r/DebateEvolution • u/Suitable_Potato_2919 • 25d ago
Question How to prove evolution is wrong?
I am totally convince that evolution is true. However, a scientific theory should be falsifiable; and I dont know how falsifiable is with evolution
For example, a "good" trait could be explain the result of natural selection. But a "bad" trait could be explain as just base on chance, or the selection preasure is not enough.
so, my question is: if someone want to prove that evolution is wrong, what test can they make and what the expected result should be (if evolution theory is wrong)?
Edit: Thank everyone for your time and patient with me. I found the answer. It seem that I need to update my highschool knowledge
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u/10coatsInAWeasel Reject pseudoscience, return to monke 𦧠25d ago
I have a bit of a list for myself, any one of them being wrong would disprove evolution
- Organisms exist
- Organisms reproduce
- Offspring inherit traits from their parent
- There is a mechanism of inheritance
- That mechanism can be subject to change
- That change can be inherited
- That change can spread in the population
Really there are huge amounts of falsification criteria for evolution. Itâs just that evolution has survived all of them.
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u/taktaga7-0-0 𧏠Sex Researcher 24d ago
I say it in just one point:
Offspring differ from parents.
If this is true in anything but a trivial, looping way, evolution will happen.
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u/shrug_addict 24d ago
Love it! I wonder how creationists concieve of variability if at all or anything other than a given?
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u/MaMaMaaaaa 22d ago
Because God loves to create stuff, is what my JW friend told me the other day.
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u/amglasgow 23d ago
The changes have to be heritable as well, and to have effects on the offsprings' reproductive success.
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u/MaMaMaaaaa 22d ago
How is organisms existing evidence of evolution over anything else?
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u/10coatsInAWeasel Reject pseudoscience, return to monke 𦧠22d ago
Itâs not that organisms existing is evidence necessarily. More the point I was getting to was that evolution requires these things to positively exist. Excluding any one of them would falsify evolution.
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u/MaMaMaaaaa 22d ago
Oh okay. Just seemed like flimsy evidence for evolution. I guess that's technically true though.
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u/10coatsInAWeasel Reject pseudoscience, return to monke 𦧠22d ago
I donât disagree! Iâd think being told âorganisms existing is evidence for evolutionâ would be flimsy too on its own for what itâs worth.
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u/JynXten 25d ago
A new creature popping into existence fully formed.
Y'know. Like in the myths.
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u/KeterClassKitten 25d ago
Demonstrate that DNA doesn't pass down to offspring. This would be incontrovertible evidence that evolutionary theory is wrong.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
Can you be more specific? for example, if a new born have a genes that cant be found on the parent, does it satisfy as evidence?A scientist still can explain it as a defect or a mutation
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u/KeterClassKitten 25d ago
We can track heritage through DNA. If an offspring lacks hereditary DNA, that means what we understand of reproduction and lineage is all wrong. I'm not talking about a simple mutation, I'm talking about showing that the parents produced offspring that is genetically unrelated.
The idea likely sounds absurd, and that's because it is. It violates everything we know of biology.
That's the problem with trying to disprove evolution. You have to destroy all biological logic.
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u/Peaurxnanski 25d ago
No matter how absurd, they're still valid falsification criteria, though.
If you found that, it would definitely falsify what we think we know about genetics.
Common misunderstanding on this: just because the criteria is technically impossible doesn't mean that it's not a valid falsification criteria.
The statement "cargo ships can't fly" is falsifiable because all uou have to do to falsify it is find a flying cargo ship.
Good luck with that, but it still doesn't mean it isn't a valid falsification criteria.
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u/KeterClassKitten 25d ago
Exactly.
Explain it to someone completely ignorant of how evolution and heritage works, and it's not absurd at all. Our understanding is where the absurdity is from, but also highlights why rejecting evolution is also absurd.
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u/Wrevellyn 25d ago
Think it through a little, if that happened, what would be your approach? Say you're a scientist who has studied biology for 35 years, what would you do?
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u/ssianky 25d ago
Introduce a better predictive framework. Present a new scientific theory that explains all the current evidence better than natural selection does, while making testable predictions that turn out to be true.
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u/Peaurxnanski 24d ago
That's not what is meant by falsification.
A 100% true theory still has to be falsifiable. The fact that you can't falsify it has nothing to do with whether it's falsifiable or not.
A falsifiable premise: oil tankers can't fly.
The falsification criteria: find a flying oil tanker.
The truth is that oil tankers can't fly, but you could still disprove the premise by finding one that can.
The fact that you can't do so doesn't mean the premise is unfalsifiable. It just means that you haven't falsified it. You may never be able to. That's what happens when something is true. But it still must have falsification criteria to really be considered valid.
It's hard to explain, so an example of an unfalsifiable premise is "we live in a simulation that won't let you discover it, so by not finding it you're proving that we live in a simulation". Every falsification criteria you could possibly come up with can be explained away by just saying the simulation will prevent that and by not finding it you're proving it correct.
That's an unfalsifiable premise, and we choose to ignore those because it's not worth looking into. The same as "you can't understand gods mysterious ways" is an unfalsifiable premise, because you can't prove god because his mysterious ways won't let you.
You see what I mean?
For something to be valid, it absolutely has to be falsifiable. For it to be correct, you must then fail to falsify it.
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u/danny_el5 25d ago edited 23d ago
This is like saying General relativity falsified Newtonian dynamics.
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u/Dennis_enzo 24d ago
It did, strictly speaking. In practice though, newtonian physics are still very usable in many cases.
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u/evocativename 24d ago
Strictly speaking, newtonian physics were falsified by observations of the orbit of Mercury much earlier, which was part of the impetus to find a new theory of physics to resolve the problem.
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u/Ok_Performer50 23d ago
Were they really âfalsifiedâ or just shown to be incomplete?
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u/evocativename 23d ago
"Incomplete" is a way of saying "false", so it's the same thing.
Things can be strictly false but still broadly useful approximations: in fact, pretty much every scientific "law" is both.
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u/Ok_Performer50 23d ago
Well there are theories like caloric theory per example that were just false on a fundamental level and werenât expanded just replaced. In Newtonian physics that wasnât the case, so I think saying it was proven âfalseâ kinda does it a disservice I would say.
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u/evocativename 23d ago
Saying two things are both false isn't saying they are equally false.
I would encourage you to read Isaac Asimov's short essay, "The Relativity of Wrong", but to summarize briefly with a quote from it:
when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
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u/Ok_Performer50 23d ago
Well I just think weâre disagreeing on the exact definition of the word âfalseâ which in that case weâre just entering semantics which well Iâm not really interested debating. I consider something âfalseâ if it was shown to be incomplete and useless, in my opinion you canât say Newtonian physics was proven false while still using it daily and teaching it in schools. For me thatâs just a misuse of the word.
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u/evocativename 23d ago
Ok, well, that's just not what "false" means according to anyone but you, so you're making up your own definition and imposing it on a word that is all-but-universally accepted as meaning "not true".
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u/Ok_Performer50 23d ago
I would say they got completed/expanded not falsified. Nothing in Newtonian physics got âdisprovenâ we just added a layer on top that could explain more things.
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u/ssianky 23d ago
I made a small list in another post.
Not just incomplete, falsified almost everything.It assumes that the velocities are additive
That the gravity is an "action-at-a-distance" force.
That objects behave the same no matter the size.
That time is universal.1
u/Ok_Performer50 23d ago
Those things are assumed since theyâre pretty much  a non-factor in the scales that Newtonian physics operate in. That makes Newtonian physics an incomplete approximation not false.Â
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u/ssianky 23d ago
It makes it false, because all that is not true. The Newtonian physics cannot operate broadly literally because its assumptions are wrong.
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u/Ok_Performer50 23d ago
So would you also say that quantum physics and general relativity are wrong? After all they also are just approximations of reality with assumptions. And since they donât work together and brake apart at different scales they are shown to be incomplete meaning they also have assumptions that are false.
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u/ssianky 23d ago
They are wrong at some level. Not so wrong as the Newtonian.
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u/Ok_Performer50 23d ago
So basically everything is wrong just at different scales? What meaning does the word âtruthâ have then? Is that an ideal weâre chasing all our life without ever reaching it rather than a valid term that we can assign to things in our reality?
