Claim CA211:
Any fact can be fit into the theory of evolution. Therefore, evolution is
not falsifiable and is not a proper scientific theory.
Source:
Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master
Books, pp. 6-7.
Response:
- There are many conceivable lines of evidence that could falsify
evolution. For example:
- a static fossil record;
- true chimeras, that is, organisms that combined parts from several
different and diverse lineages (such as mermaids and centaurs) and
which are not explained by lateral gene transfer, which transfers
relatively small amounts of DNA between lineages, or symbiosis,
where two whole organisms come together;
- a mechanism that would prevent mutations from accumulating;
- observations of organisms being created.
- This claim, coming from creationists, is absurd, since almost all
creationism is nothing more than (unsubstantiated) claims that
evolution has been falsified.
Further Reading:
Bowler, Peter J. 1983. The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian
evolution theories in the decades around 1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Univ. Press.
created 2003-4-20, modified 2004-3-3
