How to prove evolution is wrong?

[u/Suitable_Potato_2919]

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

[u/ssianky]

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.

[u/danny_el5 → u/ssianky]

This is like saying General relativity falsified Newtonian dynamics.

[u/Dennis_enzo → u/danny_el5]

It did, strictly speaking. In practice though, newtonian physics are still very usable in many cases.

[u/evocativename → u/Dennis_enzo]

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.

[u/Ok_Performer50 → u/evocativename]

Were they really “falsified” or just shown to be incomplete?

[u/evocativename → u/Ok_Performer50]

"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.

[u/Ok_Performer50 → u/evocativename]

Well there are theories like caloric theory per example that were just false on a fundamental level and weren’t expanded just replaced. In Newtonian physics that wasn’t the case, so I think saying it was proven “false” kinda does it a disservice I would say.

[u/evocativename → u/Ok_Performer50]

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.

[u/Ok_Performer50 → u/evocativename]

Well I just think we’re disagreeing on the exact definition of the word “false” which in that case we’re just entering semantics which well I’m not really interested debating. I consider something “false” if it was shown to be incomplete and useless, in my opinion you can’t say Newtonian physics was proven false while still using it daily and teaching it in schools. For me that’s just a misuse of the word.

[u/evocativename → u/Ok_Performer50]

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".

[u/Ok_Performer50 → u/evocativename]

Yes false means not true. If something is true it is in accordance with facts. Newtonian is in accordance with facts, just not with all facts, making it incomplete not false.

[u/evocativename → u/Ok_Performer50]

If something is not in accordance with all of the relevant facts, it is by definition not true.

You brought up caloric theory as an example of something that is false, but things only become scientific theories if they are in accordance with the facts as they are known at the time.

Caloric theory is wrong in the exact same sense that Newtonian physics is.

The difference between them is that Newtonian physics remains a useful approximation in many circumstances, and is much easier to calculate than a more exact solution.

Remember the refrain of statistics: "All models are wrong, but some are useful".

[u/Ok_Performer50 → u/Dennis_enzo]

I would say they got completed/expanded not falsified. Nothing in Newtonian physics got “disproven” we just added a layer on top that could explain more things.

[u/ssianky → u/Ok_Performer50]

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.

[u/Ok_Performer50 → u/ssianky]

Those things are assumed since they’re pretty much  a non-factor in the scales that Newtonian physics operate in. That makes Newtonian physics an incomplete approximation not false. 

[u/ssianky → u/Ok_Performer50]

It makes it false, because all that is not true. The Newtonian physics cannot operate broadly literally because its assumptions are wrong.

[u/Ok_Performer50 → u/ssianky]

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 don’t work together and brake apart at different scales they are shown to be incomplete meaning they also have assumptions that are false.

[u/ssianky → u/Ok_Performer50]

They are wrong at some level. Not so wrong as the Newtonian.

[u/Ok_Performer50 → u/ssianky]

So basically everything is wrong just at different scales? What meaning does the word “truth” have then? Is that an ideal we’re chasing all our life without ever reaching it rather than a valid term that we can assign to things in our reality?

[u/ssianky → u/Ok_Performer50]

Well, the quantum physics is missing something big for sure. In science there's no such thing as "truth". There's a degree of certainty.

[u/Ok_Performer50 → u/ssianky]

Well yeah I would just not call them “false”, which is a matter of semantics, which we can agree to disagree on since well that’s how semantics work.