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At 15:10 -0700 10/18/2009, John Mallinckrodt wrote:
Valid point. I was thinking about the possibility of evidence against
Not to take away from Hugh's point, which I agree with, but I wince a
little bit whenever I hear appeals to the amount of "supporting
evidence" for a theory without an accompanying assessment of the
degree to which the theory may be *vulnerable* to evidence. After
all, proponents of intelligent design can also point to overwhelming
supporting evidence. The difference is that it is entirely
inconceivable that any evidence could ever be found that is
inconsistent with ID.
evolution that could be conclusive (e.g., finding fossils from widely
different time periods co-located in the same rock layer), but
decided to leave it out to keep my response short. It is certainly
true that, even as a "fact" evolution is still subject to refutation
by evidence, although, so far, all the evidence found supports the
evolutionary model we presently have constructed. ID, on the other
hand, as John points out, is not susceptible to refutation and
therefore cannot be considered a scientific theory in any sense. And
furthermore, not only can it not be refuted in principle, it can also
make no useful predictions about what we