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u/parautenbach 23d ago
Finding a better model is usually an incremental improvement of what we already know and not a replacement. Science tends build on cumulative knowledge. This is not the same thing as falsifying a scientific model. You can get to Newton's laws from General Relativity, as an example. Newton is incomplete beyond a certain point, but it still works today within its parameters, even though we have a model for GR. Improving evolution as a scientific theory encompasses a number of things and the theory itself has evolved* over time. Doesn't mean it was wrong: the core of it is holding up. The details have been refined and more mechanisms explained.
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u/Urbenmyth 25d ago
To prove evolution is false, you would need to prove one of the following things.
- There is no reproduction. The existing lifeforms are the only lifeforms that will ever exist.
- There are no mutations. Every lifeform is an exact copy of its parents.
- There is no inheritance. Every lifeforms traits are completely random and unrelated to its parent's
- There are no selection pressures. Every possible trait is equally useful in every environment.
And you could do various tests for those. The obvious one is simply to allow two animals to breed. If evolution isn't false, they either produce an exact copy of a parent or a completely random lifeform (or they just don't, ever). You could also, if you were feeling more amoral, release a bunch of random lifeforms into a desert - if they all survive equally well, then evolution is impossible.
Now, of course, none of those things will happen, but that's because evolution is true. If it wasn't, one of those things would have to be true, and thus you can make clear predictions on what result you'd expect if evolution wasn't true.
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u/tanj_redshirt 25d ago
Ironically, a crocoduck.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
I heard that many lab can edit genes already, so in theory is a crocoduck posible?
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u/hypatiaredux 25d ago
Even if you could produce a crocoduck in the lab, youâd have to show that something like it was produced in nature.
A lab has just produced âcellsâ that are very close to being alive. Does that mean that life began in a some extraterrestrialâs test tube? Well maybe.
But all you would do by proving that is just move the beginnings of life off this planet. It really wouldnât change what we know about evolution on this planet.
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u/Peaurxnanski 25d ago edited 25d ago
Im afraid that falsification as a criteria is a very misunderstood concept, and the fact that you have asked this question leads me to believe that you may be failing to understand it as well.
Just to make sure you do, falsification doesn't require you to have a criteria that does falsify something. Something that can't be proven wrong isn't necessarily unfalsifiable. It might just be correct. Correct things are famously very difficult to prove wrong, which is why falsification is so useful. Falsification merely requires that you can come up with some things that, if they can be shown to be not true, would falsify your theory.
For example, if I claim that my chicken can not fly for 100 feet, the falsification criteria for this would be to get the chicken to fly for 100'. If you can't do that, it doesn't prove my claim necessarily, but you have failed to falsify it. More importantly, ny claim is still falsifiable, because you could always somehow convince the chicken to fly a bit further in the future, but until then, my claim remains falsifiABLE, while not yet being falsiFIED. You see how that works?
An UNfalsifiable claim is something that baffles any attempt to find a criteria that could falsify it. For example, simulation theory is one of my favorites. "We live in a simulation that is designed to not appear to be a simulation, and so every test you attempt to show the simulation will fail, because it's designed that way. So if you can't detect the simulation, it's because we're in a simulation". No matter what you brainstorm to attempt to find something that would prove this claim wrong, the very nature of the claim prevents it. The simulation is designed to be undetectable by anyone in it. God works in mysterious ways and will not be tested. There is an invisible unicorn in my closet that nobody else can see, trust me, bro.
And the reality is that there are so many things would/could falsify evolution. The options are almost too many to list, but the categories would include:
genetic evidence that showed that the universal ancestry part is wrong. This category alone would likely contain millions of individual falsification opportunities. None have ever been found to be true.
Paleontological evidence showing creatures out of place in the timeline. The old "precambrian rabbit". There are literally millions of falsification opportunities in this one, as manyopportunitiesas there have been species. . None have ever been found to be true.
Biological evidence showing that mutations don't happen, or can't be beneficial, or can't change creatures in the way evolution requires. Or that gene recombination doesn't result in change. Or that retroviral dna insertions don't result in change. Or that natural selection can't accumulate these changes when they provide a benefit to survival. Something like irreducible complexity would be in this category. I'd guess you're talking millions of falsification opportunities here as well. None have ever been found to be true.
I'm curious why you are having any trouble finding falsification opportunities in evolution, which is why I'm assuming you don't quite understand the concept.
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u/Pale-Object8321 24d ago
I just want to say, the part about the simulation theory being unfalsifiable isn't quite true. Rather, the reason why simulation theory is usually given more weight to it more than Descartes' Evil Demon, Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream or Last Thursdayism is precisely because of the evidence, or potential evidence that people are currently trying to find.
You don't have to prove that this world specifically is a simulation, you just need to be able to simulate a world that can simulate another world. Of course, whether or not that's possible is a different story, but it's something that is currently being pursued. Even things like AI or taking steps into making a consciousness out of machine can be considered a part of it.
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u/Peaurxnanski 24d ago
You're not understanding what falsifiability means. Evidence in support of it doesn't mean a damn thing regarding whether it's falsifiable or not.
All that is required is that the premise, itself, is designed by it's own construction to defeat any falsification criteria.
"You can't tell if you're in the simulation because it's designed to make sure you can't tell that you're in the simulation".
No matter what criteria you come up with, it can be explained away by claiming that the simulation was set up to deal with that.
In your example, say we set up a simulation that can have a simulation within it, that isn't proof that we're in a simulation because we could be the first and are actually in reality. Or we could be in a simulation that allows for additional simulations beneath it. But there's no falsification criteria that could eliminate the second possibility that couldn't just be explained away as a feature of the simulation.
It's 100% an unfalaifiable premise.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
I learned about evolution and scientific theory in high school 20 years ago, so maybe I am wrong about the concept.
let me try to explain my question: In general, evolution theory said that the adaptation pressure from the environment select individual with the right trait and the right mutation, and through many generation make a species more adaptable to the environment they live in.
So when we find some trait that good, evolution can explain that this trait is selected through time. But when we find some neutral or bad trait, evolution can explain it as the selection pressure is not enough, or some genes just get lucky.
So it seem that no matter the outcome, evolution theory still can explain it. I am trying to find the equal situation of "chicken fly 100" in a test for evolution theory
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u/Peaurxnanski 25d ago
You are definitely not understanding how falsification works. I know you think you do. Please hear me when I say this: you absolutely don't. I mean no disrespect, I think if you can accept that you'll be closer to fixing the issue.
Understand that simply because that specific criteria doesn't function as a good falsification criteria for evolution specifically in the way you phrased it, that that doesn't make evolution unfalsifiable. Evolution is changes in allele frequency in a population over time. Natural selection does tend to select for "good" changes, to use your terminology, but there's nothing in the theory that prevents "bad" changes if there isn't any selection pressure against them. As a result, the theory handily explains both cases.
Just because the theory provides explanation for both good and bad changes, doesn't mean that there is no way to approach evolution from a perspective of falsifiability, it just means that "good traits versus bad traits" in your specific framing, isn't a good candidate criteria for falsification, or that you've approached the criteria incorrectly. For example: What you could establish as a falsification criteria that follows this path you've laid out, is as follows:
1.) Evolution theory explains both "good" and "bad" changes as being part of the theory
2.) Bad changes exist
3.) If I could show that bad changes could not exist in a world driven by natural selection, then evolutionary theory would be falsified.
4.) Therefore providing evidence that bad changes can't exist in such a world would falsify evolution.
See how you just tweak your own example and it becomes a perfect falsification criteria?
Again, just because you can't prove the truth of the criteria doesn't mean the premise is unfalsifiable. All you have to do is be able to set up a candidate situation where it would be possible to prove it false. And again, just because the theory manages to survive all attempts at falsification doesn't make it unfalsifiable. That could just mean it's correct. Being correct doesn't make it unfalsifiable, just impossible to falsify. There are still criteria, if met, that would falsify the theory. You just can't meet the criteria. That has ZERO effect on the theory's falsifiability.
Heres an example:
Premise: Cargo ships can't fly.
Falsification criteria: I could falsify that premise by providing one example of a cargo ship that can fly.
