>>> Evolution falls outside Popper's boundaries and can not be handled 
>>> by
>>> Science as he knows it.

>> I don't believe that you understand evolution too well.

Or it may be that you don't understand Science too well. Or neither of 
these :-)

It is ***VITAL*** that a distinction is made between

1.    natural selection (Popperian treatable) and

2.    the generation of life as we know it from entirely inanimate 
matter, using the processes of natural selection, which is not 
treatable by Popeprian Science.
A very major problem occurs when the term "Evolution" is used to mean 
the former of these or the combination of the two. Only the latter is 
in question. The former is unknowable with certainty (as everything 
is) but the Popperian model is stunningly good.


> Evolution (and
>> that word covers a lot of ground)

and that's a problem

> does provide models, makes
>> predictions, and can be tested. Why do think it doesn't do these 
>> things?
>> Do you think geology is a religion as well?

See my previous post.
Look at the history of the theory of Plate Tectonics.
Report back.

> In Popper's sense (to which I don't subscribe), "science" requires a 
> theory
> that makes reasonably precise predictions so that directed 
> observations can
> be made that could falsify the theory.
>
> Evolution with a capital E is not a theory that makes predictions, 
> it is an
> interpretation of history, a claim to a certain reality. It doesn't 
> say
> that life on this planet could have originated through evolution 
> (with a
> lower case e), but it claims that it has. It is not a theory that 
> makes
> predictions precise enough to be tested.

The day that the aliens shut down their FTL drives and decloak in 
Times Square and announce politely that they've come to see how their 
directed panspermia experiment is going, and produce the patent papers 
for DNA, then the theory of evolution will go the way of pre plate 
tectonics geology overnight. Nobody expects that to happen, including 
me. But if it did there could be ***NO*** complaint whatsoever from 
current Theory of Evolution acolytes. The *theory* would be gone in a 
trice. The fact that it is obvious that this COULD happen (even though 
it won't ;-) ) makes the point.

When it does Crick's book on directed panspermia will be a collectors 
item. Anyone wanting to get in early can make me an offer for my copy. 
(It's disappointingly written alas, but this shouldn't affect its 
value in the circumstances.).


        RM




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