and by analyzing the genetic code of living creatures. It is one of the ways that evolution could be falsified, by finding creatures (living or fossil, doesn't matter, though with living creatures you can examine both morphology and DNA) that lie outside any possible nested hierarchical classification system. As far as I know, no limits dictated by DNA have ever been identified. Identification of such limits is a potential falsification of evolutionary theory. This is easily explained, but it isn't the topic of this thread. Please propose a new thread if you'd like to discuss how evolution increases information in the genome.--PercyEdited by Percy, : The word "information" was inadvertently omitted in the final sentence.

I'm not sure how one goes about detecting design in any formal scientific manner. If you know of one please describe it for us.What we're actually detecting when we look at a bridge or automobile is that they are objects of human origin. We can also easily identify evidence associated with human occupation, such as footprints or garbage piles. Finding and identifying evidence of human occupation and associated artifacts is what the fields of archeology and anthropology are pretty good at. Finding evidence of design is another matter.--Percy

especially since the prototypes often aren't saved and are trashed, leaving no trace.mayhaps the fossils are trash?oh, but then, the designer couldn't possibly be intelligent, huh?

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

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So, in your own admission, ToE is not science but philosophy. And will never be falsified because it's based on what all science is based on, the philosophy of Naturalism.

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As usual a creationist resorts to misrepresentation. I simply pointed out that your claim that evolution was philosophy and not science was false since other major areas of science were equally naturalistic. I did not admit that evolution was "philosophy" any more than any other science is. And I said nothing about falsifiability.

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Here's a problem. What if design is detected? What if evidence is discovered that shows the assumptions (and that's what they are) of naturalism are false? Doesn't following an unfalsifiable philosophy hold science back?

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Another typical feature of creationism is irrationality. If supernatural design were reliably detected in life it would at least partially falsify evolution (how far depends on what features are identified as designed). So your initial question assumes that evolution can be falsified, contradicting your claim that it cannot.

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For example. Junk DNA. How do we know they are "junk?" They are assumed to be Junk based on faulty assumptions. This assumption alone has put study of said DNA on hold, and set it back how many years?

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Larege amounts of unused DNA are a surprise to evolutionary scientists, too. There has been little research into much "junk" DNA because it has no identified function and therefore other areas of research are more promising. So I'd say that science would have been held back IF more investigation had been done because it would have taken the place of more productive work. Even if it were all to turn out to have some obscure function it is likely that we could not identify it until we understood other aspects of DNA more.

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The nested hierarchy isn't a natural outcome of evolution, it's a detailed observation of the diversity we see *today*!

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Unfortunately for you it IS an expected outcome of evolution - as a species splits the descendant species will carry many of the originals species distinctive traits, as will their descendants. ANd that produces a nested heirarchy.

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The "splitting" of species is not an increase in information on the DNA. If anything it's a decrease, a loss of abilities or information

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Yet the splitting of species requires that the descendant species acquire traits which distinguish them forom the parent species and from their sibling species. If that doesn't involve an increase in what creationists call "information" then evolution doesn't need it.Of course the whole "informatioon" argument is an exercise in obfuscation. Creationists don't even know what it means and can't offer any valid argument to show that it is a problem at all.

The first problem we are having is that the Theory of Evolution is being used to describe all the theories associated with evolution. It is difficult to think of a single test that can falsify so many theories. There are two things that need to be done first.

The Theories defined

The Theory of Evolution
Addresses the mechanism of biological change. Recombination, horizontal transfer, mutation, natural selection etc etc. It includes hypotheses of population change, allele freqency change, evolutionary stable strategies/game theory etc.Common Descent
The concept that all current diversity has come from a single or small group of very primitive common ancestors. The mechanisms behind Common Descent is ToE. It is more concerned with fossils, nested hierarchies, genetic sequence comparisons etc.

Erase the evidence, start from scratch

As it stands, there is a wealth of evidence, none of which falsifies evolution. This psychologically stands in our way to concieve of falsification methods.

Falsifying the theory

I'm going to be talking about common descent, since that is essentially what evolution's critics are really talking about. So we have no evidence and we propose the hypothesis of common descent. What evidence could exist that would falsify it?

