Testing Evolution, Footnote #1 posted by Ben

There must be something in the water. One of my daily must-visit blogs, Democratic Underground, just posted a fantastic essay, The Trouble With Creationism, by G. M. Edwards, that laid out some of the issues that I've been addressing with far more clarity than I could muster.

Two points have particular relevance for my ongoing essay, Testing Evolution (Part One, Part Two).

First, the author points out that...

...we need to be clear about just what a theory is. It is not a hypothesis, which is a tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences. (Thank you, Mr. Webster.) A theory is a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena. (Thanks again.)

Second, he draws a very important distinction between evolution and creation, one that I neglected to address.

Creationism is not falsifiable. Simply put, this means that its claims cannot be disproven. One of the bedrock principles of any scientific activity is that ideas are accepted as proven true if they cannot be proven false. After all, anyone can prove anything if they put their minds to it for even a short while, but the trick is to come up with an explanation that cannot be demolished by a counter-argument. If an idea isn't open to the possibility of being disproven, it therefore can't be proven and lies outside the bounds of that collection of procedures and rules we call science.

For the purposes of my essay, that creationism is not falsifiable doesn't address the core world view and perception issues that underlie the debate, but it remains a crucial scientific point that I was remiss in not stating.

(I also would like to note that my spell checker really hates the word "proven" and would be much happier if it were "proved" instead. Discussion of what constitutes "happiness" in a computer program can wait for another day.)