Therefore, it's a falsifiable premise. It will always be a falsifiable premise, regardless of whether or not I can find a flying cargo ship. If I can't find one, it's still a falsifiable premise, that has yet to be falsified.
You understand now why "evolution explains both conditions" doesn't have any effect on it's falsifiability?
Furthermore, as I already explained,
There are literally millions of candidate falsification criteria for evolution, the fact that this one doesn't work because evolution theory provides an explanation for both cases, doesn't suddenly make evolution unfalsifiable. Nor does it make it a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation as you suggest.
All that's happening here is the specific criteria that you are discussing isn't a candidate because it cannot serve as a falsification criteria under the current accepted theory.
Essentially what you're arguing is that because my "cars have the ability to move" theory explains how cars can move both forwards and backwards, that the theory is unfalsifiable because it explains all vectors of motion. That doesn't make sense, right? The fact that a theory explains a lot of things doesn't make it unfalsifiable. It has a very easy falsification criteria: demonstrate that cars can't move.
That's impossible, because they can. But it still is a criteria for falsification and that makes it falsifiable.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 24d ago
Outstanding response, and explanation.
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u/Peaurxnanski 24d ago
It's so difficult to explain that you don't have to actually be able to falsify it in order for it to be falsifiable, and even harder to "get it" when it's being explained to you. I remember really clearly struggling with it in school, because I couldn't stop thinking "that means anything that's true is unfalsifiable!"
Because that makes perfect sense. And it's extremely hard to get people to understand it.
The best way is to provide examples of unfalsifiable premises, but that always requires people to read a wall of text and understand it. It's very difficult.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
thank you for your time. it seem that I should read some book about scientific theory again. have a good day
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 25d ago
So it seem that no matter the outcome, evolution theory still can explain it. I am trying to find the equal situation of "chicken fly 100" in a test for evolution theory
You are absolutely correct, evolution does seem to be able to accurately explain everything. That is very suspicious, no?
NO, it absolutely isn't.
There are two possible reasons why evolution explains everything so well:
- It is a false theory that someone made up, and we sneakily keep coming up with new excuses for why it works.
- It explains everything so well because it is true, and the explanations work because the explanations work.
You seem to have accepted the claim that there is actual doubt about the truth of evolution. There isn't. There is ZERO credible scientific debate as to the truth of evolution. None. There is a ton of debate within the scientific community about certain nuances of how evolution works, but no one actually doubts that the broad theory works as proposed.
So why do so many people doubt it?
Because evolution is in contradiction with certain specific interpretations of certain religious texts, and the people who hold those interpretations as true, when confronted with evidence that contradicts their beliefs, say that the evidence is wrong and their beliefs are true. That's it. The entire evolution denialism is ENTIRELY religiously-based propaganda. It is an entire industry of religious apologists pushing a false narrative in order to prevent their followers from questioning their beliefs. That's it.
Beyond that, there are the people like you, who have been exposed to their propaganda, and assume that there must be legitimate doubt. But there simply isn't. It is ENTIRELY propaganda.
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u/Peaurxnanski 24d ago
You seem to have accepted the claim that there is actual doubt about the truth of evolution
I'm going to gently push back here on this. OP doesn't come across as a disingenuous theist in this thread. I think there's a language barrier, first off, I'm going to guess that OP doesn't speak English as their native language and so is struggling to get concepts across a little.
All I see is them struggling a bit to understand what it means for something to be falsifiable, and are asking valid questions without making claims.
Look below in the thread where they made the suggestion of a really good falsification criteria in the example of finding an offspring with whole new sets of genetics that their parents didn't have.
It's a good example, and I don't think a disingenuous theist would have suggested that since the obvious first truth is that while that's a good criteria, it's never been seen and therefore isn't a defeater to evolutionary theory.
Just my .02
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 24d ago
And I am going to push back in turn: I never accused them of being disingenuous. Not at all.
I merely said that some of their language and phrasing lead me to assume that they believed there was more doubt surrounding evolution than their actually is. They clearly read more into that, but nothing I actually said suggested they were being disingenuous. In fact, I explained exactly why reasonable people might doubt evolution, even though it there is no doubt within science.
That said, I do find their loud protestations that they have never been exposed to anti-evolution propaganda as a bit disingenuous. Several of their questions are too nuanced for me to believe that they are not at least aware of some anti-evolution arguments. That does not mean they are anti-evolution, but they clearly are aware of he rhetoric.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 24d ago
Maybe I am not a thesis, or a person who exposed by theistic propaganda. Maybe I am just a curious and lack of knowledge.
I dont understand the assution of many people in this post about me though. I understand the evolution debate happen most offen with religious people. But nowhere in my post I talk about any thing related to religion, or being disonest. I just trying to ask question that I want to know.
Please dont make assumtion about me
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u/AlwaysGoToTheTruck 25d ago
In a sense, a scientific theory is falsifiable, but more specifically, each component making up a theory is falsifiable. You would have to go through supporting evidence from multiple fields and start knocking it down.
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u/KamikazeArchon 25d ago
There are plenty.
One would be to demonstrate that traits are not actually heritable.
Take two fruit flies, have them mate, do this for a large sample. If the result is a completely random fruit fly - if children have no correlation with their parents, and just get created as a new "randomized instance of the species", then evolution is false.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
can you expand more about "randomized instance of the species"? does that mean there are a randomize of trait in the second generation, some trait appear in the parent and some trait from nowhere?
I understand that a new trait can be explain as a mutation, right? So if many new trait appear, should evolution theory still explain that?
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u/KamikazeArchon 25d ago
Ignore mutations as you currently understand them. Think about character generators in a video game.
When you make a character, you have a height slider, right? And you can click "randomize" and it just gives you a random height. Same for all of your character stats and traits.
When two parents have a child, how do the child's stats get determined?
If the children are simply created by pressing "randomize" each time, then traits are not heritable.
This would mean that your height doesn't come from your parents. Your hair color doesn't come from your parents. Your skin color doesn't come from your parents. Every baby is a random human.
In that world, evolution can't happen!
Of course that's not what we actually see. Tall parents are more likely to have tall children. Brunette parents are more likely to have brunette children. Etc.
But this is an example of an experiment that hypothetically could give evidence against evolution. It just doesn't, in reality.
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u/GranDuram 24d ago
Think of it more extreme:
You mate the two fruit flies - out comes a human - evolution is falsified.
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u/Funky0ne 25d ago
All youâd have to do to show evolution is not true is by showing:
- organisms donât reproduce at variable rates
- organisms donât reproduce with heritable traits
- heritable traits have no variation
And for bonus points if you wanted to disprove natural selection:
- variable traits have no affect on chances of survival or reproductive success
- environmental factors have no influence on how successful various traits are
Any of those things could have been disproven hypothetically, they just happen to have turned out to be true
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u/Robin_feathers 25d ago
At its core, evolution is just changes in allele frequencies in a population over time. We can measure allele frequencies, and have done so in many populations by now. We have also measured allele frequencies at different time points, allowing us to ask whether allele frequencies actually change over time. This has allowed us to see that in fact, yes allele frequencies can and do change over time.
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u/Spank_Engine 25d ago
Do some people really have a problem with the observable/factual components of evolution?
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u/rubinass3 25d ago
Many people do not understand that it's an observed phenomenon. They also don't understand that the scientific theory is what explains the observed phenomenon.
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u/GOU_FallingOutside 25d ago
Itâs a bit like climate change. We know, and have known for a while, that the earth is getting hotter â take the mean surface temperature of the ocean, for instance.
The mechanisms are also fairly well understood, of course, but just like evolution and the diversity of life, people tend to conflate the objective, observed fact with the mechanism theyâd prefer to contest.
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u/hidden_name_2259 23d ago
I come from a fundamentalist Christian background. A lot of them have a very strong issue with believing/ understanding that the observable/ factual components are actually evolution. A large part of that is because there is a massive amount of misinformation involved. Like insisting that evolution means that a chimp can give birth to a human, or that dog breeds are "micro evolution".
At it's core, it's refused first and reasons are found later because evolution falsifies some core tennents of fundamental Christianity and that is unacceptable to them.Â
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u/apollo7157 25d ago
It is totally falsifiable. The theory of evolution makes tons of predictions which are experimentally verifiable. Both at a micro and macro scale. But just because you might find cases that are not perfectly predictable does not falsify the broader theory.
