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According to philosopher of science Sir Karl Popper, a theory must be falsifiable to qualify as scientific. Popper (1976, 151) said, "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research programme."

...retty mild, not as extensive as it is often taken. He applied it only to natural selection, not evolution as a whole, and he allowed that some testing of natural selection was possible, just not a significant amount. Moreover, he said that natural selection is a useful theory. A "metaphysical...

...Intellectual Autobiography Glasgow: Fontana/Collins. Popper, Karl. 1978. Natural selection and the emergence of mind. Dialectica 32: 339-355. (excerpt at http://www.geocities.com/criticalrationalist/popperevolution.htm )

More than 300 scientists (over 400 as of 7/18/2005) from all disciplines have signed a statement expressing skepticism of the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life.

...says, We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged. (Discovery Institute 2004) Since scientists are trained to examine evidence and to b...

Branch, Glenn. 2002. Analysis of the Discovery Institute's "Bibliography of Supplementary Resources for Ohio Science Instruction." Reports of the National Center for Science Education 22(4): 12-18,23-24. http://www.ncsew...

Charles Darwin acknowledged the inadequacy of evolution when he wrote, To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. (Darwin 1872)

...ifficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that se...

Darwin, C. 1872. The Origin of Species , 6th ed. London: Senate, chpt. 6, http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter6.html or http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-06.html Pre...

Natural selection, or "survival of the fittest," is tautologous (i.e., uses circular reasoning) because it says that the fittest individuals leave the most offspring, but it defines the fittest individuals as those that leave the most offspring.

"Survival of the fittest" is a poor way to think about evolution. Darwin himself did not use the phrase in the first edition of Origin of Species . What Darwin said is that heritable variations lead to differential repro...

...luscous order Tetrabranchiata. Memoirs Read Before the Boston Society of Natural History 1: 193-209. Pole, A., I. J. Gordon and M. L. Gorman. 2003. African wild dogs test the 'survival of the fittest' paradigm. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences 270(Suppl. 1): S57. Weiner,...

J. B. S. Haldane calculated that new genes become fixed only after 300 generations due to the cost of natural selection (Haldane 1957). Since humans and apes differ in 4.8 × 10 7 genes, there has not been enough time for difference to accumulate. Only 1,667 nucleotide substitutions in genes could have occurred if their divergence was ten million years ago.

Haldane's "cost of natural selection" stemmed from an invalid simplifying assumption in his calculations. He divided by a fitness constant in a way that invalidated his assumption of constant population size, and his cost of selection is a...

Haldane, J. B. S., 1957. The cost of natural selection. Journal of Genetics 55: 511-524. Musgrave, Ian, 1999. Weasels, ReMine, and Haldane's dilemma. http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/sep99.html ReMine, Walter J., 1993. The Biotic Message , St. P...

Bacterial flagella and eukaryotic cilia are irreducibly complex , Since nonfunctional intermediates cannot be preserved by natural selection, these systems can only be explained by intelligent design.

...of argument from incredulity , because irreducible complexity can evolve naturally . Many of the proteins in the bacterial flagellum or eukaryotic cilium are similar to each other or to proteins for other functions. Their origins can easily be explained by a series of gene duplication events...

Blocker, Ariel, Kaoru Komoriya, and Shin-Ichi Aizawa. 2003. Type III secretion systems and bacterial flagella: Insights into their function from structural similarities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA...

