Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Is Darwinism an “Empty Theory”?

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At Evolution and News, there’s a link to a 2017 article tackling the problems of inflationary theory in the field of cosmology. What I find so interesting is the second to last paragraph in this six page article. Here’s how it reads:

A common misconception is that experiments can be used to falsify a theory. In practice, a failing theory gets increasingly immunized against experiment by attempts to patch it. The theory becomes more highly tuned and arcane to fit new observations until it reaches a state where its explanatory power diminishes to the point that it is no longer pursued. The explanatory power of a theory is measured by the set of possibilities it excludes. More immunization means less exclusion and less power. A theory like the multimess does not exclude anything and, hence, has zero power. Declaring an empty theory as the unquestioned standard view requires some sort of assurance outside of science. Short of a professed oracle, the only alternative is to invoke authorities. History teaches us that this is the wrong road to take.

Is he talking about Darwinism? No, about the “multimess” as he calls it. In the meantime, here we have a high-powered scientist telling us that a theory that lacks “explanatory power” is a theory that “excludes” very little. We have said here for years that Darwinism can accomodate ANYTHING; and, hence, it “explains” NOTHING. It is, to quote the author, an “empty theory” that “invoke[s] authorities” to keep it as the “unquestioned standard view.” Most compelling is his final thought: “History teaches us that this is the wrong road to take.”

How many more “epicycles” have to be trotted out by the scientific monopoly that is evolutionary biology before we get off this ‘wrong road’? We already have had too many.

Comments
Is Darwinian Evolution self refuting?
I believe it is a yes. We all know that Darwin’s theory cannot tell the future. Everyone agrees on that. But one of the arguments against a designer is that a designer would not do it that way. Why don’t humans have the eye sight of a hawk, the speed of a cheetah, the strength of an ape, etc. In fact why don’t humans have much, better eye sight, faster and stronger limbs? The answer is if they did they would have destroyed the ecology in which they inhabit. Darwinian pressures would have favored such traits for survival but would not have foreseen that these traits would eventually become sub optimal. How many ecologies depend on the limitations of its members to not be able to increase the capabilities of its members? They must be extremely limited in how much adaptation that can happen to survive. My guess all of them jerry
January 16, 2022
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If we needed theories this might be important. We don't need theories, so this doesn't matter.polistra
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