How could you falsify macroevolution?

[Shi Huangdi]

Jon Miller and I were discussing Intelligent Design yesterday, and how while you could make a philosophical argument for it, but it can't be considered a scientific theory because it isn't falsifiable. Now of course, if you were to ever bring this up to an IDer/Creationist, they would try to make the claim that macroevolution couldn't be falsified either. I was wondering what the best response to that would be, and I know this forum has many people who are knowledgable about biology and evolution.

So, if a scientist was trying to find a way to show that macroevolution is false, how would he/she go about doing it?

[Seeker]

An organ or system which is 'irreducibly complex' is the usual thing which would falsify evolution if it existed right? But no such system or organ exists. Therefore, evolution.

[Spiffor]

How is "macroevolution" ay different phenomenon from "microevolution"?

[GePap]

As spiffor said, if the coes for genes can change, why would macro-evolution be any less probable than micro-evolution? After all, all large animals are giant collections of smaller living beings. If all the constituent parts change, why wouldn't the whole change??

And the issue is not one of falsification, but simple experimentation. You simply can;t set up an experiment for the claims of ID. You can't falsify, or verify anything since you can't even make a hypothesis about the possible outcome. You can with evolution.

[Nostromo]

A good website on evolution

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evohome.html

Microevolution:

Microevolution is evolution on a small scale—within a single population. That means narrowing our focus to one branch of the tree of life.

Macroevolution:

Macroevolution generally refers to evolution above the species level. So instead of focusing on an individual beetle species, a macroevolutionary lens might require that we zoom out on the tree of life, to assess the diversity of the entire beetle clade and its position on the tree.

Macroevolution refers to evolution of groups larger than an individual species.

The three domains The history of life, on a grand scale.

Macroevolution encompasses the grandest trends and transformations in evolution, such as the origin of mammals and the radiation of flowering plants. Macroevolutionary patterns are generally what we see when we look at the large-scale history of life.

[chequita guevara]

I would argue that Popper's theory that it's only science if it's falsifiable is crap.

[Nostromo]

Now of course, if you were to ever bring this up to an IDer/Creationist, they would try to make the claim that macroevolution couldn't be falsified either. I was wondering what the best response to that would be, and I know this forum has many people who are knowledgable about biology and evolution.

They're just quoting Popper out of context. It was the philosopher Karl Popper who came up with falsifiability as a definition of science. At first, he did think that evolution
theory wasn't scientific. But then he changed his mind.

To answer your question, scientists could discover some facts that would refute natural selection. That means they would have to modify their theory to account for this fact. Or they could discover that evolution theory is incompatible with a better established theory. For a while, some people argued that evolution is incompatible with thermodynamics. But we know today the two are perfectly compatible.

Btw, defining science is hard, very hard. The popperian definition you mentioned, falsifiability, isn't sufficient IMO. As a matter of fact, nobody who thought about this issue seriously thinks its possible to give a neat definition of science. Testability is an important part, to be sure, but it isn't sufficient. I'm not even sure its necessary. After all, a lot of physicists complain nowadays that superstring theory isn't empirically testable right now. Does it mean that it isn't scientific? I don't think so.

Btw, if Popper's right (and I don't think he is), creationnism is a science, because it can be refuted and has been refuted time and time again. At least some versions of creationnism have. For example, most biblical claims about Creation have been refuted. For example, God didn't create the universe 10 000 years ago.

IMO, the real issue is not whether creationnism is scientific or not, but whether its good science or not. Even if its a science, its incredibly poor science. Do you want somebody teaching that crap to your kids?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Spiffor
How is "macroevolution" ay different phenomenon from "microevolution"?

Because "microevolution", that is the evolution of small species, is utterly and completely provable and observable thus creationists attempt to discount it and falsely pretned it is "macroevolution" which is wrong.

The reality is it is the exact same process.

[chequita guevara]

Popper's theory isn't falsifiable, thus by its own definition, it isn't scientific, thus we can disregard it.

[GePap]

Originally posted by nostromo

IMO, the real issue is not whether creationnism is scientific or not, but whether its good science or not. Even if its a science, its incredibly poor science. Do you want somebody teaching that crap to your kids?

Creationism isn't science AT ALL. Defining "science" is not that hard. It is based on the belief that rational man can, thought their own observation and reason, discover the truth of the world. That knowledge is aquired, not revealed to you by an authority. That facts should be questioned, scrutinized, not accepted without question, faithfully.

Creation is a STORY. It is told to you. You either accept is as truth, or you don't. Nothing more is asked, or required of you. For that simple reason it is in no way science.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: How could you falsify macroevolution?

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Now of course, if you were to ever bring this up to an IDer/Creationist, they would try to make the claim that macroevolution couldn't be falsified either.

Somebody can always discover a new species, which has no connection to the rest of the species on earth, and that it didn't come in from outer space.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by nostromo
Btw, defining science is hard, very hard. The popperian definition you mentioned, falsifiability, isn't sufficient IMO.

Popper made a list of 5 tests for scientific theories. If a theory passes all 5 tests, it is considered to be scientific.

Originally posted by nostromo
Btw, if Popper's right (and I don't think he is), creationnism is a science, because it can be refuted and has been refuted time and time again.

Creationism has no explanatory power and it can't make predictions.

[Kuciwalker]

Re: Re: How could you falsify macroevolution?

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Somebody can always discover a new species, which has no connection to the rest of the species on earth, and that it didn't come in from outer space.

That doesn't falsify macroevolution. Macroevolution doesn't have anything to do with the origin of life.

[Odin]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I would argue that Popper's theory that it's only science if it's falsifiable is crap.

Why, might I ask? It always made sense to me.

[Whoha]

Re: How could you falsify macroevolution?

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Jon Miller and I were discussing Intelligent Design yesterday, and how while you could make a philosophical argument for it, but it can't be considered a scientific theory because it isn't falsifiable. Now of course, if you were to ever bring this up to an IDer/Creationist, they would try to make the claim that macroevolution couldn't be falsified either. I was wondering what the best response to that would be, and I know this forum has many people who are knowledgable about biology and evolution.

So, if a scientist was trying to find a way to show that macroevolution is false, how would he/she go about doing it?

in order to prove macro-evolution false you would only need to find an example of a more advanced animal coming before a less advanced one in the fossil record,barring right around the extinction events of course. The example I gave was finding a primate before the time we call the phanerozoic era purely for style points of course.

That is not the only method, UR listed one that would work as well.

A third method would be for you to produce the intelligent designer.