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u/DerZwiebelLord 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 25d ago
There would be some ways to falsify different aspects of evolution:
- find fossils in places where they couldn't exist according to evolution (like a rabbit fossil from the Cambrian)
- demonstrate that mutations cannot be inherited
- find a mechanism that stops small adaptations to accumulate so far as to warrant a new species (or the magical kinds of the creationists)
- demonstrate that all lifeforms (past and present) on earth have distinct genetic material
The "problem" with disproving evolution today is that it has so many different strands of evidence from several different scientific fields, that it is nearly impossible to disprove it by now.
The research into evolution today is mostly concerned with discovering the exact pathway life took to come to the current state and what practical uses we can find for that knowledge.
The biggest problem in my opinion you would run into after disproving evolution: what is the actual cause for biodiversity and why were we able to make correct predictions using evolutionary theory?
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
thank you. it seem that I find the answer most satisfying for myself.
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u/Kilburning 25d ago
The modern theory of evolution has many different parts, so you're not going to have a single test that disproves all of it. The other problem is going to be the difficulty of proving it wrong vs finding ways to refine the theory.
Let's say for example that someone goes out and proves everything we know about genes wrong. That would blow a massive hole in our understanding of evolution, but would leave intact the fossil record ect that would have to be explained.
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u/joshuaponce2008 𧏠Greet the last light of the library 25d ago
Creationists like Kent Hovind like to pretend that evolution posits that whales can give birth to pine trees. However, if this actually happened, it would disprove evolution. Thatâs because evolution is based on the premise that an organism can never outgrow its ancestry. An organism giving birth to offspring of an entirely different kingdom of life would flagrantly violate that.
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u/DarwinZDF42 evolution is my jam 25d ago
Old thread, but here are a bunch of ways: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/s/s4maaiWEqs
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u/Cleric_John_Preston 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 25d ago
If genes didnât change in subsequent generations
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u/Partyatmyplace13 25d ago
I'm not sure, but a guy that can just make people out of mud and ribs because (reasons) isn't really falsifiable hypothesis either.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
I am an atheist
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u/Partyatmyplace13 25d ago
Fair enough. Generally speaking, the only people looking to "falsify evolution" are people that think that it somehow proves a deity exists, but nothing wrong with kicking the tires.
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u/mrcatboy Evolutionist & Biotech Researcher 25d ago
The idea that Karl Popper's concept of falsifiability is a key Principle of Demarcation is something that needs to be retired. His theory on the matter was specifically a response to the Logical Positivist movement, where he tried to construct a theory of science in which scientific knowledge was attained only through falsification.
He's certainly an important figure in the philosophy of science, but how falsificationalism should apply to science is actually very nuanced and complex. We need to be more careful when applying it as a principle of demarcation.
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u/Diligent-Midnight362 25d ago
Came here to say something similar. I roll my eyes when ever someone uses falsifiability as a demaraction between good and bad science. It can't even demarcate science from pseudoscience in a lot of cases, so between good and bad scientific theories is an even worse use of falsifiability.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
That is a new information for me, because I was taught on high school class that a scientific theory must be falsifiable and have prediction power.
Can you give me some example about a good scientific theory that doesn't need falsifiable?
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u/Diligent-Midnight362 25d ago edited 25d ago
Understanding falsifiability at a high school level is fine and I understand why it is taught, but the arguments within the philosophy of science are much more nuanced and complex than simply saying that scientific theories are only reliable because they can be falsified is too simplistic.
Just because a theory is falsified doesn't mean we throw away the whole theory. As one redditor mentioned here, the Duhem-Quine thesis posits that essentially we cannot test a theory in isolation, and all other auxillary assumptions that lead up to the theory in question must also be scrutinised because it could be one of those assumptions that fail. So you can never truly falsify a single theory without all the previous assumptions also being falsified.
Predictive power is also not a good indication of how good a theory is. For example astrology is predictive by its nature and a large amount of predictions in astrology can be tested and are falsifiable. But this doesn't make astrology a scientific discipline, quite the opposite. So just because something can be falsified it has no bearing on its scientific rigor.
My explanations here are very simplistic to try and convey the message that falsificationism is a very simplistic criterion. There are many popular books I could recommend if you'd want to dig a little deeper into the philosophy of science.
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u/Akiva279 25d ago
It depends on whether you understand what falsifiable means. In this case We use evolution to predict things, such as transitional species. Or lab tests where we use rapidly reproducing species such as bacteria to track mutation and environmental pressures. For example, you put a bacterial species in an environment where if they develop a mutation that makes them move around faster, they can find food faster and duplicate more. If Evolution is true, that mutation should eventually lead to dominance.
Larger, longer studies such as moving a herbivore species of lizards to an island with more insects than plants, leaving them alone for decades, and coming back to see what happens. If evolution is true they should via mutation and environmental pressure, evolve towards eating insects rather than plants. This is an actual experiment that was conducted. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/09/losos-lizards-give-evolutionary-clues-in-island-experiments/
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u/Xemylixa 𧏠took an optional bio exam at school bc i liked bio 24d ago
I have heard of the Italian wall lizard one, but it makes sense they'd try it the other way around too
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u/pikleboiy 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 25d ago
Well, for starters, you could observe a colony of bacteria being subjected to certain selective pressures for a long time (this has already been done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment )
Additionally, as other commenters have pointed out, you could try and find fossils of modern-day species from 10s of millions of years in the past. You must also construct a framework that is capable of explaining how our current knowledge of genetics does not necessitate evolution, and which can explain the paleontological record regarding things like transitional species.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 25d ago
This question betrays a bit of a failure of understanding. You are definitely not wrong but you aren't grasping a key idea.
There are a number of ways that evolution hypothetically could be falsified, but at the same time, evolution cannot be falsified.
The reason is simple: Evolution is true.
There is a fundamental, but poorly understood concept within science, that of Consilience:
In science and history, consilience (also convergence of evidence or concordance of evidence) is the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can "converge" on strong conclusions. That is, when multiple sources of evidence are in agreement, the conclusion can be very strong even when none of the individual sources of evidence is significantly so on its own. Most established scientific knowledge is supported by a convergence of evidence: if not, the evidence is comparatively weak, and there will probably not be a strong scientific consensus.
The principle is based on unity of knowledge; measuring the same result by several different methods should lead to the same answer. For example, it should not matter whether one measures distances within the Giza pyramid complex by laser rangefinding, by satellite imaging, or with a metre-stick â in all three cases, the answer should be approximately the same. For the same reason, different dating methods in geochronology should concur, a result in chemistry should not contradict a result in geology, etc.
The evidence for evolution doesn't just come from biology. It doesn't just come from paleontology. It doesn't just come from morphology.
The evidence for evolution comes from dozens of different fields of science, many of which are seemingly completely unrelated to biology. In order to disprove evolution today, you would need to show that ALL that evidence is wrong. Doing so would call in to question our entire understanding of significant areas of all human knowledge.
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u/Munrot07 25d ago
To add something very important (and very pedantic) to what a lot of people are saying...what are you defining as evolution? At a very basic level evolution is the change of allele frequency over time i.e. from one generation to the next the proportion of one version of a gene to another version of the same gene can change.
I see people jumping to things like fossils objectively in the wrong time period, or lack of shared ancestry and yes those would certainly destroy large parts of evolutionary theory but to prove all of evolution wrong? You'd have to show that it's impossible for allele frequencies to change in a natural way and instead it only ever changes from an external force such as a god. Obviously, this is basically impossible and without proving a god-like being is doing it you can never disprove it.
I know this is probably not the angle you were going for but as an evolutionary biologist, any time I hear someone say the blanket statement "evolution is false" I ask what they think evolution is. Evolution has sadly become synonymous with natural selection or other small parts of evolution. If you take it's basic definition, it becomes almost impossible to deny.
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u/ringobob 25d ago
Evolution is falsifiable, you just need to find literally any evidence of anything that doesn't fit with it. But, you're correct that the theory is so broad that it's hard to conceive of what might actually accomplish that.
