falsifying Natural Selection

[spinoza99]

basically Jim what you're saying is you can't falsify it.

[JimC]

basically Jim what you're saying is you can't falsify it.

It could be falsified (or at least vast holes torn in it) by something as simple as fossilised rabbits found in a pre-Cambrian deposit...

(to use Haldane's immortal example...)

The reality is, however, that all the vast amount of evidence from the fossil record with its great age meticulously dated by beautiful physics, all the discoveries of the intracies of DNA, all the details of comparative anatomy, the current distribution of animals and plants across the drifting continents and the huge range of other experimental data are perfectly consistent with a broad model of evolution, accepted by all practioners.

In contrast, the debates within the field about the relative effects of various of the mechanisms of evolutionary change are so much mere detail, important to serious students of the subject, but not even a scratch on the surface of the fundamental explanation of the tree of life.

So, those who would see a lack of Popperian falsification as a body blow for fundamentalism are, as usual, in cloud cuckoo land...

[Clinton Huxley]

Are we seriously seeing the "unfalsifiable" canard? It would seem, ironically, that there is nothing new under the sun.

[spinoza99]

The reality is, however, that all the vast amount of evidence from the fossil record with its great age meticulously dated by beautiful physics, all the discoveries of the intracies of DNA, all the details of comparative anatomy, the current distribution of animals and plants across the drifting continents and the huge range of other experimental data are perfectly consistent with a broad model of evolution, accepted by all practioners.

All of that is evidence that would confirm descent from a common ancestor which theists who have their head screwed on straight believe in, but how would you find evidence that would falsify Natural Selection?

[Svartalf]

already answered... a modern animal's fossil in precambrian rock would do it, as it would demonstrate
a) existence of that particular for a lot longer than the ancestral fossil record led to think
b) absence of change over hundreds of millions of years

Go dig in Labrador.

[GenesForLife]

Let's say you believe Peacocks evolved from Turkeys. How would you falsify that?

1) That would not be falsifying natural selection as the title so asserts, selection, which is one part of the evolutionary process, is simply the differential survival of offspring on account of interactions between the envionment.

Natural selection would only be falsified if there was no differential survival with respect to different genotypes, which would mean that there would be no advantageous or deleterious mutations.

2) The example hypothesis you offer is an application of an evolutionary postulate, called divergence by speciation, where species X gives rise to Y after the gene pool is split.
This process necessitates that the descendant species Y be genetically related closer to X than any other species, which is verifiable by molecular phylogeny across a wide range of orthologous markers. (similar to how DNA testing is used to establish bloodline)


On a more pedantic note, you must note that speciation often results in X -------------> X' & Y , that is, once the population is split into two populations that are not interfertile (aka a speciation event) we have two populations, both of which evolve separately now based on differential selective pressures and genetic makeup (since exchange is no longer permissible)

Therefore the correct assumed hypothesis you should have presented is "The most recent common ancestor Peacocks share is with modern Turkeys"

Peacocks evolved from Turkeys implies Turkeys --------> Peacock

What is postulated by Common Ancestry & Descent with modification is

MRCA -------------> Peacocks
|
--------------> Modern Turkeys.


Which is why we have phylogenetic trees that look like the following and not a ladderlike straight line.



Molecular clocking based on known fossil specimens and measurements of divergence rate can add an extra chronological check too.

As an analogy, you may want to think of siblings being very closely related, sharing common parents, then cousins, then cousins of cousins, and cousins of cousins of cousins and so on until to go back to inferring the relationships of everybody, just with everybody being species. We know, for instance, that siblings wouldn't turn up before your parents did! and if they did they wouldn't be your siblings! This can be studied by means of phylogenetic analysis and divergence, this can be applied to a wide variety of genes, and to mitochondrial DNA and also to 16S ribosomal subunits.

[spinoza99]

I wrote my opening post wrong. We both believe that Turkeys and Peacocks come from the same ancestor, how do you falsify that this is done through Natural Selection.

[Feck]

I wrote my opening post wrong. We both believe that Turkeys and Peacocks come from the same ancestor, how do you falsify that this is done through Natural Selection.

How else ?

[Svartalf]

Look up newguy's handle... one of the most famoust deist philosophers of his century... willed creation of course, though I'm not sure that's the route old baruch himself would have advocated if he had had the option of exploring other avenues.

[Feck]

Look up newguy's handle... one of the most famoust deist philosophers of his century... willed creation of course, though I'm not sure that's the route old baruch himself would have advocated if he had had the option of exploring other avenues.

My question still stands. I would like to hear an answer from him

[spinoza99]

I know it seems odds but I didn't choose Spinoza because I like him, originally I was going to pose in this forum as an atheist but I decided not to. The other method for changing species is Intelligent Design. An immaterial intelligence manipulates DNA to form new creatures, just as your mind manipulates the neurons in your brain to form actions, unless you believe that the brain is a computer and for every input there is one output.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I know it seems odds but I didn't choose Spinoza because I like him, originally I was going to pose in this forum as an atheist but I decided not to. The other method for changing species is Intelligent Design. An immaterial intelligence manipulates DNA to form new creatures, just as your mind manipulates the neurons in your brain to form actions, unless you believe that the brain is a computer and for every input there is one output.

So, you think Zeus designed you?

[Clinton Huxley]

I can't wait to learn how intelligent design is falsified

[spinoza99]

I'm not sure either ID or NS can be falsified. I think both of them are not science questions. For instance, you can't falsify the theory that Stonehenge was designed, but we know it's designed through the law of horrendous odds.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm not sure either ID or NS can be falsified. I think both of them are not science questions. For instance, you can't falsify the theory that Stonehenge was designed, but we know it's designed through the law of horrendous odds.

You want us to accept your theory without proof but demand we prove ours.