Natural Selection is not a Scientific Theory, it is a theory within Scientific Models.

The scientific method holds that one has a hypothosis, one tests the hypothosis, develops a theory and then waits for the theory to be disproven.

Relativity is a Scientific theory in that it makes predictions which can be evaluated and proven or disproven.

Since Natural Selection makes not predictions, it can not be proven or disproven, as such it can never truly be a scientific theory. Now scientists may use the hypothosis as an explaination since no better explaination is currently on the field, but to treat it as established science simply by popular acclaim is to hold it up with lumiferous eather, which fit all established models of science in its day as well, and which likewise could never be disproven.

If you have a theory that no fossil gap or evidence can disprove, if you have a theory that makes no predicitions for future events, if you have a theory that fails the most basic tests of science, what you have is an explaination that makes you feel good, not a working scientific theory.

Here's a clue, if there are no numbers associated with it, it's probably not science, it's philosophy, and like most of the macroscopic biological sciences it's a game of catalogueing while whereing a lab coat, and very little rational explaination or scientific inquiry.

Now perhaps within the genomic sciences a working predictive understanding of mutation could lead to a theory of evolution, although then one could no longer refer to the mutations as "random".

Which puts the fanatical nhilists of biological psuedo science back to square one of an ordered and orderly universe.

if i had an algae that could make ATP from both photosynthesis and biochemical substrate, and put it in a dark solution of nutrients for a few years, would it lose it's ability to photosynthesize?

i say it would.

you could predict it, and test it.

by the way, i am sure it has been done.

"Which puts the fanatical nhilists of biological psuedo science back to square one of an ordered and orderly universe."

Ostensibly created by your even more ordered and orderly God I suppose? Ever heard of Occam's Razor, or logic for that matter?

Evolutionary theory makes tons of predictions. Most commonly this occurs relating to the study of microbes, viruses, and bacteria. This is why vaccines need to be updated.

there are numerous studies currently focusing on predicting mutation both in humans and animals.

Nothing you said is true.

Science makes no presumption of the existance or nonexistance of that which falls beyond the predictable and ordered.

That a being may or may not exist isn't science business, so long as it stays out of the business of predictive sciences.

There will always be fools who claim the mantel of science when they seek to make a buck or press a philosophy, it was nice when these fools were clearly seperate from the actual scientific comunity, that now they have invaded the halls of academia and press a fools errand the violates sciences beauty and limitations both science and charletans lose face.

That's not a prediction based that's a guess, without an understanding of the mechanism involved you might as well say that it will grow wings and fly.

It is the mechanism of mutation and it's relation to evolutionary advantage that can hold it's weight in science. Pressing for belief in something with nothing to back it up isn't science it's religion.

You can catalogue all the fossils you wish, but without a predictive understanding of the mechanisms it's using you aren't discussing science.

The mechanisms of mutation are truly exquisit, and the ability for mutations to occur in beneficial ways is a mavelous puzzel. The Magical Thinking of Darwin or Moses give us no real answers however to this puzzel.

Natural selection is a phenomenon, no different than erosion or tectonic uplift: a mechanistic process observed to occur in the natural universe.

“Since Natural Selection makes not predictions, it can not be proven or disproven, as such it can never truly be a scientific theory.”

>>Well, natural selection is predictive in the same manner taht erosion is. Erosion allows us predict how geologic features will change over time, based on average precipitation rates, relative hardness of stone, composition of soils, etc., and natural selection allows us to make predictions regarding what changes will occur in allele frequencies in given environments over time, based on the differential relative fitness conferred by the competing allele pairs. For example, if we introduce antibiotics into a population of bacteria that are heterozygous with respect to alleles conferring resistance, we can accurately predict how many generations it will take for the population to become homozygous for alleles conferring resistance.

“If you have a theory that no fossil gap or evidence can disprove, if you have a theory that makes no predicitions for future events, if you have a theory that fails the most basic tests of science, what you have is an explaination that makes you feel good, not a working scientific theory.”

>>Natural selection, again, isn’t a theory: is a mechanism which operates in nature and may be directly observed. Evolutionary theories, on the other hand, are predictive and are falsifiable.

“Here's a clue, if there are no numbers associated with it, it's probably not science, it's philosophy, and like most of the macroscopic biological sciences it's a game of catalogueing while whereing a lab coat, and very little rational explaination or scientific inquiry.”