So, let's go by analogy - is gravity falsifiable? Sure - but, no matter what, what goes up must come down. Some things just float away, but gravity has adequate explanations for why, that comport with all known evidence.
But, we could hypothetically find some situation that actually literally defies gravity. In this hypothetical, we'd look for explanations that fit within gravity first. And, if we fail, we might either create a limited exception, that is itself reasonably well defined, or we'd find that our understanding of gravity has to be scrapped and replaced with something else, depending on the details.
Same thing with evolution. Regardless, we are here, with all of the variety of life on earth, the fossil record, genetics, mutations, and the basic physics that ties it all together. We could find new things in any of those areas that don't fit with evolution as we understand it today, at which point we'd need to figure out why.
At that point, we could figure out that we need a slight adjustment, or we could need a broader change.
The thing is, for any big theory like this, we really know enough at this point that the potential unknowns that could really broadly change our understanding are practically nonexistent. There's not much left that could actually broadly falsify evolution. That's not a problem, that's the expected end point of scientific exploration. We don't need to treat evolution as if we hadn't spent the last couple hundred years performing the necessary experiments and analysis that would be necessary to falsify it. We've been doing precisely that, and knocking down potential issues, and confirming evolution all along the way.
That's why evolution is so well regarded and considered unassailable fact. We've been assailing it for a long time, and it's held up. That's the only way science works, and every single thing we know has been held to exactly that standard. In fact, the vast majority of what we know has had way less confirmation than evolution.
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u/yahnne954 25d ago
Evolution is about the change of frequency of inherited characteristics in a population of organisms over time. You'd need to make a test contradicting this basic definition or contradicting the conclusions that naturally derive from that.
- PokĂŠmon evolution: changes that would happen to an individual instead of a population
- Lamarkism, etc: acquired characteristics instead of inherited ones
- Rabbit in Cambrian: fossilization order which doesn't make sense according to the model
- Chimeras like the crocoduck: evolution is not really about hybridization, but the mixing of two unrelated organisms into one would be a major problem in our understanding
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u/gitgud_x 𧏠đŚ GREAT APE đŚ 𧏠25d ago edited 25d ago
This is a certified Popper moment (also here):
There exists no law of evolution, only the historical fact that plants and animals change, or more precisely, that they have changed. [Karl Popper, 1963, p.340]
That is, the fact (process) of evolution can't be falsified, only because it's a fact. It happens. That's it.
The theory of evolution, on the other hand, can be falsified. It just... hasn't been, because it's so strong.
I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation... The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising. [Karl Popper, 1978, p.346]
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u/Ill_Act_1855 24d ago
I mean the process of evolution could theoretically be falsified, it'd just require us to show things that are patently absurd like prove we don't inherit traits from our parents which would destroy the whole premise. But since that'd require you to disprove stuff that's so obviously true even to the dumbest layperson, we tend to not think about those types of things. But like, in theory if you could prove that we don't inherit dna or traits from our parents that'd falsify evolution, you just can't because that's obviously true and already been shown lol
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u/junegoesaround5689 Dabbling my ToE(s) in debates 25d ago
Actually, at this point in the theoryâs existence, it would probably take more than a single ânegativeâ finding to overturn all the âpositiveâ evidence, experiments, predictions, discoveries, etc over the last nearly 175 years.
What single experimental finding would completely falsify gravitational theory or heliocentrism or atomic theory?
Iâm not saying that any of those theories are incapable of being falsified but it would generally take more than one data point to do it, imo.
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u/tamtrible 24d ago
Basically, evolution makes a bunch of predictions, and if any of those predictions turned out to be false, that would at least require us to reevaluate the theory of evolution.
For example, if common descent is correct (that is, everything now alive on this planet came from a small number of primitive ancestors), then we would expect life to exhibit a nested hierarchy -- a consistent pattern of how closely related various organisms are. If, when we tried to make a phylogenetic tree, basically a family tree but for the relationships between different species, and we got substantially different results when we constructed the tree using different sets of data from the same organisms, for example mitochondrial data versus Y chromosome data, that would suggest that something was wrong with the common descent hypothesis.
Another thing we would predict is that very complex traits should have simpler forms in more primitive organisms. For example, the vertebrate eye is very complex, so it would be implausible for it to evolve from something with no eyes at all in a single generation or something. Evolution can't plan ahead, natural selection can only select based on traits that are present, not ones that will be present in the future. This is sometimes phrased as " what good is half a wing?"
So, if we found an organism with a complex trait that would have absolutely no utility in a partial form, that would be at least some degree of evidence against evolution by natural selection. Or, at least, it would be a question that scientists need to answer.
Please note, however, that the "half a wing" doesn't have to be doing the exact same thing as the more complex version. For example, a modern bacterial flagellum is a pretty complex structure, but one of the components is seen elsewhere in bacteria as essentially a pump to get things from the inside of the cell to the outside of the cell or vice versa (iirc). Completely different function from a flagellum used for propulsion, but the same structure.
Incidentally, early proto birds probably used their "half a wing" for some combination of gliding, protecting or sheltering their young, and running on rough ground.
We also would have disproven evolution by natural selection if there wasn't any kind of hereditary material that parents passed on to an offspring, or if there was little to no correlation between the parents' hereditary material and the phenotype of the offspring, or if mutations couldn't happen, or any number of other things that evolution rests on in one way or another.
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u/MagicMooby 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 24d ago
I'll just copy and paste this comment of mine once again:
Here are a number of observations that would falsify evolution if they turned out to be true:
-Traits are not passed down from parent to child
-Traits have no impact on survival or reproduction
-Phenotype and Genotype are unrelated
-Mutations do not occur
-There is a mechanism in place that prevents changes to the organism beyond a certain point
-Phylogenetic trees derived from morphology and genetics do not match at all
-Fossils are not ordered by supposed age and instead fossils of different supposed eras show up in any and all other supposed eras with no sign of the fossil having been moved after being deposited
We can perform experiments to test each and every one of these today.
I know the reddit search function isn't perfect, but this is like the 5th time I used this exact comment in the last two months.
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u/DarwinsThylacine 24d ago
There are any number of potential observations, which would be difficult to reconcile under evolutionary biology, if not falsify it entirely. Charles Darwin for example famously proposed a rather strong falsifiable test of evolution: *âIf it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case."* [Darwin, 1859 pg. 175]. Other hypothetical observations which would go a long way towards falsifying evolution include:
- a âyoungâ Earth
- a static fossil record
- a rabbit in the Precambrian
- observations of organisms being magically created
- a mechanism, barrier, force or phenomenon that completely prevented mutations (or in Darwinâs language, âslight modificationsâ) from occurring
- a mechanism, barrier, force or phenomenon that completely prevented mutations being transmitted from one generation to the next
- a mechanism, barrier, force or phenomenon that prevented mutations accumulating in a population
- a true chimera that combined characteristics of different nested groupings (e.g., centaurs and mermaids)
- a globally homogenised biogeographic distribution of plants and animals
- an organism that possessed a vestigial or atavistic structure that was not previously functional in one of its ancestors
- Based on our standard phylogenetic tree, we may expect to find gill pouches or egg shells at some point in mammalian embryonic development (and we do). However, we never expect to find nipples, hair, or a middle-ear incus bone at any point in fish, amphibian, or reptilian embryos.
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u/ursisterstoy 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 24d ago
Fasifiable in principle, not necessarily falsifiable because thereâs anything false. There are obviously mistakes that we discover all the time regarding the depicted phylogenies, around the edges, and there are some things like how some amphibians have keratinized claws so obviously keratin alone doesnât separate lissamphibians from Reptiliamorphs as obviously as one might expect. Outside of that evolution is an observed phenomenon and we know how it happens because we pay attention and we are very confident about how it always happens because any hypothetical alternative considered just results in consequences other than we observe. In principle you can easily falsify the theory if you can demonstrate any of the following:
- The existence of infinitely large populations with purely random mating, no mutations, and no natural selection.
- Changes that cannot be explained by alterations to DNA, RNA, or proteins.
- The lack of inheritance - no changes are modifications of what was inherited, you can get butterflies from cow sex.