New claims are linked in bold red . Updates to previously existing files are regular links. 2007-02-20 CB360.1 : The human appendix is functional, not vestigial. 2007-02-18 CB921.1 : What use is half an eye? 2006-12-05 CC300 : The Cambrian explosion shows all kinds of life appearing suddenly. 2006-11-05 CC200 : Transitional fossils are lacking. 2006-11-02 CB300 : Complex organs couldn't have evolved. 2006-10-30 CA510.1 : Problems with evolution are evidence for creation. 2006-09-12 CB200.1.1 : The flagellum has 30 or so unique (non-homologous) proteins. 2006-09-07 CB910 : No new species have been observed. 2006-09-07 CB731 : Finger development disproves birds descended from dinosaurs. 2006-09-06 CA005 : Evolution is racist. 2006-08-29 CC202 : Transitional fossils do not show direct ancestry. 2006-08-29 CA320.3 : Darwinists had Dembski removed from his position at Baylor. 2006-08-04 CA341 : Evolutionists have not met Hovind's challenge to prove evolution. 2006-08-04 CA006.2 : Stalin's policies were influenced by Darwin. 2006-07-24 CH102.1 : Genesis must be literal; it is straightforward narrative. 2006-07-15 CC200 : Transitional fossils are lacking. 2006-06-28 CC371.1 : Soft tissues from a Tyrannosaurus bone indicate recent burial. 2006-06-28 CA343 : Evolutionists refuse Mastropaolo's "Life Science Prize" challenge. 2006-06-08 CB121 : The cost of natural selection is prohibitive (Haldane's dilemma). 2006-05-30 CB150 : Functional genetic sequences are too rare to evolve from one to another. 2006-05-12 CD701 : The earth's magnetic field is decaying, indicating a young earth. 2006-04-23 CB805 : Evolution predicts a continuum of organisms, not discrete kinds. 2006-04-07 CA301.1 : Naturalistic science will miss a supernatural explanation. 2006-04-05 CB921.1 : What use is half an eye? 2006-03-31 CB620 : Human population growth indicates a young earth. 2006-03-03 CA041.1 : Federal law (Santorum Amendment) supports teaching alternatives. 2006-02-25 CC216.1 : There are gaps between land mammals and whales. 2006-02-23 CI131 : Every machine's origin, where determinable, is by intelligent agency. 2006-02-06 CE412 : Gravitational time dilation made distant clocks run faster. 2006-02-02 CD016 : The U-Th-Pb method, properly corrected for neutron capture, gives recent dates. 2006-01-31 CH110 : Prophecies prove the accuracy of the Bible. 2006-01-26 CE420 : The big bang theory is wrong. 2006-01-20 CD410 : World War II airplanes are now beneath thousands of "annual" ice layers. 2006-01-13 CF001.2 : The second law of thermodynamics, and the trend to disorder, is universal. 2006-01-13 CF001.1 : Systems left to themselves invariably tend toward disorder. 2006-01-05 CI001.4 : Intelligent design has been published in peer-reviewed journals. 2006-01-03 CD011.1 : Variable C-14/C-12 ratio invalidates C-14 dating. 2005-12-14 CB010.2 : First cells could not come together by chance. 2005-12-07 CI001.2 : Intelligent design is not creationism. 2005-12-01 CI190 : SETI researchers expect that they can detect design. 2005-11-25 CA114 : Many famous scientists were creationists. 2005-11-24 CA602 : Evolution is atheistic. 2005-11-22 CA114.4 : Babbage was a creationist. 2005-11-19 CA114.4 : Babbage was a creationist. 2005-11-18 CH581 : The Grand Canyon was carved by retreating Flood waters. 2005-11-17 CB921.2 : What use is half a wing? 2005-11-05 CA211.1 : Karl Popper said Darwinism is not testable. 2005-11-04 CB910 : No new species have been observed. 2005-11-03 CA210 : Evolution does not make predictions. 2005-11-01 CB921.2 : What use is half a wing? 2005-10-31 CF001.3 : Instructions are necessary to produce order. 2005-10-14 CI001.1 : Intelligent design theory is not religious. 2005-10-14 CA041.1 : Federal law (Santorum Amendment) supports teaching alternatives. 2005-10-14 CA041 : Teach the controversy. 2005-10-07 CI401 : The methodology of science rules out even considering design. 2005-10-07 CA001.1 : Crime rates etc. have increased since evolution began to be taught. 2005-10-05 CG041 : Agriculture is too recent. 2005-10-05 CG040 : Written history is too short. 2005-10-05 CB928.2 : Humans have stopped evolving. 2005-10-05 CB144 : Human and chimp genomes differ by more than one percent. 2005-10-03 CD102.1 : Out-of-order strata occur at the Lewis Overthrust. 2005-09-24 CH102.5 : God's promise of no more floods fails if Noah's flood was local. 2005-09-24 CC381 : There are too few Stone-Age remains for a long history of humanity. 2005-09-24 CB930.4 : A pterodactyl was found alive in Jurassic limestone. 2005-09-24 CB301 : The eye is too complex to have evolved. 2005-09-24 CB200.2 : Blood clotting is irreducibly complex. 2005-09-24 CA115.1 : Design arguments converted atheist Anthony Flew to theism. 2005-09-21 CA602 : Evolution is atheistic. 2005-09-14 CB035.2 : Earth's early atmosphere had no reducing gases. 2005-08-30 CB010.2 : First cells could not come together by chance. 2005-08-24 CI190 : SETI researchers expect that they can detect design. 2005-08-16 CA041 : Teach the controversy. 2005-08-13 CA008 : Evolution encourages promiscuity and lust. 2005-08-12 CE420 : The big bang theory is wrong. 2005-08-09 CC216.1 : There are gaps between land mammals and whales. 2005-08-05 CI301 : The cosmos is fine-tuned to permit human life. 2005-08-02 CA114.2 : Linnaeus was a creationist. 2005-08-02 CA111.1 : Over 300 scientists express skepticism of Darwinism. 2005-07-31 CF011 : Evolutionary algorithms smuggle in design in the fitness function. 2005-07-18 CB922 : No two-celled life exists intermediate between one- and multicelled. 2005-07-13 CH101.1 : If part of the Bible is wrong, none of it can be trusted. 2005-07-04 CA602 : Evolution is atheistic. 2005-07-03 CH110 : Prophecies prove the accuracy of the Bible. 2005-07-01 CA006.1 : Hitler based his views on Darwinism. 2005-06-29 CD031 : KBS Tuff shows the flaws of radiometric dating. 2005-06-29 CB751 : Bilateral symmetry is improbable under evolution. 2005-06-28 CB200.4 : The immune system is irreducibly complex. 2005-06-18 CB822 : Evolution's tree-like pattern is discredited. 2005-06-18 CB035.2 : Earth's early atmosphere had no reducing gases. 2005-06-18 CB035 : Miller's experiments had an invalid assumption of the type of atmosphere. 2005-06-16 CG202.2 : The Chinese Hihking flood myth is very like the story of Noah. 2005-06-16 CG202.1 : The Miao flood myth is very like the story of Noah. 2005-06-16 CA341 : Evolutionists have not met Hovind's challenge to prove evolution. 2005-06-05 CB701 : Haeckel falsified his embryo pictures. 2005-05-26 CB952 : The evolution of specialized diets would not be adaptive. 2005-05-26 CB811 : Homologous structures are not produced by homologous genes. 2005-05-26 CA602 : Evolution is atheistic. 2005-05-25 CG201 : There are flood myths from all over the world. 2005-05-16 CA006.1 : Hitler based his views on Darwinism. 2005-05-12 CC373 : Jurassic shells from mud springs are remarkably preserved.