1. No unit of heredity. That is - no genes. Heredity does not have a physical medium to transfer. Without cumulative selection acting on a unit of heredity, common descent is dead in the water as far as science goes.
2. Blending of forms. Before Mendel's work was understood, Darwin was faced with a possible falsification. If traits were blended to produce offspring, then eventually all change would be watered down and would basically not occur.
3. Artificial selection didn't work. If selective breeding didn't produce biological change, common descent would not stand.
4. Dating methods indicate a young earth. If the earth was too young, there would not be enough time for biodiversity to have reached the level it has from a small group of primitive common ancestors.
5. Different units of heredity. If genes did get found, but some were DNA and others were something else entirely...common descent would be serious trouble and would be falsified if the differences were irreconcilable.
6. Too limited a scope to genetic change inherent in all species' genome.
7. A serious disconnect between morphology and genetics, with a genetic rate of change being the same as it is observed to date. For example, if a sunflower was found to be more genetically similar to us than the chimpanzee with the fruit fly being second, the herring third and penicillin fourth.
   

There are seven methods off the top of my head. Unfortunately for those who are opposed to evolution and common descent a great deal of evidence is in, and it didn't falsify common descent. For the most part - the only evidence left to collect can only falsify sub-hypotheses like the common ancestor of birds and dinosaurs and the extinction of the dinosaurs.It could be that tomorrow we discover that we had been very unlucky in our evidence collecting though. It could be that every single genetic test carried out from now onwards could be inconsistent with common descent, for example. It could turn out that selective breeding has only been producing results by coincidence and it will stop working forever in an hour or two.How likely that is to happen, is a problem for the student to solve. Creationists should be optimistic that it is highly possible, but they probably aren't (otherwise they'd be looking for this evidence rather than quote mining etc)

Furthering Young Earth Creationism

In my opinion falsifying evolution would further Young Earth Creationism (Biblical Creationism is a little unfair, what about Qur'anic creationism?). Not in the science sense of things, since science doesn't work by choosing the least falsified theory (which would probably still leave YECism out of things...), but in the meme sense of things. More people would begin believing in YECism if evolution fell through because that is the way people are.

Hi Faith,Responding generally, to me it looks like you're arguing that evolution not only *can* be falsified, but that there are a couple of promising candidates that might provide this falsification, such as speciation through loss of variability, and such as the genes for body plans. Do I have this right? I'm just trying to figure out whether we've reached a consensus about whether the ToE is falsifiable. You seem to think it is, while Hughes seems to think it isn't, but you seem to agree with much that Hughes is saying, so I'm not sure where you're coming down regarding falsifiability. This is untrue and is just a repetition of the same misunderstanding you were making over at the Is there really such a thing as a beneficial mutation? thread. New alleles do not eliminate existing alleles. It is certainly possible for alleles in a population to be eliminated over time if individuals possessing them compete very poorly with the rest of the population, but this takes some number of generations.Since this seems to be a persistent misunderstanding, let me explain it at greater length. Let's consider a population and its gene for eye color. This particular population has two eye color alleles, call them blue and brown. We'll ignore the details of dominant/recessive and sexual reproduction for simplicity.Let's say half the population has brown eyes and half blue. Now an individual is born with a mutation that produces yellow eyes. While this individual no longer has an allele for brown or blue eyes, his allele for yellow eyes has no impact on the alleles in the rest of the population. It couldn't possibly have any impact on creatures that have already been conceived, which is the time when their genome is defined. If the individual's older brother had the allele for blue eyes, then after this individual is born his older brother will still have the allele for blue eyes.It is only when this individual reproduces that this new allele for yellow eyes can have an impact. The offspring of this individual will be a mixture of his genes and his mate's genes, so some of the offspring will, by chance, receive his eye color allele and have yellow eyes, while others, also by chance, will receive the eye color allele from his mate and will have brown or blue eyes. If yellow eyes confer some advantage then they will spread through the population. If yellow eyes confer a disadvantage then the individual might not even survive to mate, in which case the new allele goes extinct.If you don't understand this then please ask questions, or at least don't repeat this misunderstanding again. You should either accept or rebut the explanation, not ignore it.--Percy