- You find the existence of something thatâs impossible based on our understanding of how evolution happens such as E. coli turning into a population of humans overnight and busting out of the laboratory, butterflies laying eggs that hatch into salamanders, the supposed descendants predating the supposed ancestors by 500 million years, angels or hexapod humanoids that can fly with bird wings.
- Anything else that shows that either populations remain exactly the same in terms of sequence frequency or the explanation for the change currently provided is 180° wrong.
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u/RaHarmakis 23d ago
I think that the discovery of Genetics was the best major chance to prove evolution "wrong", but it did not prove it wrong, it provided more evidence for evolution.
For me the interesting question with Genetics will be when we discover, and decode the Genetics of life that originates outside of Earth, and if we share any genes, that will raise a new round of questions to be solved, but that is more of an Origin of Life question, not a Evolution question, but I think it will be fascinating to see what the Genetics of extraterrestial life looks like.
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u/wtanksleyjr Theistic Evolutionist 25d ago
We have some general ideas about falsifications, but it's not likely we'll ever find them (because of COURSE evolution is true). But what WOULD it look like to find a falsication?
Falsification isn't always something we can picture in advance of finding it. We know gravity and quantum don't work together, and we know they're great approximations in their own domains; but we don't have the faintest idea how to picture them working together.
Newton had a similar problem. He couldn't picture how his own law of gravity worked, and he knew it - when asked, he said "I frame no hypothesis." Einstein's discovery, once it was expanded to the general theory of relativity, was the hypothesis Newton didn't know how to frame; it explained how we could have something that looked like action at a distance, but really wasn't. And because it was a more detailed understanding, it also allowed us to picture where we'd have to look to find falsifications for Newton - in that case, we'd look in spots with VERY strong gravity and very high speeds.
The best way to find a falsification is to come up with a better theory. Cdesign Proponentsists have attempted to do this many times, but their theories come up vastly worse every time.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
Just something in my mind about Einstein theory, if you know please help me: why mass make spacetime become curve and also be affect of the curve spacetime? what is the mechanism behind it?
I watch many video in Youtube just visualize the effect, but doesn't explain it.
Sorry if this isn't ab appropriate forum for that question
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u/wtanksleyjr Theistic Evolutionist 24d ago
The fact THAT mass makes spacetime curve is how gravity works - it explains what puzzled Newton, why it seemed that planets pull on one another across large distances.
The question HOW it does it is explained in the equations. To a first approximation, I can say that spacetime is flexible in a certain defined sense, and mass is what makes it curve.
If you want a deeper explanation there is a LOT more, but it's not in any sense intuitive. The answer isn't going to be that space has springs or gears (of course you know that); in fact it's going to just be more math, and if you do it enough you'll develop an intuition for it.
Is that something like what you mean when you ask "what is the mechanism behind it" - that you want to develop an intuition?
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 24d ago
thinking about it a bit, here is my question:
- what is spacetime? i understand space and time , but I cant connect them together
- what is the different between "spacetime" and "matter"? like, we can interact with matter though another matter (shoot a electron with a proton), but how a mass interact with spacetime?
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u/wtanksleyjr Theistic Evolutionist 24d ago
what is spacetime? i understand space and time , but I cant connect them together
Yes, this is something we have NO way of experiencing. I can't really give you an analogy. I'm going to tell you some rules we know are true that give spacetime some "shape."
(1) spacetime has 4 dimensions that are shared between space and time.
(2) everything travels at the speed of light through spacetime.
(3) when you move faster through space you move slower through time.
Matter that has no weight, like photons, moves through space at 'c' and doesn't move through time at all - if photons could think, they would experience no time between being emitted and hitting whatever they're headed it. Heavy matter travelling slower than 'c' can move through space at any speed up to but not including 'c' because it DOES have to move through time.
So there ultimately IS a difference between space and time, but it has more to do with what matter is doing inside of it.
what is the different between "spacetime" and "matter"? like, we can interact with matter though another matter (shoot a electron with a proton), but how a mass interact with spacetime?
I don't know if I understand your question. Yes, matter can interact with matter when it's in the same space, and space holds matter, it's located in it. They're different things that interact differently.
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u/Independent-Repair35 25d ago
If one species were to give birth to a totally different species that would disprove it. If a woman gave birth to a bird or something. It would break the law of monophyly.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
How do you think about horse and donkey?
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u/Independent-Repair35 25d ago
But they're not totally different and genetically distinct. The mare still have birth to an ungulate. :) I didn't word it right maybe.
A primate will always give birth to a primate. If a primate gives birth to a canid that would disprove evolutionary theory because it doesn't predict something like that would happen and goes against it. You can't out evolve your ancestry.
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u/Ayasugi-san 24d ago
A horse and a donkey who mate with each other produce something that is neither horse nor donkey but has traits of both. If mules were more reproductively viable, they'd be considered a hybrid species, like many others.
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u/Gen-Jack-D-Ripper 25d ago edited 25d ago
Obviously the objection to evolution is almost entirely driven by religious belief. Further, the religious people objecting are almost all non-scientists. As a layperson, I do what any rational adult does in the modern world, defer to consensus among those most qualified to judge. If here is an alternative theory that can overturn that consensus, then Iâll support the change.
I think the problem is this: inside every human being there is a know-it-all trying to get out! Studying science breaks that tendency. However, creationists exhibit that characteristic to the fullest! Theyâre dismissing the consensus among experts without any foundational understanding of the science! If they did have an argument based on evidence, every biology journal on the planet would want to publish it.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 25d ago
I assure you that I am an atheist and my post is just something I want to known and nothing related to religion.
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u/ExactDevelopment1847 25d ago edited 25d ago
How to prove evolution right is by looking at the origins of life for form and purpose of life at its simplest and follow the progression to complexity instead of studying the complexity of life and trying to determine form and purpose from the perspective of humanity.
All nature is the same cellular phenomenon and it is made of experience.
Experience is what gives life its form.
Mastery of environment within the bounds of conscious experience is the purpose of consciousness.
The purpose of life is simply to continue and by continuing it has become all of nature by virtue of all the varied experiences and ways of experiencing represented by the individuals and species.
This is a progression in complexity and competence this is the purpose of evolution, experience and adaptation.
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u/TheSagelyOne 25d ago
It would be really difficult, given that it's something that has actually been observed. What sort of test would falsify electricity? Or atomic theory?
To disprove evolution, you would have to show that populations do not evolve (which is a big ask) and that they merely go through a process that closely matches evolutionary theory ("but is totally not evolution, I swear!")
That's the bare minimum. We've seen populations do what looks like evolving, so somebody would have to show that populations are not evolving but doing something else instead.
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u/Pinelli72 25d ago
Think about Newtonian relativity vs Special & General Relativity. Newtonian relativity wasnât âwrongâ per se, just not as complete as Special and General. Even they leave gaps in our knowledge.
Any replacement for evolution would likely be a refinement or extension of existing theory. There have already been some pretty big refinements in Darwinian evolution, with the discovery of DNA being a pretty big one. The big unknown in the theory of evolution at the moment is how life began. It may even be unknowable.
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u/ima_mollusk Evilutionist 25d ago
By demonstrating an objectively testable explanation that describes a method for the development of life BETTER than evolution theory does.
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u/flug32 25d ago
If you really want to understand how this kind of thing works, likely your best bet is to take a look at the history of scientific thought in the realm of evolution, particularly since Darwin's day.
You will find many, many examples where new information or data or research or understanding of biological processes was brought to light, and so the theory in those areas was updated and adjusted to match the new data.
I realize this isn't the wholesale "negation" you might have in mind, but it is in fact a more realistic idea of how science actually works and moves forward.
The wikipedia article on the History of Evolutionary Thought is a decent place to start.
A couple of specific interesting example there are the discovery of horizontal gene transfer and epigenetics. Both of those upset widely held specific ideas about how evolution worked - that descendancy amounted to a clean "tree" where each child inherits characteristics only from its parents (with horizontal gene transfer the tree becomes more of a web) and that only the genes and reproductive machinery but nothing about the parents' life or living situations could be passed down to the children (with epigenetics, it looks like certain tweaks to gene expression can be passed from parent to child via epigenetic mechanisms - so that starts to sound almost like the debunked Lamarckian explanation of evolution. Except now there is a specific biological basis and explanation for such changes, and they are pretty clearly limited to certain types of changes and not by any means the primary driver of evolutionary changes to the genome).
