The fight over Darwin - Teaching evolution in schools

[appolose]

ManusJustus said:

appolose said:

That has little to do with evolutionary history; it is proposed, for example, that some dinosaurs evolved into birds in the distant past.  This proposition is unobserable, unverifiable, and cannot be falsified.  Therefore, given the definition of science, it cannot be scientific.

Birds evolving from dinosaurs can be falsified and verifiable.  Keep in mind that the term dinosaur covers everything from T-Rex to tiny lizards running around the forest, from pterodactyls in the sky to giant dinosaurs swimming in the ocean.  There were even dinosaurs with feathers that looked like birds, so there isnt much of a stretch here.

Of course, it cant be observed and verified first hand, but it can be observed in the fossil record, which is precisely what paleotologists have been doing.  Besides, we assume many things to be true that we cannot obvserve first hand, such as atomic fusion in the sun or Earth's magentic core.

See my response to Vagabond above.
But, this is more of a single part of evolutionary history (which, admittedly, I brought up): the more correct  thing I'm referring to is more of what would be the whole historical evolution idea that life forms past and present are descendents of radically different life forms (which would not be disproven by older bird fossils, more appropriately).

On the other hand, irreducable complexity may be a way to disprove.  Although, that is itself also untestable.

Atomic theory is testable, whereas evolutionary history is not.