Pericles:

"Your response was: "It's not falsifiable"

"True, but irrelevant.

We are discussing whether the theory is scientific. Whether it is falsifiable is relevant because that is how science is defined. Whether something was accepted in the past is not relevant. If you think it is, please try to come up with a meaningful definition of science based around this, rather than merely insisting it is relevant, and I will show why it does not capture what is generally understood as scientific. On the other hand if you are trying to make a point unrelated to whether evolution is a scientific theory, please accept my apologies.

Bugsy:

“[An example presented] ... about the presently discoverable results of past evolutionary processes ...

From a scientific perspective, being theoretically able to stumble across contradictory evidence does not make a theory falsifiable. You have to be able to design an experiment, not go searching for evidence. Otherwise nothing distinguishes science from history. Furthermore, the evidence gained in this way has often contradicted the predictions made based on the theory of evolution. The theory was simply adapted and new predictions made to match what had already been observed. As I pointed out earlier, this is ineivtalbe when you take the future part out of predictions. You end up passing off explanations of what has already been observed as predictions that you were going to observe those things. Either that, or in a circuitous manner you end up predicting that the patterns you have observed in the apst will be observed in the future. Neither has any scientific value.

"The most obvious one is that prediction of future events is possible only when the relevant future boundary conditions are predictable

I agree with this. It is one of the main shortcomings that separates evolution from scientific theories. This distinction is not merely limited to physics as the author implies, but to science in general. The distinction does not necessitate equations that are differentiable with respect to time. Mendelian genetics for example does not require differentiable equations, just a bit of statistics.

freediver, I would suggest that you read the entire article before commenting on it further.

Do you wish me to send it to you?

As for the original question, have we answered the question that supposedly "stumped Dawkins"?

From Boazy's comments it appears that we may have, at least to his satisfaction.

freediver on the other hand seems to want to argue black and blue that what goes for physics, goes for everything, while that may be true to a point, I think that the point is missed on the relationship of the theory and phenomena to the observer (outlined in the above paper, I might add). In that:

"The problem here is primarily that the events instantiating the hypothesis are not ‘human-sized’ - that is, we cannot see them as a whole, in a single gestalt, but instead must build up our picture of them by putting together tens, scores, or hundreds of human-sized events. (An atom-sized scientist would have a similar problem in testing Boyles' Law relating the temperature, volume, and pressure of a gas; he would have to make hundreds of individual measurements of velocity and then summarize these diverse velocities in an average. To the human sized scientist temperature is a simple, non-statistical, property; to the atom-sized scientist it is a statistical average.) Thus this problem is not an indication that evolutionary theory has a different intrinsic structure than, say, Newtonian physics; it is rather an indication that the relationship between us humans and the phenomena of. evolutionary theory is different from the relationship between us and the phenomena of Newtonian theory. As a practical matter, this relationship makes falsification more difficult because we cannot run controlled experiments, as well as because of the statistical nature of the human-sized events through which we build up our picture of the instantiating event. But this pragmatic problem does not spring from a difference in the logical structure."

Freedriver,

[1]

I am happy to accept that experimentation is the means to test theory, and, that hypotheses are a set of statements to test the theory by experimentation. Herein, I accept that a theory can be falsifiable via experiment including observation.

Some definitions on ontaining the status of "theory" [not a supposition] requires some level validation.

*

[2]

Background: Humans have relatively poor kidney systems compared to other animals. We need to be near water:

Jacob Bronowski provides interesting comment in his book, The Ascent of Man:

“When we find in the sludge of two million years ago the creature who became man, we are struck by the differences between his skeleton and ours – by the development of the skull for instance. So, naturally, we expect the animals of the savannah to have changed greatly. But the fossil record shows this is not so. Look as the hunter does at the Topi antelope does now. The ancestor of Man that hunted its ancestor would at once recognise the Topi antelope now. But he would not recognise the [modern] hunter as his own descendant.”

[Relatedly, the Grevy’s zebra adapted/changed towards the new ecology by natural selection.]

The Topi’s ability to cope with the savannah during drought meant it was fit to survive that ecology; yet it was the primate-human line that developed greater evolutionary diversity. We, primate-humans, didn’t evolve towards drought resistance: We developed more efficacious brains to handle the problems, yet we still have poor kidneys and need water regularly. We have evolved as the dominant species on the planet, yet the natural selection required to meet potential extinction was resolved not by natural section in context with the savannah ecology, rather we evolved to where we now control environments.

For the Topi survival of the fitest in its ecology meant it did not have to evolve, natural selection and the environment, ensured its stagnation. Contrarily, we primate-humans evolved.

Bugsy,

Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin [palaeo-antropologist] make forward predictions on the non-survivality of other species and ecological systems based on the expansion of humans. In Australia, the arrival of humans c. 60,000 BP is complented by the extinction of many species. "only if we learn from our evolvionary past, and critically examine our present, can we avert the Sixth [Mass] Extinction" to occur on Earth.

From earlier posts:

The fact alone that you insist religious explanations are scientific should indicate to you that the definition (if you even have one) has problems.

"In other words what - except for hindsight - prevents it from being considered a sound scientific theory?

Falsifiability distinguishes it from scientific theories. This does not require hindsight. Note that I am not claiming that evolution is not a sound theory. I am claiming that it is not a sicentific theory. It might assist your udnerstanding if you dropped the emotional baggage and unrelated values which you attach to the label 'scientific'.

Latest posts:

"Do you wish me to send it to you?

I don't see any need yet.

"freediver on the other hand seems to want to argue black and blue that what goes for physics, goes for everything

Strawman. I have not been arguing that. In fact in my last post I said the opposite.

"Thus this problem is not an indication that evolutionary theory has a different intrinsic structure than, say, Newtonian physics

Yes it is. Plenty of scientific theories require statistical analysis of data and hundreds of experiments before a clear picture is observed. That does not make them unscientific. Evolution is fundamentally different because it is not hunderds or even thousands of experiments that are used, but observations. These are the tools of the historian, not the scientist. Furthermore each individual observation must first be interpretted with the assumption that the theory is correct before they are of value.

"As a practical matter, this relationship makes falsification more difficult because we cannot run controlled experiments

It makes it unfalsifiable, hence unscientific. Rather than changing the definition of science to include this theory that so many hold dear, it makes far more sense from a philosophical perspective to simply concede that it isn't scientific.

I note that you still have not proposed any alternative definition of science.

Oliver:

"Herein, I accept that a theory can be falsifiable via experiment including observation.

Do you mean observation in the context of experiment, or observation as an experiment by itself?

Actually, freediver I find that your original definition of science doesn't really need to change, but rather the definition of the terms used within it. The distinctions that you have made between 'experiments' and 'observations' and also what constitutes a 'prediction', are artificial and limiting and thus misrepresentative of the science. They are of course limited for a purpose, because with them you are able to continue your argument.

And so we come full circle as to the debate over semantics and definitions, I still find yours limiting. The weight of evidence is on my side, as are the philosophical and theoretical papers attached to evolutionary theory.

It doesn't matter anyway, because the science shall continue to evolve with or without your scholarly input. Also, that you don't see a need for research into lengthy counter-arguments that directly contradict your own, speaks volumes about your attitude to real science.