According to the traditional peppered moth story, cryptic coloration confers protection to the moths from predators, and as the habitat changed due to industrial pollution, natural selection caused the frequencies of different color varieties of the moth to change. As the trees became darker, the lighter moths stood out more, so the darker ones became more plentiful, and vice versa as the pollution cleared. That story is no longer supportable because of flaws found in the experiments, such as where the moths rested , and the occurrence of contrary data, such as unaccountable frequencies of uncamouflaged moths in areas.

...ns, in both regions mimicking a noxious Heliconius species (Kapan 2001). Natural selection acting on the peppered moth would be the parsimonious hypothesis even if there were no evidence to support it. The peppered moth story is not simple. The full story as it is known today fills thousands...

Cook, L. M., 2003. The rise and fall of the carbonaria form of the peppered moth. Quarterly Review of Biology 78(4): 399-417. Grant, Bruce S., 1999. Fine tuning the peppered moth paradigm. Evolution 53(3): 980-984. Grant...

Darwin's Precursors and Influences 4. Natural selection by John Wilkins Copyright © 1996-2003 [Last Update: 21 February 2003] Previous Contents Next Theories not unlike natural selection have been around for a while. Here, courtesy of Cosma Shalizi, is Aristotle's version, based on Empedocles' old...

...1996-2003 [Last Update: 21 February 2003] Previous Contents Next Theories not unlike natural selection have been around for a while. Here, courtesy of Cosma Shalizi, is Aristotle's version, based on Empedocles' older view: A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the sake of something, nor because it is better so, but...

...lution. Dennett observes that Hume had a similar flirtation with something similar to natural selection. However, none of these throwaway comments were developed, and in Aristotle's case they were eventually ignored in favour of his more general views on final causation. In the "Historical Sketch" Darwin admitted that he, and Richard Owen who c...

...s to Darwin's theory that many non-adaptive features of animals are the result not of natural selection but of mate choice. Darwin and Wallace both accepted this hypothesis, but Wallace was never able to accept that female choice was involved in, for example, the exaggerated plumage of some male birds, preferring instead the view that female dr...

...surprising, since the problem doesn't arise until adaptation is explained in terms of natural selection, and this was not proposed by anyone else as a general principle of evolution. However, Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, in his 1795 Zoonomia, gave a surprisingly sophisticated account of sexual selection: A great want of one part of the...