>>Evolutionary change through natural selection can and has been mathematically modeled and found predictive. (google the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium)

So let me see if I have your argument straight.

Since biological science isn't perfect, there is simply no point in doing it. It just doesn't live up to the expectations you have based on the your analysis of purely physical systems. Thus if a biological system can't be analyzed in the same manner as the decay of a neutron in U-239 to form P-239, there simply is no point.

I think you are an Intelligent Design supporter masquerading as someone who wants to "save" science from these "imperfections".

Yes, there are efforts to understand the mechanics of mutation, this is a modern scientific endeavor based on the physical elements of biological chemestry.

It is as far from Darwins guesses on the nature of development as luminiferous eather was from relativity.

The notion of beneficial mutation is an amazing field as new and as magical as Relativity once seemed. Science will come of it that will change our world, but it will owe as much to Darwin in it's discoveries as Einstein owed to those who postulated eatheric compression.

Evolutionary theory makes many predictions. One was already mentioned. You can model response to selective pressure, making predictions based on evolution. When you dig for fossils in stratum from a particular time, knowledge of evolution helps you make a testable prediction of what you will or won't find. The entire field of genetics was predicted by evolutionary theory well in advance, and now that we have the ability to create sequence databases, evolution gives us testable hypotheses to predict what kinds of homologies and nested heirarchies we will find. In short, the claim that evolution doesn't give us testable predictions is bunk.

As for what people in the "genetic sciences" are working on, I think if you learned about it, you'd be surprised how much we do now know about replication, mutation and comparative genomics. It wasn't necessary to formulate the theory of evolution originally, but it is powerful supporting evidence, if you know about the field. There's no "perhaps" about it.

No I'm simply tired of Darwin being enshrined next to newton, and of those who have no love for science using their half understanding of science to press their philosophical ideals.

And yes, if biology must stand up to the same rigours as any other field to be science. If it can't then they need to do more research before we start claiming the issue settled. It's not that it's not science, it's that it is not on par with the things we do know.

Newton stood unquestioned for hunderds of years before Einstein turned him on his head, and science is still working to justify all the things we see in the most fundemental areas. To act as if there is settled law in biology because of some half witted observations about the curvature of bird beaks, with no understanding of the underlying mechanism is to do a diservice to science.

Creationists aren't scientists and offer nothing to the conversation, however psudoscientific nhilists are in the same boat along with them, and I wish they'd both just head out to sea.

Charlie107,

Thank the lord our saviour Jesus Christ that there are people out there like you to keep these "scientists" in check. Without people like you, with your impeccable argumentation, these countless PhD's and Nobel prize winners would go unchecked, running rampant with their untested theories, cramming their "knowledge" they claim to have acquired down our throats. Thanks be to God that there are people like you with your beutifully simplistic understanding of how scientific hypotheses are formed and tested to keep those thousands of graduate school heathens in line. They are the fools. You are the light and the truth.

God bless america

ok, that is just silly.

the mechanism of different forms of cellular respiration is very well defined. As is common and forced mutation of microbes, most industrial organisms are actively adapted to perform in certain ways.

me thinks you are now in way over your head.

:-)

Einstein turned Newton on his head? Hmm, okay. Weird how Newtonian mechanics didn't stop working the day Einstein came out with his theories.

Care to cite some examples? I'm sure you are well versed on this topic.

Charlie107 has an extremely narrow view of scientific inquiry. By restricting it to quantitative experimentation he follows what I call the Lazarus Long Fallacy, which equates science with engineering (nothing wrong with engineering, of course. I'm typing on a marvelous piece of engineering). This would be akin to saying qualitative analysis in chemistry is not scientific because bead tests for color or precipitation tests for divalent cations are not numeric. For that matter, I took a course in classical plane geometry in high school where not a single number was required. As in geology, categorization is an essential component of assembling a construct to see if it all holds together.

(The artificial dichotomy between hypothesis and theory leads to endless wheel-spinning in philosophical discussions. In practice the delineation seems to occur more in hindsight, or outside working scientists' arenas. I don't know any working scientists who write down Hypothesis:, followed by Theory:)

To say that since evolutionary theory cannot predict the exact course of organismal development it is just philospohical meandering is a bit of a red herring. As far as I can tell, neither physics nor chemistry can make those predictions, either. This goes back to the idea that organisms have a particular history, and history is the story of the things that did happen, as opposed to all the things that didn't happen.