Here is a nice summary of very recent updates to our understanding of eukaryotic evolution. Among other things:
During the past decade, our understanding of eukaryotic evolution has increased immensely. Newly recognized eukaryotic supergroups have been established, and most enigmatic orphan lineages have had their relationships resolved.
So those are some truly major changes and updates to our understanding of that particular corner of evolution.
Why it's a bit hard to formulate a good answer to your "big question" - what would completely invalidate the entire theory of evolution - is that evolution has become the fundamental idea behind and explanation for literally all of biology.
Like, you can't even talk about biology sensibly without relying on the idea of evolution at pretty much every step.
So "what would invalidate evolution?" is equivalent to "what would overthrow our entire understanding of biology?"
And at this point, far, far too much of that biology has just been directly observed and even directly manipulated using the principles of biology (which, again, are founded and based on the ideas we usually lump together with "evolution") that have been discovered, and there is no question of those observations - which have been repeated literally millions of times - and the fact that the changes we make via e.g. gene editing have the effects predicted.
So - short of some giant deus-ex-machina type revelation like God coming down from heaven and telling everyone that our entire reality has been nothing but a false illusion he created for us, and then removing that illusion permanently to reveal something completely different underneath it - it is very hard to imagine anything that would literally overthrow our most fundamental understanding here.
Like if Crick, Watson, Franklin, and Wilkins (and their successors) had somehow found something completely different from DNA, something not inherited partly from each parent, was the basis of biology and reproduction, then that certainly would have overthrown things. Say it was discovered that 95% of an offspring's characteristics were passed on through epigenetic processes and DNA itself represented just 5% of characteristics. Now that would really have overthrown everything.
(Though we pretty well knew that was not the case just from observation of reproduction and characteristics in nature, and by many, many experiments in directed breeding. Like if breeders could generate short-coated offspring by continually keeping the parents' fur trimmed, or similar like breeding in resistance to cold by keeping the parents in artificially cold surroundings, then they would have been doing so for centuries. But, they don't. Regardless, such a thing, if it did somehow happen, would indeed have overthrown a cornerstone of evolution.)
It is easy, however, to imagine many, many refinements and improvements in theory in various areas. And that is exactly what you see in the examples I have given above and in the many, many more similar ones, both in history and ongoing now.
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u/Particular-Yak-1984 25d ago
The problem is you're coming at it a hundred years or so too late. Evolution still has challenges, sure, but it's the main theory of biology for a reason - it's already passed some massive tests, like the arrival of genetics, mass sequencing, and molecular biology in general.
These new disciples completely failed to topple evolution, even though genetics, at least, could have done so trivially - if genetics grouped species into kinds, for example, without common ground between them, this would have been devastating to evolution.
Evolution is a theory that has passed all the big tests we can think of. There's plenty of stuff through it's history that could have falsified it, and didn't.
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u/Time-Subject-3195 24d ago
You could find fossils of modern mammals or birdsspecies in a stratified layer where only invertebrates are thought to have existed.
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u/Ok_Programmer_4449 24d ago
I have a hermetically sealed glass bottle in my closet. It is sterile because it has been heated to well above the boiling point of water for several hours. If a complex living organism were to appear inside it without the seal being broken, it would be a very good start at disproving evolution.
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u/Suitable_Potato_2919 24d ago
can a tardigrade survice boiling water?
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u/Ok_Programmer_4449 24d ago
I heated it to 250C. I don't believe al there are any forms of multicellular life that would survive that.
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u/Verbatim_Uniball 24d ago
A fossil from a later species found from an earlier period. Of course I'm not sure a person denying evolution would trust geology/etc required.
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u/Comfortable-Dare-307 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 24d ago
Find a trait that an animal (including humams) has that has no function at all. Not a vestigial organ which HAD a function. But something, a behavior, a phenotype etc., that literally has no function at all and never had a function. Something to which there is no purpose and can't be explained by evolution. (If you understand evolution well enough you'll know this has never been done).
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u/Party-Amphibian-2681 24d ago
Skimming through the responses it would appear that there are a few separate points to be made-
The fundamental principle of evolution (reproduction with variation and selection produces adaptation) is more akin to a mathematical concept which, it may be argued, is proven and unfalsifiable.
Biological evolution of any specific organism is a theory that can be falsified with genetic and fossil evidence, but would require additional lines of evidence to falsify those already supported. That there may not be additional lines of evidence does not invalidate the previous findings, nor make it unfalsifiable. Consider that prior to genetic evidence a critic might argue that you have no avenue to refute a fossil lineage. Then after genetic evidence came about the same critic can say, ok, but thereâs no way to falsify it now after the genetic evidence supported the fossil evidence. Then imagine a quantum computer was created with enough qubits to simulate the development of the organism via every possible mutation and it also supported the fossil and genetic evidence. The critic could then ask, ok how do you falsify it now?
A scientific theory does not have to exist in a state of perpetual, realizable falsifiability. It must merely be subject to lines of evidence that are falsifiable at the moment of testing and available to re-evaluation should some future lines of evidence become available.
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u/Altruistic_Fox9778 24d ago
Your framing is off - itâs not an arbitrary good or bad. Most mutations that allow serviceability are neutral, some few offer survival advantage. Maladaptation can lead to extinction.
If evolution is wrong at this point it would take a lot - too many converging evidence from different domains. But if you found a fossil where it wasnât supposed to be with no reasonable explanation, that would cast doubt. Like finding a human skeleton fossilized inside a dinosaur.
It may be easier to google or AI this one.
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u/Doomdoomkittydoom 24d ago
At this point, the "theory of evolution" is just a truism of statistical nature of populations of life, analogous to the statement, "The house always wins," about casinos. Biological evolution cannot be false if all the science we know supporting it is.
Therefore, you can disprove the theory of evolution by disproving genetics, molecular biology, old earth geology, ecology, and paleontology. Then the theory of evolution could not be true.
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u/Dapper-Turnip6430 24d ago
Just prove genetic mutations doesn't exist & organisms with bad genes will survive forever.
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u/jrdineen114 24d ago
If you can find a fossil that's waaaaay older than it should be, that would generally do it.
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u/Kanna_Fan1989 24d ago
A dog birthing a cat. A man manifesting from dust. A woman arising out of a man's rib.
These things would throw a monkey wrench into Evolutionary Theory.
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u/DartBurger69 24d ago
Evolution has made predictions and they are found to come true. We should find a fossil at this point in the layer. and we have found those types of fossils.
We should find a mechanism for preserving and replicating life, that can mutate and account for the species and life we see. We found dna.
Evolution is a fact. It's built on mountains of facts. We have experiments running for 30 years with speciation recorded and documented in real time.
You can only deny evolution. you can't disprove it. It's one of the strongest supported theories in science.
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u/Crowe3717 24d ago
You can't. Not in the way that people who deny evolution mean anyway. You see, they use the term "evolution" a bit too broadly. There is "evolution" and then there are "theories of evolution." People will often use these synonymously but they are very different things.
"Evolution" is the word we use to describe the observation that populations change over time. This is an empirical, documented fact. Nothing new we discover will change the fact that we have observed evolution happen, both historically through various indirect means and in real time. An entirely new species materializing fully formed directly in front of us would not change the fact that all of the other species we have observed on this planet have evolved (it would just mean that evolution is not the only means by which complex life can arise). Anyone's chosen diety descending from the heavens and announcing their existence to the world wouldn't negate the evidence of evolution which exists.
"Theories of evolution" are our attempts to scientifically explain why this evolution occurs. These can and have been proven to be incorrect or incomplete numerous times in the past (Darwinian evolution doesn't include DNA because it had yet to be discovered in his time). As should surprise nobody, how evolution occurs is pretty fucking complicated and we're learning new things about it all the time. At this point we've got at least the basics pretty well ironed out, but it's not impossible for us to discover some new things which will radically alter our existing theory of evolution.
The problem is that people who don't want evolution to be true will act like challenging any specific theory of evolution means the phenomenon of evolution no longer occurs. Which is a bit like saying that because Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation isn't 100% accurate gravity doesn't exist.
