Reply #101: How can Darwin's explanation of evolution be falsified?

[mcg]

At issue is not simply whether evolution happens, but how it happens. The 'theory of evolution' can simply mean that evolution happens (that I agree with), or it can also mean that 'natural selection acting on "random" mutations' explains away apparent design in nature, that there is no real design. For many atheists, 'the theory of evolution' does have this extra meaning, and they want to push it on others, thus words like 'unguided', 'spontaneous', and 'random' appearing in science textbooks. How do you scienfically show something is 'unguided'? For 'unguided' to have a scientific meaning, 'guided' also has to have one. You can't have it both ways.

For Darwin's explanation to hold up, it has to be possible for new biological structures, e.g. a visual system, to develop via a series of 'small', 'gradual' mutations. When has that been demonstrated to be true? There is a bit of a problem here, and that is interdependant parts. Darwin himself acknowledged this issue, and it should be discussed, not swept under the rug. The key words here are 'small' and 'gradual'. Where is the scientific definition of them in relation to evolution? I'd venture there is none.

If you claim that Darwin's explanation is scientific, then it's negation also has to be considered scientific until his explanation is shown to be true. And no, a false generalization from a few beneficial mutations being observed does not show it to be true, nor is it simply true until disproven.

Granted, natural selection and small mutations are factors in evolution, but that doesn't mean that the overwhelming appearance of design in nature is explained away.