Darwin's Precursors and Influences 5. Sexual selection by John Wilkins Copyright © 1996-2003 [Last Update: 21 February 2003] Previous Contents Next I have not been able to find any precursors to Darwin's theory that many non-adaptive features of animals are the result not of natural selection but of mate...

...Species and fixed types Summary : Species are not eternal types, even though they are natural kinds. Before Lamarck, species were thought to be eternal kinds, and any single organism to have all the necessary and sufficient conditions of being a member of that species. Think of it like this: To be a member of the supporters of a football team,...

...system of classification. After the work of the mid-nineteenth century explorers and naturalists, scientists were no longer able to view species in this way. They were much more diverse than that. Not only were species sometimes more different internally than some members were to other species, but it became clear that what was actually common...

...iversal fact about all species. Some parts are located in different environments, and natural selection, genetic drift and happenstance all work to make them different if they are isolated for long enough. Thus are new species created. Enter Michael Ghiselin [ 1975 ] and David Hull [ 1976 , 1988 ]: a biologist and philosopher respectively. They...

...bison had been mostly eaten before freezing, and that it had been buried by entirely natural processes. I also found him rather evasive on several topics I later asked him about. Taylor commented that he was non-committal on continental drift because "all the evidence isn't in yet," although other speakers such as Donald Chittick and Gary Park...

...e places they are coming together by two or three centimeters per year, so there is a selection of data taking place to support the theory. He suggested that Dr. Vardiman's analysis shows similarly that the original data is "not really as good as they pretend it to be," and that O18 - O16 isotope data supporting the orbital theory is a case in...

...ory and a plausible mechanism. That mechanism is, of course, heritable variation with natural selection. Acknowledgements Mike Hopkins has generously donated his expertise and time to provide off-site links to the references cited in this FAQ, for which I am extremely grateful. I also wish to thank Brett Vickers, John Wilkins, Wesley Elsberry,...

...a plausible mechanism. That mechanism is, of course, heritable variation with natural selection. Acknowledgements Mike Hopkins has generously donated his expertise and time to provide off-site links to the references cited in this FAQ, for which I am extremely grateful. I also wish to thank Brett Vickers, John Wilkins, Wesley Elsberry, Edward M...

...nvergence of form and function is common, and is a direct prediction of the theory of natural selection. In a sense, convergence is the opposite of homology . derived characters Among a given group of organisms, the shared derived characters are generally the less common characters. The evolutionary interpretation is that these characters of or...

...e of form and function is common, and is a direct prediction of the theory of natural selection. In a sense, convergence is the opposite of homology . derived characters Among a given group of organisms, the shared derived characters are generally the less common characters. The evolutionary interpretation is that these characters of organisms...

...d heritably altered by numerous phenomena, including gene flow, random genetic drift, natural selection, and mutation. Observed mutations have occurred by mobile introns, gene duplications, recombination, transpositions, retroviral insertions (horizontal gene transfer), base substitutions, base deletions, base insertions, and chromosomal rearra...

...ganisms have evolved the ability to use nylon and pentachlorophenol (which are both unnatural manmade chemicals) as their sole carbon sources ( Okada et al . 1983 ; Orser and Lange 1994 ). The acquisition of this latter ability entailed the evolution of an entirely novel multienzyme metabolic pathway ( Lee et al . 1998 ). Bacteria have evolved...

...ological Species Concept: species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups ( Mayr 1942 ). If branching of existing species into new species occurred gradually in the past, we should see all possible degrees of speciation or genetic isolation today, ranging fr...

...Schopf. San Francisco, CA, Freeman, Cooper, and Company: 82-115. Endler, J. A. (1986) Natural Selection in the Wild . Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Faith, D. P. and Cranston, P. S. (1991) "Could a cladogram this short have arisen by chance alone?: on permutation tests for cladistic structure." Cladistics 7: 1-28. Fallon, J. F., and...

...eficiency virus type 1." J Virol 74: 2525-32. Gould, S. J. (1990) "An earful of jaw." Natural History 3: 12-23. Gould, S. J. (2002) The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Gould, S. J. and Eldredge, N. (1977) "Punctuated equilibria: The tempo and mode of evolution reconsidered." Paleobiolo...

...San Francisco, CA, Freeman, Cooper, and Company: 82-115. Endler, J. A. (1986) Natural Selection in the Wild . Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Faith, D. P. and Cranston, P. S. (1991) "Could a cladogram this short have arisen by chance alone?: on permutation tests for cladistic structure." Cladistics 7: 1-28. Fallon, J. F., and Simandl...