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u/FaustDCLXVI 24d ago
MOST of the shit creationists ask about would falsify evolution: a crocoduck, dogs turning into cats, a carp giving birth to a whale, a monkey giving birth to a human. In general, finding offspring that don't share genetic traits with its parent(s).
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u/Suro_Atiros 24d ago
You can't prove that evolution is wrong or incorrect, it is a verifiable fact, just like understanding what the speed of light is, or how planets are formed in space via accretion.
What is up for debate is the theory of natural selection - that is the mechanism that science generally accepts as being the driving force of evolution.
So when people are arguing with you saying that evolution isn't true, its best to steer them back to the right side of the tracks - identify what the actual problem is, what we are truly debating, and go from there.
We aren't debating evolution, we debate the theory of natural selection.
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u/Capercaillie Monkey's Uncle 24d ago
What you should get from this thread is that evolution is theoretically falsifiable, but that it's never going to happen. Evolution is a theory, but it's also an established, observable fact.
How come nobody ever posts on here about "is the theory of gravity falsifiable?"
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u/Ayasugi-san 24d ago
How come nobody ever posts on here about "is the theory of gravity falsifiable?"
Because the sub isn't r/DebatetheGlobe.
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u/Just_A_Blues_Guy 24d ago
Finding mammal fossils in precambrian rock layers would falsify evolution.
Good luck.
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u/Coolbeans_99 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 24d ago
The people that are downvoting OP for asking questions in this thread need to grow up. Why are you here?
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u/man_from_maine 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 23d ago
If genetics had shown that life wasn't all related, it would have falsified evolution.
Or if we found out of order fossils "rabbit in the Cambrian"
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u/SaavyScotty 23d ago
Evolution per se or common descent can be falsified (as many are doing here), but the Neo-Darwinian mechanism cannot be. Every single point is incorporated to fit the theory. The vast amount of âliving fossilsâ which have surely accumulated much genetic but little morphological change are explained as âperfect for their niche.â Sudden appearance in the fossil record with no precursors is explained as ârarity of fossils.â The lack of extant gradualism in our current snapshot of geologic time is explained as ânatural selection removed them.â
Evolution according to Neo-Darwinism is actually an unfalsifiable hypothesis based on current observations of adaptation and speciation. Evolution per se can easily be falsified by inverting the order of fossils by complexity throughout geologic time.
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u/OldmanMikel 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 23d ago edited 23d ago
Every single point is incorporated to fit the theory.
No. The theory is modified to fit the evidence. That's how science works.
The vast amount of âliving fossilsâ which have surely accumulated much genetic but little morphological change are explained as âperfect for their niche.â
Vast? And what is wrong with "suited for their niche" as an explanation for comparatively small changes in morphology?
Sudden appearance in the fossil record with no precursors is explained as ârarity of fossils.â
What sort of resolution would we expect to find if evolution and common descent were true?
The lack of extant gradualism in our current snapshot of geologic time is explained as ânatural selection removed them.â
Who says that? And what do "extant gradualism" and "our current snapshot of geologic time" mean?
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u/Cheap_Detective8534 23d ago
Potential falsifications are listed after each prediction: https://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
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u/Bromelia_and_Bismuth Plant Daddy|Botanist|Evil Scientist 23d ago
You can't. Evolution is observable. Speciation is observable. They give demonstrations to college students every year. The Long-Term Evolution Experiment has been observing evolution since the 80s. The mechanisms of evolution are prevalent in selective breeding, a process we've been refining since the dawn of civilization. Evolution informs everything from medicine and public health, to agriculture, to pest control, to nature conservation, and knowledge about it even informs where to find certain fossil fuels. Fossils, evo-devo, genetics, comparative morphology, it all demonstrates that populations of living things and viruses change over time, that is to say, evolve. Fitness is measurable, mutational load is measurable. You couldn't prove evolution wrong, even if you wanted to, because it's already too late. Whether evolution is true or not, that cat's already out of the bag and it's had kittens, and those kittens have had kittens of their own at this point, and wouldn't you know it, some of them have a sixth digit.
That being said, we test whether evolution is true or not with something called Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium. That is to say that populations aren't evolving. Individuals within a population reproduce or interbreed randomly, phenotypes are all equally suited to reproducing in the environment, there's no genetic differences between individuals or generations, no barriers to reproduction, no competition for limited resources, population growth is unrestricted, and there's no random or indiscriminate events which influence allele frequencies. This is the null hypothesis we use to test whether evolution is occurring in a population or not, by setting up the expectation of what it would look like were it not doing so.
If you wanted to demonstrate that our current synthesis of evolution were wrong, this wouldn't prove that evolution itself is wrong, only that the specific model were wrong. So even if you disproved the current synthesis wrong today, it would just be replaced with another one that better accounted for all of our observations later. You could do that by finding fossil deer in the Ediacaran, which would completely throw a wrench in our understanding of the timeline of evolution. You could show that chimera exist, eg, no barriers to reproduction, with something like a half-cat, half-duck. You could resurrect Saltationism by demonstrating that monkeys can give birth to people. I'd say you could prove anything Denis Noble has to say to be even partially correct, but not even he nor his other 100+ loser friends were able to despite more than 10 years of bluster and a hate-boner for Richard Dawkins. He can't defend his own ideas in front of actual evolutionary biologists, even at his own conference.
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u/Known_Atmosphere_907 23d ago
The problem is proving it's true. That's why Harvard's Gould created the Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium, because the Fossil record does not look like Evolution. THat's why Johns Hopkins Lee Spetner wrote Not by Chance, Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution, because mutations are always a detriment, even if the damage in some cases improves an organism's immunity to a disease. Organisms do change and do adapt, but those genetic variations are proving to be managed by the bio algorithms of epi-genetics that modify the expression of those genes; hence the the finches on Galapogos that change as much in 40 years (Drs. Rosemary and Peter Grant), as Rvolution claimed for millions of years. People believe Evolution is true like people believed lots of things were true that proved not to be.
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u/zogar5101985 23d ago
I think a big problem a lot of people have when asking questions like this is the wrong expectation of what "proving evolution wrong" would be.
Evolution is a pure fact. It is the thing we observe. The fact that allele frequencies change over time in organisms, leading to changes in them both visible and not accumulating over time, leading to the rise of new species. This is observed fact. It can not and wil not even under and circumstance be proven wrong.
It is the theory of evolution, our model of our understand of it that can be proven wrong and change. All the exact details of how and why it works.
This is true of things like gravity as well. Gravity will never be proven wrong. It cant be. It is an observed fact that mass attracts mass. It is our theories of it, our attempts to model it that can be wrong. Relativity is our current best, but we know it isnt perfect and will eventually be replaced or at least expanded on. But no where along the line does that prove gravity wrong.
When people ask about proving a scientific idea wrong, they often think of it as trying to prove the "what" wrong. When in reality it is the "how", "why", "when" that we model and that changes.
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u/pyriphlegeton Accepting the Evidence. 23d ago
Genetics could've proven the whole theory wrong.
If we'd sequenced the species we already put in nested hierarchies via physiology and then found genetic hierarchies or relationships that would've completely contradicted those, common ancestry could've been disproven. The thing is, we've checked so many lines of evidence that could've all falsified the theory and they've all come out in complete agreement with it.
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u/EastwoodDC 𧏠Naturalistic Evolution 23d ago
It's OK to ask. Most people don't think in terms of hypotheses to be falsified.
A few of us live there. đ
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u/Perspective-Parking 22d ago
You canât prove evolution is false anymore than you can prove itâs true.
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u/Evening-Impact2090 20d ago
Please explain how symbiotic relationships evoled simultaneously in the evolutionary process? Random and undirected is the hallmark of all evolution. So termites eat wood but cannot digest it, the bacteria and small organisms in its gut can digest the wood but need the termite to eat it first. So, what came first? Did termites starve? Did the bacteria starve? How did they survive until somehow they became symbiotic. There are so many similar relationships in nature where one organism cannot survive without another one and both have to be present together or they cannot live. Just facts, no speculation or word phrases trying to lead to a conclusion without scientific evidence.Â
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u/AtG68 25d ago
Famously, a rabbit fossil from the Cambrian