I think Hughes is thinking of different aspects of the ToE as was I. Most of the particulars of the ToE such as the specific life that is supposed to have existed in a particular time frame is unfalsifiable because it is based on the interpretation of one way of looking at the geologic layers and there are no correctives to it. Most correctives would just rearrange the time scale, rather than falsify the ToE, although many claim that such correctives would falsify it. But yes, I did recognize those two ways the ToE can be falsified and perhaps Hughes will agree. Well, Percy, when I say this I'm talking about a tendency over time. It also depends upon how many individuals left an old population to form a new one. The smaller the number the greater the reduction of some alleles in a population while others come to expression. If the new population is small enough some alleles present in the old population will actually be lost to the new. It doesn't ALWAYS take a number of generations although it certainly may, but the OVERALL TENDENCY is to decrease in genetic options over time. Sorry I don't always state it precisely but I have made this clear on a number of occasions and I would think you would remember those and give a reminder rather than your usual total rejection of the idea. A change in allelic frequency even to a sharp reduction in some alleles, is not strictly speaking a loss of variability, yes, that's correct, but you have to admit that the unfavored alleles are reduced in their expression in the population. Understand it just fine, Percy.I believe you are talking about a different process of selection than I have in mind. {edit: In your example it is true that nothing is lost. A mutation that spreads in a population would be the introduction of something new to that population. Why do you always choose hypotheticals rather than something actual? You could have chosen the sickle cell example for instance.The usual "evolutionary processes" that I had in mind, on the other hand, isolate parts of a population from other parts. Natural Selection for instance can drastically select out a few members while the majority die. Geographic isolation through migration out to bottleneck and founder effect are examples of the selection processes, which can exert barely noticeable changes on out to drastic changes. These are the processes Hughes and MJF and I have in mind, processes OTHER than mutation, which at least MJ and I have been careful to acknowledge is the only way genetic information might increase in a population. But all the other processes reduce it and ultimately tend toward the elimination of much. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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{edit: In your example it is true that nothing is lost. A mutation that spreads in a population would be the introduction of something new to that population. Why do you always choose hypotheticals rather than something actual? You could have chosen the sickle cell example for instance.

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...or the gene known as CCR5, the identified mutation of which confers partial or total immunity to HIV.

That will also work. It kills T cells in the process I understand. Interesting. Just as sickle cell kills people slowly in the process of saving them from a more rapid death by malaria.

I'm not going to get into dating in any detail with you in this thread, it's off topic, except to note that everytime you've been asked to substantiate your assertions regarding dating you beg off. Until you actually successfully defend your position on dating at least once, it seems presumptious to offer it in defense of your other opinions. I can see now that you're saying something different than I thought.So it sounds like you believe evolution is falsifiable, and I suppose Hughes will chime in at some point, but perhaps we can move on to the second part of the question. What would be the effect of the falsification of evolution upon creationism/ID? I think there should be two answers, one regarding public education, the other regarding science itself.--Percy

Really? I don't know much about sickle cell.There is a chance you are misunderstanding this too. What little I know (or think I remember) says that:1) if you get two sickle alleles you die. You probably don't breed.
2) if you get one you are less likely to die of malaria.
3) if you use population genetics and put in a range of numbers for the selective pressures represented by sickle cell and malaria you get populations that correspond with the allele mix of malaria endemic areas.
4) As predicted by population genetics the prevalence of sickle raises and falls with the incidence of malaria.In other words it behaves exactly as evolutionary models predict.You seem to have forgotten (again) that we are talking about populations and if some individuals die without breeding that is the selection mechanism at work. The sickle cell mutation still produces a benefit for enough individuals in the population that it is selected for.

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It kills T cells in the process I understand.

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No.It interferes with T-cell function to a certain extent. It is thought that other receptors can compensate for the difference. The evidence for this is, of course, that people with the mutation live completely healthy lives.The only reason we know that people have been harboring this mutation for several hundred years is because of the recent emergence of another virus, HIV, which uses the same receptor as the Plague and Smallpox.If HIV had never appeared on the scene, we would probably still be ignorant of it.Since HIV is here, though, how lucky for those people who have the mutation, eh?

This is correct as far as I know, Ned.I'll also mention that those with only one copy of the gene are known as "carriers" and are largely asymptomatic. They may have some unusual shortness of breath in high altitudes, that sort of thing.Form the wiki: