Predictive Failure Evolutionary theory is often charged with predictive failure. Critics argue that the theory: a. makes no predictions it is unfalsifiable and fails Popper’s criterion for science b. makes false predictions it is falsified c. does not make the kinds of predictions it should observations and experiments that evolutionists do have no relation to theory

“Thus, for a theory to qualify as a scientific theory, it must be supported by events, processes or properties which can be observed, and the theory must be useful in predicating the outcome of future natural phenomena or laboratory experiments. An additional limitation usually imposed is that the theory must be capable of falsification. That is, it must be possible to conceive some experiment, the failure of which would disprove the theory.” Gish “Even if modern scientists should ever actually achieve the artificial creation of life from non-life, or of higher kinds from lower kinds, in the laboratory, this would not prove in any way that such changes did, or even could, take place in the past by random natural processes.” Morris “The data must be explained by the evolutionist, but they are predicated by the creationists.”

Naïve Falsification The falsifiability criterion adopted from Popper, which Kitcher refers to as Naïve Falsification, is flawed.

Example Newtonian Mechanics would be unfalsifiable. The same would go for any other scientific theory, and thus none of what we normally take to be science would count as science.

Naïve Falsification The falsifiability criterion adopted from Popper, which Kitcher refers to as Naïve Falsification, is flawed. The trouble is that any statement can be coupled with other statements to produce observational consequences. Given any doctrine D, and any statement O that records the result of an observation, we can enable D to ‘predict’ O by adding the extra assumption, “If D, then O.”

“Hypotheses are tested in bundles.”-Duhem We can only test large bundles of claims. What this means is that we can always save a cherished hypothesis from refutation by rejecting one of the other members of the bundle.

Evolutionary theory is not a science… Creationists can appeal to naïve falsification to show that evolution is not a science. Of course, naïve falsification can show that any science is not a science. This shows that the naïve falsification criterion is a very poor test of genuine science.